My Thoughts - Serenade of the Seas March 14-21, 2015

My Thoughts - Serenade of the Seas March 14-21, 2015

Just back from the following cruise and wanted to share some thoughts on the experience. Technically, I'm not aiming for this to be a review but rather a collection of positives, negatives, and neutral experiences based on my expectations and information I read here over the last couple of years.

Serenade of the Seas March 14-21, 2015

Falmouth Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Cozumel Mexico

Background

I originally booked the March 15th, 2014 sailing of this cruise which was the exact same itinerary. We booked on June 7th, 2013. We rescheduled to the 2015 sailing in November of 2013. So essentially our countdown started at 645 days! (a LONG time to wait) Sailing was myself (late 40s) and wife (early 50s) without anyone else tagging along. (Free Birds!) this was our 1st time on Royal Caribbean. We have been on one previous cruise which was Golden Princess in 2004. We live outside of Memphis so we drove to New Orleans the day before, stayed in the Hyatt Place Convention Center hotel, parked in Fulton Place garage, and cabbed it over to the port in the morning.

Format

Some people only want to read good or bad so where possible I will color the text as follows:

Positive

Negative

Neutral

Embarkation

We left the hotel around 10:30am and arrived at the port about 10 minutes later. We placed two of our bags against the wall at the direction of the porter and I flipped him a 5 spot, ask him to take care of our bags, and was assured he would take good care of them. We walked in the terminal with our carry on bags and proceeded through security without issue. Waited a short time in line and then showed our documents and passports to the lady behind the counter. She gave us a quick medical form to complete and then gave us our Sea Pass cards and a ticket with the number 49 on it. We proceeded inside the terminal bought a bling lanyard for the wife and and then found an area to wait until our number was called. A couple of minutes later they called out All Boarding so I went and asked the lady in the terminal if that meant us and she said "yes, everyone". So we worked our way through the line and got to the front and were told basically that it meant everyone but us. Basically, any status of C&A could board but us 1st time cruisers needed to park it. So we sat as the terminal got pretty sparse with people and about 10 minutes later our number was called. Overall, we felt like 3rd class citizens with the everyone but us routine. However, even with that experience, getting on the ship was super fast and we were on within an hour of arriving at the port. Heard that bing and got our embarkation photo taken. They scanned our card and said facial recognition software would find our onboard photos easily. Cool!

I will not be using the day by day format but rather will follow with a series of topics regarding the experience

MLife

Before the cruise I called Royal and gave them our MLife information, This was supposed to provide us some type of benefit on the ship. It did not and there was absolutely no recognition of mention of it ever.

Ship and Public Areas

The Radiance class ships have a lot of glass and open areas which allows you to see the sea from a lot of places included the elevators. I thought this was awesome.The public areas were clean and the decor was neutral and not polarizing in any type of way. Elevators arrived fast for the number of people using them and navigating the ship was very easy. On the first day, I walked around with the GoPro and shot a bunch of video and noticed that I covered all the major areas pretty fast. Basically, it did not take very long to find everything on the ship. After a few days it became apparent that this was a 3 deck ship. Deck 6, Deck 11, and Deck 8 (our cabin). Almost everything we did the entire week was on those 3 decks. After a couple of days I started paying attention to the artwork in the hallways and public areas and while I am no art critic I also wasn't impressed with anything I ran across. Of course this is VERY subjective.

Cabin 8168

When I first started checking out the cabin I actually said WOW the one and only time on the ship. I thought I was opening a closet door or something and it was the bathroom. "WOW, that is small" I said. It turns out though that the bathroom is very functional and makes very efficient use of space. I was surprised that it was so roomy when you actually got in there and used it. While not the size of a hotel room (obviously) we had plenty of room in our cabin and loved how the bed was against the sliding glass door leading to the balcony. I ended up referring to the bed as the "magic bed" because it must have had anti-sway bars underneath it because it was awesome. I would get up during the night to go to the bathroom and feel the ship moving, However, when I returned to the "magic bed" it was like we were not moving at all. I slept like a baby.

The very best part of this cabin was the balcony. It was an port side corner aft and the views were absolutely amazing!!! At then end of the river we saw the pilot boat swing around the wake and pick up the pilot. We saw New Orleans as we departed (and every other port). We ended up backing into 2 ports so we had the best view. the location was awesome and we actually felt more movement in other parts of the ship than in our aft cabin. No soot, ash, noise, engine grinding, or any other issues back there. We did have the balcony door come sliding open when we were on the balcony and the ship was turning. Unfortunately there is no way to secure it besides holding it closed with your hand.

Venues

Solarium

Designated as an adult retreat (actually 16 and over) for some peace and quiet I am not quite sure it fit the bill in this regard. I did manage to catch an evening swim in the Solarium pool one night along with a soak in the hot tub. However, even then it was pretty populated with teenagers and very few people over 25 years of age. I guess it was better than the night before where six to eight 11-12 year olds were diving off the little walls into the pool as the pool attendant stood by doing nothing. When I said to him "I thought this was only for 16 years and up" he reluctantly headed that way but looked as if he did not want to say anything to them. Some college age girls had a crush on the Solarium bartenders because they hung out there all week generally being loud and obnoxious. So kind of a fail on the solarium. Finally, the hot tubs were very small and not that great in general.

Main Pool

Although I never swam in the main pool, it was never too crowded even with the kids. However, the kids did take over the main pool hot tubs at times. One odd thing about the pool bar: No glass allowed so they use plastic cups, but they still give you beer bottles. (scratching head)

Casino

Loved the casino. Good selection of slots and table games. I placed 4th in the grind finale slot tournament. Easy to get change. They allowed smoking on one side but they must have had good air handling systems because it was never a problem for us. Never had even the slightest whiff of smoke when approaching the casino from the outside. All of the complaints here on Cruise Critic in this regard were not accurate for my cruise.

Schooner Bar

I did not spend a lot of time here but did help a couple of teams out with trivia which was pretty much what went on in this area day and night. We had a few drink here and overall was a great bar area to hang out in.

Crown and Castle Pub

When researching before the cruise I thought I would be spending quite a bit of time in here. However, I never even had a drink there. It is between the casino and the theater so not alot of traffic moves through except during and after shows. The compass said this place was having karaoke almost every night but I never made it.

R Bar and Centrum

If you like fruity drinks that taste like desserts then this is your place. :) Wife had red velvet Cake, Death By Chocolate, and others. I had Heinekens. The centrum is the chill spot on the ship most of the time. We hung out here several hours before the 70s show and conversed with people going and coming from formal night dinner. Note: the color scheme of the lights change every so often and all the lights cycle through the scheme every few seconds.

Shops Onboard

Besides never being open when it would be convenient the prices here are terrible. (exception being the logo gear) Wife made the mistake of getting sunburned and the Aloe Gel and Suntan lotion were $15 a bottle. Ouch! Checked the prices on cologne and could basically beat the price and any Walgreens back home. Jack Daniels at $22 is no bargain either. Overpriced watches ... my bad, "elegant time pieces" ... jewelry, and your favorite: Tanzanite. Did pick up and awesome shore excursion back and 3 way small back for good prices and they were super functional!

Medical Center

If you forgot some OTC medicine and the shops are closed, you can go to the medical center and they have a vending machine that has items like aspirin and the like. They also sell thinks like Alka Seltzer (generic) directly.The nurse/staff member that sold me some medicine was a real piece of work. (No sense of humor, no customer service skills, and basically a real *******) Oh well, got the medicine.

Photo Gallery

Thanks to the facial recognition you could walk up to a terminal, insert your Sea Pass card, and view your photos. Very cool! We only got in the two embarkation photos and bought them both.

color=Black]We did not make use of Mini golf, Basketball, Fitness Center, Jogging Track, Arcade, Cinema, or Spa[/color]

Meet & Mingle

We had about 45 people sign up but I think less than 20 showed up. Royal seemed as if they were just going through the motions. They gave us all a ticket and raffled off two watches, a water bottle, and a bottle of champagne. Everyone got a little RCCL notepad with pen on string. Our CD Carly B showed up and looked as if she could not get out of there fast enough. Overall, pretty lowe key and uneventful.

Dining

Let's get this out of the way up front. Food is very subjective. My tastes are different than yours. Also, I am not a foodie and prefer comfort food. However, I did hear people complain onboard about off the wall stuff. For example, I overheard a woman admitting she never had scallops before but these ones were no good because they were presented on a shell. Really ??? A guy behind us said he was going to the buffet to get more food because the tiramisu was terrible. We had just had it too and it was awesome! So feel free to ignore this whole dining section if you want. :)

Also, note that we had 5 dinners in specialty dining and never seen the MDR ever.

Windjammer - Breakfast

Absolutely loved breakfast in the buffer. I hit up the omelet station on day 1. The guy making them commented that people do not know about it yet and lines will form as the week goes on. (they did) Omelets were great. Selection of items was excellent. Some people said they had the exact same thing every day but they actually did swap out a few items during the week. Only thing they didn't seem to have was sausage patties and loose has browns but pretty much everything else was covered.

Windjammer - Lunch

Ate lunch in Windjammer 3 times. Twice I ended up going the burger/fires/pizza route which is not a good thing. Burgers are meh. Pizza was pizza and fine. Just a step up from frozen pizza but OK in my book. Hot dogs did not look like all beef and did not try any. Expected more but found something to eat. Also, one day at lunch they had a station near the front with hand scooped ice cream and apple cobbler. However, when I went to get some the station was closed. Apparently they only had it for 1/2 the lunch window. :(

Windjammer - Dinner

Only ate dinner here once. It is not that the quality is bad but rather that the selection is so weak. I ended up eating more dinner rolls than expected. They had a mixed grill station. I tried the minute steak and the wife had a pork chop. Both were Waffle House grade and not that great. Walking through on another night the selection looked pretty good, but not the night we went. Maybe an off night??? Not impressed.

Chops

We ate here the first and last night of the cruise. Both times I paid the extra $19 and had the dry aged 20 ounce porterhouse steak and I loved it. The 2nd time I actually gave my wife part of the filet side of my steak because the strip side was so flavorful and tender. That is something I thought I would never say or do in my life. The shrimp cocktail appetizers were great with big, no squishy, well cooked shrimp which is just the way I like it. Because I paid for the up-charge steak they told us to pick another entree to share so we chose the grilled shrimp. those things were only as big as my arm and fantastic. Sides were good, sauces were good, and the desserts were too. First time we were so full that we east dessert so they told us to to pick and they would make it to go or us. We ate them much later that night in the cabin. My wife said Chops was here favorite and on just on the porterhouse alone I will have to agree. I would go there again. (In fact, I did! LOL)

Giovannis

Ate here twice too. I had the steak for an entree one night and the chicken for the other night. That mozzarella appetizer (bread, cheese, prosciutto, and dijon mustard) was awesome. Everything we ate here was great and I am not a fan of "fancy" Italian. My only wish would be for them to have lasagna for dinner too. Well worth the money. The filet mignon was VERY good but doesn't touch the Chops porterhouse. ;)

Izumi

Being that we do not eat sushi we weren't sure how we would like Izumi but it turned out great. Had Shrimp soup, firecracker shrimp rolls, shrimp goya appetizers, and beef/chicken hot rock. The hot rock was interesting because you basically cook your own entree. This was fun and it was good too. I was highly impressed with Izumi.

Park Cafe

We had lunch here one day and had some snacks on another occasion. Cuban Panini was good but light on the meat. Three cheese panini was better. However, they microwave it after pulling it from the panini press which was interesting. Service here was an issue but will cover that later. Quesadillas were OK but nothing special. Overall, nothing special.

Room Service and Room Service Food

Used room service for dinner one night and wife used for lunch one day. Speed and accuracy of order/delivery were excellent. However, food was not good. The pizza is not the same as the one in the buffet. They tried to make it like a personal deep dish but it was doughy and not good. Steak sandwich was not even a sandwich as it only had bread on one side of it. (open faced?) Overall, a real miss here on the food.

Staff

Bartenders

With the exception of one of the casino bartenders and only on one occasion, all the bar staff were excellent! I constantly went to guest services to refill my stack of singles and usually carried at least $20 worth at all times. I am not sure if this made a difference or not but I got served before people who were waiting before me on many occasions. Also, I rarely had to sign a slip. I think I signed 3 or 4 during the whole cruise. It was odd because they would make the person next to me sign a slip but not me. (they had a drink package too) On a side note, I actually seen a guy write NONE on the tip line instead of just putting a 0 or drawing a line through it. Not sure what that was all about. The bartenders were great. One of them educated me to the fact that you can get any beer you want at any bar. See a beer from the Crown & Castle Menu but want it at the Sky Bar? Tell them and they will go get some. It all comes from the same place I was told. ;)

Stateroom Attendant

Everyone knows your stateroom attendant is awesome and overworked. Ours was Carey Downs from Nicaragua and he was fantastic. We really did not ask for anything but he kept the towels and toilet paper stocked as well as emptying the trash and making us some towel animals on occasion. :)

Guest Services

After reading here on Cruise Critic, I was expecting the lines to be long and the service to be mediocre but my experience was just the opposite.

Park Cafe Staff

Half of the time you could not find anyone here because they were behind a steel door working in another area. I suspect that they worked in some kitchen and that guests were a 2nd job for them. When you finally did get someone to get you a panini (or something else) they acted like you were bothering them. Multiple people expressed the same crappy attitude. This must be a bad job to have on the ship.

Cruise Director - Carly B

Phony as the day is long. On my first cruise, I would enjoy getting up and watching the morning show and watching the CD and Asst. CD crack you up. This morning show was nothing but repeated sales pitches for the spa, shops, photo gallery, shore excursions, and you name it. Carly was so fake and did these fake interviews where she acted surprised to know that you get OBC for booking a cruise with Next Cruise onboard. She never let the Asst. CD (Renalto) get in a word. Outside of the events, I never seen her anywhere onboard.(except Meet & Mingle for a couple of minutes) Overall, a completely different experience than my Princess cruise. Not a fan. :(

Technology

The interactive boards around the ship were nice. However, the touch screens did not work all the time and the menus were out of date. The interactive TV in the room looks like it is 15 year old tech. Very slow and subpar UI. I went to guest services and ask if I could have a list of all my drink purchases. Guess what? They cannot give you one. They say that cannot even see them either. Pretty low tech. We ended up getting $100 more OBC because Royal IT never fixed the reservation glitch from a long time ago.

Activities

Every morning while watching the Royal morning show on TV I went through the cruise compass to make note of things we may want to do. Unfortunately, we rarely found anything unique. Basically, there was trivia in the Schooner bar and Karaoke in the Crown & Castle Pub as the main activities. What was disturbing was the non-activities that were listed in the compass. One morning I read the 15 morning activities to my wife and ask her to define each as a real activity put on by Royal staff or a non-activity that was posing as one. When we were done it was something like 8 non-activities to 7 activities and 3 of those were for an additional fee. If you are wondering what a non-activity is, here is an example:

9:00am-10:00am Table Tennis (non-hosted)

So basically they say "Go play some ping pong on your own" which is something you can do 24 hours a day without it being in the compass. There were tons of non-activities being used as "filler" in the compass every day. Very few Royal led activities in a given day.

One activity that we participated in was Bingo. WOW! What a bad deal. I paid $77 to have 3 computers play 30 cards each and we played 12 cards manually. There were only 4 games. The last one was a blackout. So we had 112 cards in play but there were about 40-50 times that amount being played against us. (rough guess) What was the payout for these games? The payouts were around $130-$140 for each of the first 3 games and $200 for the last game. So basically, I am playing a game where it is 50 to 1 against winning and my payout would be 2 to 1 or 3 to 1. You do not need to be a mathematician to see those are bad odds.

Entertainment

Honestly, the 70s show was the only entertainment event I saw live in person but I seen many of the other entertainment events on the RCI TV channels and was underwhelmed. The comedian (McDonald --- Tim maybe) was really bad. The magician Levent was unimpressive. I had no interest in the Canadian impressionist who doing Cher and Celine Dion songs nor was I interested in seeing the 3 tenors from Vegas.I am sure many people enjoyed it but I was not WOWed by any entertainment options.

The did have some newer movies but for each of those they ad 2 really old movies. The Proposal? Casablanca? Really?

Where's the ... ???

A small list of things I expected to see but did not:

Ice sculptures, Fruit creations in the buffet, and the Cruise Director around the ship

Ports

My self-booked non-Royal excursion were awesome. I used knowjamaica.com for a private tour in Jamaica and went to Dunns, Blue Hole, Scotchies and more. Javia Shaw was awesome. In Grand Cayman I did the Reef, Rays, and Rum Point excursion with Native Way Water Sports. Tendering in Cayman was a piece of cake. In Cozumel I did the Cozumel Bar Hop. Enjoyed those days immensely. However, I thought Royal's poor placement of the towel station and the drink package excluded $4 bottled water sales on the way out were bad. :(

Disembarkation

Our luggage tag was 15 and we were set to get off the ship at 8:30am. Our meeting spot was the Tropical theater. We ended up getting called at 8:45am and were off the ship pretty quickly. Threw a couple of fins to the porter inside the terminal and he got all our stuff right to the Fulton Place shuttle bus pickup spot. One small issue with the theater waiting was that you were not allowed to stand and thus had to drag luggage up and down the stairs.

Final Thoughts/Conclusion/Overall Opinion

So this is the point where I weight the good vs. the bad and try to come up with some sort of thoughts on how we felt about the cruise. So first, let me cut to the chase:

If I had to give it a score on a 100 point scale I would say 79/100.

Now how do I arrive at that figure? Well I really loved most of the things that Royal had little or no control over such as the excursions. I really liked a lot and loved some of the things Royal did on the ship. However, I also disliked many things that were Royal's responsibility. So I sort of say that we had a great time in spite of Royal in some areas.

So if I asked myself: "Would I go on another Royal Caribbean cruise?" and the answer is Maybe.

While I think the Radiance class is very nice looking and has some great qualities I think any future cruise would need to be on Voyage or better yet Freedom class. I'm waiting for 2017 dates to get posted and if I see a Freedom class ship out of Galveston then I will need to make a serious decision between that and Carnival Breeze (which is moving to Galveston). being able to drive to a port is a big factor for us and Royal pulling out of NOLA is sad.

I hope this helps at least one person with their research, planning, or decision regarding the Serenade.

The very best part of this cabin was the balcony. It was an port side corner aft and the views were absolutely amazing!!! At then end of the river we saw the pilot boat swing around the wake and pick up the pilot. We saw New Orleans as we departed (and every other port). We ended up backing into 2 ports so we had the best view. the location was awesome and we actually felt more movement in other parts of the ship than in our aft cabin. No soot, ash, noise, engine grinding, or any other issues back there.

.

We had the cabin below you (7172) for our early March cruise. Loved the balcony. I especially enjoyed to wide filed of view you get from the corner balcony. And watching the Serenade back into the dock at Falmouth was interesting...

Thank you for your review.

Cruise Director - Carly B

 

Phony as the day is long. On my first cruise, I would enjoy getting up and watching the morning show and watching the CD and Asst. CD crack you up. This morning show was nothing but repeated sales pitches for the spa, shops, photo gallery, shore excursions, and you name it. Carly was so fake and did these fake interviews where she acted surprised to know that you get OBC for booking a cruise with Next Cruise onboard. She never let the Asst. CD (Renalto) get in a word. Outside of the events, I never seen her anywhere onboard.(except Meet & Mingle for a couple of minutes) Overall, a completely different experience than my Princess cruise. Not a fan. :(

I was on the Serenade the two weeks before you.

Most of the things that you put in red in your posts leave me shaking my head. It's as if you have never been on a cruise before and have no idea what a cruise is like. I am not going to go into detail.

But when you write the paragraph that I quoted above....................

Well, any credibility that you MIGHT have had is gone.

Carly is fantastic. Carly is warm. Carly is friendly and sincere. She is absolutely one of the best CD's in the fleet.

SHE SHOWED UP AT YOUR MEET 'N' MINGLE! Do you know how many other Cruise Directors do that? Almost none. None at any *I* have ever attended.

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

I was on the Serenade the two weeks before you.

 

 

 

Most of the things that you put in red in your posts leave me shaking my head. It's as if you have never been on a cruise before and have no idea what a cruise is like. I am not going to go into detail.

 

 

 

But when you write the paragraph that I quoted above....................

 

 

 

Well, any credibility that you MIGHT have had is gone.

 

 

 

Carly is fantastic. Carly is warm. Carly is friendly and sincere. She is absolutely one of the best CD's in the fleet.

 

 

 

SHE SHOWED UP AT YOUR MEET 'N' MINGLE! Do you know how many other Cruise Directors do that? Almost none. None at any *I* have ever attended.

 

 

 

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

So let me get this straight ... You have to have been on a cruise before and "know what a cruise" is to have opinion? I know you are an RCCL apologist but are you mentally unbalanced? LOL

BTW, I have now been on 2 cruises. ;)

Maybe you should should show yourself the door on this thread because you are out of touch on the topic of Carly or you never watched her on the morning shows. Make sure I use the port shopping map? You ever read the fine print on the port shopping map? You watch her "interviews" with the other staff members in which she acts surprised to learn that you can buy a photo package?

If Carly is one of the best in the fleet then the fleet is in trouble.

Finally, how is it that MY OPINION of Carly can be wrong?

And you have the gall to question my credibility??? Really??? Just who is it you think you are around here?

So let me get this straight ... You have to have been on a cruise before and "know what a cruise" is to have opinion? I know you are an RCCL apologist but are you mentally unbalanced?

Did you really just ask a member if they are mentally unbalanced?[emoji22]

Cindy

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But when you write the paragraph that I quoted above....................

 

Well, any credibility that you MIGHT have had is gone.

 

Carly is fantastic. Carly is warm. Carly is friendly and sincere. She is absolutely one of the best CD's in the fleet.

 

SHE SHOWED UP AT YOUR MEET 'N' MINGLE! Do you know how many other Cruise Directors do that? Almost none. None at any *I* have ever attended.

 

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

So let me get this straight ... You have to have been on a cruise before and "know what a cruise" is to have opinion? I know you are an RCCL apologist but are you mentally unbalanced? LOL

 

Finally, how is it that MY OPINION of Carly can be wrong?

Did you really just ask a member if they are mentally unbalanced?

Well... he shouldn't have called another member "mentally imbalanced"... but he's not incorrect in his sentiment.

Merion Mom disagreed with his opinion on Carly B (who, by the way, *I* find to be a middle of the road CD) and therefore disparages his entire review.

His review is his opinion of his experience. If you don't agree with his review then say so, but don't say that his review is invalid because he dared to not like the CD.

Sheesh, some people get free passes because of having a high post count. :rolleyes:

Well... he shouldn't have called another member "mentally imbalanced"... but he's not incorrect in his sentiment.

 

Merion Mom disagreed with his opinion on Carly B (who, by the way, *I* find to be a middle of the road CD) and therefore disparages his entire review.

 

His review is his opinion of his experience. If you don't agree with his review then say so, but don't say that his review is invalid because he dared to not like the CD.

 

Sheesh, some people get free passes because of having a high post count. :rolleyes:

Everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion, and I actually enjoy reading balanced reviews because I think they help me know what to expect way more than those where someone thought everything was superb or everything was horrible. The point I was trying to make is that I think name calling is counter productive and actually stymies good discussion and information.

I've been a member of Cruise Critic for a long time, and I can't even begin to list the ways my cruises have been better because of it. I also like to try to give back where I can, and I was getting on to make a comment that I thought might help NightOne better compare his two cruises when I read the unbalanced comment. I decided it wasn't worth my time or energy.:(

First of all, you may want to re-read my reply to Merion_Mom. I did not call her anything.

Specifically, I said:

I know you are an RCCL apologist but are you mentally unbalanced? LOL

See that question mark at the end? and the LOL?

Different words but the same as jokingly saying "Are you Crazy?".

It's not their post count. Obviously MM has a personal relationship with the CD and was taken aback by 'fake' comment. I don't attend M&Gs nor do I pay much attention to who the CD is but I do appreciate what they do and it's more than face time with guests. Sorry but insult to MM is over the top.

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Merion Mom disagreed with his opinion on Carly B (who, by the way, *I* find to be a middle of the road CD) and therefore disparages his entire review.

Although it very review-ish (is that a word?) I purposely tried to steer away from using the word review and and am merely sharing MY thoughts about MY experience.

His review is his opinion of his experience. If you don't agree with his review then say so, but don't say that his review is invalid because he dared to not like the CD.

Exactly!

Sheesh, some people get free passes because of having a high post count. :rolleyes:

Yes, unfortunately we have a group of people here that feel they must post every single thought that pops in their head or have to contribute to every single thread in this forum section. Rarely do I find those posts useful with the huge notable exception being Bob (clarea) who is a shining example of a what a high frequency poster should aspire to be here.

We also have another group of Royal cheerleaders/bullies here that think they can attack/discredit/demean/harass anyone who posts anything about RCCL that is not to their liking. Sorry, but that does not fly with me. :)

BTW, if anyone has any questions about anything on the Serenade 3-14-2015 sailing, feel free to ask.

They never mentioned it on the ship, and I didn't mention it above, but we had no aerial shows in the Centrum. Heard from an insider that they are short riggers and the aerial shows on Serenade will probably not happen for quite awhile longer. (months maybe)

Thanks for the pictures of my cabin! We have this cabin for the Northern TA coming up in April. What furniture did you have on your balcony?

Thanks for the pictures of my cabin! We have this cabin for the Northern TA coming up in April. What furniture did you have on your balcony?

2 Loungers

2 Chairs

1 Small table

The loungers take up almost the entire depth of the balcony and are placed to the far left side.

Night One, thanks for taking the time to write your thoughts on your cruise. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and even a first/second time cruiser is allowed to express themselves without having their credibility questioned.

I agree with your opinion of the CD, we have cruised with her once and, out of 35 cruises, I did not find her to be one of the best, I too, thought she seemed to be somewhat fake. And we have often had CD's come to our M&Ms so I don't find that unusual.:D

Sherri:)

They never mentioned it on the ship, and I didn't mention it above, but we had no aerial shows in the Centrum. Heard from an insider that they are short riggers and the aerial shows on Serenade will probably not happen for quite awhile longer. (months maybe)

One of the cables snapped right before the show was set to start on the 3/7 cruise. :eek: Fortunately the performer was not injured.

They did a rehearsal and a show on Friday afternoon, and I watched both. There was quite a bit of testing of the cables during the rehearsal.

I thought the show was entertaining, but so short that I'm not sure I'd wait that length of time again just to have a spot where I could see. The show we saw Friday only had one aerialist, and the rest of the performers were the singers and dancers. Since that was my first time to see a centrum show, I don't know if that's standard or if that was to compensate for the damaged equipment. I prefer the aerial/gymnastic shows I've seen in the theater on other ships, where there are multiple performers and a regular length show.

Dining: Let's get this out of the way up front. Food is very subjective. My tastes are different than yours. Also, I am not a foodie and prefer comfort food. However, I did hear people complain onboard about off the wall stuff. For example, I overheard a woman admitting she never had scallops before but these ones were no good because they were presented on a shell. Really ??? A guy behind us said he was going to the buffet to get more food because the tiramisu was terrible. We had just had it too and it was awesome! So feel free to ignore this whole dining section if you want. :)

I'm with you on this one. I just truly think some folks aren't happy if there's not a complaint. "The savory bites had too many/not enough seeds on them." sort of thing. I'm sure there are some legitimate gripes that come with trying to prepare a suitably classy meal for 3000, but it takes plenty of grains of salt once you hear the inevitable "the food was so unbelievably horrid. We just ate Dinner in the Windjammer every night."

While I think the Radiance class is very nice looking and has some great qualities I think any future cruise would need to be on Voyage or better yet Freedom class. I'm waiting for 2017 dates to get posted and if I see a Freedom class ship out of Galveston then I will need to make a serious decision between that and Carnival Breeze (which is moving to Galveston). being able to drive to a port is a big factor for us and Royal pulling out of NOLA is sad.

Having just come off Independence in January and having done 2 Voyager class trips out of Galveston, for my taste Independence seemed to be "a bigger Voyager class but without that much more "'stuff'" Just seemed like the walk to the elevators was longer. When we were kicking around the late-year trip, we ended up on the last Navigator trip out of Galveston because the price jump for going on Liberty didn't seem worthwhile (again, to us) and Liberty is off the schedule during practically all of January. We preferred the Radiance class ships. DW always says she wasn't crazy about the drive to NoLa but I think that's because it rained most of the way when we went. I'd have sure loved another trip from there rather than Galveston and hate seeing RCL go from there, but I just don't think there's enough business to justify a Freedom class in Galveston AND a ship porting in New Orleans. Bummer.

One of the cables snapped right before the show was set to start on the 3/7 cruise. :eek: Fortunately the performer was not injured.

 

They did a rehearsal and a show on Friday afternoon, and I watched both. There was quite a bit of testing of the cables during the rehearsal.

 

I thought the show was entertaining, but so short that I'm not sure I'd wait that length of time again just to have a spot where I could see. The show we saw Friday only had one aerialist, and the rest of the performers were the singers and dancers. Since that was my first time to see a centrum show, I don't know if that's standard or if that was to compensate for the damaged equipment. I prefer the aerial/gymnastic shows I've seen in the theater on other ships, where there are multiple performers and a regular length show.

I seen a couple of YouTube videos on the shows before I sailed:

and

Would have liked to have seen those live.

Also, in my original posts I forgot to mention that there appeared to be exactly ONE 4-piece band on the ship. It did not matter if it was country, jazz, or rock, they were the ones who played it in all the venues. We also see one solo acoustic guitar player.

Apparently I was never by the pool during the limited time they had live music there. (I would bet money it was the same band LOL --- but I thought I read something about steel drums so maybe not)

I had heard so much here about how Carnival went to recorded music and Royal has so much live music but I didn't find that to be the case. Basically, 95%+ of the live music I saw was on Deck 4 Centrum.

BTW, that 4-piece band was very good so no qualms there. :)

Hey Carl! The full band did play during the entertainment shows. I think there were 8 or 9 but some of them might have been part of the 4 you saw - LOL. Usually at the pool were 2 guys - 1 with a piano & computer & 1 with steel drum. I think they were there during the middle of the day.

We enjoyed meeting you guys and hanging out. I was also disappointed in the Meet & Greet. Got the same "gift" on the 2013 Oasis Meet & Greet. LOL Thought Royal could have changed it up - but I also think that when folks sign up for and don't attend the Meet & Greet, it takes some of the "Cruise Critic Power" away.... JMHO

I seen a couple of YouTube videos on the shows before I sailed:

 

 

and

 

 

 

 

What we saw was an abbreviated/modified version of the Aquatronica show. Only the first apparatus was used, and there was only one aerialist. I believe Jack and His Magic Beans was supposed to be performed Monday night when the cable snapped at the beginning of the performance.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Serenade is one of my favorite ships, but no RCI ship is perfect, far from it. I found Carly to be ok, but she doesn't make my top 3. Bobby Brown, Dennis what's his name and Keith Williams are my favorites (you'd think I would remember Dennis' last name, wouldn't you?:o) Carly is droll and very pleasant, but there's a spark missing in her presentation, in my opinion.

Also, in my original posts I forgot to mention that there appeared to be exactly ONE 4-piece band on the ship. It did not matter if it was country, jazz, or rock, they were the ones who played it in all the venues. We also see one solo acoustic guitar player.

 

Apparently I was never by the pool during the limited time they had live music there. (I would bet money it was the same band LOL --- but I thought I read something about steel drums so maybe not)

 

I had heard so much here about how Carnival went to recorded music and Royal has so much live music but I didn't find that to be the case. Basically, 95%+ of the live music I saw was on Deck 4 Centrum.

 

BTW, that 4-piece band was very good so no qualms there. :)

We were on Serenade on 2/21 and there were 2 bands, a Latin one and a more "jack of all trades" one, who alternated in the Centrum. The Latin band was excellent, but the singer for the other band sounded like my cat when her tail has been stepped on. Several crew members remarked on how awful she was - they were working within earshot and were most unhappy about it. Perhaps that band was keelhauled and they haven't gotten a replacement. There was also a pool band, so they had a full complement of musicians - I hope they continue to do that, since it's one big reason we favor RCI.