woollife

Bittersweet last day onboard...I was a bit seasick/nauseous after breakfast and chilled in the room. Finally feeling better thankfully. My sister went to the promenade deck after breakfast and said the merch sales were a bit like Black Friday - a madhouse!

We are traveling at a good clip back to Galveston - about 20kts against a 50kt wind atm. It's fairly chilly -- good time for robes. Had to come in off the balcony before my tablet got covered with a thicker layer of sea spray! On deck 6 we are getting consistent spray from the waves and many rattles. Still worth it tho :D The lower decks were closed earlier this morning because of the water/waves. The sun is out finally and perhaps the water will calm down a bit later this afternoon. Right now we're bobbing and weaving!

Thank you to those who have suggested reserving mattress toppers prior to the cruise; we did that and they made the hard beds tolerable.

Back to our little corner of the seas...

It's true, port visits do totally tire ya out! A bad sunburn isn't helping matters any... Here is my update from last night though!

Still loving the food compared to Carnival. So many veg options in windjammer i love it. Zucchini corn salad, very fresh and light.

Mango citrus salad with mezclun/baby greens - also light and delicious. I tend to avoid mixed salads with creamy dressings at buffets, so these were welcome alternatives for getting some vegetables while minimizing hidden calories. Very happy with the vegetable/variety in Windjammer today, from the aforementioned greens to mild curry lentils, sauteed squash and more. Bread pudding is way too good, too. That has been my guilty pleasure this cruise.

MDR food was great last night, nice simple spinach salad and the sole was very balanced even if a little light on veg (two stalks of asparagus seems kind of chintzy to me). Tonight (last night -ed) was kind of terrible, however -- our preferred waiter Charles' section was overbooked and dinner took twice as long elsewhere in the dining room (about two hours). However, part of the delay for us was because the first lobster I was served had gone off -- just really gross and mushy. The second lobster tail was better but quite small. Tbh I would rather not do more than one formal night on a seven-day cruise but sis wanted her lobster tail. After two hot, sweaty days wandering around ports I was fine with room service and a few hours of Parks and Rec (!!) and Brooklyn 99 in Spanish and Portuguese, but no luck. Getting a bad sunburn after a short(!) walk on the main deck yesterday killed my energy levels for about 36 hours. I didn't think we were up there long enough to get the kind of exposure we did. Still kicking myself obvs for not slathering on the sunscreen. Next cruise I want to go somewhere where it is not almost 90 and humid, we get enough of that heat in Texas anyway!

Have had some minor issues here and there...coffee quality is not uniform and twice now in MDR after-dinner coffee was very watery and unappetizing. Also the hot water in our room seems to be alternating hot and barely tepid from night to night. It's not been cold enough to call maintenance, just another mild annoyance. I'm in the denial phase of the cruise I think where tepid water is better than the thought that our trip ends in two days, so...mild annoyances I can live with.

Will try to post again later night after the quest, I was told that can't be missed?

I'm onboard the ship now, no Freestyle machines that I've seen.

Had a nice dinner in MDR... Nothing amazing but decent crab cake, smoked duck breast and arugula pear salad. I felt kind of rushed and should have ordered the fruit instead of the duck but nbd. Tried sis's oriechette with short rib ragu and wow it was waaay too salty! a lower sodium version of that would be great tho. This is about the time on a cruise when my body starts not so gently reminding me to watch the salt intake.

Gotta admit I am not a fan of the dining room dancing routines and was kinda hoping Royal didn't do that... But they do as I'm sure most of y'all know.

Re carnival breakfast, I was comparing carnival Lido to its MDR. The much lauded sea day bfast I had on Triumph was disgusting, there's a review of it in my post history. So far Royal MDR has been a step above in every possible way, from the food to the service and back again. The French toast and tortilla Espanola might not be as eggy as I like em but they were still very good! Forgot to mention our first night I commented on how yummy those little ice cream sugar biscuits were and our head waiter asked us if we wanted some more. He returned with a plateful of them for us to take back to the room. Totally unhealthy but they've been nice snacks :P

Ship's pretty sedate on the upper decks, to whoever asked about the lounges/bars, I don't drink (anymore...) So yeah not much to say about those. Movie screen is huge though! There was a small crowd for that.

Tidal Wave is still closed, it seems like its status is fast becoming an inside joke for this board ;) it looked like a crazy idea from our vantage point. Windjammer was hosting lessons even at like 8pm. No coke machines anywhere that I could see.

Amy (CD) is fun and seems like an excellent fit for the ship, genuinely perky rather than forced/drunk.

More MDR tomorrow for breakfast and then a little fun in Roatan :)

Hi, I liked reading onboard threads in the weeks leading up to this cruise so I thought I'd start one while onboard :D I'm on this sailing celebrating a birthday with my sister, and this is my first Royal Cruise after three on Carnival, all sailing out of Galveston. I'm on a tablet so pardon any weird typing stuff here and there.

Embarcation was about what we expected, got there later than we wanted (12:30), line moved well tho, took about an hour to get on the ship even then. Thankfully it wasn't too hot. For the number of people on the ship LOS does not feel too big or long. In fact, I'm surprised how uncrowded the ship feels -- haven't dealt with that many lines for anything and what lines there are (eg my time dining, guest services) haven't taken that long to proceed through. This is a massive improvement over carnival which on both the Magic and the Triumph felt like we spent half the cruise waiting in line for something or other.

I also like the relaxed vibe on this ship, there is just a different feel to everything, its less party-focused and I like that. That said, I haven't spent much time on the main deck so it could be much crazier by the pools idk. The promenade is such a novel idea and very convenient to cabins on deck 6. Deluxe balcony has plenty of room for two but ffs the balcony chairs are awful! The balcony has enough room for a Lounger or two so what gives?

Food has been great so far with very few misses and lots of great dishes. Prime rib was effing excellent, medium as requested, sooooo good. Last night the roman salmon salad and roasted duck were also delicious. Avoid the farro app, its really just a cup of crazy salty lamb broth with a tablespoon of grains and meat. I'd like to see a few more ounces of vegetables on the dishes in MDR but that's it really it to complaints. Breakfast in the MDR was far better than in the buffet, the opposite of my experience w/ Carnival. I see people describing the food on these lines as equivalent but I am not seeing that at all; so far the entrees on Royal have been much more composed and more interesting. Definitely better to this budget-conscious foodie. The windjammer seems possibly a bit lacking compared to carnival's Lido deck but I haven't fully explored it yet. Being from Houston which has fantastic versions of the specialty restaurant cuisines already, we don't expect to dine at Sabor et al.

Room service is ehhh. I had a nice nightcap of fruit, cheese, and the spinach dip last night, but then the honey stung chicken this afternoon was closer to dog treat in texture than chicken. Definitely the worst thing I've eaten on the ship so far, which sucks bc the flavor was great on the small part of it that wasn't overcooked.

Running out of gas for now...Marcus Monroe was really a surprise, much funnier than I expected even if he was kind of an a** to the audience (part of the schtick). Better routine for me than John Wing whose short routine was heavily focused on marriage/boomer-age jokes.

Crew has been good so far, very accommodating with some minor glitches (internet signup issue, lost MDR reservation) which were quickly fixed. And a smooth ride for the most part.

This may be cold comfort, but as one trying to choose between RCL and NCL for our next cruise, your comments in these threads are appreciated.

Lido "coffee" was beyond terrible on the Triumph earlier this month. Room service coffee not much better. MDR after-dinner coffee was decent.I normally have 4-6 cups a day from freshly ground beans so the coffee bar was a welcome sight, and the espresso and cappuccino there were good enough.

The first time we ordered at the coffee bar we were given the coffee card mentioned upthread. IMPORTANT: If you get the coffee card, make sure it is associated with the folio # of the person who will use it the most because it is not meant to be interchangeable/per room.

The eggs are not powdered or fresh.

It is a liquid scrambled egg mix that comes in a big milk type carton.

And those scrambled eggs are awful.

That explains it! Definitely would put those on the "avoid" list.

Just got off the Triumph yesterday morning and I thought Gumbie seemed appropriate for the overall booze cruise/long weekend vibe our voyage had. He was seemingly everywhere on the ship. Not entirely my cup of tea but he did seem to lend a feeling of goofy fun to every event/deck/hallway he was on.

I'm just off the Triumph (still have terrible sea legs uggggggh) and we ate in the MDR every night. I am a bit of a foodie (champagne tastes on a beer budget) but try not to let it cloud my judgment; good food is good food.

The duck breast appetizer on the first night was by far the best and most complex dish I ate on the entire trip, outside of our non-Carnival Cozumel cooking excursion which featured some fantastic food but was overpriced. Bitter and blanc was delicious but had very little in the way of dark chocolate. Melting cake was good two nights and basically liquid batter the other two nights. After the first night we started asking our server how thick it was before ordering. Tiramisu was tasty, cheesecake was okay.

Fish in the MDR was uniformly good in terms of being properly cooked/seasoned; IIRC I ended up ordering fish mains every night (salmon/lobster/redfish) oh wait, no, had veal the last night because it's something I never cook at home and it was cooked well and suitably decadent. Lobster and shrimp were as you'd expect (and we did each order two lobster tails, as did the table next to us LOL). Pumpkin/yam hash in MDR was disgusting. In general I was disappointed by the amount of vegetables in the mains; we try to eat a lot of greens and veggies at home and by the third day I was feeling a bit ehh from not enough vegetables and too much salt. My fault, I know, tried to rectify it with more salads :P

Blue Iguana burrito was surprisingly good to this Texan, I had two of 'em and should have had at least one more. We didn't try Guy's; every time I passed by there was either a line or sad, sitting burgers.

Sea day brunch in the MDR was unexpectedly bad. Blueberry pancakes were the best part, they were fluffy and moist and you can get a short-short stack (2 pancakes) if you ask. Coated french toast was not appetizing at all. Hash brown discs were overly oily, clearly frozen/processed and tasted worse than McD's. First order of bacon we got was stringy and chewy; I asked for crispy bacon and got slightly less chewy bacon. My sister's over easy eggs were fresh but I'm 50/50 as to whether my scrambled eggs were fresh or powdered. Overall I was probably most disappointed with sea day brunch after reading so many accolades on this forum.

Will add this all to my overall review once I stop randomly swaying lol.

Would anyone mind offering some tips on how to find/book last-minute deals? I'm going on only my second cruise next week but am also freelancing atm and in a position to take impromptu trips. That said, when I go to cruise line websites for pricing I feel a bit lost as to where to look for these deals y'all keep talking about :) Are they available online, or is calling the best option? Are there certain phrases that each cruise line uses for their last minute bookings? How common are such bookings at ports like Galveston and NOLA?

Thanks!

Hi folks, new poster here (obvs) and just want to chime in on the free cabin offer...I have only been on one cruise so far (Magic in 2012) and it was too overwhelming for me. Loved the time spent out on the balcony, but the boat and crowds were so massive, long treks everywhere, lines for everything day and night. Not what I had expected. Coped by spending $$$ on booze and the casino, and wasn't planning to cruise Carnival again until trying at least one other line.

Fast forward to about a week ago, got the letter but figured it wasn't legit. Free cabin, really? But last night I booked a Triumph balcony for my sister and I in April and I am excited to cruise again! TBH I would not be able to afford any cruise right now without such a deep discount. I totally understand how more frequent cruisers could be peeved at not receiving an offer, but if Carnival's aim is to get relative newbies to try their product again, well, it worked in this case.

My only regret (and it's a big one) is that I didn't look into Alaska availability! Ugh! That's a trip that is way out of reach otherwise. Please tell me y'all looked at that and there were no spots left on those cruises so I feel better about not looking those up ;)

Back to lurking! Cheers, Jo