Pratique

For eight days you may not be happy with Freedom. Freedom is in great shape but simply doesn’t have the Symphony experiences in terms of restaurants, entertainment and other venues. I think Freedom is a great ship for 3/4 nights but longer than that it would feel too limited. The decor on Freedom is dated, some things like drawers are sticky or loose, shower curtains instead of glass doors, little stuff but nothing major. Very long lines at El Loco Fresh being by the pool. Water slide at the aft, nowhere near the pool. Freedom is a beautiful ship but nothing like Symphony. If the ship is the destination for you then choose Symphony. IMHO

I will say this about RC, and some people may disagree, but it is like the McDonald's of cruising. More or less a homogeneous and consistent experience on every sailing so you know what to expect every time. Not a ton of attention to detail - they are catering to the masses and sailing the same itineraries over and over again. Wash, rinse, repeat. This is not necessarily a bad thing and millions of customers every year seem to agree. Royal isn't trying to be a luxury line; they focus on what works "well enough" consistently. FWIW McDonald's also has lots of repeat customers so make of that what you will. You will get a 2-top and the service and food will be decent to good but not extra special. The large ships are no worse than the smaller ships because even though there are more guests there are also more places and crew for them - if anything, the larger ships offer more options (dining, entertainment, etc.), which is a good thing IMHO. There is some benefit to scaling the ships up in terms of what they have to offer for the price. The ship is the destination. If you value consistency and predictability, RC has it. As far as the infinite verandas, the #1 problem for me is that opening the window exposes the entire cabin to the outside air. This is a problem in the morning when I get up before my wife and sit outside while she sleeps. I will never get one of those staterooms and certainly not at the prices Celebrity is asking for a "balcony" stateroom.

Call Air2Sea and see what they have to offer. With a party of 5 and luggage you will need a van or shuttle bus to travel together. Even an Uber SUV will not be large enough. There are private companies such as Super Shuttle that have vans that can be booked. Another cost-effective option is to book the transfer aboard the ship at Guest Services. Worst case you will have to hire two taxis.

Good to know. From the accounts given it sounds like they are compliant but it keeps happening because of the parents letting the kids in the pool in the first place.

Margaritaville at sea!!!

Can I just say that I love the title of this thread. I have spent some time thinking about an Icon class cruise and come to the conclusion that this Royal has crossed the line for me with this one. They keep sending me marketing emails for Icon "starting at" over $1,800 (I assume for a broom closet) and I keep thinking to myself "they can keep it for someone else." 3X+ the price for a shiny new ship with closed pools. Yeah, no.

That's good to know. Did you have a case on the tablet, or was it just the tablet. It seems in some closets the safe door cannot swing wide without hitting something, which somewhat limits the size of the opening to the safe, so that might also be a factor.

Is there a self-reporting requirement by the cruise line? If they are shutting down the pools for sanitation. Versus a noro outbreak. Or are the guests filing VSP reports the only backstop in this situation? It never occurred to me that I could or should file such a report.

It is ridiculous. Lifeguards always on duty are a relatively new thing after a child drowned a few years ago on a RCCL ship. Their mission is to preserve life not to keep the pool clean.

You are spot on. A few years ago we lived in a condo and at one association meeting the board was telling a mother that she could not let her children play in the street unsupervised (or really, at all) because not only was it a safety issue but also a liability issue for the condo association. The mother responded by yelling at everyone in the room to essentially butt out of her parenting decisions. Several times a year I go to watch the races at places like Saratoga and Del Mar and although I have no particular issue with children being there, wagering on horses is an adult activity. Yet parents let their kids run wild and bristle at any suggestion that they should reign in their children at the racetrack (it's not a playground, although many of them have designated play areas for children). So it seems like it is pretty much everywhere and often in places where it doesn't need to happen. That being said we still encounter children and parents who are respectful and courteous so I won't paint everyone with a broad brush. Nevertheless, it feels to me like entitlement and disrespect for others has run rampant. Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky but I was never allowed to misbehave in public as a child so that's my perspective.

The lifeguards should not be distracted by locating the parents who walk away and then talking to them. They also can't just blow their whistle at very young children and expect them to understand. The guards need to be hyper-focused on everyone in the water.

I concur, although the urine issue is unfortunately not limited to children and will not close a pool down. RCCL allows swim diapers in the pools on Coco Cay. The rules need to be enforced and not by the lifeguards but instead by an officer or a crew member with authority. Otherwise this behavior will just continue.

Agreed it is bad parenting. The lifeguards are not baby monitors, they are responsible for everyone's safety. I constantly see young children throwing fits, collapsing to the deck to get their parents' attention, and most of the parents ignore it so the behavior continues. In the bars, in the specialty restaurants, in the Promenade, pretty much everywhere on the ship. Not using swim diapers is beyond unacceptable. Allowing the same child to do this two days in a row is concerning.

Celebrity has some too. Reflection is doing this route I believe through the summer and fall.

A 10-inch tablet will likely fit, but probably nothing larger.

Although preferences are subjective, yes definitely there are also objective measures such as you mentioned with the ingredients. I am going through a similar thing with Panera Bread since their menu overhaul in April as a cost-cutting measure to prepare the company for a public offering. Ingredients are now gone or changed and the bread is delivered to the stores frozen instead of being freshly baked. The difference to me, as I mentioned elsewhere, is that the cruise line is good at recalibrating our expectations while Panera has been clumsy with their changes (and I can easily avoid Panera). Some people may still reach a tipping point where Royal is no longer of interest to them, but I reluctantly accept that as time passes we tend to lose the "nicer things" we previously enjoyed, and it is better to adapt than to scrounge around for other experiences that will inevitably be disappointing in some way or another. We still very much enjoy cruising and Royal's ships despite the disappointments with the food. For us, a cruise is still a better experience than a Hawaii vacation where the chair hogs by the pool are out before dawn, the restaurants are jammed and extremely expensive, and the traffic is horrific. Royal president Jason Liberty was recently interviewed by CNBC and he made it clear that they want to eliminate the "discount" they have historically offered over land-based vacations. In other words, to bring prices on par. My takeaway from that comment is that Royal will continue to raise prices while also reducing costs as a way of closing that "discount" gap. And they will do it in a way that effectively sets new customer expectations so that we are at worst reduced to grumbling about so-called first-world problems. They will wow people with new the Icon class ships and make the food issues seem minor by comparison. I suppose, anyway.

One more observation from our Freedom cruise: these short cruises out of South Florida tend to attract families and large groups (wedding parties). The waitstaff bent over backwards to take care of me and my wife while the waiter was overloaded with large parties at other tables and even took pains to sit us away from some loud children in both Chops and Giovannis, profusely apologizing for things they have little to no control over. So I think the issue with the food (and it is an issue for us too) is primarily the decline in the quality of ingredients more so than preparation or service. But it may not be fair to generalize about it. Royal is definitely cutting corners though, in the restaurants and lounges and with the amenities too. It is not the same product that it used to be.

This might be ship-specific. I've been on sailings where it seemed like the overall mood of the staff was dour and inattentive. But we just got off of Freedom and the crew were fantastic. My wife doesn't always finish her dinner portions because she gets full (or wants to save room for desert) and the waitstaff were in a panic that something was wrong with the food, every time. We were apologizing to them about it. So my conclusion is that it might have something to do with shipboard morale. Just a guess though.

“I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. And this is true to the extent that people either passionately love Texas or passionately hate it and, as in other religions, few people dare to inspect it for fear of losing their bearings in mystery or paradox. But I think there will be little quarrel with my feeling that Texas is one thing. For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study, and the passionate possession of all Texans.” ― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

I always tell them to use the voucher or not use it. I discovered on CocoCay that although it is possible to use the vouchers there is paperwork involved and not all of the bartenders know how to do it so don't assume that they will use a voucher automatically.

The only thing we look at on the ship TV is the live map. Nothing else seems worthwhile to us. I know Wi-Fi isn't an option for everyone but it works well for streaming. Also, we download shows onto an iPad at home as a backup option both during the cruise and traveling to/from port. The other night I slept under the stars on the balcony and it was the best TV show ever to fall asleep to. If I had that every night I would never need a TV. In fact, there are lots of creature comforts I enjoy at home that I don't miss at all while on a cruise, TV is the big one.

YMMV but in my experience the crew will bend over backward to accommodate us as best they can because they live in fear of any review that is not a perfect "10." The other day someone in the WJ made my wife a grilled cheese sandwich to order. It wasn't a great sandwich but they made the effort and I have to credit them for that, the crew get a 10 and the sandwich gets a 5 or 6. I just think they are hamstrung by the limitations of what they can offer and the offerings have declined over the years. What happened to the chocolate dipped strawberries? Anyone seen those lately? Such a simple thing they can do so it's absence is conspicuous.

One thing the cruise line is good at is forcing us to recalibrate our expectations.

The quality of the ingredients seems to be the problem, not the preparation. On Freedom now, food has been very good but not excellent about par for my experience. Chops strip was a bit fatty but the meal overall was enjoyable. WJ has been good too. We will be on Symphony later this month so we’ll get another data point soon.

Both Royal and Carnival are reporting very strong customer demand levels. Additionally, building out private destinations captures more spending. As long as this continues, they can increase profitability by cutting corners on complementary soft products such as food and housekeeping. IMHO the smaller cruise lines will need to compete on quality because it is very expensive for them to build new ships and private beaches.