nhilding10

What ships on Royal? We too were that way and took a chance on the Mardi Gras. We had sailed Anthem, Harmony, and Freedom, so we felt like we had a pretty good mix of experience on Royal when coming into Mardi Gras. I will say this, if you love the theater, shows, etc. on Royal then you'll absolutely love the Mardi Gras. For us, the Grand Central area was very cool. It was a good play on the 270 from Anthem, and they use it for the shows fantastically. They can do so much more in there than they can the Main Theater, so it's really cool to see. However, that said, get there early. The "good" seats up front and on the lower level do fill up fast, and they are mostly necessary to see everything in a given show that goes on in Grand Central. We tried seats in the upper levels, different areas, and you just can't quite see everything. Still entertaining, and worth it, but just "not as good". Hopefully that will make sense. The one big drawback we found from Royal vs Mardi Gras, was that Mardi Gras never seems to have that big open, promenade section like Royal ships are known for. The Mardi Gras really chokes that off on Decks 6, 7, 8 because of Grand Central, but the areas around it can get pretty congested at night with shows, photos, dinners, etc going on. Just be prepared for things to be a little more busy and leave yourself the time, and it won't be that big of a deal in the end. We let it bother us more than we should originally, constantly trying to play the Royal vs Mardi Gras game. Once we got over that and enjoyed Mardi Gras simply for what it was, we actually did enjoy the ship quite well! The upper Lido areas are a lot of fun (they need a second bar on the main Lido deck, I'll stand on that hill all day every day!) and the entertainment up there blows Royal away; I wouldn't worry about it. Note what you like and don't, but don't let it get you down like we did. The Mardi Gras has its pros and cons, but I think you'll find it enjoyable and your cruise won't suffer one bit for it!

We unfortunately had many of the same issues and have seen a lot of similar reactions and opinions since. That's very discouraging. We got off the MG on 10/1 and our initial thoughts were that the wait times at bars and venues were horrendous and the food was meh at best. The servers who were there did a phenomenal job, I'm not taking anything away from them, at all. At all. They did exceptionally well and we let them know that, however, there needed to be about triple the amount of them, that's all. The wait times at any bar were that way. The Lido could stand to have another bar in the corner, replace Street Eats and add a second bar. When you have Sail Away, the Glow Party, the Mega Party, all of that, and the deck gets full, the one Red Frog bar just can't handle it. They were doing all they could, and I commend them for it, but they needed serious help that just doesn't appear to be coming. One of the comedy clubs, I can't remember which (maybe it was both?) didn't even have a bar, and there were just too many choke points. The layout is what it is now, but it could have been better. Grand Central is nice, the shows there are good, but posters are right, either commit an hour (at least!) to getting a seat, or try again another time. Also, we ate at Cucina and I had the chicken parm, it tasted like a frozen microwaved reheated store bought meal, at best. It was the worst meal I've ever had on a ship. I dont hold that against the servers or the staff, they did what they could with what they had, but you can tell the quality just wasn't there. If that's a supply chain issue or something else, I dont know, but it was disappointing. Overall we loved the entertainment, the activities, and everything about the cruise, MG has its flaws as others have pointed out with sightlines and such, and that can make it tough at times, but overall we felt it was still more Pros than Cons, and loved the vacation. I can nitpick on any little thing, and believe me I did, but still found it to have value at the end of the day. If they (and this is the million dollar question, right?) could get more servers and more staff, MG would be a lot better. It does feel like they're still figuring out their way around operating a ship that size, and given that, it can only get better, right? So it's worth another shot to us, we're booked on Celebration for next September and already looking forward to see what improves, as I'm sure it will.

I fell for the Verifly hype pre-cruise and was surprised at how useless it was. I wanted it to work and be as amazing as you hear about, but it wasn't even close. I did all of the pre-trip legwork, uploaded the documents, had everything as it should and got my green checkmark; ready to go. When I presented it to the reps at each line they looked at it, set my phone down, and then asked for all of my physical copies anyway. So all Verifly did was end up slowing me down, as I went through all that, at each point in line, just to pull out the documents anyway. I'd say skip it, honestly. Hopefully if you still try it, it works better for you, though!