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We just got home from the inaugural Caribbean 5 day cruise on the Royal. Ft. Lauderdale to Princess Cays to Grand Turk. Here is my very brief mixed review.

The arrival at the cruise terminal was a nightmare. Princess really got shafted by Port Everglades to get stuck way at the end in the old terminal. There were three lanes of busses, vans, taxi's and private cars all funneling down to ONE lane to baggage drop off!!! We arrived at 12 noon and it took us 40 minutes to go about 150 yards to drop off luggage. We then parked in the garage and made our way to Suite/Elite check in which was very nice. The line moved quickly and without fuss. After the parking situation I needed some good karma! Once on board we went right to our mini suite, L106 right in the front of the ship above the bridge.

ROOM: It was a very nice room with a huge balcony. The only complaint with the room was since it was right in the front of the ship, you get a lot of wind while under way. And one night enroute to Grand Turk we had a 25 knot head wind plus the 15 knot ship speed. Due to the design of the ship, the wind was howling so loud off the front of the ship I had to put on noise canceling headphones to sleep but that was the only night with a problem. I would highly recommend you never take a room on the back of the ship. There is a constant smell there from the funnel. Also beware of starboard side rooms under the skywalk. Everyone on the skywalk can see what you are doing on your balcony and in your room!

First Stop: The tender service to Princess cays was a disaster. You have to tender in to the docks and the dock area can only hold 3 tenders at a time. It took 48 minutes to go from the ship to the island in the tender crammed in like sardines with your fellow passengers in 85 degree heat. If it would have been the 15 minutes as advertised it would have been ok. Princess was not ready for a ship the size of the Royal at that stop. Once on the island it was very fun and the snorkeling was very good right in the swim area. The BBQ food was good.

Second Stop: Grand Turk. Loved it but it is a small, flat island. One visit there is enough for me but we had fun. Did a tour of the island and then snorkeling which was excellent.

Ship: Beautiful. One of the most beautiful ships I have ever been on. The decor, art, light fixtures were impeccable. I loved the layout of the ship and the variety of food venues, shopping and activities. The pool area was beautiful and functional. The sea walk was amazing. Loved it!

Food: The buffet food quality was excellent. There are really two buffet areas combined at the back, the Horizon Bistro and Horizon Court. The food selection was excellent. No shortage of choices here. Loved it. The pizza place by the pool and the grill by the pool were excellent. Loved the Pizza. We never tried the pizza downstairs but I was told it was good. The Gelato place was excellent but extra money. The regular dining room food was good. We liked it.

Specialty Restaurants: We ate at Sabatini's the first night. We arrived for our 5:30 reservation and there was one line for reservations and those seeking reservations! When you finally got to the host desk, he was on the phone taking reservations while those of us with reservations listened to him. No other help to be found. This was absurd. We were finally seated at 6:00pm. We waited at the table with no water, no greeting, nothing until 6:15pm. Finally they were ready to get the operation up and running and took our order. The food was horrible. Shrimp was previously frozen water logged and limp. Lobster tails were tough and over cooked. Olive Garden puts this place to shame. I refused to pay the up charge and they took it off my tab with no argument. Everyone served that night had the same experience. On the third night we went to the Crown Grill. We had heard good things about it and after Sabatini's we were very excited. My daughter wanted steak so they prepared her just a plain butterfly cut Filet Mignon which is exactly what we wanted. We also ordered the Filet as well. When my daughters steak arrived first she said it was "Chewy". I tried a piece and it was very tough so I assumed they really just gave her a cut of the strip steak off the buffet line upstairs. Then my wife and I received our steaks and guess what...they were the quality you would get at a Denny's. Tough and chewy. They were cooked to a nice medium as requested, it was the actual meat was very low quality. I would say it was somewhere between stew meat and choice. The deserts however were wonderful. We also had a lobster tail as an appetizer and it was good. They really need a different purveyor of meats.

Beverage: Excellent service but I found just getting a glass of water to be difficult. You had to go to a bar or find a server. Sometimes during busy times this was a difficult task. I felt getting water should not be so much work. The cocktails were excellent and the bar tenders were awesome.

Entertainment: All excellent. We loved every show and every band. A+

Misc: There were only 31 children on the cruise so that was nice. Our daughter made some new friends and the kids got a lot of attention in the kids club. I did notice Princess caters to an older crowd and some of them were very mean and grouchy. One fellow made a snide comment to my wife on the elevator that she accidentally touched him while we were all crammed into these very small elevators. She apologized and his response to her apology was "I don;t need any attitude from you!" I wanted to just throw him over the rail but wasn't sure of maritime law on this topic! LOL. But seriously there were a few bad apples in the bunch but we just ignored them. We also found out that Princess either doesn't have a "saving deck chair" policy or does not enforce it. On sea days at 6 am people were putting towels and things on deck chairs only to go back to their cabin and sleep and arrive back at 10 am for their reserved chair. We typically used the pool very early and were gone by the time these people showed up and I do thank them for having my chair toweled for me! Sorry I left it wet if and when you ever showed up! LOL...

Atlantis is worth the trip. It is a an exceptional water park. However i would recommend the most cost effective way is to do the cruise shore excursion.

I'm of the school where if you are truly unsatisfied, you tip a minimal amount (10%).

Why would you tip anything if you were unsatisfied? Just curious your reasoning for this. To me, and I am not saying you are wrong because everyone has their own opinion, tipping for bad service is simply rewarding bad behavior. If a dog doesn't bite you, you reward him with a treat. If he does bite you should you give him a smaller treat?

Blood and hair? What the heck happened in the room? Was it a crime scene?

Some of their Truffles at the artist station....

This is what you start with. The glass of spring water is at room temperature so your pallet is not chilled therefore permitting you to taste every nuance of the chocolate.

Thank you so much, this is what I need to hear:D I am guessing you felt it was worth the $60 each adult?

 

I saw some pictures with the red gown and caps whilst making the chocolate and that made me smile.

 

I think the timings were 10.45 - 1.45, does that sound about right? We sail 5.45 so may have time to fit in that cocktail too:D

Yes, for us it was well worth the money. I will do it again next April. Between the three of us we brought home so much chocolate that we have enough in the freezer to carry until next year, and we did not buy anything...just the chocolate from the tour! One caution... they do not put preservatives in their chocolate :D so as soon as you get home, freeze it unless you are going to consume right away. I think they said it must be eaten or frozen within 7 days.

We did the Graycliff Chocolate tour a few weeks ago on our 3 day Dream cruise. We loved it. Like you we are from Florida and usually never get off the ship in Nassau since we have been so many times but this is a somewhat new tour so we decided to try it. The tour was a quick trip from the terminal and the tour guide/hostess was fantastic. You put on the operating room type gowns and hats and go on a tour of the facility which is not very big. But then the big payoff... you get seated at a table with a BIG cup of their gourmet chocolate that has been warmed to the proper temperature and you make your own chocolate bar as well as some other goodies. You have various ingredients like coconut, almonds, chocolate chips, etc. that you can add into your creations if you want. At the end I had about 1/8 of a cup of chocolate left so I drank it. There are no words to describe that moment!!!

There are rules which people should follow and also common sense. If the family was there and one needs the restroom just before an hour show that's ok, that's logical that's being human.

 

There are the ' rules police' who in my option are actually worse than people who break rules deliberately. The rules police will say no saving seats and if you had one to many free sodas, then if you visit the restroom your seats gone! Errr no, even CMs in the WDT say it's ok to visit.

 

It's the same as for under 18s who accidentally walk to the adult area, rules police set in and tell them off, yes they can't stay there but the old saying is rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.

Excellent point. We had a bad experience with the "Rules Police" on the Disney Fantasy. We were walking from the Mickey pool back to our concierge suite and had to walk through the forward adult pool area to get to our room. Our 5 year old was in my arms and an older woman with a crusty voice immediately yelled at me "no children in this area!" We were literally walking through the area! My first reaction was to toss her over the rail (I jest) but I quickly realized the best thing to do was simply say "I know" and keep moving.

Excellent tips. I like all of them! Disney seemed good at removing towels from deck chairs and loungers if no one was there for 30 minutes or more. I like to see that enforced. On one cruise (not Disney) I would be out for my morning walk at 6am and people in pajamas were putting towels on loungers to save them for later (Later being around 10am) and the cruise staff did nothing. I watched these chairs sit vacant for hours. The good news is I take my kids to the pool early so we would just remove the towels on the chairs we wanted and use them anyway. We were long gone by the time the "chair savers" showed up!

Not when we were on the Mariner for a week.

Thats too bad. I would recommend you never go on RCCL again. Too many bad things.

Five stars? Not quite. First of all, no widely recognized rating organization offers five stars. Fodor's doesn't give stars, they give numerical values. Michelin/Mobil grants stars, but only to three, and they don't rate cruise ships. AAA gives diamonds.

 

Have you actually dined at any of the three star restaurants in NYC?

LOL! Wow duck, you must be an engineer type! Actually I have my own rating system (which is widely AND completely recognized by ME!) And my numerical values are 1 low to 5 highest. I used very complex mathematical formulas that you would not understand to come up with a final rating for my deserts and yes, the one at 150 Central Park was a 5!

We also had problems with MDR food on RCL I would say hit and miss, some good meals but some really bad. RCL is really bad on desserts.

Agree! Their (RCCL) deserts suck. Except in the pay dining rooms they are 5 stars! If you ever sail on the Oasis or Allure go to 150 Central Park one night. They have a chocolate fudge cake that is out of this world. I have never had any desert on land or sea that good! (And we have a condo in NYC and have dined at some very good restaurants)

We had multiple problems with our cabin on RCCL. The food was so terrible that we ate almost every dinner in the alternate restaurants. We were sailing with RCCL die hards who also said the food was terrible.

 

Concierge service was almost nil, we were given inaccurate information and no special perks.

 

Their private island was terrible when we were there--flies all over the lunch spread. We went back to the ship at noon, had lunch and spent the rest of the day by the pool.

 

I spent $8000 on our cruise fare for three, and had the worst vacation of my life. On top of that, it took three letters and finally a call to their public relations department with a threat to go to the Conde Nast Ombudsman to get a

response, when I did they gave us unusable certificates for a very substantial amount of another cruise. But as I said, unusable due to the restrictions placed on them. Never again.

 

I would rather spend a little more money and know that I will get a significantly better experience.

That is horrible. I have never had such an experience on any cruise line! And the only room problem I have had was on our Disney Dream cruise a few weeks ago. Not enough a/c but we had a good time anyway!

Comparing to RCCL, the food was much better, the cabin in much better condition, and the service was much better on DCL than RCCL. I also preferred the overall atmosphere. We felt nickle and dimed to death on RCCL.

I completely disagree. I think the food on RCCL is equal to Disney's. My cabins on RCCL have always been equally clean and in excellent condition. The concierge service on Disney is better then RCCL but worse than NCL. As far as nickeled and dimed the only thing I have found as an extra on RCCL is soda which is free on Disney. Other than that I have found the same things that cost extra on RCCL are also extra on Disney. Maybe its because I sail on the newer RCCL ships. I can also say that the Oasis and Allure ships have more restaurants, more night clubs, more shows and more shopping then any Disney ship. Of course they are almost double the size. The only reason we cruise Disney is because we love Cataway Cay and we have a 6 year old who loves everything Disney. If it was just the two of us I am guessing we would stick to RCCL for 80% of our cruise dollars. Still would do Disney once every few years just for Castaway Cay. But to answer the original question "what makes Disney worth the extra money" my answer is nothing makes it worth more. However to some people the excellence of the Disney brand and the Disney theme & characters give them the warm fuzzy feeling that is hard to put a price on. However Disney does put a premium price on it in the cruise business and it seems to be what the market will bear. I think most of their ships sail full.

You also have the option of paying in cash which is what I did on the Dream cruise last week. You have to notify the front desk you wish to pay cash and they will give you the little envelopes.

We had 12014 on the Fantasy which is also a 1-Bedroom right next door to the room you had! Like I said in my post, you could hang meat in that room if you left it on full cold! And that was the same situation on our other rooms on the Dream as well. This is the first time we had a problem on any cruise ship with air. Maybe the entire air handler in in 12504 is on the blink...

We just finished the 9/19 sailing on the Dream. We were in cabin 12504, a concierge level family veranda cabin. A couple alert notes on this cabin. First the A/C in this room is marginal to poor. We had a service tech check it and replace the filter but if the room was in the sun, we could not cool it down to a comfortable level until around 2 AM! That was running at full cold on the thermostat. The other 3 cabins we have had on this ship were much different. Running on full cold you could hang meat in the room after 2 hours. Something is definitely wrong with 12504. Also this cabin and its twin 12004 have 1/2 the normal balcony space due to the curvature of the ship. You actually lose about 3 feet of depth on the balcony. You get two chairs only instead of a lounge because a lounge will not fit. Also of note is of the 3 concierge staff, 2 were spectacular and gets five stars! One was not the best and may be better suited in another position on the ship.

We sailed on the Fantasy a few months ago. The Rain Forest is a let down. Don't waste your money. Other than that, the ship was fantastic. Liked it much better than the Dream. Have fun!

Don,

We went on the Epic shortly after it went into service and the smoke problem from the casino was a huge negative. Because the casino had no roof and was open to several other decks the smoke would even go into the shoppping mall area to the point it made us sick. I have read they solved the problem with smoke eaters in the casino but I wanted your observation having been on her recently.

What do you mean by 'it forces them to pick and choose'?

It means they cannot accommodate all religions, It would be impossible so they pick only the big ones. I suspect Catholic, Limited Protestant and Jewish.

Do they honor Islam, Buddhism, Mormon, Hindu, Shinto, etc... ?

I am not Jewish but it is very nice of them to honor the day for those who are Jewish. However I feel that the cruise lines should not get involved in religion in any form because there are so many religions with so many needs & wants that it seems like a logistical nightmare so it forces them to pick and choose which religions to accommodate and that is very bad and potentially discriminatory.

I am not being mean spirited but this whole thread is a bit silly. Looking for compensation from 8 years ago? Really? :D