BearsAhoy

Thank you. I try to be fair and balanced, though it would be easy to whine. I think in all cases, if we’d been on our first cruise, or even our first cruise with Royal, none of this would have stood out to me. It is only because we’ve been on a number of cruises now, and because we had the direct comparison with the other stateroom in our party, that the missing pieces were evident. That’s the thing about setting expectations, right? To tell the truth, I did wonder a few times during this cruise, “did we choose the right line?” It was the right cruiseline for us when we first started cruising. Most of our cruises have been intergenerational; our children were very young when we started, and they were happy. My parents were happy (and loved it so much that they made D+ very very quickly). And we were happy because everyone else was happy and we could get a little break from the busywork of parenting young children. My time dining worked well for us. Kids were happy in Adventure Ocean. The balance of formal to casual worked for all of us. The dining room staff made our children feel like they belonged. (One of my favourite photos from any cruise happened to be taken on Jewel: our waiters made binoculars with napkins, and my mom and I took those to get some silly, casual photos taken by a ship photographer.) Our kids enjoyed the teen club on this cruise, and made friends. We adults got some down time. Courtesy of a fall in port, I made use of the excellent medical centre 🤦‍♀️ But it felt like we were no longer the target audience, or maybe we had outgrown the experience. When we were planning our first family cruise, we considered all obvious lines: I’d have loved to have done a transatlantic on Cunard, but it would have been too formal for us (at the time). Our kids aren’t really into Disney, so we ruled out that cruise line. Some of us are far too introverted for “the fun ship”; it just isn’t us. We were advised that HAL might not be the right choice with young kids. That kind of left Princess and Royal. Royal fit the bill then. We all prefer the smaller ships (Radiance class for the win!), and none of us, even the teens, are interested in the Oasis/Quantum/Icon ships. We’ve really enjoyed X, and I can see that being a choice in the future, but it seems like RCCL is blurring the lines between the two brands. I’m not interested in Coco Cay; we all prefer sea days to port days anyway. And being in Vancouver, unless we keep going to Alaska over and over, all cruises require a flight, which makes the trip that much more expensive and rules out short cruises. Flights to LA were relatively reasonable (cost and travel time), but we’ve done the Mexican riviera twice now, and there isn’t a lot of appetite to repeat that, especially if the service and food were disappointing on the only ship homeported there. We are *thisclose* to D+. Oldest kid will be 18 soon, and I’d like to get D+ before then so they get the benefits. But after that, I’m not sure we’ll still be Royal Loyals. Once we are no longer limited by school schedules and approach retirement, we’ll have more flexibility both with vacation dates/lengths and what we can do with our holiday time. In port, we saw Regent Seven Seas Grandeur and Viking Mars, and they sure looked interesting. (And when we don’t have to pay for kids to travel with us, why not go more upscale?) We understand full well that cruise lines are businesses, and as such will offer what their target market wants and is willing to pay for. But, it sure does seem that Royal’s target audience no longer includes us.

I definitely noticed the change of service, particularly with respect to our stateroom. Our party of 5 was in two junior suites, with different stateroom attendants. My mom’s experience was pretty much normal, other than not meeting her attendant until a couple of days into the cruise. Ours was not as we’ve come to expect: - our stateroom attendant was hard to find during the cruise, and as he didn’t provide a card with his contact details, we couldn’t reach him. - I’d arranged for distilled water and an extension cord before our cruise. We had to ask for it again upon boarding. Once provided, the extension cord was run across the room, unsecured. (On X last year, our attendant taped it to the floor so it wasn’t a trip hazard.) The first night, I placed a nightlight (battery-operated tealight) along the cord, so anyone needing to get up during the night would have some indication that it was there. Once we were able to talk to our attendant, he seemed surprised that this was a problem for us. After some thought, he solved it rather elegantly, by using magnetic hooks to run it along the cabin ceiling and walls. - we had to ask repeatedly for some things, like (C&A) bathrobes and laundry forms. - we asked for wine glasses, which were only sometimes replaced after use. (Other used glasses/mugs were also left for a day or more.) - our bathroom didn’t have a soap dish. I put our bar of soap on the box it came in, and on day 3 finally got to ask the attendant about it. He said he had no soap dishes, and suggested using a washcloth. (Maybe I’m expecting too much, but he couldn’t he have replaced the soggy cardboard box with a washcloth when he saw soapy mess?) My mom’s JS had a soap dish - and more toiletries, too. - we couldn’t find tissues. When we asked the attendant, he said they no longer place them in the bathroom (or indeed the tissue holder in the loo). Instead, the box was tucked into a drawer in the dressing table/desk. (In my mom’s room, the tissue was indeed in the box holder in the bathroom.) - our cruise had four time changes. Each time, we saw that other cabins had notification cards slipped into the seapass readers; we didn’t receive any. - we had to ask for the sofa bed to be made up for our son - and it was left open through the whole cruise. On port days, it was less of an annoyance, but we’d have really preferred it closed on sea days. (With the bed open, access to the balcony was impeded, and the very comfy armchair and ottoman had to be squished into a corner.) But, being that we never saw our attendant after day 3, we couldn’t ask him to close the bed. I’m not sure which department was ultimately responsible, but we didn’t receive any of the Diamond treats, the “chef’s choice”. My mom received two (or three?) deliveries, and we received none. Even the “welcome waters” were fewer than we should have received. If we hadn’t received these on previous cruises - or had another stateroom in our party, with which we would compare - we wouldn’t have noticed. But, again, we’ve been doing this long enough to have expectations, and those weren’t met. A cruise is a cruise, and I’m still grateful that we could do this trip. But, meh.

We disembarked Navigator yesterday, and agree. We’ve been cruising with Royal since 2013, and I guess I’ve become one of “those people” who compares to the way things used to be. The smaller portion sizes are fine, but the reduced menu is disappointing. (I will forever miss those chilled fruit soups!) The food in the MDR wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t great, and sometimes it wasn’t even good. It was bland. I’ve attached a photo of one meal, which I didn’t even finish: the fish was blah, and the rice was a compressed puck of mush (the rice grains were indistinct). Tiramisu was on the menu one evening - and served in a plastic dish. We normally choose my time dining, but it didn’t begin until 6:45, which was too late for one in our party. We ended up with traditional dining, and a 5:15 reservation, which was too early for all of us. What’s worse is that we felt very rushed, as our table needed to be turned over for the start of MTD. Dishes were being removed while members of our party were still eating. A few times, when we were asked if we wanted more bread and said no, the baskets which still had bread were taken away. (We didn’t want more, but we did want what was still there!) The staff seemed rushed and inattentive. The assistant waiter continually asked for our drink orders the moment we sat down; each time, we had to ask him for the wine list and time to consider it before ordering. The bar waiter would stand behind me and my husband and call out the names of the wine; we had no idea she was even talking to us, and couldn’t hear her clearly because of the background noise. One evening, I stood up from our table, turned to leave, and immediately tripped over a stand for an ice bucket. It had been placed right behind my chair. On subsequent nights, I had to ask that it be moved so I wouldn’t trip on it again. On prior cruises, the dining room staff was eager to exceed expectations and help with any requests. Early in a lengthy B2B, our waiter quickly realised that one of our kids ordered fruit as a starter each evening; he thoughtfully brought a fruit plate each evening before we even ordered. That same kid asked about chicken noodle soup on our first night in the MDR, and the waiter just said no, without even checking if it could be available. The Windjammer was disappointing too. The offerings seemed limited in comparison to previous cruises. On New Year’s Eve, due to the combination of that early dining time and a tender port, we are at the Windjammer. That’s when we discovered that the MDR entrees were no longer offered in the WJ. We did enjoy meals in Chops and Jamie’s Italian. We were surprised, though, when the warm brownie desserts on offer at Jamie’s also appeared the next night on the MDR menu. (Kids had those in both places, and confirmed they were the same.) To me, it seemed odd to have the same item in a specialty (paid) restaurant and the main (included) dining room. If this had been our first cruise, our perception might have been different. But given all the meals we have previously enjoyed in the MDR (and maybe because our preceeding cruise was on X, and we ate almost all of our meals in Luminae, which was excellent), we expected better.

Route as per Marine Traffic. All the way back to the pier, and then out again.

I saw a tweet about Brilliance, and was checking here to see if there was more info.

Same problem, came here to see if others were having it. Thanks to those who explained how to fix it!