Not Impressed with Empress

[itching2cruiseagain]

I'm sure there will be many posts regarding the inaugural reintroduction of the Empress. Empress is very pretty and I will say that the majority of the staff were helpful and accommodating. Guest Services and Loyalty desks, not so much. There were so many issues on board. Hopefully they can resolve some of the issues, but I think it would need to go back into dry-dock to make that happen. Many people did not have AC in their cabins, half of the dining room and half of the casino also did not have working AC. There were some sewage issues on the lower decks. There were numerous issues in the newly refurbished galley. I will get into more detail later, but I have to get to work right now.

[ctsharpie05]

Following

[poncho1973]

SHOCKING!!!

 

The entire fleet averages 130,000 GT ships who are 10 years old.

 

A ship that is <50,000 GT and 26 years old is unimpressive????

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not sure what people were expecting on this ship. Not to mention the fact that the % of rooms (it's getting up to 60% or more on some ships) that are balconies goes up every year and this ship has like a couple dozen at most? (I don't even think it's even close to 5% of the room total???? but that's a guess)

[ryano]

I'm not sure what people were expecting on this ship.

 

My guess is they were expecting flushing toilets, AC and other very basic things one would expect on any cruise but yet some aren't getting.

 

This ship is a turd. After drydock, it sounds like its just a shiny turd now. Should have been scrapped.

Edited June 2, 2016 by ryano

[itching2cruiseagain]

I will try to give as many details as possible, good and bad. Please feel free to ask questions. I will post some pictures as well.

Embarkation was easy and fast. We are Diamond and we were in a Junior Suite, but none of the lines seemed too long. Windjammer was a bit of a mess, but that is normal on the first day of most cruises.

The room......

This is just my opinion, the new carpet and bedding are very modern and tasteful. I like the color scheme. The towels were very soft as were the robes. Everything was new and clean.

We took our two college aged boys with us and told them they were in a regular cabin right near our junior suite. In reality they had the Junior Suite next to us. When we opened the door of the Junior Suites, we were surprised at how small they were. Looking back, the size is listed on the Royal website and it really is the size of a balcony. I will post some pics later. We have stayed in Royal, Grand, and Junior Suites and Balconies, IMHO this room is a Balcony. It has a small triangular shower, the walk-in closet is very small, there are three drawers and a few cubby-like shelves. The safe was pretty high for me, I am 5'2. Also no fridge.

[itching2cruiseagain]

trying to post pictures

[itching2cruiseagain]

more room pics

[itching2cruiseagain]

There were no lounges (Diamond nor Concierge). There was a postcard in the room

[itching2cruiseagain]

There was also a letter from the Casino as we are Club Royale members. The Casino Host, Luis, was very nice. We did have a great time in the casino.

[Destaw71835]

Thanks for sharing. You're in a suite and there is no mini fridge? Wow.

[Cindy]

SHOCKING!!!

 

I'm not sure what people were expecting on this ship.

 

If I had to guess, I would assume they were expecting the basics...a functioning sanitation system, air conditioning, and a decent variety of food choices. From the sounds of the reports, none of that was provided on a consistent basis. To me, the only "SHOCKING!!!" thing is that Royal Caribbean would sail a ship with those obvious shortcomings!

[BeachChik]

My guess is they were expecting flushing toilets, AC and other very basic things one would expect on any cruise but yet some aren't getting.

 

This ship is a turd. After drydock, it sounds like its just a shiny turd now. Should have been scrapped.

 

^this and lol at the turd comments.

 

I don't understand why some act like people should be ok paying for something that is subpar. I've been reading all the threads and I would have been very unhappy being on this cruise as I imagine most would have been.

[itching2cruiseagain]

I uploaded the menus for the first 4 nights from the Starlight dining room. Our waiters were really nice and tried very hard despite the long kitchen delays. The food was pretty good for what it is. The Beef Tenderloin was excellent. Ours was all cooked perfectly medium rare and very tender. They didn't always have the menu items listed, but I expect some issues on an inaugural. One funny note, they ran out of ice cream I believe the second night. The last night when we ate in Chops our waiter told us the freezer was fixed and we could have ice cream. We recognized the maitre d' in Chops from a previous cruise and he was nice. Again, our waiter was very nice, though they were understaffed and the kitchen was excessively slow. We were there for more than two and a half hours, but the food was good. I did not get a picture of the Chops menu, but it was pretty much the same as the other ships. They were also out of spinach in Chops that night.

[itching2cruiseagain]

IMHO the pool on this ship is way too small. There is only one pool and a there are a few hot tubs (3 if I remember correctly). There was also a small sort of kid area, really small. There were kids in the hot tubs, some of them with snorkels. I ventured into the pool a couple of times, just to cool off but it was so crowded. There was no way I was getting in those hot tubs. There were 3 outdoor showers that I saw, 2 of which weren't working. The third one was working, but after a while only very hot water came out. I saw someone with stripes walking by and told them. Less than 10 minutes later I saw maintenance working on it. That was impressive, however when he finished the water was still too hot to use. I just wanted to get under to cool off instead of going in the overcrowded pool.

I was told by a few different crew members that this ship will be going to Cuba in about a month and a half. If it used for port intensive cruises the small pool won't be that much of an issue. For a cruise like we took with two sea days, it seemed to be an issue.

[itching2cruiseagain]

Cuba seems to be the reason they refurbished this ship. According to a crew member all other Royal ships including the Enchantment and Majesty are too big to dock in Cuba. It would take too long to build a new ship, thus they used the Empress which is small enough to dock in Cuba.

[itching2cruiseagain]

I really missed going to the Diamond Lounge for my morning cappuccino. One morning I went to the coffee shop which was a counter in Boleros and bought one, but it wasn't very good.

Guest Services desk was very crowded. Besides the many problems on board they did not have kiosks, nor the ability to look at you bill on the TV, which I believe led to even longer lines. The phone in my room wasn't working properly and I had to go to the desk a few times until they replaced it. The wait times were really long. One time in the middle of the day the line seemed shorter. There were 4 representatives with only 2 passengers being helped. I was third in line. When they finished with those 2 people, it took about 20 minutes until they started helping anyone. By the time they did, the line had about 15 more people in it. During that 20 minutes they would whisper to each other, type on their keyboards and go to the back office and come back out. That was one of the few areas that the staff was not very nice.

Our hot water also did not always work. I had to take a couple of cold showers.

I know other people had much worse conditions in their rooms than I did such as sewage and no AC. I am just trying to relay what it was like on board.

[riclop]

Lots of bad comments already.

[JamesEM]

Thanks for your posts, sounds more like a camping trip instead of a cruise.

[xxHadleyxx]

I'm not sure what people were expecting on this ship. Not to mention the fact that the % of rooms (it's getting up to 60% or more on some ships) that are balconies goes up every year and this ship has like a couple dozen at most? (I don't even think it's even close to 5% of the room total???? but that's a guess)

 

As a fan of the smaller, older ships, I can tell you that I expect much smaller staterooms and pools which don't hold many--but I also expect (on any ship of any age or size) that all ship functions like a/c and sewage and on deck showers will be in working order and that the ship will be adequately stocked with a variety of food and that the galley can handle providing that food in a reasonable time frame to all passengers on board. It sounds like all of those latter things were missing on this cruise (based on multiple reports).

Edited June 3, 2016 by NHDisneylover

[poncho1973]

My comment wasn't that they shouldn't expect basic functions. My comment was that this ship should've been junked and has no place in this fleet from everything reported over the last 6 months.

 

I was thinking there was a tiny chance this ship might be worth a peek at some point, but my overwhelming feeling was that this ship wasn't even worth that. Honestly, though, I was semi-excited for a minute or two. Then I thought my gut feeling was probably more likely, but wanted to read the reviews.

 

Seems like the gut feeling that it was a junker was correct.

 

 

It's 3x as old as the average ship in the fleet. It's 1/3 the size of the average ship in the fleet. It has almost none of the amenities that the rest of the fleet has.

 

My point was: I find it SHOCKING that anyone with half a brain thought this was going to be the new cool thing in cruising. Read some of the threads. People were glorifying Empress all over the place. This was their favorite old ship. She was returning to her proper place in the fleet. She was born for this chance. She is the best.

 

It was pure nostalgia.

[ctsharpie05]

My comment wasn't that they shouldn't expect basic functions. My comment was that this ship should've been junked and has no place in this fleet from everything reported over the last 6 months.

 

I was thinking there was a tiny chance this ship might be worth a peek at some point, but my overwhelming feeling was that this ship wasn't even worth that. Honestly, though, I was semi-excited for a minute or two. Then I thought my gut feeling was probably more likely, but wanted to read the reviews.

 

Seems like the gut feeling that it was a junker was correct.

 

 

It's 3x as old as the average ship in the fleet. It's 1/3 the size of the average ship in the fleet. It has almost none of the amenities that the rest of the fleet has.

 

My point was: I find it SHOCKING that anyone with half a brain thought this was going to be the new cool thing in cruising. Read some of the threads. People were glorifying Empress all over the place. This was their favorite old ship. She was returning to her proper place in the fleet. She was born for this chance. She is the best.

 

It was pure nostalgia.

 

Half a brain? Nice. How about for some of us this is our first cruise ever. I booked this ship based off of RCI's website. There were no REVIEWS to base my decision. I had a price I needed to stay at and Ports I wanted and the Empress fit. The issues here are things that should have been fixed in a 50 million $ overhaul. This is 100% on RCI not the passengers.

[Pratique]

My point was: I find it SHOCKING that anyone with half a brain thought this was going to be the new cool thing in cruising. Read some of the threads. People were glorifying Empress all over the place. This was their favorite old ship. She was returning to her proper place in the fleet. She was born for this chance. She is the best.

 

It was pure nostalgia.

 

Maybe some said she was the best, back in her day.

 

A couple of hours ago on another thread someone on Empress posted that all is well since boarding yesterday. I'm still interested in hearing how things go over the next month or two.

[itching2cruiseagain]

Thanks for sharing. You're in a suite and there is no mini fridge? Wow.

 

We were pretty surprised at that too.

[Had2cruz]

Half a brain? Nice. How about for some of us this is our first cruise ever. I booked this ship based off of RCI's website. There were no REVIEWS to base my decision. I had a price I needed to stay at and Ports I wanted and the Empress fit. The issues here are things that should have been fixed in a 50 million $ overhaul. This is 100% on RCI not the passengers.[/quot

 

Well said! We did the same exact thing and this is our first RCI cruise. We've sailed Disney and Carnival in the past. We are on the 6/25 sailing. We have the best drink package and are hoping for the best. :)

[teknick]

Half a brain? Nice. How about for some of us this is our first cruise ever. I booked this ship based off of RCI's website. There were no REVIEWS to base my decision. I had a price I needed to stay at and Ports I wanted and the Empress fit. The issues here are things that should have been fixed in a 50 million $ overhaul. This is 100% on RCI not the passengers.

 

I am booked with friends on the June 16th sailing while we have been on been on nearly 30 cruises this will be our 1st with Royal I am excited to try a new experience and have been keeping up with the post to see how the first few cruises are going. I would like to tell you that based on my experiences I feel most of the issues will probably be resolved by the time you and your family are on it. I read one of your post that you were worrying about your children on sea days my suggestion is enroll them in the childrens programs they do an awesome job on every cruise I have ever been on and they organize a ton of actives on Sea days for them. My thoughts when going on a cruise is this its truly an opportunity to get away from the stresses on Land and let the waves take you where ever they want if you dont fight the current you will enjoy the ride.