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“having cruised 5 times with 3 other cruise lines i...”

written by on 25/04/2010

having cruised 5 times with 3 other cruise lines i feel i have a good overall knowledge for comparisons - my party consisted of 4 adults with 2 children.

when i booked with royal caribbean i genuinly thought i was upgrading to a higher level of cruising.

"oops" how wrong can one be:- the staff service was actually no better or worse than any of my previous cruises so no probs there -

the buffet was far inferior than on previous cruises , plus the short opening hours were often inconvenient - we were unable to get an early sitting in the restaurant (apparently its a lottery system) so booked for 9.30 sitting food started arriving about 10pm (try making your family and children wait till 10pm for food when thay are used to eating at about 6.30pm).

the stage entertainment was o.k but not as good as previous cruises -

the deck entertainment when it was on was poor-

2 hour que to get on the climbing wall

the solarium and pool was often to cold for comfort

the day excursions were overly expensive, i had been to two locations previously with thomson cruises and the same tour cost approximately double with this cruise line

we decided to do our own exploring at some destinations but the help and advice we could get from R.C was very inadequate , they grudgingly gave us a photocopied map sheet that had lots of the information missing ,it did not show the bus stop/train/taxi locations or even the point of departure (ie where the ship was on the map) and many street names missing, talking to other passengers we think the reason was to discourage us from not buying their tours.

the only thing that i can praise was the kids clubs, very well organised and secure with lots to do.

they say you can judge a company by its actions when things go wrong -- well this is where RC really showed themselves up:-

we arrived in venice during the volcano cloud (which we understand was a natural disaster with no one to blame) but the way R.C treated us was nothing short of disgraceful, on the ship they assured us arrangements were being made for us , they then said they would tell us our arrangements after the coach transfer , instead they gave us all a phone number in u.s.a that would not work from europe, - they had lied, they had made no arrangements whatsoever. (note! not just my family but all the other passengers) we were left on the pavement with no help or assistance , eventually found own hotel (at £250 per night plus food costs)after 3 nights we were invited to join a group of R.C passengers who had independently organised a coach to uk as they also had realised R.C were not going to assist us. (it cost me a total of £1700.travel & hotel to get my family home)

we booked this complete package deal through a well known travel agent - today we have found out that R.C refuses to even pay us back for the air fare that was canceled - and offered not a penny for anything else

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i would hate to think how RC would look after us if a problem had happened to the ship at sea!!