A Royal Caribbean mixture – some good some not so good.

A party of 4 adults, two married couples celebrating anniversaries, age profiles 65-72. I handled all of the arrangements and booked a cruise only via Bolsover, why a cruise only, this was because we required an upgraded flight and whilst Bolsover provided an excellent service, I am surprised that they were unable to offer this facility, surely there is an opportunity for additional business here!!

With regards to the cruise, at the start we had a confusing start, the embarkation process was hectic, confusing and frustrating in equal degrees, thousands of cruise passengers milling around the concourse 7 hours before embarkation, the R.C. web site states that embarkation will only be allowed 2 hours before the ship’s departure time, 8 p.m.!!!! We had 8 cases plus 3 golf club bags for the four of us, I state this as we were told to take our luggage along with us along a que which stretched 200 meters, only by appealing to luggage handlers, along with a sizeable tip did we reach a solution. the remaining part of the administration of the embarkation went relativly smoothly, however the on-line check in information, made in advance had to be duplicated.

Once on board we received our luggage minus two cases, these two contained duty free whisky and after some 6 hours were told that we had to visit deck 1 for the staff to remove the alcohol before allowing us to carry the cases back to our cabins, the dreaded ‘no alcohol’ restriction, a policy NOT consistent with all cruise lines we subsequently found out. Only ship alcohol allowed at seriously exhorbitant prices, this policy however does not extend to soft drinks, also sold at similar prices on board.

The Adventure has only one ‘themed’ restaurant, and as a consequence is over booked, we were advised that additional restaurants will be added following a refit later this year.

We had booked golf games at three ports, before leaving the U.K., this also proved to be a problem as in most ports we docked well away from taxis’s and meant carrying heavy golf bags in 90″ heat, a porterage facility, at an additional cost, organised by R.C. would have been a welcome service.

The food offered was good, however followed a weekly menu and so as we were ‘back to back’ cruisers had the same menu as week one in week two.

Stays in ports were short, arriving at 8.00 and leaving at 17.00, on previous cruises we usually left port at 20.00, these early departures were unnecessary as on many sailings we were ‘parked’ at sea for long periods of time, perhaps a little cynical but passengers on board equals additional spending.

Since our last cruise, five years ago, we noticed a significant reduction in the age profile, many more teenagers, children and young families, add to that serious numbers of Americans, all makes for a noisy and biostrous mixture.

Staff at all levels were excellent, well trained, motivated, pleasant and attentive.