Royal Caribbean – France & Spain

Normally we cruise with P&O, and wanted to try an RC cruise so we could compare to see if the additional cost with RC is worthwhile in the future when booking. My main observations would be looking at reviews, most said you need to make bookings in advance to secure the times you want, so tried to do so for meals and shows. I found the app to be useless in doing this unless you were giving them money. You can book My Time Dining slots via the main web site, but not activities or entertainment. The reality when you board the ship is that the app then works very well, but you don’t book for any of the shows, the activities are free on port days but chargeable on sea days, and the MTD times don’t need booking as you wait no more than 5 minutes if you just walk up. Learnt that the complimentary activities times on port days e.g. North Star and IFly, are released on the app at 8pm the night before, but nobody tells you.
The entertainment variety / volume / quality on RC is massively better than P&O, and is spread all over the ship. The shows are very professional, although at times confusing as to the storyline, but very well staged and performed.
We don’t do speciality dining, but we’re on My Time Dinning, and they will allocate you to a set area of the same dinning room each day. Found the variety of food there to be very good and never had a complaint, better than P&O. However reviews before going all talked highly of the buffet options on board e.g. Windjammer, but we found every daytime option we had to be cold and despite the size, the options for main meals were very limited. Definitely better on P&O.
The cost of the drinks is prohibitive, and at half price the alcohol package would cost you £560 for 2 for the week we bought the Soda package for the week instead, but the cost of obligatory tips and the ridiculous amounts they wanted for excursions just felt like they were taking the mickey. One day tour of the Normandy beaches was £600 per person and I’d want them to re-enact it for that!
On our ports of call, La Rochelle is a lovely harbour town worth half a day with a free coach from the ship. Bilbao is a €10 each return coach from the ship and a lot bigger. La Coruna is walkable but is nothing special. Le Havre we walked half an hour and caught the train ourselves to Rouen approx an hour away for €25 each return, and this was by far the best destination, and is a beautiful medieval city based around Joan Of Arc. I have real a real problem with cruise ships preying on passengers fear of missing the ship to push them into paying for rip off excursions, and then some you get there and find they lay on a cheap coach? With a little research on the internet you can do it yourself for a fraction of the price and it’s more satisfying and much more fun !
It’s a bit obvious really to say, but with all the activities on the RC ships it does attract a younger crowd, and although we went in early June it was still full of kids. What was nice though was the Solarium area at the front of the ship was relaxing even on sea days, whereas the main pool at times was a zoo. If a P&O ship is busy at 9am and quite at 11pm, then an RC ship is exactly the opposite, so if you want to cruise on a budget and entertain yourself at an easy pace, go with P&O. If you are happy to spend and want to be entertained with late nights, then go with RC.