This was our 3rd Royal Caribbean cruise and we had previously had no problems with the company.
We should have realised that there was something not right when we did not get the dinner sitting we had requested when booking 8 months before sailing.
On embarkation we found out that there was a block booking of 1800 russian passengers on board and it was clear that this had been booked for many months previously.
Unfortunately having a large contingent such as this changed the whole dynamlic of the ship and compromised the cruise experience.
There was evidence of passenges having to endure significant upheaval due to the block booking such ans not getting the cabins they had booked (ie being put into inside cabins in stead of the outside/balcony cabins that they had booked), our inconvenience of not getting the later dinner sitting appeared trivial in comparison to some of the other issues, however it was still a significant inconvenience for us and spoilt what should have been a great holiday.
The ship was excellent – great activities, the shows were fantastic, the itinary was everything we had hoped it would be.
The staff on board were, without exception extreemly professional, helpful, friendly, and did everything they could to negate some of the negative and at times arrogant and rude behaviour of the passengers who were part of the block booking.
I think Royal Caribbean were negligent in not informing people who were booking onto this cruise of the potential for the disruption that a block booking such as this could cause and i will be very wary of booking with them in future.
We were made to feel like second class passengers and i know this is a feeling shared by many others on the cruise.
( i am rating this cruise as 2 for service – this is not a reflection of the service by the staff on board but of the company due to the reasons stated above.)
