Lombert

Just an update about the Manhattan trip. We get outside to the taxi place and asked if there was a van that could take us round Manhattan befor go to the Newark airport. And there was, for just a few dolar more than we did pay for the Royal Caribbean tour that was cancled. Now we are at the airport waiting for our flight. So we are happy this was possible. Thanks again for all feedback and suggestions! Me and my wife will make our comments about the small issues we tought there was onboard in the Survey later..

We need to be at Newark at 2pm, plane leave at 5pm. The Cruise have being good, we dont regret it. If it just being the tea bag, no deal, or just something else neither no deal. It was just the cancle of the last road trip that made the bad fealing and the lack of help. We realy try to have backup plans for everything, but not the things that was thru Royal Caribbean, I did not think ”they” cancle a trip like that. But now I know that also need backup plans. Thanks again for all feedback! Next Cruise is from Barcelona to Athen, I hope we will be on that..

Thanks. We are going to Newark. I checked with same company that tok us to the terminal last week, they wanted 68-89$ from ship in to midtown Manhattan. And similar price back to Newark. So now we just planing where on Manhattan we want to be an hour befor we need to get back.

Thanks! We will see what we will do. Thanks again for your positive answer and suggestions.

Thanks for all givning feedback! Sorry my English is too bad for this forum, thought it was for discussing things and events related to Royal Caribbean. Not language care.

that's right, doesn't have English as a first language, is from Sweden. so I usually use translation if there are longer texts.

We just get an update about the roundtrip to Manhattan. They want 800$/per to make that trip. So that is not an option. The cost with the bus was 350$ for the whole family.

Hi. Yes we understand that, it was just the way they told us. As we travel with children I wanted all things to be ready and just work. About the Tea, it was just an example there the service not worked. There are alot of Tea if you search for it, it was just the way that they not helped.

Hi. We are stil on the ship. Gets back tomorrow.

Apologies for a long post! Is it the size of the ship that makes the service worse? It becomes more personal when there are fewer guests. We are on the Oasis of the Sea, the last day and several small incidents (and one big one) make us wonder if the level of service follows the size of the ship or if we should simply just accept and like the situation? We went with Voyager of the Sea last summer and it was an absolutely brilliant trip, there were small mistakes, but they could be overlooked as the level of service was so high. One specific event made all other annoying things irrelevant. The children have no great vices, hardly eat anything, and are content with what they get, but they like apple juice, and when they got it in the main dining room, they were very happy. They were served apple juice every evening, but on the 3-4th day the staff said that unfortunately it had run out, they didn't even have the kind you have in drinks left. The children were of course sad, but accept it. But the waiting staff who had our table did not. The next day, she gets off the ship, goes to a competing boat next to it on the pier and asks for some cans of apple juice. (We understand that's what she does, because the mark on the cans is unobtainable in the country we were in, so it must have come from another ship.) For this person, it was so important that two small children were happy that she did this service and it made our whole trip a full score, although there were many small things that could have been annoyed. We decided just a few weeks later to go for a much more expensive and more advanced trip for us, flying across the Atlantic to go with the great Oasis of the sea. I have gone 7-8 times but never with larger boats than the Voyager class. For my wife it is the third trip and for the children the second. We indulge in it, take a bigger, more expensive cabin, book extra excursions and buy packages. We are so excited to go on this big awesome ship. Everything starts well, the cabin is big and nice, there is a dirty towel that we get replaced immediately when we say so. The first evening and the following day are only as pleasant as you can expect. The next morning we come up to breakfast and see that the Earl gray tea bag is gone. It is, for us, an important thing. It is the tea that we drink. It has always been available on all the cruise ships we have been on, It is probably the most common type of tea, so it is always available. So you don't have to bring it from home. But this morning it was out. We ask the staff if they can refill, and they say, as they always do, that of course they will. We think that of course things can run out, and there are sure to be new bags the next morning. We continue to have a good time. The morning after there are still no tea bags, we ask an employee in a white shirt (more in charge) why the tea bags are out? The person said they were no left on the boat. We think it sounds very strange, but accept it, and assume it will be topped up the next day when we get to Florida. We continue with the journey but a gnawing feeling begins to take hold in the head, there are several things that rub, do not feel quite right. Small things that you don't think about in the first few days. What menus look like, what was served and the like. On the third evening, we react to the fact that there is no great variety on the menu in the dining room, it should be Mexican evening and there are a few Mexican roots. I think it felt a bit strange, why have a themed menu if it doesn't follow the theme. Let it be, not much to do about it. Don't like grilled chicken, so instead I take the fried chicken breast that is available as an alternative. And it was unfortunately a really sad experience. Thinking as one does, that it was a bad day in the kitchen and we continue our journey. When we get to breakfast the next morning and there are still no teabags it really gets annoying, we ask again and, well they're out. We have a wonderful day at Coco Cay and go to have lunch, it is as good as you can imagine it can be off the boat, when after the meal we ask where we can find a cup of coffee that the wife always wants, they say that it is not there and you have to go back to the boat to drink it. I, who don't even drink coffee, react with great surprise that they have made such a choice, why don't you have a coffee machine on the island, understand that you don't have it everywhere, but not in any restaurant? You swallow it, but the annoying feeling continues. The evening offers a Caribbean menu, and it is the same as the night before, only a few dishes, the rest have nothing to do with the theme. I understand that it is so, I just think it's a strange choice. And I probably wouldn't have reacted to it if I didn't already have that annoying feeling inside me. To the point, it should be said that the children have received exactly the same menu every night, however, they now have a different design, but it is the same food on them, but why make two (or more) designs without thinking that you can change something in the menu? When they for the fourth day eat the same dinner because they don't like anything else on the menu, then you as a parent get sad. The children are 6 and 10 and fussy as children can be. Then comes the 5th day and now everything will break. We get up to breakfast and still no tea bags, we tell each other we'll buy our own when we disembark in Nassau. We come down to the room and find an envelope with a message that the help we have paid for the last day is canceled and nothing more than "good luck and solve this yourself". We are very surprised by this, go and ask what happened and meet a wall. There is no one who wants to take responsibility and help us. We struggle with this all day, the excursion to walk around Nassau is like 20 minutes, then we go back to the boat and all the joy of being on vacation just disappears. We keep trying to get help, but everyone is pointing in different directions. What we have ordered and planned the trip for was to get a tour of Manhattan during the day before our flight back to Europe in the evening, we didn't want to have to sit in the airport all day with two children, so we chose to pay the right amount per person to rather sit on a bus and actually see something. Since we knew we would see Manhattan on the last day, we chose not to stay there the day before we boarded the boat. Then receiving this message when we are in the middle of the trip, and have very little opportunity to do anything ourselves to fix it, made it just burst. When we are going to have lunch on the same day, it was just too much, all these little things that you ignore, because you are having such a good time, just appear in front of your eyes. You realize that it has been the same food every lunch, the children only have to choose from the same things even here every day, we simply become apathetic. One of the staff asks if everything is fine, as they always do, and you normally always answer that everything is perfect even though it really wasn't, because you don't want to cause trouble. But now we replied that we think it was crap. (Apologies for the choice of words, but we said so). The staff apologizes and asks to get a superior who is coming, we tell the same story you just read about the food and this person also apologizes and asks to get another manager, one of the cooks comes out and he says that unfortunately it is this they have to serve nowadays. But if we want and ask for it, he will fix something else, especially for the children, we thank him for the offer but unfortunately we have the idea that it is just something he says and how will we be able to get in touch with him next time, and will he even remember us? So we leave and just want the trip to end. We are further trying to solve how to get out of the terminal on the last day for any help we still have not received, when late at night I go down in another attempt to get help at least get an offer to go on a bus to the airport but not even close to what we ordered the first time, the only offer they can give us is a full day at the airport.. My wife is so fed up with the company now, she tells me she wants us to cancel the next one year's trip that we ordered. She is so sad. The next morning, my wife says she'll go down to the cafeteria and see what's there and then we'll meet upstairs at breakfast. When we get up she is sitting with a cup of tea, in the cafe there were any number of tea bags, so the boat was not out of them, no one on the Windjammer had any desire to consult with the rest of the boat and see if they could solve a request from a customer. Then I started to think about whether it is too big boats? Will it be like different companies, in the different areas? You only have your own department, you have no contact with the rest? Is it more convivial on the smaller boats? It must be said that the staff are as always very helpful, the food is well prepared, and under normal circumstances we probably wouldn't have complained, because we really aren't whiners, we accept what is and let time pass. We are still looking to see if we can get help to have a nice last day, we met one of the staff who actually sympathized with us, and would see if they could arrange a private trip for us, taking us a couple hours around Manhattan. So the children can tell their schoolmates that they got to see the tall buildings up close, which they have been talking about all year. Haven't received any news yet, I don't think we'll get one either, unfortunately, but got the suggestion to ask at the taxi line at the terminal if there was any car that could consider making the trip around Manhattan before we go to the airport..