mguag Posted January 18, 2018 Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 Would love to hear compliments and complaints from first time cruisers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mguag Posted January 18, 2018 Author Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 Completed my first RC cruise on Jan.14, 2017. Not sure if I am a steadfast "cruiser" yet. Things I liked: Staff in general outstanding, especially dining and room attendants Food at dining excellent Room size adequate Shows very good Entertainment excellent. Especially enjoyed piano player at Schooners, and Jazz guitar player. Things I disliked: Overwhelming feeling of too many people. Elevators often crowded, pools and hot tubs too crowded, pool area bars and restaurants too crowded. I remedied this by avoiding these areas and finding a couple of venues less popular. Used the stairs mainly to avoid elevator crowds. My pet peeve is no way to communicate with group I was with on board ship (unless in room), unless each person purchased expensive wifi pkg. Because these ships carry thousands of people, the way to create intimate settings is to travel with a group. To enhance this experience, RC should provide texting ability free of charge to enhance the "exclusive" experience they market. Otherwise, nothing about it feels exclusive. Did not like the constant market hustling in common areas, pushing raffle tickets and merchandise sales. In full disclosure, I did not take this cruise to shop or spend more money than I already did to buy the cruise and drink package. Ports were overall a disappointment. San Juan was nice, could have used more time to see more of it. St Thomas not ready for cruisers. Despite the hurricane, seemed run down and not very inviting. In full disclosure, did not take any excursions. Overall, I found ways to enjoy this cruise with my friends, but I spent a lot of money for this cruise to avoid things I did not like. UkuleleCruiser 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JLMoran Posted January 18, 2018 Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 @mguag, sorry to hear your first cruise couldn't be called fantastic overall. It does sound like, apart from the crowd control and the sales pitches, you were pretty satisfied with the ship at least. Which ship did you sail on? What kind of cabin did you stay in? Besides St. Thomas and San Juan, what other port(s) did you visit? San Juan is generally considered a "do your own thing and explore" kind of port, so no worries there about not taking formal excursions. I will be taking my first cruise in 72 days on Freedom of the Seas, doing an Eastern Caribbean trip to St. Kitts, St. Maarten, San Juan, and Labadee. I'll be happy to reply with details about my experience on this thread, although I'm likely to either live(ish) blog the trip or else do a summary report after I'm back. Regarding your pet peeve about communication, I believe the updated Royal Caribbean app that has been released is slated to include the free messaging feature you desire. Right now the app is only usable on a few of Royal's ships, but they plan to expand it to work on all ships in the fleet by the end of the year. I know that doesn't help what you experienced before, but I hope it demonstrates that Royal is seeing the need and working to remedy it. Also, a less expensive option if you don't expect to be sending a TON of messages is to use regular cell phone texting. Many here have noted that most US cell plans are pretty reasonable when outside the US, charging $0.50 or so for an outgoing text and often charging nothing for an incoming one. Not knowing who your carrier is, this may not have been an option, but wanted to be sure you knew about it for future cruises. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellcee Posted January 18, 2018 Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 34 minutes ago, mguag said: St Thomas not ready for cruisers. Probably not but they need the tourism $$ to build back up. St Thomas is one of my favorite islands and I'm going back this summer. They just need a little time. UkuleleCruiser 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UkuleleCruiser Posted January 18, 2018 Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 2 hours ago, mguag said: Completed my first RC cruise on Jan.14, 2017. Not sure if I am a steadfast "cruiser" yet. Things I liked: Staff in general outstanding, especially dining and room attendants Food at dining excellent Room size adequate Shows very good Entertainment excellent. Especially enjoyed piano player at Schooners, and Jazz guitar player. Things I disliked: Overwhelming feeling of too many people. Elevators often crowded, pools and hot tubs too crowded, pool area bars and restaurants too crowded. I remedied this by avoiding these areas and finding a couple of venues less popular. Used the stairs mainly to avoid elevator crowds. My pet peeve is no way to communicate with group I was with on board ship (unless in room), unless each person purchased expensive wifi pkg. Because these ships carry thousands of people, the way to create intimate settings is to travel with a group. To enhance this experience, RC should provide texting ability free of charge to enhance the "exclusive" experience they market. Otherwise, nothing about it feels exclusive. Did not like the constant market hustling in common areas, pushing raffle tickets and merchandise sales. In full disclosure, I did not take this cruise to shop or spend more money than I already did to buy the cruise and drink package. Ports were overall a disappointment. San Juan was nice, could have used more time to see more of it. St Thomas not ready for cruisers. Despite the hurricane, seemed run down and not very inviting. In full disclosure, did not take any excursions. Overall, I found ways to enjoy this cruise with my friends, but I spent a lot of money for this cruise to avoid things I did not like. Thank you for your comments. What ship was this? (You probably have already answered this later on!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UkuleleCruiser Posted January 18, 2018 Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 1 hour ago, ellcee said: Probably not but they need the tourism $$ to build back up. St Thomas is one of my favorite islands and I'm going back this summer. They just need a little time. Yeah. I told someone they should have "help rebuild" excursions, but my friend said no one would sign up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellcee Posted January 18, 2018 Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 1 hour ago, UkuleleCruiser said: Yeah. I told someone they should have "help rebuild" excursions, but my friend said no one would sign up. Hmmm...that's not an awful idea. I would do it if it included some part of fun....a boat ride with punch both ways would be enough for me. I get why people wouldn't want to though. UkuleleCruiser 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UkuleleCruiser Posted January 18, 2018 Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 26 minutes ago, ellcee said: Hmmm...that's not an awful idea. I would do it if it included some part of fun....a boat ride with punch both ways would be enough for me. I get why people wouldn't want to though. I'd do it for a sandwich. Seriously, how about a t-shirt? I'm in! Someone call RC Brass! ellcee 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Posted January 18, 2018 Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 Welcome back. Thanks for sharing your review with us! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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