Ship Review: Great ship had a lot of fun. Staff and Food were excellent. Entertainment was great. Plenty of room to relax. Enough variety of things to do to keep everyone entertained.

Ship Review: Sixth trip on the Sensation and it never disappoints.

Excellent staff great food great entertainment enough room for everyone.

Ship Review: Just completed a cruise on the Norwegian Escape on March the 12th. I read many reviews before I booked and was unsure of what awaited my wife and I on this BIG ship. We were worried there would be too many people to really enjoy this trip. This is our first long cruise (7days) and we worried about boredom also. I’m happy to say that it was a great experience! The only bad thing I have to say is getting around in Miami is an issue. From the time we arrived at the port and saw the ship, the trip was smooth as silk. Even getting our first drink at the bar while in port was easy with no waiting. For the entire trip we had no more than a 5 minute wait for anything, even the popular restaurants. We had a balcony near the aft end on deck 11. It was a great room and our steward, Rohan, was the most attentive and accommodating service person we could wish for. The rest of the staff were also very friendly and service oriented, from the wait service at the restaurants to the bartenders. We were treated like royalty, even without being in a suite or the Haven. Many of the service crew recognized us by name when they saw us and that just made the trip even better. We have been to several all-inclusive resorts, and this ship had more quality amenities than they did. We got the beverage and dining package, and it was better than most all-inclusives. There were very few beverages we couldn’t get, and if you really wanted Hennessy XO or J. Walker blue, you just spent the difference! The food at all the restaurants was outstanding, even the free ones. I would definitely recommend this cruise for anyone, even seniors (my wife and I are in our 60’s).

Ship Review: So in fairness, this review is about Princess and not the Ruby Ship. This is becasue our cruise never happened! Let me explain.

We (my wife and I along with my parents) have been long-time cruisers with Princess and very happy until a recent unfortunate cancellation of our cruise (Ruby ship departing LA, 01Oct 16 Cruise #R638). The cancellation was described to us as simply being "redeployed" but in actuality was cancelled because they were not profiting enough from this 7-day cruise (verified on March 15 when I called one of their Customer Service Rep), and they simply cancelled it at the expense of their customers who already planned and booked their holidays!


This is the first time they have done this to us and the last. Their only reply was that they notified us well in advance and that we now have $15 each in additional cruise credits if we rebook. The issue is not in the notification, burt in the way they terated us as "loyal" customers. This to me is simply not a way to treat long-time customers. I mention this here that we will never book again with Princess as there is absolutely no guarantee that they will do this again to us or anyone else for that matter, not to mention their inability to understand that a $15 pp cruise credit is simply insulting. I would understand if it were for reasons beyond their control. But to cancel for profit reasons and lay it on their customers is simple "wrong". Never again and bon voyage as we and my parents will never do business with them again - ever.

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Ship Review: This was our 6th cruise sailing with Royal Caribbean and the second time on the Adventure of the Sea. We sailed on a number of cruise lines including Carnival, Norwegian & Princess. To be honest, we felt this time around, the cruise on the Adventure of the Sea was not up to par compared to our previous experiences.
My wife and I felt improvements are needed on this Royal Caribbean ship, especially for the entertainment offered on the pool deck & lacking production shows, if they want to keep up with the other cruise lines.
We realize were on a Caribbean Cruise, but that Caribbean music by the same group over and over for seven days, playing the same style music, gets boring. We have been on other cruise lines that have way more variety for their pool deck entertainment.
In addition, of the seven nights & only two nights with production shows with the Royal Caribbean singers & dancers, we felt the entertainment lacked. In addition, why did was a production show scheduled on Super Bowl Night?? That made no sense what so ever. One night in place of a production show was a mediocre comedian, anther night was an impressionist & then anther was a flutist. The night the flutist played the theater was not even half full; we never ever saw a so called production show lacking so much audience. Then to top it off, before the first song was even over, rows of people including my wife & I got up and left. We felt this was the worst show we ever witnessed on a cruise ship.
We also felt the food this time around was not up to par also, especially in the Windjammer Lunch Buffet. Thank god there were hamburgers every day, it lacked variety. I wanted to mention the great service we received from Alina Khafizova every day at the Windjammer Buffet, and she even filled in as our assistant waiter at dinner, she went over and beyond, very helpful & friendly.
We did observe on a number of occasions though that the tables in the Windjammer do not get cleaned properly. It seems the tables are wiped off with just a rag with no cleaning spray of any sort, so they are left streaky & unclean.
I was totally shocked to witness a couple tables being wiped off by a left over cloth napkin after clearing there dishes.
The main dining room food had good & bad choices. The chicken marsala was terrible, thick chunks of chicken, not pounded & tenderized, that were very tough. The marsala sauce was very bland / tasteless. Another night deep fried fish was served, we could not eat it. Why not broil it instead?? We even told the female waiter in charge of the dining room that improvements need to be addressed if she wants to keep up with the other cruise lines. Also, we noticed you could only get shrimp cocktail on formal nights and they did away with it on the other nights. In September of 2015 we wailed on the Norwegian Breakaway and I had mentioned at our dining table that the one thing we really liked about Royal Caribbean was they served shrimp cocktail every night and then to find out the first night of the cruise Royal did away with it. As far as our wait staff team, Rommel Isidro and Maksym Kolesnikob were both outstanding.
Our stateroom attendant was outstanding, friendly & helpful l. She always left our room spotless & cozy. The refrigerator in our cabin did not chill anything and needed to be replaced.
I must mention, something needs to be done for safety reasons especially when entering the Ice Show. When those doors open it’s like a stampede, there needs to be some order when entering. Also, Royal Caribbean management needs to inform their staff of the saving seats for the show. I mean people were saving rows of seats. I had mentioned to a few of the attendants that it is not fair to save that many seats at one time, but nothing was done to correct it. I blame management for not training them properly. We were in line 15 minutes prior to the show and ended up sitting 2 rows apart because of all the seat saving, there was no order what so ever.
My wife & I feel Royal Caribbean Cruises went downhill since our first one. But if these changes could be addressed, they could be back on top like years ago.

Ship Review: Our experience with Viking was terrible! We had previously taken a river cruise with Viking, and although there were problems with that trip we still decided to try them one more time. The second time was worse, far worse!
It began when Viking was two weeks late (beyond their on declared time line) in sending us our air reservations. I had to call to prompt them to send the reservations. The overseas flights that they arranged for us had terrible seat assignments and when I tried to change these seats with American Airlines I found that Viking had completely botched the reservations. The information for the couple that we were traveling with was switched with ours. After several hours on the phone with American they informed me that I would have to get Viking to straighten it out. Viking was resistant, claiming that it was American’s problem. After hours more on the phone with Viking I finally got them to cancel the air reservations and get us new reservations. The seat assignments were even worse but at least the personal info was correct so I could go out and pay up to get decent seats. All in all I spent approximately 10 hours on the phone with Viking and American in order to get our air reservations straightened out. I spoke to ten different Viking employees and almost all of them were unapologetic and resistant to helping. I had to get angry and demand to speak to a supervisor to even get help!
After all this, the ocean cruise was fairly nice except that the shore excursions were poorly chosen. We paid $100-200 for several excursions that took us to small, quaint villages that were largely closed up for the winter – no shops or restaurants to visit! All you could do was walk the empty streets.
Needless to say, we have traveled with Viking for the last time!

Ship Review: I was very pleased with the Solstice which is a large ship but has a much smaller ship feel. Very stable in moderate seas.

Food was very good in the main dining room but seating was confusing and sometimes very slow. Wait staff was very good and kept things moving along quite well.

Entertainment was good for the most part but a few shows where not to our liking but most guests enjoyed the presentations.

We only did private shore tours.

The nickel and dime for everything is getting out of hand and pricing really getting absurd. $4 US for a can of Coke!

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