Pandamonia

just be careful assuming all of royal ships are a similar experience. They are not. Food is also not better. It can be ALOT worse and also on occasion better. There has also been a marked change in the quality since pandemic. There can also be a difference between Euro and American sailings. There is very little consistency between ships. they also do not keep chairs and sun beds in storage. Not sure where that idea has come from. They might relocate them out of the shade in to the sun where possible but it’s still not enough. Compared to azura and Arvia I’ve been on there is nowhere near the same number of chairs. I do like royals big ships and indi is good too but the value of the holiday has gone now. Americans just want to screw every dollar out of you.

I had FCC to use and it had been many years. The ship is worse in every way than the first season. The same old tired shows are still on there. The performer who does the show in the 270 bar is the same guy now 8 years older. Same exact routine. The we will rock you show is the same also. I never expected that but the sun lounger problem was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. You are a prisoner to your sun bed. You can leave for 30 mins or you lose it and won’t get another until day is well over. It’s like the ship was hit by a hurricane and half the sun beds vanished. There were entire parts of the deck with nothing on them. Compare this to Arvia where every space at least had a chair or sun bed. I won’t ever sail that ship again neither would I ever consider any of the quantum class ships. I’ll be honest the royal offering has gone majorly down hill over the last few years. Make no mistake royal could not give a monkey about the European market. They just dump there ships here for lack of other places to send them. they even put up the daily gratuity to something like 38usd per cabin and stopped doing your room twice a day at the same time. I’ve been on most of the best ships royal has including wonder of the seas and I wouldn’t rate anthem even above the independence of the seas which is older.

Anthem sucks. Nobody I know likes that ship either. I was on the launch season and also last year. I’ve got 110 days at sea with royal. biggest problem is if you like a sun lounger or a seat at a bar either inside or out! I’m not kidding when I say there is nowhere to sit on that ship with Arvia having 10x more seats on the ship. Expect near fighting on a sea day over a sun lounger. staff are clueless and you will wonder why you are tipping everyone for doing a worse job than staff on P&O. I was told anthem was one of the worst rated ships in fleet by a staff member in a restaurant. He was amazing compared to others. the food will give you heartburn, bloating and generally feel like you are being poisoned if you are anything like me or my partner. They litterally sell food which has illegal ingredients which are banned for sale in the UK and EU. They have recently had food confiscated in UK ports and had to change supplier but it doesn’t stop them stocking up in America. My Arvia cruise was the first time I didn’t spend 14 days on nexium. the staff are very friendly due to fear of bad reviews. Expect to be upsold on everything and harassed to buy junk and photos all around the ship. It’s a very different experience. prices on board are poor value because USD and 18% hidden tip inside all prices. Excursions are terrible value unlike P&O. Drinks packages are a rip off and so are all the other packages. ships are better for kids

probably the biggest disappointment of the things I booked. after 2 hours waiting and a bottle of wine the chance of enjoying the singing was long gone. Something had clearly gone wrong as the duration was 2 hours on the planner and it went on for well over 3. We walked out at 10:15pm having been there since 7:20.

It was rubbish on Arvia. took 2 hours for food to come out and food was tiny portions and boring. He didn’t sing until after food. ray quin almost put me and the gf to sleep with his singing. Good chance you will be seated in the back unless you want to queue up early. depends if this your thing or not.

no it makes it better. Or they would need more charter flights and clearly there is a problem finding airlines who are willing to sell you a charter. makes me wonder why airlines do charter flights at all. The only reason I think is because TUi isn’t busy in the winter months.

I’m happy P&O does the flights. the alternative is worse trust me. Go look what a carribean cruise looks like from Royal inc a flight to Miami. Comes out double P&O.

flights were £400 for someone who did this in December.

I ended up getting extra legroom on the way out and then extra space on the way back for free. Didn’t book any seats or pay anything. It was crazy how that worked out. the extra space seats suck though. The toilet is a right pain. People keep standing in your space and treading on your feet. Once even the cabin steward stood on me whilst I was asleep. It got to the point where I just slouched as low as comfortable and took as much of that space as I wanted and told the people waiting for the toilet to bugger off down the aisle. They got the message. Also the tray and screen suck on those seats. I really wasn’t a fan and glad I got it free. economy flights just suck. Especially on a full plane. Some extra legroom seats might be worth it if you need the space. There is nothing special about the Dreamliner. Toilet lids don’t even stay up which is just horrible. Food sucks. You can’t get any rest as the twit flying the plane just wants to keep talking at random times cutting in to your film or game or waking you up when sleeping. You get a couple of random drinks and then have to queue for the toilet. Because it’s a 3 3 3 layout you always get stuck next to some random person and if you are really unlucky you have to get up every time someone needs the toilet. if only I was rich enough for business class at least.

sorry I did mean crab. This new iPhone text system changes words even when you typed others correctly. the sushi was very good quality and was really nice but I was £60 deep and starving still. I’ve never in my life paid for a sushi roll that come with 3 pieces. Especially for £9. I think I’d have been happier if menu B wasn’t such a poor show. The beef koftas in olive are rubbish for example but the lamb pitta was good if a bit sparse which went well with the tapas potato bravas. they also did some really good curry in the buffet but the sindu sucked. Makes no sense. overall the value was good for the whole holiday but there are a ton of cost cutting going on in the cruise industry. We didn’t see our room attendant for 14 days. Had no idea how to get hold of her and had black mold growing in the shower and they didn’t hoover room once in 2 weeks. Doubt it’s her fault as it’s all about cost cutting now and something has to give and they have a load more rooms now. id go again but ill get on the ship as cheap as i can and then spend big on excursions and the good food venues.

I think the issue I have with the food is that the chargeable stuff isn’t good enough to charge for with exception of the beach house. Epicurian is rubbish for £30 a head plus around £30 in drinks. That’s a £90 meal. To be served a chewy rib eye and a soggy crepe for that money isn’t good enough. I think 7 days in I was very happy with the food generally as menu A seemed good. Second week menu b was poor in most venues. another point about this ship. I’ve never seen the late night buffet so busy in my life. Maybe because I’ve rarely felt the need to go on royal as I’m so stuffed with food I’m not hungry but I was often starving at 11pm and it seemed so was the wrest of the ship. This has to be down to the portion sizes being tiny and some venues just not ehaving a good option on the menu sometimes. This is the first time in my life I’ve ever felt the need to eat 4 meals per day. oh and another issue I just remembered was the burger place near the pool. On azura they used to make burgers from scratch because they run out of pre-made burger patties. I don’t know what P&O buy but they taste like the burgers you get from the roach van outside of a nightclub. People were hardly eating them which is a sign of a problem. The pizzas were also not great. Thin base is fine but toppings were very sparse. I ate twice there in 14 days and regretted it both times. I just don’t understand it, the cost cutting really sucks in places. This is why the diner was so busy because you got actually nice food and to give them some credit they made better SF chicken in there than KFC do. In fact the diner was the best venue that was free and the beach house was best chargeable venue. The fish and chips and buffet were good enough most of the time also. with regards to drinks prices they are more reasonable than royal carribean but by no means cheap. Maybe it’s because I’ve worked for a major brewer and I know the costs they pay. Drinkers are subsidising none drinkers holiday prices. There isn’t any other way to look at it. It’s not really fair or acceptable. Thankfully for me I’ve changed my priorities now and choose to spend that money on other things and given the number of people I see sitting in bars with a cup of tea from the buffet station I think I’m not the only one.

I think it depends how you look at it. P&O is the best value way to see the carribean and the overall standard is good enough. But if you experienced cruising from years ago you cannot compare this modern version as everything is worse in every way other than newer ships with more things to do. I just remembered that we also did olive garden and limelight club. Olive garden. Menu A was good. Menu B sucked. Small portions again. I really disliked menu B in every venue other than the diner. limelight club. This was by far the worst experience I’ve ever paid for on a ship. It took 2 hours to bring 3 courses out and the singer didn’t sing until after all 3 courses. Over 3 hours people were in there. Food portions were tiny and didn’t really taste very good. It is 100% not worth it for the food and to be honest ray quin wasn’t as good as I thought he might be. He sings for free on MSC so not sure why you have to pay to see him on this ship. There was better singers in the other shows for free. we also couldn’t get in to the 710 club and the stupid webpage you have to do things on should be replaced with a proper app like royal Caribbean has. I mean it’s 2023 how can they not have an app with notifications to tell you when table was ready.

Just been on Arvia buffet food was better than expected but gets boring at breakfast as seems to never change. Like a cattle market and there was a certain demographic in there which was both rude and seems to never stop eating and the racket they make makes it less than enjoyable place to eat. We often just ate and got out as fast as possible. If a popular item was short in supply they ran and took them all before others even had a chance. beach house was great. Good value also. epicurean. Poor value and poor quality steak. Twice now that restaurant has disappointed me on both azura and Arvia. Over priced wine tasted rubbish too and waiter messed up charged me for two large glasses when ordered small. Had to make complaint. American diner. Surprisingly good. Nice food mostly but small portions and hard to get in to. Good junk food and the franks hot sauce was key to keeping the digestive system working in good order Sushi. Very high quality but tiny overpriced portions and left starving. One crap dish is £9 and you get 3 pieces. What a joke. Never tried the vegan crap they had in the other part of the restaurant and I’m certainly not paying additional for it. glass house: very average. Over priced tiny portions. Obsessed with trios of things. Rubbish starter and decent main but tiny. Leaving hungry after being surcharged is not good enough. Sindu. What a joke. Rubbish. Azura sindu was really good and good value. This is neither. Only curry on menu come with bloody noodles. The other dishes with curry names such as lamb bhuna weren’t even curries. Staff had to constantly explain menu to people as complaints were common. Flavours were rubbish. Made a complaint after and manager couldn’t be bothered to follow up. Even staff said the Azura menu was better. My advice is get rid of these idiot celebrity chefs as their menus suck. How a British focused line with a ship full of Indian staff can get an Indian fusion wrong is a joke. Here is a tip. Get rid of the fusion element. Chinese and Indian food does not work together. Not to mention the random Thai options thrown in. celebration night menu. Rubbish. Tiny portions. Rubbish flavours. Boring setting in the buffet tarted up. Wasn’t worth getting dressed up for. MDR. Ate once there. Dry pork. Tiny portions. No flavour. Didn’t go back. Slow service under staffed. Breakfast was always pretty good. They get this right. keel and cow. Looked the best option but didn’t get in. Others liked it. Makes the steak in epicurean look crap. Breakfast was 3.50 and good. Bacon roll is £2 and world’s smallest bacon egg roll ever seen. Claims to use better eggs. They lied. Crap yellow yoke budget eggs on whole ship. Even in chargeable places that claimed otherwise. Prices don’t make sense. the quays. Fish and chips was good. The Asian was rubbish. The carvery was rubbish. The York pudding wraps were 85% pudding. No filling. The meat was often poor and dry. Veg was ok. The potatoes were inedible. two other points about the potatoes and also tomatoes. They were terrible on whole ship for whole cruise. Very low quality potatoes. Inedible in every setting. They were either rock hard or super dry. The mash was like eating paper pulp. The tomatoes were terrible. Worse than those saver ones you get from Asda which are that kind of orange colour. If your potatoes and tomatoes are bad then imagine every dish that these make and you can see the knock on effect. Every dish they had went down in flavour and quality because of this. the small deserts on the buffet were actually very good. So was the small salads. They also had some really good buffet options which to be honest put the chargeable restaurants to shame. a very mixed bag of experiences but given how bad the food has gotten on Royal Caribbean I can’t really say I wasn’t prepared for worse. drinks prices make no sense to me what so ever. A pint is the same price as a bottle 330ml which is same price as a 500ml bottle. £5.35 for a corona is a joke. We found the IPA was best value and best quality and at 5,4% abv didn’t take many to get a decent buzz. The wine sucked. Overpriced. Buy entire bottle save £1 makes no sense. A small glass costs more than bottle of wine in supermarket and the cruise lines don’t have vat or duty. It’s just a cash grab. Same with over priced spirits. Bottle of water is 2.55 330ml and coke is £3,55 for a 330ml can!!! well screw these cruise lines. I used to be a drinks package person. The endless drinks price increases have killed my desire to drink on ships now. My wallet thanks you and my waistline does also. We now spend this money at the port on much better drinks with lower costs and on excursions that came with an open bar in the price. £56 for a 4 hour boat ride with snacks and 10x rum punch. Who needs the ship bar! They think the bar prices are a bottomless pit of free money. Well I’ve never seen bars so empty and quiet on a holiday in my life. Bar sales must be rock bottom and barely anyone had drinks packages. They are terrible value anyway on P&O and the bar choice is crap compared to other lines. I’m no longer going to be the cash cow of these companies and be financial abused because I want a drink on my holiday. I’ve adapted and so are others it seems. Now my total bar bill has gone from over £1500 to less than £250. Congratulations to the corporate moron who thinks selling one drink for £9 makes more profit than selling 3 for £6. This is backfiring already. we smuggled a ton of booze back to our room and so did most people. They can also never stop it. I’ve got the port security system worked out. overall the food and drink experience is a mixed bag. Soon very good and some poor. I think P&O and carnival in general will push prices to high and kill demand. There is a bookings bubble at the moment which won’t last. Like all bubbles it will pop but with the debt mountain they will have little place to go. My other family have already gone back to land holidays. Better food. Cheaper drinks and lower costs.

I flew on the Dreamliner and to be honest they aren’t that comfortable and we had extra leg room. The entertainment isn’t much cop either and the food was typical plane food crap. a good iPhone max with a battery bank you can download movies on Netflix and Disney and Amazon for offline viewing. As well as games. Air pod pros have noise cancelling making the the flight noise much less. as for the food a boots meal deal is much more enjoyable than anything they serve from my experience. get a good travel cushion and a black out eye mask and ear plugs and try and sleep whole way then as long as I don’t get delayed I couldn’t care less what plane I was on.

Somehow P&O manages to run a ship with no tips at all. Service isn’t much different. Sometimes better sometimes worse. the only people taking advantage of crew members is the mega corporations who have conned the public into thinking that it’s your responsibility to pay their staffs wages whilst they collect their million dollar bonuses each year. who ever come up with the idea to guilt trip its customers in to paying their staffs wages was a corporate genius.