As a Diamond members of Royal Caribbean, we have also cruised on Carnival, Celebrity, Princess, Paul Gaugin, Star, and Seabourn. I have also bought cruises for family for special occasions including 2 honeymoon cruises all on Royal Caribbean. Most of these cruises were from and to ports other than Australia where we live. So I thought nothing much of a birthday cruise just pre-pandemic to Fiji from Sydney on Royal Caribbean.. what I didn’t count on was leaving from Sydney was a boatload of ‘bogans’ who booked a single balcony cabin (for partying) and a bunch of inner cabins, drank continuously, gambled and turned their kids of all ages lose on the rest of the ship completely unsupervised.
Great, these things can happen. What astounded me was the complacency and ‘helplessness’ of the RC crew in following up and enforcing their own rules governing alcohol, on deck parties and noise after hours or during planned events like movies etc.
For 4 years we have avoided Royal Caribbean but are about to depart on a ‘Makeup Cruise’ of 18 days across the Pacific. Alas we are nervous about sailing from Sydney, during school holidays. Does anyone know whether RC has continued down this ‘downward slide’ in terms of governance, and advice on where to turn to for help if required. Certainly the cabin Stewart and manager were no help last time.
As we see it this could be the end of the line for sailing with RC or not.
