kruzerci

Is the title insinuating that the negative reviews are NOT honest? 🤨

Food quality, ship maintenance, and headliner entertainment/ musicians are the most noticeable to me. Royal used to impeccably maintain their ships and keep them looking clean and fresh but it looks like they have cut way back on maintenance crews. Our last couple of cruises, they have showed a movie in the theatre on at least one night rather than live entertainment.

They care more about first time families cruising than a one off from Europe. It makes more sense to you, but not for them. The good news is, it will eventually do Europe sailings.

Different opinions. It would be a huge draw for families and first time cruisers to have a brand new ship doing that route and so closely to Orlando theme parks. It seems almost certain that it will be Utopia doing these sailings since bookings on Allure seem to indicate it is do-able for an Oasis class ship.

I'm not who you are asking, but in our case, it was because we had several trips booked that were either NRD or past final payment. Had it not been, I would have cancelled at least two of our recent cruises. We are sailing what we have already booked under NRD, but have not booked any more Royal Caribbean cruises and will not do so until if/when things look better. We have been doing Celebrity, and as others have noted, while their quality has also dropped, I still find it to be acceptable, whereas I do not with Royal Caribbean.

That makes sense. Thanks for sharing.

That’s exactly what I was afraid of.

As before, it definitely varies ship to ship. It was fine on Brilliance but abysmal on Serenade for us.

Unfortunately since the pandemic they have really cut back on ship maintenance and it is beginning to show. She’s in pretty good shape onboard. Much more so than Serenade.

I fully agree with that statement.

Agreed. There has been one time in 51 cruises that I have removed them for a very strong reason, but as I general rule, I prepay before the trip and supplement onboard.

Well, technically, the bartenders are supposed to be giving receipts now since the receipts now show how many drinks vouchers you have used. So they may have been planning on it but didn't get a receipt 😄. But yes, to your point, people are a lot more generous behind their keyboards than they with the tip envelope when nobody is watching.

Please be sure to voice your concerns. It is BS.

Very well said. It seems the OP is going with a negative attitude, hopefully she will come back and let us know how it went and go with an open mind. Not to mention, you can’t judge an entire state based on what you hear on a national news network. It is a very diverse and wonderful place.

Except we pay it… was just asking out of curiosity, don’t know why this ruffles your feathers so much. Feel free to move along 🙂

I do wish somebody, an investigative reporter or otherwise, would do an in depth look into where auto gratuities are going. If it is true that crew members do not receive a full gratuity for less than perfect survey scores, I think it would be a very messy situation for the cruise lines.

I believe that they wouldn’t get the full share of the tip, but I will not lie on a survey to protect somebody’s tips. If that is a pervasive issue, it needs to be negotiated with the staffing agencies and cruise lines if that is a major concern. That is not the consumer’s problem. The food on the past several cruises has been truly poor- I am not going to leave a 10 rating and let Miami think that everything is grand with the cutbacks and staffing shortages. They need to know what is going on. It is not my responsibility to lie to cover for a crewmember.

I do keep auto gratuities, but this argument is BS. More likely a thought process started on Cruise Critic or by the cruise line to keep people from removing. I highly doubt people behind the scenes are receiving portions of the tips particularly since they shared the breakdown of what went to who until recently.

I wouldn’t expect them to 🙄. If multiple people have heard from chats with crew or concierges it would be a reasonable indicator.

Not a tipping debate thread. But curious to know if anybody had ever heard an approximation of what percentage of guests remove the automatic gratuities on Royal sailings. I overheard a number of requests on the last day of our most recent sailing. Please keep the debate and thoughts on why this should not be done out- that topic has been beat to death.

Word was out a long before Covid.

I don’t want to rain on your parade, but to prepare you, after two sailings on Serenade recently (December and last week), it is even worse than our recent Oasis trip in terms of food and service. The ship is frankly filthy and very neglected looking. We honestly would have cancelled last weeks trip had it not been past final payment date. Windjammer was improved since December, but MDR food and service were absolutely abysmal. Caesar salad tasted like blue cheese, all meats almost inedible (overcooked to the point of being dry and tough, overpowering salt and funky pepper taste, etc), desserts with absolutely no flavor, silverware crusted with old food on 2 separate nights 🙁. We have been sailing Royal almost exclusively for 24 years and have left our last two cruises feeling disappointed and frankly disgusted by Serenade. I truly hope they can “right the ship” so to speak before it’s too late and their brand is further damaged.

Unfortunately that’s pretty normal for Royal Caribbean at the moment (less the food poisoning). Our last two cruises have been very disappointing. Additionally, both sailings (7 nights and 4 night) had at least one night where only a movie was shown in the theatre rather than a show.

I think so, too. Allure was a test to see if those itineraries could fill an Oasis class ship.

It is what it is. Sailing from Tampa is great. You can still have a good trip, just don’t keep very high expectations.