LoisGriffin1

My only dislike has been the main dining room. It feels rushed and is so loud. The waiters seem to be overworked in there too.

 

I was surprised to be asked for my dessert order when ordering my starter and main. Is this a new thing? 

 

The buffet was excellent and feels more relaxed and less rushed than the main dining room. 

 

It’s not a big deal to me I will just enjoy the other dining venues which so far have been excellent. Chatting to other passengers everyone seems to be having a great time. We have been lucky to have a nice crossing through Biscay.

On 6/10/2019 at 3:53 PM, sisocialworker said:

how about stained furniture or carpet in your cabin, especially a suite cabin-paying top dollar or DL or CL...that should not happen, would that bother you?   is anyone on the ship-please check it out-point it out so the staff can hopefully correct it

My cabin is spotless.

I am on it now and it’s perfectly fine!

 

There are two frosted windows I spotted but it’s nothing bad. 

 

The sun loungers were replaced when the ship reached Southampton. 

 

The ship is very clean and the food has been great so far. 

 

The room attendant spotted a light had gone in my room (just a small one) and she got maintenance up straight away to sort it.

Thanks so much! I was wondering how it all worked.

4 hours ago, SC_Floaters said:

Recently on the Enchantment with pre-paid Surf&Stream Package. Did not want to wait to 1PM when cabin opened... Went to the Customer Relations area where the WiFi Representative had a small table. Gave him my Room Number, Showed Set Sail, he entered data into his laptop and gave me my CODE. He also mentioned I would receive the Diamond Plus discount on my account on departure morning...

 

Do people have to wait until the rooms are ready to use the drinks package too? I usually like to have a drink once onboard before the rooms are ready.

From Spain there won’t be a problem for her getting a drink.

I am pretty sure the casino is smoke free on cruises leaving the UK.

If you let the hotel know you will be early I find they can be very accommodating. If your room isn't ready you can store luggage.

 

As someone who lives in the Channel Islands I wouldn't be too keen on relying on it as a missing the ship option. A lot of ships have had to cancel this year due to weather. The tender is also quite long and I wouldn't want to navigate with luggage. Yesterday it was beautiful and we had a large ship in today the seas are horrible but thankfully no ships were scheduled to come in.

I have a 9.30 flight from Southampton on my next cruise. I am comfortable with it as I always self disembark. It's a tiny airport (plus if I miss the flight home there is an evening flight).

In the US I find the tap water tastes like a swimming pool. It doesn't taste like that in the EU but it is strictly regulated. I hate chlorine taste so I will happily drink tap water in the EU but always bottled in the US (with the exception of national park hiking trail tap water which has never tasted of swimming pool).

I met a guy in his 90s and his fitness would put many 20 somethings to shame. We chatted most nights in the concierge lounge and he walks miles and miles every day. Amazing man who really looked after himself. The only problem was he was hard of hearing so didn't realise that when he commented a large mans weight the entire lounge heard it.

On UK cruises there is always an Indian option. We have also received non menu Indian food in the past. It's always so tasty.

Both great. Northern Europe tends to have a quieter ship. I went in June and enjoyed the fact the sun never seemed to set. It seemed most of the ship went to sleep by 11 so evening activities were quiet. I think it's because the tours are so intensive and long. After a full day and evening in Russia I was glad that i had only booked a short tour for the second day. Others did two very long days. The passengers were the most diverse I had met. It felt like we had people from every continent so that was really fun.

 

The med has a bit more lively crowd. Personally I enjoy visiting those ports for more than one day. Florence is so crowded when ships are in. When I visited on a cruise stop it was so busy and I really missed my favourite part of the city. Florence in the evening or early morning is just so beautiful. Don't try and see all the main sights choose what you would like to see most and spend more quality time at those locations.

Quite large ships too!

 

No wonder my hotel sold out in January!

 

It's also the Southampton boat show that weekend.

My documents say anytime from 11. Is that because I am on deck 10?

 

We may avoid the crowds and go shopping in Southampton first.

I like the Premier Inn West Quay. It has friendly staff and great location. This next trip is during the Southampton boat show and the hotel has been sold out for months.

 

I visit Southampton a few times a year and it's a very consistent hotel. I have tried the other Premier Inn in the city and its no where near as nice.

If you wish you can also upgrade your package when you board. I have premium included with my cruise and will consider the ultimate to have the addition of specialty coffees (depends on the price because it may end up cheaper to pay the additional per coffee). I asked at the time of booking and was told it can be done.

[quote name='squadron']Do I read this to mean that in order to get a good dining experience you really need to pay for specialty dining on NCL? Takes away some of the supposed advantage to switch lines. I may be in the minority but enjoy traditional dining.[/QUOTE]

I would say yes but others may disagree with me.

Where I live we are spoilt for choice with great restaurants so dining room food on cruiselines have never been what I would call great. What Royal had over NCL was a good experience. We have always had great waitstaff and fun people to chat to on the tables nearby.

I was in my mid-twenties on my first cruise with NCL was the only disappointment was the main dining room. Everything else was amazing and I loved it. I probably was Royals current target market at that point and even then I wasn't impressed with a rushed meal and unfriendly waitstaff.

I would be annoyed if my GS didn't have a lounger. Previously my JS and aft balcony had two loungers so it wouldn't be right to have a higher rated cabin with less furniture on it.

I like the evening meal to take time. That was a problem I had with NCL where it felt very rushed. My only experiences with Royal have been Europe so far and the waitstaff have always been excellent with keeping the meal more relaxed and less rushed.

 

My next cruise has a very port intensive section (8 ports in a row with no sea days) and has a few ports leaving at 6pm and 2 at 8pm. If DD is in place by them I do hope they are prepared for days like that. The next port days are early so I imagine there wont be many wanting to start eating after 9pm.

I like how NCL do their Freestyle dining. I don't find their dining room experience anywhere near as good as Royal but I love their speciality restaurants (great choice of dining and great food). I factor the price of speciality dining into the price when comparing cruises.

 

With Royal I have not felt the need to use speciality dining because their whole main dining room experience has been great. I assume they are making the changes to get more people to use their speciality dining? For European cruises Royal tend to cost a lot more than NCL even factoring in eating every night in speciality dining on NCL.

 

NCL have been doing their freestyle for a while now and personally I think they do it well. If Royal want to do a similar thing I hope they get it right quickly.

The benefits are not going to be as good as NCL's unfortunately.

 

I was really tempted by the Greek Islands cruise for next year and may have picked NCL for the better suite benefits. We decided instead to travel out of Southampton so Royal won. The cost from a JS to GS was not too huge so we decided to go for GS. For a long cruise the extra space is worth it to us.

 

I did 2 weeks in a JS a couple of years ago and felt that with the amount of sea days a GS would have been worth it. One massive advantage will be having a reserved area in the Windjammer. I always found it hard to find a seat and witnessed some very poor behaviour between passengers over the seating.

ATMs are fine to use if you run low on Euro notes. Use ones attached to a bank then if anything went wrong (such as the very unlikely event that the machine swallowed your card) you can go in and sort it.

 

I have found they either have an English flag option to be able to read the ATM instruction in English or its automatically English when you put your card in the machine (I guess that's recognition from the card issuer).

My first cruise was to Alaska leaving from Vancouver. We were at the front of a long queue to check in and a porter placed an elderly couple in front of us (the wife was in a wheelchair). They were apologetic for pushing in and we replied that it was not a problem. After we had all checked in we sat waiting to be called for boarding and as we were all Brits we got chatting about cruising and where abouts in the UK we were all from. They seemed really lovely.

 

Next thing a large group of people came through and the wife said very loudly 'ugh those Chinese get everywhere' then proceeded to make some further remarks that were very inappropriate. I was quite stunned especially because those 'Chinese' sounded very Canadian to me so it was us who were the foreigners getting everywhere. We managed to avoid the couple for the rest of the cruise. We really didn't want to associate with people who would be so nasty about others.

The drinks package was added as a note on the invoice, I was also told that grats will be taken off after about 2 weeks and a new invoice will be send.

 

We were told similar. Strange way for Royal Caribbean to do it.