Serenade OTS Western Carribean Review 03/14/15

[tgnorton]

Who we are: My name is Tammy (48) and my son, Trey (19) was my cabin mate. We are from a suburb on St. Louis, MO (Manchester). Decided last minute (end of February, 2015) to go on this cruise!

 

New Orleans: We had made plans to stay in Metarie the night before as all the hotels by the port were mostly booked or with 1 or 2 rooms left at $350-$400 a night plus tax and parking. Stayed at the Sleep Inn ($100 per night including breakfast, tax and parking) in Metarie. Very clean, very helpful and nice staff, was booked full, also.

We drove down to the Quarter for a short visit – there was lots of folks celebrating the St. Pats holiday. We went to Central Grocery. However, it closes at 5pm and seating closes at 4:30. Since we arrived at 4:32, we grabbed a muffaletta from Central Grocery and headed back to our hotel. DELICIOUS!

 

Saturday morning, we went to the Metarie location of Café du Monde. Excellent beignets and coffee. Then, headed to port.

There was a major accident somewhere along the way which had traffic backed up for miles (in fact we heard from others that they barely made the ship due to the traffic).

 

We parked at Fulton Garage as recommended by many on Cruise Critic. Very easy and great pricing! Short ride to the port – they take care of your luggage!

 

Embarkation: Grade: A. Super easy because we had cruised with RC before and were Gold Crown & Anchor members. Non C & A members had a very long wait. Security was quick. I registered my 2 bottles of wine with the folks immediately after getting thru security. Whole process took about 15-20 minutes.

Edited March 24, 2015 by tgnorton

[tgnorton]

Park Café: Grade: C. Our last cruise was in 2013 on Oasis. We loved Park Café on Oasis. The roast beef sandwiches, the salads, the deserts. Not sure if the changes to the food are fleet wide or just on Serenade, but the roast beef is not the same as we had on Oasis in 2013. This roast beef was very fatty. (Delicious rolls were the same.) On Oasis, they provided you a nice portion. On Serenade, you got 3 very thin slices that were more than 50% fat and approximately ½” by 2”. Very surprised at the decline in quality. The salad bar area on Oasis (2013) provides about 10-12 topping choices and varied daily. On Serenade (2015), the salad bar consisted of the same 5 topping choices every day (understand limited space for 5 toppings only, but some variety would have been nice). For lunch and afternoon, they would have a small variety of deserts, sandwiches & quesadillas. After 8 pm, this was one of the only places to get food. Hamburgers, hotdogs and pizza served. Appeared to be microwaved. Staff/Crew were not very friendly, however, the female manager was very friendly!!

 

Windjammer: Grade: B. We never ate at Windjammer on Oasis (2013), but ate there for breakfast every day on Serenade (2015). We both thought the food was good for buffet food. I liked the omelet/egg station and they also made the pancakes right there on board – no microwaving! They made plain and also a specialty pancake every day. Staff/Crew were friendly. One guy wore a different hat every day and my son enjoyed seeing what the hat of the day would be. We never ate at Windjammer for lunch or dinner.

 

Main Dining Room: Grade for Food: B for the most part. Main Server gets an A. Assistant Server gets a D. We had MTD for dinner since we booked very last minute. Our first night, we were assigned a table for 2. The head server, Antonio, was very good and very friendly. Our assistant server, Catalino, was not happy to be there. My son had the soda package and Catalino was not thrilled to get refills and often, he sat with an empty glass. He was slow to clear dishes and bring the required silverware for the next course. Often, the head server was trying to do both his job and the assistant’s.

 

The food was pretty good with the only exception being on night 7 my son ordered the Chops 9 oz Filet. It was $17 plus $18% tip – so comes to around $20. He had ordered it on night 3 and it was very good, but on night 7, it was really bad. Hard, dry and made him sick to his stomach. They offered to remake it, but he was already sick, so didn’t want to eat anything else. Night 7’s menu really could use a revamp.

 

Room Service: Grade B-. We ordered room service every night. We really enjoyed this little tradition. The food was ok. Honey Stung Chicken on Oasis (2013) was something to write home about. Serenade (2015) honey stung chicken is just plain chicken fingers. Pizza was pretty good. Only real complaint was when I ordered decaf coffee, received regular coffee. Just ordered milk after that.

 

Soda Package: Grade: B. I ordered this for my son but didn’t have it myself. Mostly worked fine but there were limited sodas available on board. Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite and Ginger Ale only. Also, outside of the MDR & Windjammer, you had to go to a bar to get the soda. Most bars closed at dinner time and didn’t re-open until the next day, so very limited places to get soda after dinner. Bartenders were split about 50/50. Some were friendly and others were crabby.

[tgnorton]

Bars: Grade C. Most closed from dinner on. Bartenders were about 50% friendly/50% crabby. I didn’t have a package and just paid for each drink. The crabby bartenders were a frequent discussion in the Solarium. We had some that were friendly.

 

Stateroom: Grade A. We booked Ocean view Guarantee. We were in room 3036. Room was a little smaller than previous balcony room on Oasis, but had plenty of storage. Beds were firm, nice linens, lots of different lighting choices. Enjoyed the Ocean View. Room was next to elevators but wasn’t an issue for noise and it was pretty convenient to be so close to the elevators.

 

Stateroom Attendant: Grade C. Believe we were the last room for our attendant each day. He frequently left dirty cleaning towels in our stateroom. Each day, we would just stick them out in the hallway and someone came to pick them up eventually. Day 6 our stateroom was not cleaned, no fresh towels and didn’t get a Cruise Compass for Day 7. Not sure what happened. We pushed the button on our phone to call for stateroom attendant and just got voice mail. We left a voice mail asking for towels and cruise compass but never saw him. Maybe he was sick or something…. Don’t know. So, we just went to the guest services and got a cruise compass. We had brought beach towels, so used our own towels to dry off after showers. He did make a towel animal 1 day.

 

Solarium: Grade A-. Solarium pool on Serenade is really nice and much bigger than the one on Oasis. There’s also an area where you can sit and just put in your feet. The hot tub was small and the handle broke off one day, so it was closed until they could fix it. The bummer was that they closed the hot tub each night around 9pm.

[tgnorton]

Serenade Singer/Dancer Shows: Grade C. The performers did their best and were very talented but the shows were lame. Oasis (2013) had Hairspray. Serenade had a show made up by someone at RCL or contractor. The costumes were awful – looked like they used the old velvet fabric from the MDR to make costumes for the performers. Note that the aerialist shows were cancelled and no one knows when or if they will be back.

 

Outside Professional Entertainer Shows: Grade: A. These were all good. Had 2 different comedians, Las Vegas Tenors (excellent+++), and a female impressionist/comedienne (excellent++++).

 

70’s Party: Grade: A. This was the bomb and so much fun! Only wish it could have lasted longer. LOVED IT! Don’t miss! Wish there were interactive things like this on each sea night.

 

Ports: Grade A. Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Cozumel. All fun! Only wish there had been a sea day in between port days instead of 3 Port days in a row. Jamaica – Courtney Taylor Tours. Grand Cayman – Nativeway Tours. Cozumel – cab to Money Bar.

 

Internet Package: Grade C. Purchased the full internet package for the full cruise because I needed to be able to work here and there since I cruised last minute. It was nice having access, but note that internet was good for simple emails and texts. Connection did drop frequently, but usually wasn’t too hard to get reconnected. Forget looking at attachments or anything that takes any kind of bandwidth. Forget your VPN. Pretty expensive but I did have access to email and could text.

 

Staff: Wouldn’t be fair to give an overall grade. Some were really nice, helpful, etc. Others were not. However, heard frequently how unhappy they were. They do not feel there is an RCL family anymore. Heard frequently that they feel that their food quality has also seriously declined and also felt uneasy about the company’s future. They felt that most good staff were looking for jobs with other cruise lines when their contract was up and they were sad about the decline of the “family” feel.

 

Debarkation: Grade A. We did self-disembark. Wow – super easy. It was cool to watch the ship come in to port. We skipped breakfast and just watched the ship being docked. Really neat. Customs folks were nice and it was also easy. Fulton Garage was right outside the port with their van to pick us up and take us to our car!

 

PRO of the Serenade of the Seas for us: Easy to get to know other people. Not as many people and not as many places to go or things to do as on Oasis, so easier to get to know others. Price was much cheaper than same week would have been on Oasis. Could drive to Port of New Orleans.

 

CON of the Serenade of the Seas for uss: Very limited things to do especially on Sea Days. Limited “free” food options.

Edited March 24, 2015 by tgnorton

[mtebor]

thanks for the review. hopefully it will be better for my 11 nighter later on this year.

 

Did the dinning room have the same menu each night or did it change?

[luvscruising2007]

Thank you for your balanced review. We sail Serenade next year and hopefully the issues you had will be corrected.

If you sent these same complaints to corporate the problems may corrected. The crew morale is disturbing and while they have some legitimate complaints, they need to provide to the customers great service.

Can't wait for our cruise. I know we will have a great time.

[Cindy]

Thank you for your balanced review. We sail Serenade next year and hopefully the issues you had will be corrected.

If you sent these same complaints to corporate the problems may corrected. The crew morale is disturbing and while they have some legitimate complaints, they need to provide to the customers great service.

Can't wait for our cruise. I know we will have a great time.

 

OP, thank you for presenting both sides of your story.:) I enjoy reviews where the good and the bad are both presented.

 

Jane, keep in mind that service is also luck of the draw. My cruise style is very different than Tgnorton's or the OP of the "NO Ship" thread, and I had good to excellent service on the March 7th cruise. I encountered one grumpy bar tender in the Solarium, but other than him all my requests were met with a smile and a can-do attitude. Sometimes your whole impression can depend on who your cabin attendant is, the location of your table in the dining room, and what venues you frequent while you're on board.

[JTBCruiser]

We sailed on 28 Feb and I was thoroughly impressed with our state room attendant, MDR waiter and assistant. By week's end, they all felt like family. I found a simple hello with a smile was greeted equally by every member of the staff I encountered on the 7 day cruise. Several times, they would immediately approach me and ask if they could do anything for DW and me. We felt very welcomed and had a very enjoyable time. I did witness a couple times where another passenger was extremely rude (my opinion) to a staff member. It takes all kinds I guess but I try to treat people with kindness and respect and find it is normally returned. We love to cruise!

[tgnorton]

I reported the issues we had on the RCL Survey except the fatty roast beef sandwiches. I forgot to mention it and my son reminded me when I was writing the review. It was a big disappointment for him. However, none of the things that were not "perfect" ruined our vacation. We still ate a lot, swam a lot and had a lot of fun!

 

I agree that your service is the luck of the draw with the exception of the crabby bar tender at Solarium. Sounds like everyone gets to enjoy him. By the time some of your cruises come along, he'll probably be gone. Like I said, everyone on our ship was talking about him and I've heard others on these boards mention him as well. RCL surely knows and won't renew his contract.

 

Also, the cruise was a really good value for the money for us.

[tgnorton]

thanks for the review. hopefully it will be better for my 11 nighter later on this year.

 

Did the dinning room have the same menu each night or did it change?

 

Hi, please don't worry, most things were good, some were just less than expected. We had MAJOR WOW on the Oasis and it's hard to compete with that.

 

The menus changed every night. We had 7 nights. I would say all were good except night 7. Night 7 menu was not very good and a lot of people complained about their entrees. The other nights were all good and I believe they are the same menus we had on Oasis in 2013. As I recall, we didn't like night 7 on Oasis either. Felt like they had run out of ideas - which is totally understandable after trying to come up with all those different menus.

 

We could have done a specialty restaurant, but it's 1 meal of my life - not like the end of the world, so just ate a "not that great meal" for the 1 night - the deserts are always good!

Edited March 25, 2015 by tgnorton

[sippican]

I reported the issues we had on the RCL Survey except the fatty roast beef sandwiches. I forgot to mention it and my son reminded me when I was writing the review. It was a big disappointment for him. However, none of the things that were not "perfect" ruined our vacation. We still ate a lot, swam a lot and had a lot of fun!

 

I agree that your service is the luck of the draw with the exception of the crabby bar tender at Solarium. Sounds like everyone gets to enjoy him. By the time some of your cruises come along, he'll probably be gone. Like I said, everyone on our ship was talking about him and I've heard others on these boards mention him as well. RCL surely knows and won't renew his contract.

 

Also, the cruise was a really good value for the money for us.

 

Thank you for your thorough review. I am sorry that there were things that did not live up to your expectations but I admire your positive attitude.

Hopefully some of these issues will work out soon.

[NightOne]

I agree that your service is the luck of the draw with the exception of the crabby bar tender at Solarium.

 

I don't know the exact bartender you are referring to but I wouldn't be at all surprised if he was frayed by that group of college aged girls I seen over there all the time. They were constantly bothering the bartender and annoyed me on a few occasions when I was at that bar. :)

[dgadale]

Thanks for your review, I always enjoy reading about everyone's experiences. We're sailing on the Serenade this Saturday. Is it true that they no longer provide shampoo and conditioner? Just trying to figure out what to pack, thanks!

[Bamagirl_gina]

Thanks for the review. We will be on Serenade April 4th for the second time---we love the ship! Do you recall whether they offered the beer "bucket" special - which is actually a few beers in a vinyl cooler? We have drink packages but would still like the cooler--especially by the pool. I know some ships have them, and I didn't see them last year on Serenade but maybe they have them now? Oh, and I can't wait to go to the solarium to check out Mr. Grumpy, if he is still there. It will be my goal of the day to make him smile. :D

[tgnorton]

Thanks for your review, I always enjoy reading about everyone's experiences. We're sailing on the Serenade this Saturday. Is it true that they no longer provide shampoo and conditioner? Just trying to figure out what to pack, thanks!

 

Hi, We were in Oceanview and there was a "soap" dispenser in the shower. We brought our own toiletries because we are so sensitive to soap products. Luckily we drove to port, so no drama with bringing liquids. I've heard that they have shampoo & conditioner in Suites, but they didn't have it in Oceanview.

[tgnorton]

Thanks for the review. We will be on Serenade April 4th for the second time---we love the ship! Do you recall whether they offered the beer "bucket" special - which is actually a few beers in a vinyl cooler? We have drink packages but would still like the cooler--especially by the pool. I know some ships have them, and I didn't see them last year on Serenade but maybe they have them now? Oh, and I can't wait to go to the solarium to check out Mr. Grumpy, if he is still there. It will be my goal of the day to make him smile. :D

 

You've got to do it! Please come back and let us know if you could do it! :D

 

I was the only one over 21 for this week for my cabin, so I didn't attempt to buy the bucket in the cooler bag. I'm not a big drinker. I have the cooler bag from 2013 Oasis cruise when we went as a large group and it was a great deal. I didn't see anyone with the cooler bag, but I did see 1 person with a bucket of beers. Sorry!!!

[Carolla5501]

My only concern is the bars. We're doing a port intensive cruise and if the bars are all close at eight then there's no need to purchase a beverage package. I just found that amazing that the bars close at 8 PM seems like they're losing a lot of profit

[suzon]

Thanks for the review. We will be on Serenade April 4th for the second time---we love the ship! Do you recall whether they offered the beer "bucket" special - which is actually a few beers in a vinyl cooler? We have drink packages but would still like the cooler--especially by the pool. I know some ships have them, and I didn't see them last year on Serenade but maybe they have them now? Oh, and I can't wait to go to the solarium to check out Mr. Grumpy, if he is still there. It will be my goal of the day to make him smile. :D

 

I was on the March 7th sailing and also had the drink package. As soon as we got on board, we went straight to the pool bar and asked about the cooler bag. They had them and I paid $9.99 just for the bag. I've been wanting one for so long...last year we took 3 cruises and they didn't have them on any of those sailings:confused:

 

I noticed during the week that they had a table set up outside the Windjammer where they were selling the Royal glassware and also the coolers!

 

We just kept ours in the cabin and had our wonderful room steward fill it with ice every day. It worked better than those "ice buckets" they usually give you!

[Donna_In_India]

Thanks for sharing. We're booked on the Serenade July 2016 - great itinerary so we're excited. Glad you still enjoyed your vacation in spite of the issues you had.

[Moltar]

Loved this review. Right to the point. Sailing on her in 3 months. Looking forward to it.

Edited April 6, 2015 by Moltar

[artvlay]

Good Review. The company is trying to squeeze every dime they can. They have just about pushed us away to other cruise lines. We are D+ but the perks just aren't worth the inferior product. Going on Serenade in a few weeks and if it is like Brilliance was a few months ago, we are done.