A Carnival Cruiser Tries Royal Caribbean for the First Time on the Serenade

[FSRoberts]

After 3 Carnival cruises, I decided to try a Royal Caribbean cruise. I decided after 2 years of horrid winters, that this winter, I would have a break. I wanted to do a longer itinerary, and Carnival had no roundtrips to offer over 8 days. I found a 10-day on the Serenade with a good deal, so I took it. I’m a younger cruiser (33 at present) and my wife has only had 1 other cruise, our honeymoon on Carnival.

 

The verdict? We loved it! For the most part. As is usual, there were some issues. But overall we found it vastly superior to Carnival in all but a few ways. Let me go through the various areas, with observations of a first time Royal cruiser:

 

Cabin: We have only done interior cabins. I was a little worried, as I knew Royal interiors were smaller than Carnival’s. But we actually found it seemed the opposite. The Royal cabin seemed much more efficiently laid out. The vanity was aligned parallel to the wall, which allowed more space. The minibar was incorporated into the same vanity/closet rather than having its own space, which seemed more efficient. We were grateful for the little loveseat, a feature missing on Carnival insides. I was also glad to have 2 power outlets.

 

The bathroom was a bit more cramped, but not a huge difference. My biggest issue (one shared by Carnival) is the bathroom door/light switch arraignment. I wish the light switch for the bathroom was either in the bathroom or on the side where the door opens. It was impossible to use the bathroom at night without having a wide open door shine light onto your sleeping spouse. Also, it was nose the light fixture at the bed on Carnival shops plugged in. As my CPAP is dual voltage, I could plug in my machine right behind the bed in Carnival, but I had to stretch out my extension cord on Royal. An added inconvenience.

 

The bed was rather uncomfortable. My second day back and my back and hips still hurt. Hopefully that’s not how all Royal mattresses are.

 

Food: Overall, we found the food to be superior on Royal by far. It was particularly notable in the buffet. This is where we wound up taking most of our meals. There were misses as well as hits, but I could always find a few tasty items.

 

We also did the steakhouse 3 times. We started the 1st night, but opted for the 3 night package when we learned that we didn’t have to do Izumi. We used all 3 nights at Chops. Carnival had a better steak selection, but I found everything delicious.

 

We also did the Mystery Dinner (which we won!). The food there at Giovanni’s was good, but the choices were not my thing. I wish we had more options. But no complaints.

The biggest disappointment was the Main Dining Room. We went 3 times, once for breakfast, twice for dinner. First, the food seemed, if anything, worse than the Windjammer. The dinner was particularly bad. I tried to order multiple entrees, but the waiter didn’t seem to listen. He bought out all entrees at the same time, sat the second in the middle and said it was for me and my wife to share, which I thought was odd. Service also seemed rather slow.

 

For the first time on any line I tried My Time Dining. I thought this was a big contributor to our problems. We had reservations for 7:30, but learning the show we wanted to see was at 7:15 only we tried to move them, but were told there was nothing earlier. We decided to skip the show and go at 7:30, where we were greeted by a massive line. Everyone was taken in order, reservations or not. The reservations were pointless. The next night we tried moving our reservation later, to 8:30. We avoided the line, but had the least attentive waiters I have ever had at sea. They seemed far more interested in taking care of resetting the dining room that taking care of us. We waited a long time to place our orders. Once we got our entrees and ate, we sat in front of empty plates for another long time. When we ordered desert, mine came out nearly 10 minutes before my wife’s. With the mediocre food and bad service, we ditched the MDR for the rest of the cruise.

 

Entertainment: My wife and I are not the biggest fans of production shows, so I won’t comment on them. But otherwise, we found the entertainment mediocre. The live musicians were generally good. But there were problems. First, scheduling. The schedules were all over the place. Shows were all over the place. The main shows were sometimes at 6:30 and 8:30, other times 7:15 only, 7:30 only, 8:15 and 10:15. It was a bear to plan the day to see them. Can’t there be some consistency? Others had short hours. The piano bar act usually only played 7-10. On Carnival I normally closed the day at the piano bar after 10, but here he was long gone.

 

The other big thing was the lack of comedy. If there was 1 thing I missed from Carnival, it was the comedy. There were comedians, but with the scheduling, it was hard to predict where they were, and we wound up missing 2 comedy shows (one because it was late and we were exhausted after port, the other because we were at the mystery dinner). On Carnival, there is a dedicated comedy venue with multiple shows (often from multiple comedians) each night. Here each comic got one show (except the unfunny ventriloquist who got 2). We found the comic night 1 to be hilarious, but he only had that opening show, despite the fact he remained on the ship for the next 2 days (as they were sea days). We were hoping we could catch the shows we did miss on the stateroom TV, but all they ever did was show the Love and Marriage show over and over.

 

I enjoyed the idea of having an enrichment lecture, but sadly, the lecturer they had was boring. More concerned with dates, names, and all the other stuff you hated from history without the stuff that was actually interesting.

We did the Mystery Dinner and found that to be awesome. Like I said, we won.

 

Public Spaces/bars: We spent most of our time sitting either on Deck 12 forward (as the pool was too crowded and too loud) for sun, the promenade on Deck 5 for shade, or the aft dining area for chatting and games. They were fine for us.

 

However, much of the ship seemed wasted space. The Safari Lounge seemed used for very little. Heck, it would be a perfect spot for a comedy club. The Schooner Bar was a glorified hallway.

 

We spent much of our bar time in the Centrum R Bar. It felt quite familiar to the Carnival Atrium.

 

The Ship: The ship was beautifully decorated, unlike the garish Farkas Carnival ships. I loved the way you could see the ocean from most everywhere. I also loved that I could navigate the ship without passing through a smoke-filled casino, unlike on Carnival.

 

But there were issues. I mentioned some of the wasted space earlier. But the biggest problem was elevators. There is one main bank, and a smaller bank toward the bow. The main bank (most convenient to the majority of the ship) were constantly packed. Elevators took forever to arrive, and when they did, often filled up. I thought they were just crowded, but I soon noticed they seemed designed to skip us. With the glass doors, we could see elevators with no more than 2 people just blow by us on the way up. I don’t know if they somehow grant diamond priority or something, but it was crazy. The forward elevators, however, were rarely busy, because they seemed like a waste. Almost no where we wanted to go was forward save the theater and cinema, which were only a deck or 2 up, so we took the stairs. It would be much more logical to have elevators in the aft where the Windjammer, main dining room, specialty restaurants, and most lounges were.

 

Anyway, overall a very good cruise, but definitely room for improvement. I will be going Royal again.

[Midwestgal]

Glad you enjoyed your cruise , thanks for sharing

Edited January 27, 2016 by Midwestgal

[FSRoberts]

Nice review thanks.

 

One thing, you said the food was superior over Carnival yet you called it mediocre and said dinner was bad. Did you find the MDR food on Carnival worse? I ask because we've done Carnival 6 times and found the MDR food pretty decent and MDR on Royal not as good. I'm not including the up charge resturants just the food included.

I know food is subjective but I think most people say Carnivals food is better.

Also the mattress issue , it's the new Royal matresses that are rock hard.

 

Glad you enjoyed your cruise , thanks for sharing

 

Yeah, I found Carnival MDR food not too good either. Not horrid for either line, mind you, but nothing great. The difference is the Royal buffet food was generally good, but the Carnival buffett is no better than their MDR.

[villager70]

After 3 Carnival cruises, I decided to try a Royal Caribbean cruise. I decided after 2 years of horrid winters, that this winter, I would have a break. I wanted to do a longer itinerary, and Carnival had no roundtrips to offer over 8 days. I found a 10-day on the Serenade with a good deal, so I took it. I’m a younger cruiser (33 at present) and my wife has only had 1 other cruise, our honeymoon on Carnival.

 

The verdict? We loved it! For the most part. As is usual, there were some issues. But overall we found it vastly superior to Carnival in all but a few ways. Let me go through the various areas, with observations of a first time Royal cruiser:

 

Cabin: We have only done interior cabins. I was a little worried, as I knew Royal interiors were smaller than Carnival’s. But we actually found it seemed the opposite. The Royal cabin seemed much more efficiently laid out. The vanity was aligned parallel to the wall, which allowed more space. The minibar was incorporated into the same vanity/closet rather than having its own space, which seemed more efficient. We were grateful for the little loveseat, a feature missing on Carnival insides. I was also glad to have 2 power outlets.

 

The bathroom was a bit more cramped, but not a huge difference. My biggest issue (one shared by Carnival) is the bathroom door/light switch arraignment. I wish the light switch for the bathroom was either in the bathroom or on the side where the door opens. It was impossible to use the bathroom at night without having a wide open door shine light onto your sleeping spouse. Also, it was nose the light fixture at the bed on Carnival shops plugged in. As my CPAP is dual voltage, I could plug in my machine right behind the bed in Carnival, but I had to stretch out my extension cord on Royal. An added inconvenience.

 

The bed was rather uncomfortable. My second day back and my back and hips still hurt. Hopefully that’s not how all Royal mattresses are.

 

Food: Overall, we found the food to be superior on Royal by far. It was particularly notable in the buffet. This is where we wound up taking most of our meals. There were misses as well as hits, but I could always find a few tasty items.

 

We also did the steakhouse 3 times. We started the 1st night, but opted for the 3 night package when we learned that we didn’t have to do Izumi. We used all 3 nights at Chops. Carnival had a better steak selection, but I found everything delicious.

 

We also did the Mystery Dinner (which we won!). The food there at Giovanni’s was good, but the choices were not my thing. I wish we had more options. But no complaints.

The biggest disappointment was the Main Dining Room. We went 3 times, once for breakfast, twice for dinner. First, the food seemed, if anything, worse than the Windjammer. The dinner was particularly bad. I tried to order multiple entrees, but the waiter didn’t seem to listen. He bought out all entrees at the same time, sat the second in the middle and said it was for me and my wife to share, which I thought was odd. Service also seemed rather slow.

 

For the first time on any line I tried My Time Dining. I thought this was a big contributor to our problems. We had reservations for 7:30, but learning the show we wanted to see was at 7:15 only we tried to move them, but were told there was nothing earlier. We decided to skip the show and go at 7:30, where we were greeted by a massive line. Everyone was taken in order, reservations or not. The reservations were pointless. The next night we tried moving our reservation later, to 8:30. We avoided the line, but had the least attentive waiters I have ever had at sea. They seemed far more interested in taking care of resetting the dining room that taking care of us. We waited a long time to place our orders. Once we got our entrees and ate, we sat in front of empty plates for another long time. When we ordered desert, mine came out nearly 10 minutes before my wife’s. With the mediocre food and bad service, we ditched the MDR for the rest of the cruise.

 

Entertainment: My wife and I are not the biggest fans of production shows, so I won’t comment on them. But otherwise, we found the entertainment mediocre. The live musicians were generally good. But there were problems. First, scheduling. The schedules were all over the place. Shows were all over the place. The main shows were sometimes at 6:30 and 8:30, other times 7:15 only, 7:30 only, 8:15 and 10:15. It was a bear to plan the day to see them. Can’t there be some consistency? Others had short hours. The piano bar act usually only played 7-10. On Carnival I normally closed the day at the piano bar after 10, but here he was long gone.

 

The other big thing was the lack of comedy. If there was 1 thing I missed from Carnival, it was the comedy. There were comedians, but with the scheduling, it was hard to predict where they were, and we wound up missing 2 comedy shows (one because it was late and we were exhausted after port, the other because we were at the mystery dinner). On Carnival, there is a dedicated comedy venue with multiple shows (often from multiple comedians) each night. Here each comic got one show (except the unfunny ventriloquist who got 2). We found the comic night 1 to be hilarious, but he only had that opening show, despite the fact he remained on the ship for the next 2 days (as they were sea days). We were hoping we could catch the shows we did miss on the stateroom TV, but all they ever did was show the Love and Marriage show over and over.

 

I enjoyed the idea of having an enrichment lecture, but sadly, the lecturer they had was boring. More concerned with dates, names, and all the other stuff you hated from history without the stuff that was actually interesting.

We did the Mystery Dinner and found that to be awesome. Like I said, we won.

 

Public Spaces/bars: We spent most of our time sitting either on Deck 12 forward (as the pool was too crowded and too loud) for sun, the promenade on Deck 5 for shade, or the aft dining area for chatting and games. They were fine for us.

 

However, much of the ship seemed wasted space. The Safari Lounge seemed used for very little. Heck, it would be a perfect spot for a comedy club. The Schooner Bar was a glorified hallway.

 

We spent much of our bar time in the Centrum R Bar. It felt quite familiar to the Carnival Atrium.

 

The Ship: The ship was beautifully decorated, unlike the garish Farkas Carnival ships. I loved the way you could see the ocean from most everywhere. I also loved that I could navigate the ship without passing through a smoke-filled casino, unlike on Carnival.

 

But there were issues. I mentioned some of the wasted space earlier. But the biggest problem was elevators. There is one main bank, and a smaller bank toward the bow. The main bank (most convenient to the majority of the ship) were constantly packed. Elevators took forever to arrive, and when they did, often filled up. I thought they were just crowded, but I soon noticed they seemed designed to skip us. With the glass doors, we could see elevators with no more than 2 people just blow by us on the way up. I don’t know if they somehow grant diamond priority or something, but it was crazy. The forward elevators, however, were rarely busy, because they seemed like a waste. Almost no where we wanted to go was forward save the theater and cinema, which were only a deck or 2 up, so we took the stairs. It would be much more logical to have elevators in the aft where the Windjammer, main dining room, specialty restaurants, and most lounges were.

 

Anyway, overall a very good cruise, but definitely room for improvement. I will be going Royal again.

 

 

Hi Cruiser: Thanks for the review. We were on Serenade in Nov. and experienced same thing on My time ,reservations or not. Most are all of the larger style ships offer two lines and seats for those without reservations to wait. Serenade had two entrances in My time dining floor and could have used one side reservations and other without.

Do yourself a favor and try one of the Freedom or Oasis class. They will blow your mine. There is so much to do especially for your age group. Bob

[Clarea]

Appreciate the comparison, thanks.

[sr4mjc]

We pack a few led tea lights and turn them on in the bathroom at night. Keeps from having to turn on the light and they give the perfect amount of light. Enough to see but not so bright your eyes have to adjust too much.

[sparks1093]

Thanks for the review!

[Great 2 B at Sea]

Thanks for your review and the comparison. We will be on this ship for the first time and are doing a B2B beginning Feb. 5th. I know it will be a great vacation! :)

[Midwestgal]

Yeah, I found Carnival MDR food not too good either. Not horrid for either line, mind you, but nothing great. The difference is the Royal buffet food was generally good, but the Carnival buffett is no better than their MDR.

 

We all know food is subjective but I have to disagree big time here. The food on Carnival in the MDR is nothing at all like their buffet food. 98% of all the Carnival cruises I've been on the food was good in the MDR, buffet depending on ship was sometimes pretty decent , sometimes not so good. Luckily there are many other places to eat.

 

Over the years of reading reviews it seems most give the food on Carnival the slight edge. I know this was your experience and we all view thing differently but your comparison seems way off.

 

I have only one Royal cruise under my belt with a second soon to follow and the food on MOTS was not as good as any of my Carnival cruises.

[garnetpalmetto]

We all know food is subjective but I have to disagree big time here. The food on Carnival in the MDR is nothing at all like their buffet food. 98% of all the Carnival cruises I've been on the food was good in the MDR, buffet depending on ship was sometimes pretty decent , sometimes not so good. Luckily there are many other places to eat.

 

Over the years of reading reviews it seems most give the food on Carnival the slight edge. I know this was your experience and we all view thing differently but your comparison seems way off.

 

I have only one Royal cruise under my belt with a second soon to follow and the food on MOTS was not as good as any of my Carnival cruises.

 

Majesty? Mariner? Monarch?

[cincicruisers]

Thanks for taking the time to post a review. Glad you enjoyed your first Royal cruise.

[Midwestgal]

Majesty? Mariner? Monarch?

 

Majesty

[peteukmcr]

We all know food is subjective but I have to disagree big time here. The food on Carnival in the MDR is nothing at all like their buffet food. 98% of all the Carnival cruises I've been on the food was good in the MDR, buffet depending on ship was sometimes pretty decent , sometimes not so good. Luckily there are many other places to eat.

 

Over the years of reading reviews it seems most give the food on Carnival the slight edge. I know this was your experience and we all view thing differently but your comparison seems way off.

 

I have only one Royal cruise under my belt with a second soon to follow and the food on MOTS was not as good as any of my Carnival cruises.

Totally agree with you here. Sailed exclusively for 11 years on RCI and so feel as though I know their buffet menu inside out, especially the lousy burgers, dried buns, plastic cheese and pathetic fries RCI serve in the buffet.

 

Carnival lido, wow, fresh pizza, fantastic grilled burgers at the pool side, freshly made burritos, wide selection of fish, multiple egg stations for breakfast and most of all, plenty of free seats! As for desserts, no apparent 'plastic' sugar free jelly like strips of cake.

 

I'm going to miss these on my upcoming RCI sailing. Especially as I've also sailed Celebrity whose Ocean View cafe wipes the floor with any WJ IMHO.

[cruisecraze96]

Thanks for the review, I have sailed 4 times with Carnival and going on the Allure in March. Looking forward to experiencing something new as well as the ship itself.

 

Of course my mom might not go back to Carnival since we have a RFS and the suite perks far outshine what Carnival offers.

Edited January 28, 2016 by cruisecraze96