A Review: First Time with Royal on the Adventure

juliesVacation · June 26, 2018

Loving your review and the pictures! Keep it up!

mmsoko · June 26, 2018

Thx for the review and great pictures. Taking family on AOS next April, love seeing what we can expect.

sjmbruce · July 2, 2018

Before I move on to a quick overview of what we did on each island, I want to share my general thoughts on the ship, customer service, food and other aspects of Royal Caribbean and our cruise. I'll also post the rest of the random pictures I took of the Adventure.

Service: I have no complaints about service. Everyone was either satisfactory or went above and beyond. I don't think we necessarily visited a lot of areas during our cruise, but the employees we encountered were all friendly and helpful, especially at the service desk and photo area. Most went out of their way if possible. For example, soy milk wasn't available at the buffet, so a waiter left to get my sister a glass of it and had it available for her every morning during the week.

I only wish Royal Caribbean didn't put so much emphasis on the satisfaction surveys. We could tell the employees were truly worried about the scores. Near the end of the cruise it got to be a little annoying to listen to their pitch about how important high scores on the survey were to their jobs. Annoying to us, but when your job is on the line, I get it. However, surveys can only capture so much and an unhappy customer is more likely to fill one out than a satisfied one. Royal needs to back off of these a little bit.

The Cabins: Our couch was either new or reupholstered and the carpet had been replaced. Although the cabinets and lighting fixtures were dated, the carpet, bedding and couch really made the room feel fresh. I also loved the couch/sitting area. It was a spacious room and I liked the layout. Do the inside cabins have couches? Having a balcony and a view of the outdoors was nice but I feel like we don't use the space enough to justify the extra money. We usually cruise in an inside room but my family will only book balcony cabins and we all wanted to be in three rooms right in a row. The only complaint is that the mattress was definitely way too hard.

The Food: I have very few complaints about the food. Buffets being what they are, I really, really liked this one. I can be picky. I try to eat healthy. The only meat I consume is fish (no cow, pig, lamb, chicken, turkey). I found that there were plenty of choices. They even had veggie burgers! The only thing I disliked were the drink stations. Employees filled glasses and left them sitting on trays for passengers to pick up. This resulted in melted ice, warm drinks and stations were sometimes unattended. At night it was difficult to find cold milk - it was all hot. Other than these few issues, I always found something satisfying to eat.

The dining room experience as a whole was a 9.5/10. Dinner service was a little slow for me, but I know that's a thing some people enjoy so I can't complain too much. However, we were often out of the dining room too late to catch the first entertainment show in the theater. Other than that, I enjoyed dinner every night (DH and I never went for breakfast our lunch, although the rest of my family raved about breakfast in the dining room). Our wait staff team was awesome. They were attentive, accommodating and entertaining.

We couldn't have asked for a better group. They kept my 12 year old niece happy and remembered our preferences. On the first night, my DH and dad joked about wanting an order of escargot and shrimp cocktail every night. Even if it wasn't on the menu, they got one of each every single night. The food itself wasn't great, but definitely above average. Every now and then it was hit or miss, such as someone's steak being much bigger and meatier than the person's next to them. Overall, we enjoyed the food and the service prompting us to return every single night.

My biggest complaint about food is how early the buffet closed and the general lack of food venues after this time. Also, both sides of the buffet would randomly be closed. They were also sticklers about opening times - one side would be open but half empty with old lunch food while the steaming dinner sat waiting on the closed side.

I also missed the lack of food around the pool area. On other lines I have sailed, they had a pizzeria and a grill right at the pool. One of my favorite sea day meals was getting pizza and an ice cream cone in my swimsuit and eating in on my lounger.

We only went to Cafe Promenade a few times - I wish we had gone more often as it was the only place open after hours. I have to specifically mention the infamous pizza. It definitely wasn't great, but it was better than I expected. We brought some up to the room for a late night snack a couple of times.

C Dog · July 3, 2018

We were on the same cruise as you. We are also from Michigan. It was also our Spring Break. We also stayed at the OSJ Marriott. And it was also our first time on Royal! Nice review so far. I made a video instead.

CapeGal · July 3, 2018

We were on the same cruise as you. We are also from Michigan. It was also our Spring Break. We also stayed at the OSJ Marriott. And it was also our first time on Royal! Nice review so far. I made a video instead.

That was an excellent video. We will be on Adventure next year! Thanks for adding to the excitement!

Cruise a holic · July 3, 2018

We were on the same cruise as you. We are also from Michigan. It was also our Spring Break. We also stayed at the OSJ Marriott. And it was also our first time on Royal! Nice review so far. I made a video instead.

Nice video! What type of cabin were you in? Looks nice.

C Dog · July 5, 2018

Nice video! What type of cabin were you in? Looks nice.

We were in cabin 8394, a two bedroom family suite. It was incredibly spacious!

sjmbruce · July 6, 2018

We were on the same cruise as you. We are also from Michigan. It was also our Spring Break. We also stayed at the OSJ Marriott. And it was also our first time on Royal! Nice review so far. I made a video instead.

That's so many similarities! Are we living the same travel life?

Thanks for sharing your fun video! I really like the mixture of photographs and video.

C Dog · July 7, 2018

That's so many similarities! Are we living the same travel life?
Thanks for sharing your fun video! I really like the mixture of photographs and video.

Thanks... wondered if you guys were in the background of anything! And oops, I meant to say we also stayed in the OSJ Sheraton, not Marriott.

sjmbruce · July 8, 2018

Thanks... wondered if you guys were in the background of anything! And oops, I meant to say we also stayed in the OSJ Sheraton, not Marriott.

It's possible! I'll have to rewatch your video more closely :)

sjmbruce · July 8, 2018

Photography:

I had a lot of questions about the photo package before I left, and a lot of people on CC had the same questions as I did, so I'm probably going to spend what seems like a lot of time discussing it.

I purchased the photography package that included all photos taken during the cruise. I bought it for $199.99 through Royal's website precruise. We had $100 in OBC so that took care of half of it. I normally don't buy many (or any) of their 'professional' pictures. However, with my whole family being on board together, we decided to try and get a good family picture. The last time we took one, I was 17 and my sister 13. I've now been married for 11 years and she has a 12 year old, so it was due. I wasn't impressed with the photographers and a lot of pictures had issues that should have been addressed at the time, such as someone blinking or a face being blocked. Some pictures even had other passengers in the background. The photographers were also obsessed with posing women with their hands on their hips or having couples unnaturally tilt their heads together. I finally realized I needed to be assertive and tell them we wouldn't be doing a certain pose or be taking a million individual portraits.

They now use facial recognition, so you had to take sunglasses off for the the pictures on the docks at each port. There were also some random pictures included in my package that weren't any of us but were deemed to look like us.

At the end of the cruise, I went and picked up a USB from the photo gallery. All of our pictures were on there.

Overall, there were a lot of wasted pictures that we all hated. My husband and I didn't like any of the pictures we took together. However, we did get a great family picture and a really lovely photo of my parents with my niece. While I wasn't overjoyed with the package, I'm glad we got a few family pictures that are now displayed in our homes. I'll share a few of the formal ones later on.

sjmbruce · July 9, 2018

Entertainment: We only did a few shows aboard the ship. We went to a comedy duo act with my parents. They found it hilarious. I almost fell asleep. It wasn't bad, it was just geared toward a specific age group (there were a lot of I Love Lucy references that I just didn't get).

The ice show was awesome. There were a lot of costume changes and a good mix of music. It was just impressive how the performers could do the jumps and so many other moves on a ship. Maybe because it was the first ice show of the voyage, but it was really busy. We got there a half hour before the doors even opened and there was already a long line. I would definitely recommend the ice show.

enhance

And my final random thought (I promise). I really disliked having to turn towels in and check more out. I understand that in the past people probably took the towels home (Why though? They're threadbare towels without any logos) or simply left them at a beach in port. It was a source of anxiety for me though. I was always worried about towels and really didn't want to spend my last night in a long line at guest services arguing about them. If Royal wants to be serious about this whole towel system, they need to do a better job at keeping track. Being able to see your towel count on your account on the cabin TV would be great (Side note: I loved being able to order movies and see your folio on the TV).

Edited July 9, 2018 by sjmbruce

mmsoko · July 9, 2018

Photography:
I had a lot of questions about the photo package before I left, and a lot of people on CC had the same questions as I did, so I'm probably going to spend what seems like a lot of time discussing it.

I purchased the photography package that included all photos taken during the cruise. I bought it for $199.99 through Royal's website precruise. We had $100 in OBC so that took care of half of it. I normally don't buy many (or any) of their 'professional' pictures. However, with my whole family being on board together, we decided to try and get a good family picture.

At the end of the cruise,.

We too are going on family cruise on the Adventure. We are a family of 19. How do you get everyone’s pictures in your package?

sjmbruce · July 9, 2018

We too are going on family cruise on the Adventure. We are a family of 19. How do you get everyone’s pictures in your package?

I am honestly not sure how it all worked out. There were only six of us, so we blended in together a little more than a huge group would. I led my family, handed the photographer my card and gave my cabin number. After awhile, I think the facial recognition just grouped us all together under my cabin number.

sjmbruce · July 17, 2018

Here are a few random pictures of the ship before I wrap up day one with the best sail away ever.

enhance

Boleros:

enhance

The Champagne bar had a lot of cozy seating with a feeling of privacy. It was always busy at night.

enhance

The Photo Area:

enhance

Cruise a holic · July 17, 2018

Do they have your photos in folios? Or are they on the walls?

sjmbruce · July 17, 2018

Do they have your photos in folios? Or are they on the walls?

The pictures were all on the computers - I didn't see anything printed out or stored in folios. I didn't use the computers much once I found out they would automatically put all my photos on a USB, but it looked like there were some editing tools to use on the photographs. I know one night they had a "black and white" special where it was free to change any of your photos into a black and white photograph.

Edited July 17, 2018 by sjmbruce