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Disappointing Experience on Wonder

allisonb22

By allisonb22,
in Royal Caribbean International

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allisonb22 "Live from...." Rare

allisonb22

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This was disappointing in many ways. If it were my first cruising experience I definitely wouldn't want to go on another. 

 

Let me start by saying that I am a cruise lover, and always loyal to Royal. I am two nights short of Diamond and RAVE about Royal Caribbean to anyone who will listen. This was my 5th cruise in a year and all have been with Royal. However, this cruise was extremely disappointing and has caused me to look at other cruise lines for my vacations. I will be sailing with two competitors this year after this trip with no plans to sail with Royal Caribbean anytime soon. 

 

The great things about this cruise: 

-Bar staff and most crew were EXCELLENT, the few that stood out were Howard from Boleros, Roel, Roman and Judit from the Lime and Coconut bar, Sanya and Uros from the Trellis Bar, and the bartenders from Wonderland (I can’t remember their names). 

-Our room was extremely spacious for a Boardwalk balcony and the room attendant (Iwayan) was great. We loved his towel animals. I did not find the room noisy at all and would book it again in a heartbeat. 

-The entertainment was fabulous; comedians were great, production shows were awesome, and we are so happy the Quest is back! The Quest and Love and Marriage game shows are always highlights of our trips.

-We booked this specifically because of the visit to both private islands, we always enjoy the day at CocoCay and Labadee. Both islands were beautifully maintained and we wish we could have spent more time there!

-The Wifi worked extremely well!! Never had any issues with it. 

 

The not so great things:

-We were extremely disappointed that our cruise was taken over by a very large group, which caused two venues to be closed to us for the entire cruise (music hall and solarium bistro). Had we known this, we would have chosen a different sailing. Not to mention the attendees from this group were extremely rude and entitled. On more than one occasion we witnessed guests from this group yelling at and disrespecting staff. We know this is not Royal’s fault, and the staff handled these disrespectful guests very well, but we wish we were notified of this prior to sailing because this group definitely negatively impacted our vacation. We should have been told that this was a chartered cruise for this group because we sure as heck would have changed our plans. 

-We were on a family vacation, with 12 people and one infant. We called two weeks before sailing to link all of our reservations and arrange a table at dinner. We were told it was all set and we would all be seated at one table. Upon the first dinner, we were told the largest they could accommodate was 10, even though this is different from what we were told on the phone. We were split between two tables and couldn’t communicate with each other because of the arrangement of the seats. The only time our entire group would be together was for dinner, so this was a huge let down. I wouldn’t have spent 1.5 hrs on the phone with Royal out if they told me they wouldn’t be able to accommodate us. I also wouldn’t have booked this cruise because why are we going to sail together but not be able to eat dinner together? Now we know, we will never book another family trip on Royal. Not for nothing, but there were other groups they were willing to accommodate, but I guess we weren’t worthy enough of it. I could understand if there were 20 of us, but there were 12, they could have made it work, since they were able to for other people.

-Certain bathrooms were unsanitary. The bathroom outside the MDR on deck 5 was usually messy and the bathroom on deck 15 outside the Windjammer was always dirty and usually had empty toilet paper and paper towel rolls. I understand that these are high traffic areas but I’ve never felt a bathroom was unkept on any other ship. 

-CHILDREN! So. Many. Kids. definitely not Royal’s fault, just something we noticed. For the last week of January we weren’t expecting there to be SO MANY. I felt like we were in Disney.

-The dining room food was extremely hit or miss. We are super upset with the new menu. I prefer the old menu so much more!! Most dishes were lukewarm at best and tasted like cafeteria food. I know that is to be expected on a ship of this size, it would be logistically impossible to hand craft each dish to perfection, however, it stinks to pay such top dollar for such low quality food. Service was just OK, we have had MUCH better service on other ships, so that was disappointing. 

-The windjammer was far beyond disappointing. The food was not good and there were never any tables to be found for breakfast. Again, I get it, we are on the biggest ship in the world, we can’t expect the buffet to be 10/10. But the food was very underwhelming and just overall not good. I really think Royal makes a strong effort but it's just impossible for the quality to be there on a ship this size. We utilized other venues (not the solarium bistro since it was closed) as much as possible because of how disappointing the Windjammer was. 

-As on any ship, there’s always an issue with the chair savers by the pool with no enforcement. Not Wonder specific because it happens on every ship but still an annoyance. 

 

Overall, this trip was a let down. It was by far the most expensive cruise we’ve taken and some of the lowest quality experience. We paid 5 star prices for a 3 star experience, at best. I do understand logistically things may not be possible on a ship this size. However, we never had some of these issues that we experienced when we were on Oasis in May. I am disappointed in the overall experience and feel bad I suggested this to my entire family! I’m embarrassed about the trip quality after raving about Royal for so long leading up to this trip.

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reallyitsmema

reallyitsmema

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3 minutes ago, flamingos said:

 

Well, that might account for the number of kids?

 

 

Yes, this happens every year at this time.  When sailing a 7 night cruise in January it makes sense to do some searching to find out what ships are having kosher cruises.  Used to be on Anthem a lot out of Cape Liberty but Royal changed the January sailings to longer sailings in recent years so the kosher cruises have been going out of Florida.

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allisonb22 "Live from...." Rare

allisonb22

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1 minute ago, reallyitsmema said:

When sailing a 7 night cruise in January it makes sense to do some searching to find out what ships are having kosher cruises

how would we go about doing this? we definitely will for future trips as January is our preferred time to travel (usually off season so not too many kids!) 

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reallyitsmema

reallyitsmema

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1 minute ago, allisonb22 said:

how would we go about doing this? we definitely will for future trips as January is our preferred time to travel (usually off season so not too many kids!) 

 

Just Google.  I always search group cruise and my ship name and date to see if I can find anything out there.  Many times it is just smaller groups like a wedding or a bachelorette party sailing.  You know key words for this timeframe now, so search on those words and you will find a travel agency.  There are other partial charters for music cruises and other themes, just do a little searching.  I am trying to stay within board guidelines, not trying to be evasive. 🙂 

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allisonb22 "Live from...." Rare

allisonb22

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7 minutes ago, reallyitsmema said:

Just Google

thank you!! i really appreciate your help and totally understand board guidelines. 

we were also on this sailing with an Elvis group, everyone we interacted with were lovely and we LOVED the door decorations, even though I know nothing about Elvis (im in my mid 20's). I was a bit worried when I heard it was also an Elvis cruise, but they were nothing but a joy to have on board with us!

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Biker19

Biker19

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31 minutes ago, allisonb22 said:

However, we never had some of these issues that we experienced when we were on Oasis in May.

There's your issue - go on Oasis for half the price so the not-so-great things would be more palatable.

 

I assume you realize that some of the complaints are known (CSR giving out wrong info about max table size) and avoidable (book a different ship/itinerary if you don't want kids, groups). 

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flamingos

flamingos

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19 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

There's your issue - go on Oasis for half the price so the not-so-great things would be more palatable.

 

I assume you realize that some of the complaints are known (CSR giving out wrong info about max table size) and avoidable (book a different ship/itinerary if you don't want kids, groups). 

If you don't know about religious school holidays, how would you know that late January is going to be overrun with kids?  For the average cruiser, that's not something that's common knowledge.

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Biker19

Biker19

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2 minutes ago, flamingos said:

If you don't know about religious school holidays, how would you know that late January is going to be overrun with kids?

If you book an older/smaller ship on a longer itinerary you won't have that many kids, regardless of unique/unknown holidays (and you can also avoid partial charters usually).

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pittnh

pittnh

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I sailed once on Yeshiva week, downside that certain venues closed for the group only (I believe the Wipeout café was one of them, which would have been convenient to grab some food by the pool).  Upside was pool deck was as empty as I've ever seen it on a Sea Day for Saturday, as I'm assuming many of the attendees were observing the Sabbath at that time.

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DustFSU

DustFSU

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Like you stated after multiple comments, it's NOT Royal's fault, so you shouldn't hold it against them since you are loyal to royal.  You never know what can happen most of the time from cruise to cruise. Large groups, bad weather, rude people, over crowded areas.  The last cruise I did on the Allure was packed to the brim.  Was it frustrating, sometimes, but I didn't let if effect my trip because I expected the ship to be full.  Was the food not the greatest some nights in the MDR, no, but hey I didn't have to cook it.  Unfortunately I don't think you are going to get high quality food in the MDR or the Windjammer on any cruise, because the vendor's aren't providing that for the cruise lines anymore.  It also has to do with cost with the economy now.  Prices have gone way up for even stuff that use to be a few dollars.  Just think of how much each cruise they have to spend on food to feed everyone.  Cruises are cheap, but they try to make it affordable to people with medium sized families.  I live in FL and the cost of Disney and their parks and food is unreal.  Is the food good at Disney for the value, sure isn't.  What we would spend in the parks to get in, food and to stay somewhere for only 3 days I could get for the cost of a week long cruise.  They only have tables of a max of 10, so the person on the phone told you wrong information.  We are doing a summer Alaskan cruise and we have 19 going.  We know we will have to have 2 tables.  Each night you could just rotated where you sat because realistically if you were at a 12 person table you could really only probably talk to 4 people at a time or you would have to shout down to the end of the table.  It is kind of a bummer that the group took over the whole Solarium area.  Just remember, every cruise won't be perfect and you just have to make the best of it as you can.  Royal's business is really booming because of the experience and quality the have in the business.  Next time you have a big group go down to the MDR  on the first day and talk to the head waiter and see what they can do. I have found from reading on here the people on the phone aren't always great help.  I hope you have a good experience on the other two lines you try out. 

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CruisingNole

CruisingNole

Posted
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1 hour ago, reallyitsmema said:

 

Yes, this happens every year at this time.  When sailing a 7 night cruise in January it makes sense to do some searching to find out what ships are having kosher cruises.  Used to be on Anthem a lot out of Cape Liberty but Royal changed the January sailings to longer sailings in recent years so the kosher cruises have been going out of Florida.


Ahhh yes, of course. Verify there are no kosher cruises in January. Everyone knows to do that. Shame on the OP, he/she is completely to blame for this.

 

Come on…

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goldfish65

goldfish65

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Thank you for the review and for letting us know the atmosphere onboard. Sadly, there's no guarantee we won't run into extremely rude, entitled, yelling and disrespectful people anywhere we go in the world today. Seems like Royal should inform guests if there will be large groups taking over venues. But they don't, so the burden is on the consumer. 

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crzndeb

crzndeb

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On the Fall TA, there were also a couple of large groups. They kind of took over the solarium, but I found plenty of other places to go.  Besides the Bistro being closed for Pinnacles, sometimes the Music Hall was also closed for them. It really did not affect my enjoyment of the ship. I loved her. But I still think I enjoy the Ovation more. Just a personal preference.

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