Review of Serenade of the Seas Oct 2023

[itsanita]

I just got off the Serenade of the Seas after a 7-night cruise from Boston to Bar Harbor, Portland, Sydney NS and St Johns NB (Bay of Fundy).

Just a quick review of the ship here.  

Embarkation was a breeze for us.  We arrived around 12:30. My carry on had 2 bottles of wine and 6 bottles of water.  I was sure it would be opened for inspection, but no one paid any attention to it.  The bottles of water could have been full of Vodka…..no one even opened the carryon bag to check. 

We all had to have our pictures re-taken…they did not like the ones we did when doing the check in at home.  But we were on board within 20 minutes. 

We were not given our sea pass, and we were told to use our bar code from check in to purchase any drinks until the cabin area was open.  That happened around 1pm, and we found our sea cards on the door of our cabin.  While we waited, we had a snack in the Windjammer, did our mandatory safety instruction on the RC App, and found and checked in at our Muster Station.  VERY EASY.  Everyone had to fill out a Canadian form that was given to us when we came abord.  Names, address, dates visiting Canada etc.  It had to be filled out and given to the Front Desk by the 2^nd cruising day. 

Around 1pm the cabins were available.  We were in a balcony cabin on deck 9.  We did not have a Cruise Compass in the room, but a letter instructing us to use our RC App for all daily activities etc.  If we wanted a paper Cruise Compass, we could ask our room attendant and he would provide one daily.  We had always been very dependent on the paper Compass, but I have to say that we did get used to using the App.  It worked most of the time and we could also use it to send text messages to each other.  The only downside was there was not a sound notification of the message…so unless you kept checking the app, you did not know you received a message.  The only thing I did not like about the app is that everyone was on their phone all the time!!   I think I liked it better when the phone went into the safe for the week!   

Our room was nice sized.  The refrigerator was empty, lots of hangers, and ample drawers, shelves etc to store clothes and belongings.  A soap dispenser was on the wall of the shower labeled “hair and body wash”.  There was no shampoo, conditioner or body lotion provided. 

We had bought a bottle of Vodka for our room from RC, and it was in the cabin along with 4 bottles of soda.  We are diamond members, so we had 6 bottles of water in the room, with a card welcoming us back????   So I did not need to bring the bottles of water on board. 

Our cabin attendant introduced himself early on, asked if we wanted him to attend to our cabin in the am or pm.  We choose am, asked for extra towels, and requested ice bucket in our cabin daily by around 5pm.  This was the first time we had one time a day service, but it really was not an issue for us.  He always seemed to time our morning departure from our cabin and had the cabin all fluffed and buffed by the time we came back.  He never missed a day filling our ice bucket, saw we had wine with us and provided us with wine glasses the first morning, replacing them as we used them.  He also brough us rocks glasses for our Vodka cocktails.  We did notice that people put their room service trays out in the hall, but the staff made an effort to pick them up ASAP.  Wheelchairs, people on walkers had a difficult time getting by. 

The ship itself was spotless, but very worn.  The drawers in our cabin were a bit beat up, some wallpaper faded etc.  We found this all around the ship. 

We had My Time Dining and had made reservations before boarding for 7:30 every evening.  There were 4 of us.  The first night was a nightmare.  There were 2 lines for the My Time Dining area.  Both were LONG, including the line for reservations.   We had quite the wait, not sitting down till around 8:10.  Our fellow travelers were not happy campers, but they explained that the first night is always a bit hectic.  We really liked our table and our dinning attendants, so asked on the way out if we could have the same table for the rest of the week…they said they would try.   For the rest of the week, we did indeed have the same table, and each night when they saw us in the reservation line, just waved us in.  

The food was ok, we were all satisfied, but none of us are on the cruise for the food, so we are easily satisfied.  A couple of changes I noticed since my last RC cruise, which was pre Covid, is that you order your appetizer, entrée, and dessert at the same time, and the assistant waiter took all drink orders.  No Sommelier to help with the wine choices, not that there are a lot to choose from.  And no bar waiter for drink orders.  We sometimes got our wine/drinks after we received our appetizers!  He was doing the best he could but had all his assistant waiter duties to complete as well.   

The menu does have an offering of Filet, Lobster, and Surf and Turf every night for an additional charge.  This worked well for us, as we did not have to pay for the specialty restaurants on this cruise.   It was our first cruse in quite some time that we did not have the Alcohol Package (it was almost $900 for the 2 of us), so used our OBC for our bar bill instead of Chops.  There were 2 formal nights.  Saw folks in suits/beautiful long dresses as well as jeans.  No one seemed to mind what anyone was wearing.  We had Maine Lobster on the menu the 2^nd formal night.  The menu stated very clearly that if you wanted a second lobster there would be a charge.  When we were about done with our meals, our waiter brought us 2 extra lobsters “for the table”….. no charge.  I doubt he was the only waiter to do this. 

We are diamond members (a roll over due to our Elite Plus status with Celebrity) and were delighted with the drink benefit.  We could have 4 drinks each, ($14.00 and less) anywhere on the ship, every 24 hours.   We just handed them our sea card, reminded them it was a “diamond drink” and received a receipt to sign saying $0.00.  It would also say “1 out of 4”on the bottom of the receipt, to remind us how many we had left that day.   The Diamond Lounge on Deck 13 was open daily from 7am-10am for a continental breakfast.  It is open 24/7, using your sea card.  The couple times I stopped in, there was water, tea/coffee available and people playing cards.  I was told they are also open from 5-8pm for Happy Hour.

Those interested in the times of the shows:   The first night there was not a show at all in the Theater.  Day 2 was the production show, RC Singers/Dancers at 8 and 10pm   Day 3 a Comedian, one show only at 10:30.  Day 4 a juggler, 7 and 9:15.  Day 5 a singer at 7 and 9:15.  Day 6 the RC singers/dancers at 8 and 10.  Day 7, just 2 of the singers, one show only at 9:15.

Bar Harbor was our fist stop when returning to the US from Canada.  We all had to go through customs here, and it was also a tender port.  Each person had to present themselves for a person to person visit with the custom agent, with his/her sea card and Passport.  It started around 8am.  The suites were first, followed by each floor.  It really went very fast.  Once you finish with customs, you were then given a tender number to go ashore.  Those with RC excursions just reported to their meeting spot.  Everyone else needed a tender number.  We had booked a tour through Acadia N’l Park for 11am and had no trouble getting off the ship by around 10am.  Those who had booked something early had to scramble due to the custom inspection holding up the tendering a bit. 

We chose the very last departure time at 9 am and put our suitcases outside our cabin the night before.  We usually do self-departure…take our suitcases ourselves the morning we leave, but this time we had a late flight home, so we were in no hurry.  We had a leisurely breakfast and then headed out.  No lines at all.  We walked straight through, got our luggage and a cab to the airport around 9:15am. 

Captain was Kjell Nordmo

Cruise Director was Ken from Canada.

I would be happy to answer any questions that I can.

[Fathom5]

Thanks for the timely review. We will be on Serenade Sunday, so this was helpful.

 

David & Jo Ann

[Broons77]

Ditto from me, I'm on the 5 day that leaves on the 29th and this was a great overview of what to expect.  I have a few other first timers traveling with us, so I may try talking the group into just hitting the Windjammer for dinner instead of dealing with the night 1 madness in the MDR.

[JCMass.]

Thank you for the review.  We also will be on the Serenade on October 29th, I really appreciated the show times.  We never eat in the MDR the first night for some reason there are always long lines.  I often wonder where all those people are as the week goes on, since there are never lines after a day or so.  I am glad to hear they have Maine lobster, I usually don't order the lobster because it is very tasteless rock lobster.  We are really looking forward to this cruise even though it is short. 

[Havin'fun]

Thanks for the review.  I was just looking at a Serenade cruie - this helps!