We had a fantastic time. This was our 6th cruise, 4th with RCC (Monarch, Majesty, Freedom, Explorer). Food in the main dining room (7:30pm DMT) was better than I remember on the Freedom. The waiters were great and brought spare meals to sit in the middle of the table for us to sample dishes not ordered at the table. The waiter even heard me mention the scallops Gratin was a lot like escargot and while not on the menu he actually got me escargot for the second meal. I can't imagine paying for the specialty restaurant as looking at the menu it didn't seem any better to me with the exception of Lobster being available every night. You could pay extra for a specialty restaurant steak/lobster and eat it in the MDR but there was always a steak available at no extra charge. The room cabin was sufficient. We were worried we would feel cramped with 2 adults and 2 teenagers in the same room (in 2012 we were fortunate enough to get a non-reserved handicap accessible room which has double the room). But my kids actually preferred the smaller room as the bunk beds were more comfortable than the fold-out couch which they barely fit on in 2012 on the Freedom. Our room steward, Marvin, was the friendliest I can remember on any cruise and as a result we tipped him more than the pre-paid tips (also tipped the waiters extra). The use of Port Bayonne gives us an alternative to flying/driving to Florida and I much preferred to be sailing for a few days instead of driving for a few days. I would say that the location being next to NYC and NJ seemed to create a somewhat larger group of rude passengers compared to cruises out of Puerto Rico, Port Canaveral, or Miami.

The $349 photo package was a bargain (all digital photos and one print of everything) but had issues. Many of the back drops are only open for certain times and not all during dinner. With Dining My Time we fell in the middle when these were not open. Either they were open WAY before we were ready for dinner or during our meal or during the show after our meal. It was very discouraging. There were usually at least one or two back drops open the entire time but 3 or 4 would always close early. The photographers were sometimes rude if you were waiting in line and time to close that back drop came. The facial recognition program detects members in your stateroom from your first photograph taken when you arrive at the ship. After that if any of the faces are detected in a photo then the photo is added to your digital account. We had one picture in our digital account of the two kids from a different cabin (we were traveling with that family and did combine for photos sometimes). Our friends account however had an additional 170+ photos added of a completely different family on the last day and it created some headaches for them.

The Coke Freestyle machines are awesome....but there were some big issues. Apparently there are not enough or they don't refill them enough because a few times I started to fill my cup and the flavor ran out (and all similar flavors...like diet coke...would grey out). If you removed the cup to dump and switch to something like lemon-aid then the machine would not allow a refill for 15 minutes. Universal Studios makes you wait 5 minutes between refills...15 is WAY too long. The problem is I only had around 1.5 ounces of diet coke before it greyed out and then wouldn't let me get anything else. I really think they should remove this wait time or at least lower it to 5 minutes. My son had an occasion of putting in his cup, getting ice, and then it told him "cup not detected" because of a stray ice cube on the rack not allowing the cup to sit flat. He removed the ice cube and then was told he had to wait 15 minutes....uggg. I finally gave up and just went to the bars...but they don't have all the cook flavors. Read more