This was our 10 th cruise in the last 5 years but the first on royal caribbean and have to say the last. Don't get me wrong, the ship is beautiful inside and out. Well maintained and very clean. The staff are also very good, well mannered except the hotel services staff on reception who were off hand at best and rude at worst. The food for us as faith driven vegetarians was poor, little choice apart from salad and boiled rice! No quorn, soya or tofu offered. We did have amazing deserts though. Great if you have a sweet tooth. The entertainment was awful, bingo, darts, pub quizzes etc. I know this is subjective but it didn't enthuse us.

The cabin and steward was fantastic, very clean and well equipped except for no iron but RC will charge you $3 to iron your shirt!! Top tip if you go on an RC cruise: take coffee as they don't give you any in the cabins, and take your own bottled water as the minibar charge you $5 per litre for Evian, yep that is right not a typo. The shopping experience was pretty awful. 6 main shops, two full of handbags so if you are female that's great but for us blokes it was poor. The mens shirts were only Ralph Lauren, worn by chavs and druggies so why would I spend money to look like one?

The best entertainment was in the on hoard art auction by the very dodgy park west company from the states. What a scream, over priced tat in poor old frames. He sold one picture in one auction and got very arsy with the audience when they wouldn't bid. All very funny in his rather annoying South African accent. Great entertainment and they gave cheap sparkling wine to ease the pain. They called it champagne, haha but the waiter wouldn't let me see the bottle. Need I say more! Read more