I'll preface all this by saying I didn't particularly want to take this cruise. Christmas away from home sounds (and is) depressing. But the in-laws wanted to take the cruise. They're both walker-bound and it was their 50th anniversary, so I had to take one for the team. I tried, honestly, to keep a positive outlook. I kept hearing I'd be treated like royalty and all about how magnificent the food would be. So honestly, by the time we arrived to board, I was optimistic in my expectations. I was amazed at how creatively Royal Caribbean turned it all into a disaster. It was like they were inspired to wreck the vacation. I'll never sail with them again, and I would suggest that nobody sails with them.

The ship itself should be seized by the Coast Guard, towed offshore, and sunk by naval torpedo fire. We got there to a confused train-wreck of people who were denied clear communication by the agents at the terminal. Arriving at 12:40 PM, we were told by the porter that things were "slow" that day and we may as well go have coffee and come back "in a couple hours." So we rode over to a McDonald's and had lunch, and waited the time with patience.

We got back to the terminal to find no progress, only a bunch of buses and nobody telling us doodly squat about what was going on, but we were told there had been a contagion on the ship and the delay was because the ship was being disinfected. Yeah, right. I got four different stories from three different agents before someone finally told us "they're doing everything at the convention center." Well, if I'd known that I would've simply ridden over to the convention center. For Pete's sake, the McD's where we had lunch wasn't but a mile from the San Luis where they were doing all this! But anyhow, we had a very difficult time getting mom-in-law onto a bus (she's got terribly arthritic knees) and then rode to the convention center to find nothing short of pandemonium, and nothing better to eat than SACK LUNCHES. That should have been a huge warning flag to just go home and forget this debacle, but by this point we were all in. Read more