Night 1- The muster drill was far more chaotic than what we’d experienced on other cruise lines (previously we travelled on Carnival and Norwegian Cruise Lines. It took a long time to organize everyone, and then to finally deliver the message. That night we decided to have a “they serve” dinner, versus the buffet meals we’d always had on other cruise lines. It took a full 2 hours to get through dinner, so slow that we missed the show on the first night. That was a big letdown.

Day 1, Nassau. We saw other cruisers recommend going to the British Colonial Hilton. Best suggestion ever! We had a $40 meal credit each. Sounds like a lot but we got 2 sandwiches and 3 alcoholic drinks for that, but since they served us on the beach we were very happy. We had 2 lounge chairs and an umbrella right in front of the ocean. Hardly anyone was there and we stayed for a few hours. The hotel was about a 10 minute walk from the pier, and along the way we passed the straw market (which we wanted to see) and other shops, so we had a fruitful day relaxing and shopping.

Day 2, Cococay. This is a tendered port, and the waves were too high so this ended up being an at-sea day. Apparently this happens frequently, it would be good if the cruise company (that owns this island) could build a dock on the island to avoid this problem. Royal scheduled some extra events to fill in our day, which was great, but they ended up cancelling other pre-scheduled events, such as trivia games, at the last minute. So this was a rather disorganized approach. One thing about Royal that is true of many cruise companies, they are always looking for a way to make money, on alcohol, soft drinks, casino, charges for food delivery (there was no charge when we travelled Norwegian last year though). With all that, you think Royal could be a bit generous when it came to winners of trivia contests but no. Winning teams got to share a single pen, which is a bit awkward when teams can be 6 people or so, not all of whom knew each other before the cruise. C’mon Royal, spring for at least a single pen per person. If I am being nickeled and dimed, at least give me something back for it. The Elton John impersonator show was great that night. Read more