Serenade of the Seas Review

4.5 / 5.0
1,675 reviews

A great cruise and getaway from cold weather

Review for the Southern Caribbean Cruise on Serenade of the Seas
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cruisinbill
10+ Cruises • Age 70s

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Additional details

Sail Date: Jan 2018
Cabin: Superior Ocean View Stateroom with Balcony

Background information

This was our 20th cruise and 5th on Royal Caribbean (we last cruised with RCI in October, 2017, on the Vision of the Seas). We needed a break from our cold winter and this 10-night itinerary suited our requirements. We booked the cruise in July 2016, after receiving some good information on promotions from RCI. We had cruised on a sister ship to the Serenade, the Brilliance of the Seas, in 2005, and we really enjoyed that ship, mainly for its size.

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Cabin Review

Superior Ocean View Stateroom with Balcony

Cabin D1

We had stateroom 9070, a Superior Ocean View room with balcony, port side, just forward of midships. It measures 194 square feet with a 48 square foot balcony. This room is just adequate for space with a reasonable amount of storage. The three-piece bathroom is absolutely claustrophobic, with a tiny round shower, vacuum toilet and sink/vanity. There is an opening part of the mirror which functions as a medicine cabinet. There are only two toiletries provided: hand soap bars and a combination shampoo/conditioner dispenser in the shower itself. The stateroom itself is furnished with a double-opening closet, including folding pants racks, top to bottom open shelving and an overhead rack for storing life jackets and other items, a digital wall safe, small fridge (which never seemed to cool at all, in spite of our complaints to our stateroom attendant to have it looked at), flat screen TV, hair dryer, lighted makeup mirror, robes (which we had to ask for), a (filthy) sofa bed, one desk chair, a tiny coffee table, and a mattress-on-tube frame bed which was made up to queen size for us. The room has a nice décor, however, it is dated and the furnishings are a bit worn. The two 110-v outlets are only just adequate for various devices and cameras and the sole 220-v outlet had been disabled, or the prong cover was missing; we were never sure. There are data ports next to the electrical outlets as well, however, they do not work; it does show the age of the ship. The balcony is rusted in many areas and the furniture is fading. One thing that surprised us was the dirty carpets beside and under the bed and sofa bed; we would not have noticed this but we had to look for a missing suitcase lock so while searching on the floor and underneath the furniture, we were appalled at just how filthy it was.

Port Reviews

St. Thomas

As we had stopped here a number of times before and toured the island as well as St. John’s, the neighbouring island, we opted to go Paradise Point, which has a tram running from Highway 30 (by the West Indian Company Dock), in the Havensight Mall area, across the harbour from the town of Charlotte Amalie. Upon arriving in Charlotte Amalie, we discovered that we were docked at the Crown Bay cruise ship port, located west of town. We had planned to walk to Paradise Point so now we had to take a taxi. We were dismayed to learn that the tram was damaged in the recent hurricanes and was not operating. We still went to the Havensight Mall area to do some shopping for our granddaughter but were surprised to see that there was hardly anyone in sight. About 80% of the shops were closed. We looked around in a few stores that were open but soon opted to go into town. We shopped around the main streets then went out to the harbourfront area before deciding to return to the ship.

Martinique

We were last here in 2002 so were eager to see what had changed in 16 years. Martinique is a French overseas territory, so French is the primary language spoken as well as local dialects, and the euro is the standard currency. Unfortunately, we were docked at the Tourelles Cruise Terminal, a good 20-25-minute walk from the town centre. It was a very hot and sunny day and I can tell you it was exhausting to walk this distance (in retrospect, we should have taken a taxi back to the ship). We only planned to do some souvenir shopping for our granddaughter and walked down several streets in the downtown area. Merchants were polite but not willing to negotiate, even trying to do so with my fluent French. In one shop, there was obviously signage that was misleading, both for the deal offered as well as the price (it was in euros, not US dollars). We stopped in the La Savane public park for a drink and snack (and to get out of the sunlight!) before returning to the ship.

St. Maarten

This was another port that we had visited before a number of times, so we did not do a ship tour but opted just to look around the town. We disembarked the ship and walked along the pier towards what we thought the route we usually take to get to Phillipsburg. We found our way blocked by the construction of new shopping centres so had to detour around this construction site towards again, what we thought was the promenade to town. Nope, we ended up at the water taxi pier where we had to buy a $7 day pass to ride the boat into town. This was quick and easy. We got off the taxi and wandered into the main streets of downtown. Every shop had someone stepping out to give us discount coupons or some other offer; at first it was amusing to experience this as we had not seen this on our previous visits. However, after a couple of blocks it was just annoying. Now, this is an island with a very large tourism industry and it was devastated by the hurricanes. We realize businesses are trying to recover and their staff have to earn a living. We did find what we were looking for on a back street, after dodging a lot of vehicles. We walked back to the taxi pier and took it back to the ship. We also did some browsing at the pier shops. It seemed to be a study in contrasts: new shopping centre buildings being erected with three super yachts tied up by our cruise ship, and the stark reality of one building after another destroyed or damaged, with debris everywhere. It was a visit we will not soon forget.

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