As loyalty members with RCI, we have completed a number of cruises on some of the smaller and older vessels in the fleet and enjoyed them all very much. So we were very interested to see how we would feel about our experience on this bigger, newer and massive ship. Honestly, we were very pleasantly surprised, despite the newness and all the bells and whistles, it just felt like coming home. I'm sure other people in a similar position having travelled on some of Royal's other fleet will agree that there is just enough modern with exactly the right amount of familiar to make it all feel like you've been here before with just a few added twists.

So we'll discuss our experiences from the beginning till the end.

EMBARKATION: As Crown and Anchor members, we were not afforded the usual perk of priority embarkation as our previous cruises, that left us a bit disappointed. However, we were rational enough to appreciate that with almost 5000 passengers to board we had to fall into the overall scheme. Our allotted time of embarkation was 2:30pm and we were on board before 3pm despite the huge number of people at the OPT. We were really impressed with the efficiency of the check in. Read more