My wife and I just returned from a 12 night cruise aboard The Serenade of The Seas leaving out of Ft. Lauderdale on 2-26-18. It was a wonderful cruise but did have some hiccups. We LOVE the smaller ships as we have been on the larger ones (Anthem, Oasis, Quantum) and feel they are much too big with too many people and the "personal" touch is just not there.

Well this ship was small and to are liking but was missing two of our most favorite things when cruising. First of all their hot tubs were terrible. Not hot at all many days and had absolutely NO BUBBLES. When we complained we were told it would be looked at but after speaking directly with the pool maintenance folks, it was discovered that these hot tubs have very few jets and 1 motor...just not powerful...that sucked! Secondly the casino was extremely outdated. Old, old machines. Really? You can refurbish the ship but not refurbish the casino? There were only maybe 6 fairly interactive modern machines in the entire casino and a husband and wife monopolized play on these machines all hours of the day. They were there so much I don't think they even ate the entire trip!!!

On the plus side our balcony was so spacious and beautiful...we had a Deluxe Ocean View Balcony room and it was fantastic! We spent many a night out on our balcony watching the moon, sipping wine, and listening to the roar of the waves. Read more