BIG ship for sure but only feels crowded at times. Upon entering the ship we were met with....nothing. No welcome drink. No information about cabin availability. No information on the available open restaurants. We were just assailed by crew trying to sell us stuff. I suggest going to the main desk to get a copy of the Cruise Compass and escape the embarkation madness as soon as possible. I do not recommend going to the Windjammer at any time. I tried three times during the cruise and it was insanity mixed with a heaping dose of chaos. One time we were turned away because it was too busy! There are lots of better food options on the ship. We liked the Park Cafe on 8, the Solarium Cafe and the hot dog place. For breakfast Johnny Rockets is free and good as well as the American Icon. We ate a several specialty restaurants but the food in the Main Dining Room was excellent and we'll stick with that in the future. The Balcony cabin was as expected. Nothing special. The shows were all good but we didn't see Blue Planet. The comedians were very good too and we really enjoyed the Jazz band on Jazz on 4. Service at the bars were practically nonexistent. You have to go to the bar, wait your turn and schlep drinks for yourself in most cases. Wait! I thought I was on vacation. Am I getting the tip? Royal could care less about drink service since most buy the drink package. It's actually in their financial best interest to slow bar service down and provide less drinks. Our cabin steward and dining servers provided very good service as did most of the staff. The library is a complete joke. I have a better assortment of literature stuffed under my seats in the Jeep. It also seems that they are reducing the hours of operation in many areas. Everytime I wanted a
Cabin was OK. Nothing special. Had remote control issues
Food service was a real zoo mostly because they start shutting down and condensing lines long before closing. Waited 45 minutes in line on my birthday while on vacation