MY sister and I are thinking semi-seriously about doing a cruise at some point, and I thought RC would be a good fit for us middle-aged singles, and I like the features of their boats. Any positive or negative experiences overall? Is the typical guest someplace between “loud drunk partier” and “old people playing shuffleboard”. I know jeans and T-shirts are officially prohibited in theory, but in practice do they enforce it for the main dining room on casual nights (wondering if I would be stuck at the Windjammer café or room service all 7 nights?). Is staff friendly? How much realistically should we figure on adding to the ticket prices for all the extras- beverages, tips, shore excursions, taxes and fees? and whatnot? Is it really worth it to get a balcony?
Don’t do it on one of the mega ships. Unless a week in a giant shopping mall with 4998 mall rats appeals to you.
www.cruisecritic.com has everything anyone could want to know, about every cruise ship in the that ever sailed the seas.
Search for your specific company, ship, and route
mrAru and I went on some cruises on Royal Caribbean and other than a fairly personal reason enjoyed the hell out of them.
I will say that it is not the ships fault, but the fault of the maddening crowd that pretty much refuse to let people in wheelchairs manage to get onto an elevator near mealtimes without resorting to some pretty rude ramming behaviors. So in a chair you have to get ahead of or behind the food-maddened herd rushing to get to the food.
That being said 
Demographically it changes around the school year for an onslaught of kids. If you go outside of school breaks you end up with an older crowd. Even if there are a lot of kids onboard, they do have an adults only section on top for pools and hot tub. There is both a buffet restaurant and a much more dressy sit down and really enjoy being waited on hand and foot dining room [our favorite] as well as specialty places running the gamut from a fancy burger place to a chi-chi uber formal fancy restaurant. They also have bars ranging from very casual up on deck for the pool set to a piano bar, to a casino. The shopping mall sort of central internal hallway has a great coffee house where mrAru would go and grab a really early morning coffee and nosh for us before the more normal breakfast up at the buffet [we get up at 5 am every morning for medications to remain on schedule and private time.]
You can shop on board, and they have little meetings before hitting a port to tell you about places to ship and you can get little coupons for cheesy freebies of jewelry or deep discounts on merchandise from special merchants in the various ports - mrAru picked up a bunch for me as he enjoyed walking around sightseeing in various ports and we gave them to friends as gifts when we got back. I think I still have a strand of pearls and matching earrings and a couple charms from our first trip. They also have a private island off Haiti - Labadee, with a pretty nice beach area and they throw a beach BBQ for the passengers when they arrive. We opted not to go and lunched on the balcony and watched the people frolicing:)
Foodwise, we normally did breakfast at the buffet, lunch variously in the ports, once at the fancy burger joint, and a few times in the regular main dining room. Dinners we did in the main dining room except for 1 night at the formal chichi restaurant [it was our anniversary] meals at the specialty places cost but at the buffet and main dining room are included in the price of the cruise. Room service other than between 11pm and 7 am is free except for the tip, between those hours is to keep people from ordering and then not answering their door.
If you don’t care about spending private balcony time, go ahead and get an inside or window room, or one of the rooms with the balcony or window looking out over the central corridor to save money, get a balcony or suite if you don’t mind the expense and want to treat yourselves. Either way it is pretty enjoyable as a way of going on vacation. Pretty much unless it is listed as an ocean travel day, all the travel is at night so you have the day at each port. I can really recommend the eastern Caribbean runs from Newark/Port Jersey - the travel is part of the charm for us so 2 at sea days at the beginning and end of each trip is fine, if you go out of Ft Lauderdale there is much less travel to the islands time.
We did 2 cruises on Enchantment of the Seas out of Baltimore - one for 12 days in January and one for 8 days in August. I’ll think long and hard before cruising while school is out of session. It’s not that the kids were necessarily bad, but when they take over the hot tubs or come into the supposed adults only area, it does get annoying.
The other thing I really hated was how LOUD it was around the pool deck - I suppose they were going for a tropical atmosphere, but all the steel drum music at high volume all the freekin’ time got really annoying. To be frank, I can only take steel drum music in teensy-tiny doses anyway. And even when they were playing other music, it was just too loud. I don’t see how anyone was able to read in that area.
The only other thing about the August cruise that I didn’t like was our dining room seating. We had gone with my husband’s parents, and his dad is somewhat hard of hearing. Our assigned table was in a very noisy section of the dining room where conversation was impossible. After the first evening, we just ate all meals at the buffet. If I sail with RC again, I’ll be more specific about our dining preferences when making the reservations.
If I recall, the one thing they were adamant about in the dining room was no shorts or tank tops. For the “formal” nights, I wore black pants and nice tops, but I never did the evening gown/cocktail dress thing. I get that people like getting all gussied up and having nice pictures taken, but I don’t get why it’s *mandatory *on certain days. At least they aren’t super-strict about it - my husband never wore a jacket, altho he did don a tie for the occasions.
We had inside rooms both times, and it was actually quite nice. One day, my husband wasn’t feeling well and wanted to nap - the inside cabin was very dark and quiet, and he slept well. To my mind, unless you’ll be spending time transiting scenic areas and you prefer total privacy, a balcony room isn’t worth the extra cost. I was quite happy flopping down in a chair on the promenade deck when I just wanted to watch the ocean go by. It was usually quiet and sparsely populated.
I haven’t cruised other lines yet, but my mom has and the only one she has negative things to report is Carnival. Apparently, they market to a younger, noisier crowd. I would never cruise with them just because I always hated their commercials. Yeah, I know, not a logical reason, but it’s mine and I own it!
RC’s website lists customary tips - we just added ours as “prepaid” when we booked. It was easier that way, and we didn’t inadvertently snub anyone. I don’t recall how much it came to per day, but it covered the room steward and the assorted waiters. You can prepay for drinks, but since I don’t drink, I can’t talk to that. They have a soft drink package, too, but it came to something like $8 per day - I decided I could survive without my morning diet Coke at that price. I could have just paid per soda, but there were plenty of freebie options and I did fine.
My sister and her husband did a bunch of shore excursions, but we just wandered on our own - pretty easy to do in the Caribbean ports. There were transportation options on the local economy that worked out fine for us, and we walked a lot. We’re not big fans of organized tours.
Get insurance! You just never know what might come up. My parents were enroute to San Diego to do a 2-week cruise to Hawaii, but my dad died when they stopped in Texas. After all was said and done, it was a relief to my mom that she got most of the fare back within a few weeks - it was more than petty cash to a new widow. To me, insurance is the price of peace of mind.
Bottom line, I was quite happy with RC - the staff went out of their way to take care of us, the accommodations were cozy, but comfortable. The variety of foods was amazing. The entertainment varied wildly, but there was always something to do if you wanted to, and lots of places to sit in quiet if you prefer that. I enjoyed the heck out of not having to do anything if I didn’t want to, not having chores, not having to cook and clean - heck, visiting the different ports was almost incidental to my vacation! 
I was on Allure of the Seas for Thanksgiving a few years ago.
Growing up, the family went on a few cruises, and I somehow decided that one of the signs of being wealthy was being able to afford a balcony on a cruise ship. For this cruise, I was almost 40, and make decent money, so I checked the price difference. Turns out you don’t actually have to be wealthy. I upgraded the room my sister and I were sharing, and the room my parents were in.
It effectively gave my sister and I a separate room to spend time in if we got on each others nerves. And every morning, we ordered room service for a pot of coffee. I don’t want to face the crowds without any coffee in me, and being able to drink it while on a balcony staring out at the sea is pretty awesome.
As for the attire in the dining room - one day my sister and I were on a tour in Mexico, and it ran late. My parents were half way through dinner before we made it back to the ship. We immediately popped over to the dining room to let them know we were back, with the intention of going to our cabin, changing into appropriate attire, and coming back. (We were in shorts and t-shirts.)
Our waiter already knew the situation - there were over 100 people from the ship on the tour with us - and told us we could just sit down and order our food, and not to worry about the dress code for the evening.
So the dress code is real, but bendable.
My wife and I have gone on a number of cruises. We’ve done the high end with Seven Seas Navigator twice, midrange with RC’s Oasis of the Seas, and low end with RC’s EXoS twice, and NCL’s Pride of America in Hawaii.
I never had a desire for cruising. In fact, I always told my wife that we would never do it whenever she asked; I simply had no interest. I don’t remember what changed my mind but one day my wife just happened to ask at the right time and I said yes.
We were both in our early to mid 40s when we went on our first cruise, which was on RC’s Explorer of the Seas.
I have to say that we have never experienced loud drunken behavior on any of the cruises we’ve gone on. On the other hand, we have never seen anyone playing shuffleboard.
On the mass market cruise lines, nothing is really prohibited as far as attire is concerned. They prefer you not to wear jeans and tee-shirts in the main dining room, but they won’t kick you out if you do, and most other patrons won’t care what you wear. Even on formal night (which most cruise ships have at least one night of the cruise), as long as you’re dressed neatly, you’ll be okay.
On the high end cruise ships, such as Seven Seas and Paul Gaugin, the dress code is enforced.
In every area of the ship other than the main dining room your attire is your choice.
One thing my wife and I have learned is to never pay the cruise line for excursions. We saved between $500 and $1200 on each cruise by booking the excursions ourselves with the brokers or organization running the excursion directly. The cruise lines charge between 30% and 70% markup. For example, for the zoo and aquarium excursion in Bermuda, Royal Caribbean charged $60 per person. My wife and I paid $20 per person for the same thing by purchasing our tickets at the aquarium, saving a total of $80. The ONLY reason to book excursions through the cruise line is the convenience of not having to deal directly with the event vendors yourself.
For midrange and low end cruise lines, yes, the staff is generally friendly. They should be as they are working, for the most part, for tips.
Regarding a balcony, many people will say “you’re not going to spend your vacation in your room, so why spend extra money for a balcony?” I couldn’t personally imagine being in a room without a balcony. The rooms are generally very small as it is, much smaller than your average hotel room. A balcony makes the room feel larger, and lets you experience the ocean while in your room. Get a balcony. Yes, it is worth it.
Write me off as a raving greenie if you like, but please consider the environment before deciding on taking a cruise. Even a cursory Google will bring up plenty of scary reports and stats on the unsustainable and highly polluting practices, not to mention issues of social justice, as these ships fly “flags of convenience” so as not to have to comply with labor laws. If you have a shred of environmental conscience, please think long and hard before giving these companies your money.
Interesting, I cruise RC quite a bit and I find their environmental rules pretty anal, ** araminty**. Notwithstanding, they scored an F.
FairyChatMom nailed the RC experience.
It may not be the best cruise line, but there are worse.
I did play shuffleboard on Norwegian in Alaska. I don’t recommend Norwegian…
I find it interesting that RCI is considered mid-range and NCL low-end. We’ve had three spectacularly comfortable and satisfying rides on NCL, and one of the worst wastes of time, money and vacation time on an RCI leviathan. There was no one thing “wrong” with the RCI cruise; it was just a cornucopia of what most people say they hate about cruising: crowded, tacky, cattle-car experience with mostly indifferent staff and endless upsell and “shopping experiences” as entertainment. Oh, and nearly all of the deck “attractions” were unusable on the two-day haul home because it was all at 20+ knots and you can’t play miniature golf or climb a rock wall or even lay around the pool in a howling windstorm. Since nearly everyone was like us and left all the shipboard attractions for those two uncrowded days, it was pretty unhappy all around.
No one’s picked up a little souvenir from RCI?
We opted for the balcony to give me some outside space and sunlight without having to come into contact with strangers if I was having a pain day, which I did a couple of days.
We treated me to a spa session - back massage, hair extra conditioning with some argan oil or something [dead emus? no clue, a thin clear oil with no major smell but it was also used as a massage oil and felt wonderful] and a quick acupressure for relaxation and migraines that actually seemed to work, 2 weeks with no migraines and no auras. It was hitting the time of month for what were my regularly scheduled hormonal migraines. mrAru had his head waxed and polished, or something that kept him busy for an hour. Hell, he could have gotten his ashes hauled for all I know :eek:
We left New Jersey in the teeth of a snowstorm and returned to snow, but the warm ocean sun [picture from our balcony] and reasonably comfy bed were definitely worth the money.
On some cruises, you basically spend all of your time on the boat, so it really matters which boat and/or cruise line you’re on. On other cruises, you’re hardly on the boat at all. I like the second kind, myself.
A few (maybe five) years ago, my wife and I spent a week cruising around the Hawaiian islands on the NCL “Pride of Aloha”. On that cruise we basically got on the boat just before dinner, had a nice dinner on the boat, went to bed - and woke up the next morning in another port on another island. We’d grab a bite at the boat’s buffet, then leave the boat for the day to visit the island, returning just before dinner. Rinse and repeat. It almost didn’t matter which cruise line we were on.
(Sometimes the boat would leave the dock while we were having dinner, sometimes it would leave later in the evening. Sometimes we’d wake up early and watch our boat dock at the next harbor.)
This is great reading for someone who has always wanted to take a cruise, but doesn’t like loud music or alcohol. I know just stay away from them go to bed early etc, but it is nice to read the advice.
Better than watching about cruise ships on Discovery channel … I also worry about the sickness some cruise ships have, probably in the buffet area, uh?
One of the best cruises on Earth, IMHO, especially if you want a look at all of the islands without multiple visits or paying for island-hopping. As you say, just wake up in a new and interesting port every day.
I failed to book a side excursion to Niihau, which still bugs me years later. 
I’ll go one further and say, if you can afford it, get a suite. We’ve always found it possible to get a suite for substantially less than the list price by booking (or sometimes upgrading) closer to the day of departure. Besides the extra space, which is really nice, you also typically get much better service, including the ability to skip lines, a dedicated concierge, etc. At this point I’m so sold on it, I’d probably just pay the list price if it were a choice between that and having a regular stateroom (though thankfully it has never come to that).
We’ve gone on a lot of cruises, and Norwegian is actually our favorite. We greatly prefer the dining situation, where you can eat wherever you want whenever you want (you do end up spending extra money on the upgrade restaurants, but I think it’s worth it). But honestly, we’ve had fun on every cruise we’ve gone on, regardless of cruise line. Our friends give us a hard time about it, tell us things like we shouldn’t be going on cruises until we’re retired, and so on, but they’re the ones who are missing out
There are no side excursions to Niihau as it is a private island 17 miles from Kauai also referred to as the “Forbidden Island” due to no one was allowed during the 1950’s without being quarantined for two weeks first.
The owners do own a helicopter however and they do offer tours that last 1/2 day at $350 each with a minimum of five guest. Perhaps that is the tour you are speaking of?
I don’t think NCL does the Hawaiian Islands anymore though due to the hired servants from the colleges of Hawaii were too laid back to serve anyone with respect and it proved to be too costly for the ship to be Registered as American to travel between the islands without stopping at a foreign port first.
They are large enough that they are very stable. Actually I had no problem walking with crutches in 40’ waves when our ship passed through a level 1 hurricane on the way south.
We’ve been on 3 RC cruises and 2 were great. On the one that looked like it wouldn’t turn out good, RC made it great with some outstanding efforts on their part. The ship got into port late and we missed our return flight. Nothing available until the next day. Even hotels were almost all booked up. RC hired a bus, a full size bus, to take my wife and I to another airport 95 miles away so that we could catch a flight that evening!
I highly recommend getting a balcony room. They are fun to sit out on. Also if your ship would have one of the very rare power outage or plumbing problems that a few had last year, you can open the balcony door and get fresh air.
There are thousands of people on each cruise, so there are always people of every stripe. The cool thing is that they self-segregate. The cruise line plans activities that way on purpose. While Bingo is being played, there just so happens to be a newlywed mixer in the dance club. If you’re a social, outgoing person, you’ll have a great time. If you’re very introverted and can’t talk to strangers, perhaps you won’t enjoy it as much.
Cruising is a ‘shared experience.’ Everyone is on vacation at the same time, so you’ll get more out of it if you make friends onboard.
I have never heard of this rule. I have worn jeans and shorts to dinner on countless occasions. I’m not just flouting a rule…I’ve never heard of it. That should tell you something about how enforced it is.
Oh, you better believe it. They practically grovel at your feet. It’s lovely.
Only pay for shore excursions for transport and to save time. If you get dropped off right where the sights are, or you have all day to spend, save the cash. Tips, however, are not optional. The employees get NOTHING BUT tips. If you fail to tip your waiter or cabin attendant, you’re literally stiffing them their paycheck. It’s not a tip; it’s their wage. So pay it.
That said, count on about $24 per person per day in tips. If you’re a vacation-drunk like I am, tip a bartender a buck every time and they’ll get you smashed in two glasses. It’s cheaper in the end, and it’s some karma toward the little guy (vice the cruise line).
No. One thing I love about cruising is the absolute darkness. I don’t get that at home. I’m never in my stateroom, and when I am, it’s for sleep or ‘personal business,’ then I’m out of there.
For my wife and me, cruising is hands-down the best way to travel. There’s no cheaper way to see so many sights in so many days. It’s like city-hopping where the train is a nonstop party. I recommend going for a 10-12 nighter, so you can really get to know people and don’t lose time embarking or packing up.