Getting on the ship we were welcomed with pink sparkling wine which was free. The rooms were not going to be ready for another three hours so we had two choices; head to the buffet for lunch or go to the main dining room where all the concierge and suite guests are welcome. After watching how many people are boarding currently, we decided on the main dining room. Once we showed our room key, were escorted in and sat at a table of 6 before being given the preset menu. We had a choice of soup or salad; chicken, fish, or pasta; and a brownie or apple pie. They didn't advertise that they were offering alcohol but after flagging down thee waiter we were able to order some. Whether or not it was included depended upon your drink package or lack of one.
Shortly after we finished our meals it our room was ready but so was everyone else's so it was extremely hard to get an elevator and as we had luggage (plus I wasn't feeling well) we waited it out.
Upon arrival in our room we were greeted by our shore excursion tickets and lots of other bits of information as well as three green apples and some appies (warm shrimp, olives, and soggy tortilla chips). Photo of all the info we received:
Since we only had about 15 minutes before the muster drill I took the time to unpack the carry on that we did have before we started taking in the view from the deck, waiting for the announcement. Once the announcement happened we had to go from the 11th floor down to the 5th where we met in the Italian Restaurant. Here they took row call before we watched a quick spy themed film on onboard safety before the staff introduced themselves. From there the captain made an announcement introducing herself and we were free to go explore. I ended up spending the rest of the day in the room due to food poisoning.
The room has two North American outlets plus one British outlet just beside the mirror. The closet had about a dozen coat / pant hangers in the closet with a couple cubbies at the top (used them for our hats). If your room has house coats they will be found here along with the umbrella. The vanity area has a small drawer (didn't use it) and the area under the TV held a safe, minibar (you can remove the items from it), and four drawers that got deeper as you went down. Beside the bed there was a mini open shelving unit on each side with a shelf. On the side closer to the door, some of this area is taken up by a phone. There is more storage under the bed where I slipped the suit cases. The TV pulls out from the wall and turns to face the bed (the cord does become lose quite easily so check it if you are having issues.) The AC is controllable but it comes out of a vent above the closet so if you get hot, sleep on the side closest to it. Above the bed, a cubby runs the full length of the bed and has a cabinet door that closes down to hide your stuff.
When it came to the bathroom, there is a shower and a toilet. A small counter with a sink that has three small drawers (I had to put Kleenex inside them as they were gross), with a garbage underneath. To the right of it was four shelves with a glass door and another three shelves behind a wood cabinet door. The back of the door had two hooks and there were another two hooks in the tub. Towels are hung on two towel racks just inside the door.
We found that we had more than enough room for all of our stuff but hung a lot of our clothes as there wasn't enough room in the drawers. We packed for two people for a week (planned to do laundry) so if you are going to take more than this, you will run out of space and need to make use of your suit cases.
For the queen bed, it is two singles pushed together and the tip at the end is sharp! I had a few long knee high scratches from it. Both of us found it very comfy. There was a flat sheet, duvet, flat sheet so we each ended up with a flat sheet and shared the duvet but you can ask for multiple blankets if you want. I found that the two pillows they gave us (the decorative ones are on the couch in the photo) were too thin for me but they do have a pillow menu for the concierge that you can pick from. The body pillow was the perfect thickness for me and it was great for sitting in bed with to watch TV.
The patio had two chairs that laid flat, two foot stools, and a table. Due to where we were everyone that was standing at the restaurant patio could look down and see everything we were doing. There is one floor above us that is completely covered but you are right under the restaurant. We could hear the tables when people dragged them hard at the restaurant from time to time so I can only image what it would be like for them. As we had worried, when we had direct sun, the patio was boiling and it would warm up the room. The curtains are black out so they do help a bit and if you have wet clothes me tip would be hang them in this area as they dry quick. (I got two suction cups and hung a wash line between them using clothes pins to hang them). We didn't have an issue with dust / ash that some people complained about.
The ship itself was up to date with activities that were aimed more towards the 50, 60, 70 year old crowd (maybe 10% were under this age range) so we were a little out of our element. I'm not into collecting art, fabregae eggs (can't even spell it!), or adding jewelry worth 10's of thousands of dollars to my collection so besides swimming and taking in the shows, all there was to do was drink. Thank god that we had the premium drink package (check out my review on that). However, it was less about the amount we could drink and more about the quality of what we were drinking. Plus being able to get mint tea when your stomach is upset was really helpful!
Now, even though I'm not into those things does not mean that I didn't check them out. I went to a seminar to learn about how art pieces are priced and while I did learn a few things the nice thing about it was that I was not pressured into buying anything. Unlike the egg, jewelry, liquor, port talks, photo gallery, or even in the main dining room. That was the one thing that drove me a little crazy, the urgency to buy, buy, buy! Skip the port talks unless you are going to shop.
During the day there were officer vs. guest challenges, dancing, aerobics, trivia, iLearning, and places to relax. At night it was game shows, theatre productions, and karaoke. The theatre shows were hit and miss, the game shows were quite amusing depending on how late in the evening they went, the karaoke was a bust. During the day was hot glass blowing demonstrations that you could pay to take part in as well as some things like bocce that you can play on the grass. Silent disco happened a couple of times too.
The one thing that was always busy during the day was the pools. There were two pools outside and one pool in the adult section. Both places had hot tubs and the adult one was extremely quiet at night and the main pool was usually quiet only during shows or if they were cleaning them. If there was a port day the next day then both were usually empty around 10pm.
If you are wanting to eat (depending on the time of day) you had the spa café at the adult pool, buffet, hot dogs / hamburgers at the Mast Grill, the Main Dinning room - all included; Sushi, Italian, and French - additional cost. The sushi was really good as we did an all you can eat promo they had for $25/person but ended up getting cut off when we reached about the $40 bill total. There was also the British pub (nibbles at an additional cost), a café, a gelatoria (for a price, the buffet at free version), a martini bar, a couple standard bars, a slushy drink bar, a martini bar, and a casino as well as two shops. Room service is also included (different items for different classes) but there is a charge if you get it late in the evening or early in the morning however drinks (unless tea, coffee, or juice with breakfast) are not included and are charged at the minibar cost.
There are lots of quiet places on board but prime spots (ie. day beds) were gone quick and staff did their best to prevent people from holding the space with towels. There were signs and even notes left on the seats that said you could not save them for the full day.
Would I go again? Yes but maybe on a different itinerary. We picked on that there wouldn't be any kids which gave us a better price but I think it also aged the crowd and jacked up the luxury level. Luckily the room was comfy!
