Our first cruise ever so excited & disappointed at the same time, not as we expected or told it would be at all. all the staff and crew were happy & helpful at all times and the ship is amazing, every meal we had was above our expectations, however very disappointed at never once in the 12 days able to get a sun bed, taken up by the same people every day and reservations made on them even though it was advised not to reserve? the few pubs/ drinking places all the seats were always taken we ended sitting in the coffee shop, we paid our gratuities £300 upfront and most passengers stopped this being added to the room saying they would pay direct to staff, customer services on board assured us that all staff knew who had paid upfront - this was not the case as on the last day they all expected a tip in the hand - we explained we had already paid it upfront and they were not happy with that so we assume RC keep that and the customer service team gave us wrong information, we paid a lot more than people were paying directly to staff - that made us feel very uncomfortable, there was a lot of cut backs according to other passengers even down to no crisps in 270 dining apparently staff advised they no longer offer them with meals now? got the coach $20.00 into lanzarote as i am disabled and the coach driver never turned up to pick us up - left us 1hr 20 mins in the searing heat, we had to walk back which totally ruined my next 2 days as in so much pain, we were refunded the $20.00 straight away - we will be cruising again as i am sure we were just unfortunate on this cruise over £4000.00 for this trip expensive for a cruise that was not as expected - we will try another cruise line and hopefully get the experience of a life time but never again with RC
