Cheburashka
Momketeer
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2020
Pros:
Cons:
- We had a great morning of sightseeing in San Juan prior to embarkation.
- Weather was idyllic for most of the trip.
- Captain did a good job of steering us away from forecasted tropical winds.
- Stateroom hostess did a good job.
- Given a private MDR table after requesting it at Guest Services (had already requested it in advance but that wasn't honored).
- Food at Palo (dined there twice), MDR and Serenity Bay was very good.
- Rainforest Room was fantastic.
- Stateroom and extended balcony was great.
- Midship Detective Agency was fun.
- Aqua Duck was fun.
- Service overall was very good.
- We had a Serenity Bay cabana and that was excellent.
Cons:
- Worst behaved guests I've ever seen on DCL out of 11 cruises. 80-90% of the guests seemed to be South American nationals and many of them acted entitled. Many instances of kids yelling indoors while parents passively watched. Kids cutting in line for the Aqua Duck. Rowdy drinking on deck 3 midday one day- so loud we left the gift shop & decided to go back another day. Families so self-absorbed they would just stop in the middle of a walkway & you'd have to find your way around them- this became a common experience on this cruise & they never apologized or said pardon us or excuse me or anything.
- Muster drill was twice as long as usual due to so many families arriving late to the drill. Everything tended to start late due to a lot of guests being late. Our server mentioned he had a 1st seating guest show up at 7pm and expect full service.
- Worst theater experience ever on DCL, due to abominable audience behavior (keep in mind I'm platinum CC and am fine with what DCL family audiences are normally like.) Kids in front of us talked constantly and were actually standing up for about a third of the show while their parents passively watched. Many in the audience talked throughout the show, which I could barely follow due to the disruption. For the first 20 minutes of the actual show (which also started late) there was a steady stream of people arriving late, walking through the center aisles, with several using cell phone flashlights to find seats & signal to one another across the theater. Saw CM intercept people who were filming the show at least 3 times.
- Entertainment staff at Bingo were lackluster. Minimal joking and dancing. Not the fun experience I've had on other sailings.
- No final jackpot bingo.
- We couldn't embark onto Castaway Cay until almost noon. Original embarkation time was supposed to be 10:30. They delayed our all aboard time by 45 minutes to compensate. No one's fault as it was due to weather, but still a bit disappointing. At least we docked and the weather was nice on the island.
- Our Palo server (who we got both nights) confused providing good service with doing tons of chatting and interrupting our conversation every few minutes to ask how we were doing. She even asked if we were ready to go while I was in the middle of drinking something (we hadn't been lingering & we didn't close the place down or anything). At that point I just put my glass down & said yes and we left. That was our 2nd night there & at that point we were eager to get a little peace, which we should have been able to get while dining at Palo.
- Our MDR server was lackluster, then he gave the longest "excellent speech" in DCL history. Learned about this guy's homeland, history of work at DCL, current staffing & scheduling issues at DCL, etc., all during one speech and without encouraging him to talk.
- Good Morning Disney was embarrassingly bad, with hosts giggling and snorting throughout the show one morning and doing other silly antics I never would have expected to see on DCL (like a host running up to the camera & putting his face right up to it while the other giggled).
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