Serenade of the Seas Review

Me, my wife Christy, and her best friend Jessie went on our first Royal Caribbean cruise to Mexico.
Our cruise was a 5 night departing Tampa on Saturday Nov 11 2021 and arriving back to Tampa Thursday the 18th. This was my 2nd cruise (I sailed on a princess cruise as a child) but everyone’s first cruise to Mexico and with Royal Caribbean.

We were originally scheduled to be on the Brilliance of the Seas and visit Grand Cayman islands & Cozumel. Because of Covid our ships and ports of call changed. We instead went to Costa Maya and Cozumel. I was disappointed because Brilliance is decorated with peacocks and I was looking forward to that décor. It had not yet been put into service (because of covid) but was at Port Tampa.

We found out the hard way that when your ship changes, it cancels any packages you have purchased. Instead of just transferring everything over, I had to repurchase the drink and dinner packages, at a higher price. Calling customer service was of no avail, apparently this is Royal Caribbean’s policy. From a customer service stand point, not only was it a hassle, it was a bad first impression., especially since we did not make the change, Royal Caribbean did.

Our room changed several times even though we had picked a specific spot. When my wife called customer service about that, The representative thought that WE were being outrageous to expect the same room on a different ship.. even though we didn’t make the change, and the Brilliance and Serenade (along with Radiance and Jewel) are all Radiance class vessels that are nearly identical. After an unnecessary argument, we were changed from the 3rd deck, back to the 4th deck near the R bar, as we had wanted. Although once we got aboard, our room was changed once again. But it was still on Deck 4 and right were we wanted to be.

This is why, in the future, we will book through a travel agent so we can avoid hassles and ridiculousness.

The staff was friendly, but no one really stood out. All the staff seemed tired. Because of covid were all wearing masks, and we had to wear masks in common areas. We did not have to wear mask at the pool area unless we went to the Park Cafe to get food. The ship felt like it was at 80% capacity, silly things like tables, chairs and games (chess, checker and backgammon boards) were ‘unavailable’ to ensure social distancing. I found out that we were only at 50% capacity. I think it would have felt less crowded if things hadn’t been blocked off and there would have been plenty of room for people to social distance. Instead it made it difficult to find a place to sit. But that is what the CDC required at the time.

First Day Lunch

While most people head to the buffet, a little known fact is that the Specialty Dining restaurants are open. The crew told us to head to the buffet as we boarded, but we knew better! We avoided the embarkation buffet crowd and headed to Chops Grill. We ended up eating here the most. Best steaks we have ever had. We got our monies worth for the specialty dining. We paid about $120 a person for the entire cruise of unlimited specialty dining. We about “spent” that on our lunch.

This was easily the best meal of the cruise, as we were at port and the ship was not moving.
For some reason, at dinner time, the ship would go full speed (18 – 21 kts), which did not make dinner eating pleasant. But for now we enjoyed our first cruise ship meal and were quite excited to be there.