Royal Caribbean Cruise Line
Sovereign of the Seas
7 Day Bahamas

Glen Grafwallner
Age: 50
Occupation: manager
Number of Cruises: 9
Sailing Date: December 5th, 2005

This was our 9th cruise, second one with RCI. Overall I was very pleased with the cruise. RCI seems to have better food than Carnival and the thing that stands out with me is the crew really seems to be happy to serve you.

We arrived at around 12 noon and was on the ship in less than 30 minutes. Be sure to fill out the paperwork before arriving and don’t forget the Bahamas paperwork. We headed right for the Windjammer Buffet and both the front and back were packed. There wasn’t anywhere to sit so we brought food out to the pool.

Checked on our dining room table and walked around the ship to get familiar with it until we could get in the room at 1pm. I had heard that the rooms were so small on this ship I couldn’t wait to see it. It wasn’t so bad but the attendant had put the beds together making it impossible to get out without crawling over the person near the edge. After laying on these beds, ( I use that term loosely ) I noticed a strange divider when the beds were pushed together. It was so hard there was no way you could do anything other than stay on you side with them side by side so we had her turn them into a L shape and that opened up the room to make it bearable.

So we try to flush the toilet and it doesn’t work. I called maintenance and when we made it back to the room they simply added a sign that says pull to flush instead of push to flush. Who cares, it worked. Next door neighbor had the same problem. Shower curtain never closed right, real cheap plastic showerhead that kept falling off and when it did it flopped around like a garden hose loose. Kind of funny. Water from the showerhead NEVER got hot enough to turn on any cold. I’m just used to really warm water from cruise ship showers. Don’t get me wrong the room was ok but certainly nothing to brag about.

I thought the food was very good. We had two very nice servers, Freddy and Cleon. I was impressed by the headwaiter who came over every night (not just tip night) and helped with clearing tables etc. Drink service was handled by someone the first night then the asst. waiter took over that duty. I had beef three nights out of the four and all three the beef was very tender and cooked right. Usually the beef is pretty tough on past cruises. I had breakfast 3 of the 4 mornings in the dining room and thought it was very good.

Windjammer Buffet offered all the typical offerings. I kind of liked the new setup where you can go to different stations instead of one or two long lines.

Entertainment was ok. They had Johnny Thunder from the Drifters one night and the comedian was very good. The production show had its high and low parts but it didn’t last long and was overall ok. We missed/skipped the newlywed and Quest games as we had just did all that on the March cruise. Everyone raved about the dueling pianos but maybe we hit them on a off night and actually we were there at the start of the show and they may have been warming up. I never made it to the disco. The poolside band was very good considering poolside bands usually annoy me after the first day or so.

There were a lot of old people and first time cruisers. I thought a pretty good crowd for a 4 day cruise which usually gets the questionable groups vs. the 7 day seasoned cruise crowd. Coco cay was a nice day at the beach. Nassau you can keep but that is the price you pay going on such a short cruise as there really are no other options. We took the #10 bus to Aradastra Gardens and it was nice. We got to feed some gorgeous parrots but missed the flamingos marching and didn’t want to wait 2 hours until the next show. We walked down to the “fish fry” and maybe it is happening at night but there wasn’t much going on so we headed back to the ship.

The last day at sea had a little motion to it. For those that cruised before it was nothing and actually kind of relaxing. Oh my gosh, the first time cruisers were freaking out. People sleeping on the top Lido deck, some lady was carrying her pillow and blanket to who knows where. That was all you heard about and it really wasn’t bad at all.

In conclusion we really enjoyed the ship. It is small but easy to navigate. You have to be prepared for the smallness of everything. Normally on the larger ships you have many more bars, outside walkways, hiding places etc. than this size ship. I would go on it again ( or it’s sister ships) without any question. After experiencing the large and the small I would opt for the large only because it has more options. I did realize that a 4/5 day cruise is just about right for the wife and I by ourselves. 7 day cruises seems to repeat too many things previously done, ie: shows, casino etc. Planning the next cruise already!

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