Empress of the Seas Review

3.0 / 5.0
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If you can't do the cruise right, don't do it at all!! Best of Cuba??

Review for Cuba Cruise on Empress of the Seas
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David_7f
10+ Cruises • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Nov 2018
Cabin: Interior Stateroom

If you can't do the cruise right, don't do it at all!! Best of Cuba in a few hours?? Waste of time & money.

We signed up for this cruise solely because of of 2 ports in Cuba as we had been to most of the other ports & they were not that interesting. This seemed to be the case for the majority of the passengers/customers. (We have been on about 10 cruises. About half have been with RCI including Empress of the Seas about 10 years ago.) A few weeks before the cruise departure we were notified by RCI that the port of Santiago, Cuba, was being dropped with no explanation, but some passengers found out about the change only after they were onbaord the ship. (We found out why they dropped the port while onboard & they had good reason.) What was so unethical was that they knew far before they told us that they were dropping the port but they waited until after we passed the refund time! They told us to compensate we would stay in Havana until 5am but we were not scheduled to arrive until 2 in the afternoon; they tried to tell us that this was somehow 2 days in Havana! We arrived in Havana at about 3pm & by the time we were through customs we had only about 2 hours of daylight in Cuba. Oh, after 5 or 6 customs went home & your could freely come & go without a VISA.

While waiting for the first Havana excursion, an excursion desk staff said we should not have signed up for our evening excursion as there was not enough time between the day & night time excursions. I pointed out that the online RCI software does not allow for overlapping excursions but they took our nighttime excursion tickets. When we returned from our daytime excursion there was still time before the nighttime excursion!

Cabin Review

Interior Stateroom

Cabin 1V

The cabin was a typical inside cabin. However, when we arrived we found the bathroom shelves & the cabin dresser drawers dirty. The carpet needed a good shampooing & there was chipped paint & rust in the bathroom. I have never seen a cabin in this condition on the first day on any other tour, even on Empress of the Seas.

Sometimes there were sewer smells in the cabin hallways & I saw maintenance men working on plumbing from hallway service doors.

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