Mike Young

Age: 50+
Occupation: Retired
Number of Cruises: 6
Cruise Line: Royal Caribbean International
Ship: Legend of the Seas
Sailing Date: Feb. 9th, 2000
Itinerary: Singapore to Hong Kong

We took the inaugural cruise of the Legend through this area (Singapore to Hong Kong). We traveled with a group of friends (about 20-30 all told). For background, we are retired and travel whenever and wherever we desire. We have cruised on various lines since 1988, in various parts of the world.

The Legend is a visually impressive ship. One can tell that RCL spent money on the décor of the ship. The cruise was enjoyable, but not outstanding.

Two areas that RCL Legend has to upgrade would be the food quality and the room steward quality. With regard to these two services, we consider Legend to be the worse of all our cruises. The food in the main dining room was actually bad. The beef was tough, undercooked, or overcooked. I like my beef rare, and constantly got it well done. The waiter was always very apologetic and it got to be a running joke that he could always send it back, which he always had to. On one occasion, the meat was returned with actual raw parts showing on it! I soon ordered only the fish entrée, which we learned was the only entrée they could actually do well. Let me say that the wait staff was excellent. The buffet food was tolerable. After a while, my daily meals consisted of fruit and cereal in the morning (they couldn’t spoil that), Caesar Salad for lunch (again, hard to spoil), and the fish entrée for dinner. The one midnight buffet was a joke. This is obviously not the usual cruise meals one expects. On the plus side, I did not gain any weight.

In watching a cooking demonstration by the head chef, I realized the problem with the cooking of the beef. He was making a dish with medallions of beef. The medallion was about 4” in diameter and about ¾” thick. During the demonstration, he cooked the medallion about 10 minutes on each side, before setting it aside. After preparing the sauce, he returned the medallion to the pan in the sauce and proceeded to cook side dishes for about another 15 minutes. The meat was obviously very well done. Remember, he was the head chef!

Our room steward was a young woman from the Caribbean. She was not attentive to her tasks and constantly missed items like, daily and tour schedules, ice, towels, etc. We always had to call for these items when we returned from tours and wanted to take showers or have a cool drink in our room.

Thus, I am confused that the other reviews don’t mention the bad food and room service.

Otherwise the rest of the services were good, and the tours were what I expected. I especially enjoyed having the Internet mail connection - when it was up. The Cruise staff was very friendly and good.

I should also mention that the Legend was only about 60% filled so it was never crowded. I shutter to think how the food and room service would have been on a filled ship.

Would I take another RCL cruise? I would ask others about the current food quality on the RCL ship, then consider the price and itinerary versus other outstanding cruise lines, where I know I would get outstanding food and room service.

Luckily, these areas of service can hopefully be corrected. I think our bad room steward was an isolated case, but I know the food was bad for the entire ship.

Ask a Question About Royal Caribbean Cruises

Ever thought about becoming a home based travel agent? Check out my web site for home based travel and cruise agents located at;

Home Based Travel Agent