Voyager of the Seas Reviews from a Brit Perspective

[avalon007]

Yes, I have a feeling we may well find we prefer the Radiance class of ships, but I'm looking forward to trying out Voyager, even if it's a one off.

VOS is due for her refurbishment & we went on Radiance after she had been recently done up, so I guess negative comparisons in wear & tear are inevitable, but understandable.

You mention a lack of quiet lounge areas, did you find the Viking crown lounge on the upper deck & the library crowded as well as the other lounge areas?

I heard they ran 3D movies in the theatre, is that what they were showing?

How was the adults only pool solarium area? I'm assuming since it isn't covered in that it wouldn't be as user frienldy in the NZ climate as the Radiance Solarium?

[Gold Coast Cruisers]

Originally Posted by robinph

Yes they do dictate which show you have to go to,as I said your time is allocated according to your cruise card number and dining times, they will not let you in if you try to get in outside of your time. There was three days in between shows, and the first show was not until day 8, these are elite athletes and professionals of a very high standard, a 40 minute show would be walk in the park for them, I am sure they could handle 1 more show on a 14 night cruise, they are contracted to the ship the same as the other singers and dancers.I was lucky enough to have seen the show, but felt sorry for those who missed out because RCCI cant do their maths 3200 passengers 4 shows 700 approx seats each performance, obviously people are going to miss out through no fault of their own! Robin

When we cruised on Voyager we had to pick up tickets for the Ice Show. On the TV and in the Compass they would advise what time tickets were available from outside the Rink on deck 3. You were given tickets with a date and time on them and that's what you used to get you into the Ice Rink. There was free seating so you needed to be there early if you wanted front row seats. They only held seating was for guest in Suites, there was a designated area for them. At 5 minutes before the show started anyone who didn't bother to get a ticket could then be seated, if there were still seats available, more often than not there were only maybe 6 or 7 seats dotted here and there.
One thing that RCCL's crew were very strict on was saving seats, they watched closely to ensure that didn't happen.

So for our cruise it all worked well and we got to see the show 3 times.

Jilly

[Gold Coast Cruisers]

Originally Posted by Aussienana

There were questions earlier as to what did "food not up to standard mean?".

For me it was poached and fried eggs that were cool or cold when served (both in the main dining room and Windjammer). It was omelettes that were rubbery and cool/cold - the ones that were premade before the omelette station was up and running for the morning.

It was a prawn entree that was 4 sodden prawns with a dollop of bottle sauce on it - it was decidedly tired and wasn't worth eating. It was a dining room chicken meal that tasted as if it had been standing waiting for over an hour under lights - not warm, but not quite cold. It had what tasted like last nights gravy from a can over stringy inedible breast and veges that were sodden and over cooked and like they had been sitting round since lunch time. This was at 6pm so it should have been fresh and there was no excuse for it. I would have complained but our waiter had mysteriously disappeared so we just left. (Note: he was usually fantastic so I'm not casting aspersions, just explaining why we didn't return the meal).

The desserts which seemed great on day 1 palled by the end of the week. I have to strictly limit the amount of flour I eat and I found that staff had no idea as to whether desserts had flour in them and several times after being assured they were flour free found that they had a sponge base on the bottom of the mousse - I'm lucky I'm OK as long as I don't eat them all, but if I was coeliac it would have been a big problem. I try to stay sugar free where possible too but the flour free and sugar free desserts were mutually exclusive so I had to make a choice between sugar or flour. The sugar free and gluten free desserts were often tasteless. Most days gluten free desserts were limited to brightly coloured jello and fruit cut into overly large chunks - ie too large to put into the mouth and needing cutting - try cutting a recalcitrant piece of melon with a spoon in a dessert bowl - didn't work that well.

Sometimes there was fresh fruit available in bowls but often it was not ripe enough to enjoy - green oranges that were tasteless were there for days, cherry plums that were sour - and many days there was just none available.

For health reasons I need to avoid artificial colours (no bright jello), flavours and otherwise processed foods. At home I eat a basic meat and vegetable diet with some fruit. The only unprocessed food at breakfast was eggs and I ended up looking for scrambled eggs that looked fresh and they were almost always OK at one station or another. I liked that I could always find something to eat that was close enough to my ideal. Fortunately I don't have to be rigid, though if I eat too much that is not right it sets off my auto-immune disease and sets me up to catch any infection that goes past. I must have chosen OK as I didn't go down with noro-virus even though I did get the throat strep infection.

Reading your comments Aussienana I do feel for you and your own personal health issues regarding what you eat..... You say you only eat a "basic meat and vegetable diet with some fruit" at home.
I agree with you, there is no excuse for the fruit not to be as fresh as possible for a ship, however, I feel with your health issues it's a little unfair to expect the crew to know how much flour is in something or to criticise the food because of that.

Jilly

[The_Big_M]

Aside from the ice shows themselves, how often is the skating rink open for use on Voyager?

[Gold Coast Cruisers]

Originally Posted by The_Big_M

Aside from the ice shows themselves, how often is the skating rink open for use on Voyager?

When we were on board many sea days it was open for a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the afternoon.
You do have to sign a Waiver though before stepping or should I say sliding onto the ice...
It was a lot of fun, and I hadn't iceskated since I was a teenager, and that was a VERY VERY long time ago....lol.

Jilly

[Aussienana]

Originally Posted by Gold Coast Cruisers

I feel with your health issues it's a little unfair to expect the crew to know how much flour is in something or to criticise the food because of that.

Jilly

Given the number of people who have to be gluten free I don't think its unreasonable for the person serving to know whether there was flour in the dessert. I wasn't concerned about how much - I would make my own judgement on that, but if I was told that a dessert was flour free I would expect it to be. In that first week the information was inaccurate. I gave up asking so don't know if the information improved but there was anecdotal evidence from others that it did.

My criticism of the food is that the sugar free and gluten free desserts I tried were tasteless. They don't need to be. A raspberry dessert without raspberries was not thought to be a problem. It was a white tasteless mousse with only every second or every third serving having a raspberry or two on the bottom.

I guess my issue is that I didn't have issues on Holland America. I did on VOS.

[joejoe 59]

Originally Posted by Aussienana

Given the number of people who have to be gluten free I don't think its unreasonable for the person serving to know whether there was flour in the dessert. I wasn't concerned about how much - I would make my own judgement on that, but if I was told that a dessert was flour free I would expect it to be. In that first week the information was inaccurate. I gave up asking so don't know if the information improved but there was anecdotal evidence from others that it did.

My criticism of the food is that the sugar free and gluten free desserts I tried were tasteless. They don't need to be. A raspberry dessert without raspberries was not thought to be a problem. It was a white tasteless mousse with only every second or every third serving having a raspberry or two on the bottom.

I guess my issue is that I didn't have issues on Holland America. I did on VOS.

My daughter is celiac so i have a great understanding about what you cant & can eat. Its my understanding that it isnt the wait staff you should be asking about gluten, it is a meeting with the maitre d, who each night brings you the following nights menu for you to choose your meal from in advance. As celiacs cant have any gluten.

[The_Big_M]

Originally Posted by Gold Coast Cruisers

When we were on board many sea days it was open for a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the afternoon.
You do have to sign a Waiver though before stepping or should I say sliding onto the ice...
It was a lot of fun, and I hadn't iceskated since I was a teenager, and that was a VERY VERY long time ago....lol.

Jilly

Cheers, just what I needed, thanks Jilly!

[robinph]

Originally Posted by Gold Coast Cruisers

Reading your comments Aussienana I do feel for you and your own personal health issues regarding what you eat..... You say you only eat a "basic meat and vegetable diet with some fruit" at home.
I agree with you, there is no excuse for the fruit not to be as fresh as possible for a ship, however, I feel with your health issues it's a little unfair to expect the crew to know how much flour is in something or to criticise the food because of that.

Jilly

I never had a problem with the fruit but then the only whole fruit I ate were banana's, but the diced fruit was always fresh and ripe....the pineapple was delicious so sweet. Robin

[robinph]

Originally Posted by Gold Coast Cruisers

When we cruised on Voyager we had to pick up tickets for the Ice Show. On the TV and in the Compass they would advise what time tickets were available from outside the Rink on deck 3. You were given tickets with a date and time on them and that's what you used to get you into the Ice Rink. There was free seating so you needed to be there early if you wanted front row seats. They only held seating was for guest in Suites, there was a designated area for them. At 5 minutes before the show started anyone who didn't bother to get a ticket could then be seated, if there were still seats available, more often than not there were only maybe 6 or 7 seats dotted here and there.
One thing that RCCL's crew were very strict on was saving seats, they watched closely to ensure that didn't happen.

So for our cruise it all worked well and we got to see the show 3 times.

Jilly

Hi Jilly probably because yours was a long cruise they would have had more shows and it would allow peole to see it more than once if they wanted so they could use the process that you described, but with only 4 shows and the system that they put in place on our cruise it just did'nt allow everyone to see it once if they wanted to, just 1 more show probably would have solved the problem, hopefully for future cruises they will get it sorted out. Robin

[The_Big_M]

Originally Posted by Aussienana

My criticism of the food is that the sugar free and gluten free desserts I tried were tasteless. They don't need to be. A raspberry dessert without raspberries was not thought to be a problem. It was a white tasteless mousse with only every second or every third serving having a raspberry or two on the bottom.

I guess my issue is that I didn't have issues on Holland America. I did on VOS.

I haven't tried VOS yet, but that's been my experience of the sugar free desserts on Rhapsody and Radiance so I expect it's the fleet wide menu that's behind it. I avoid those desserts now.

[Mikey22]

Originally Posted by The_Big_M

Cheers, just what I needed, thanks Jilly!

We just got off VOS last week.
14 days around NZ with 5 Ports and the Ice Rink was open for 2 days for the Ice show, 2 sessions per day and open for passenger skating for 3 days for a 2 hours per day limited to 40 minute sessions, it was pretty disappointing for the kids to be honest.

[robinph]

Originally Posted by avalon007

Yes, I have a feeling we may well find we prefer the Radiance class of ships, but I'm looking forward to trying out Voyager, even if it's a one off.

VOS is due for her refurbishment & we went on Radiance after she had been recently done up, so I guess negative comparisons in wear & tear are inevitable, but understandable.

You mention a lack of quiet lounge areas, did you find the Viking crown lounge on the upper deck & the library crowded as well as the other lounge areas?

I heard they ran 3D movies in the theatre, is that what they were showing?

How was the adults only pool solarium area? I'm assuming since it isn't covered in that it wouldn't be as user frienldy in the NZ climate as the Radiance Solarium?

I know we should'nt compare and I do try hard not to, but it is hard when RCCI have given us 2 beautiful refurbished ships, and then with all the hype leading up to VOS coming out, we were expecting something of the same quality only to find her lacking in comparison. This seemed to be the general thought of lots of people on board that had travelled on other RC ships. Maybe they should have refurbished her before she came out like they did with Radiance,then we may not have been as critical because she is a beautiful ship and very impressive at first glance. I did not use the Viking Crown during the day, but the few times I did venture up there it seemed to be a popular place. The library as on our floor deck 7 near the lifts with very little seating about 4 chairs at the window overlooking the promenade, this was the same on deck 6 and maybe deck 8. The only small lounges around the ship were the Aquarium Bar which you could sit in and The Champagne Bar which you could only use if you were drinking there ( Champagne only), sometimes we would go into Cleopatra's Needle if it was not being used. They did have 3D movies in La Scala theatre, we saw 2 of them which were good, they ran Men in Black 3 in 3D as the main entertainment one night but we did'nt bother. The Solarium is very nice but under utalized on the NZ cruise, although we had cool days with sunshine, some sheltered spots in the solarium were quite warm , Im sure on an Island cruise it would be a nice spot.The quest was held in Studio B, which was a surprise, we thought it would have been in Cleopatra's, it worked quite well, but seemed to lack the audiance participation which you get in a lounge environment and the winners were only the male and female that were doing the running not the team helping.....just a bit different from how we have seen it done before.Portofino's was well worth the $20 cover charge it was a beautiful meal, also Johnny Rockets is good value and a fun way to enjoy lunch. Robin

[robinph]

Originally Posted by Mikey22

We just got off VOS last week.
14 days around NZ with 5 Ports and the Ice Rink was open for 2 days for the Ice show, 2 sessions per day and open for passenger skating for 3 days for a 2 hours per day limited to 40 minute sessions, it was pretty disappointing for the kids to be honest.

We were on that cruise also, I knew it was'nt open very often, just did'nt realize how little, thanks save's me pulling out the cruise compass to check. Did you get to see the Ice show? Robin

[Mikey22]

Originally Posted by robinph

We were on that cruise also, I knew it was'nt open very often, just did'nt realize how little, thanks save's me pulling out the cruise compass to check. Did you get to see the Ice show? Robin

Hey Robin,
I could not understand why Ice Skating was not open more, they used that area for too many other things like the Captains talk when they could have perhaps used Cleopatra's needle or La Scala, anyway....

Yes, we caught the Ice Show, it was pretty spectacular for the size of the rink.
We really enjoyed it.

[The_Big_M]

Thanks for the follow-up as well Mikey.

Good to know as we are keen to use it as well as watch the show. :-)

[Gold Coast Cruisers]

Surprised that they held The Quest in Studio B, I, like you Robin would have thought Cleopatra's to be perfect for that. Also Cleopatra's location means people wander in from the Royal Promenade to join in. Studio B is a bit out of the way for something like The Quest which needs audience participation.

Jilly

[Mothballs]

[quote=Aussienana;36312725]Given the number of people who have to be gluten free I don't think its unreasonable for the person serving to know whether there was flour in the dessert. I wasn't concerned about how much - I would make my own judgement on that, but if I was told that a dessert was flour free I would expect it to be. In that first week the information was inaccurate. I gave up asking so don't know if the information improved but there was anecdotal evidence from others that it did.
I know how you feel Aussienana.I am vegetararian and quite often I find myself looking at a dish and wondering if there is meat in there and I have to watch out if there is gelatin in the desserts.
I recently returned from a holiday in India and they have a great system over there where a green sticker is used to show that the food is vegetarian.Restaurants used this system if we were eating buffet and I noticed packaged foods and even my can of coke had the green sticker.I wish the cruise lines would introduce this and it could be used for gluten free foods as well using a different colour code.Just a thought.
Regards Elaine.