Our (almost completely DIY) 12-night Med Cruise on Vision of the Seas - Aug 2015

Hi everyone! Although there have been quite a few reviews of this ship in the last couple of months, I thought I would add another. I'm going to try and review as many aspects of the cruise as possible here, if I miss anything out please let me know and I will add it!

First, a bit of background. My wife Frankie and I got married in April, and for our honeymoon we wanted to try something a bit different. We have both travelled a lot around Europe on Interrail trips, but as we are now in our 30s we wanted something a bit more comfortable (sleeping on trains doesn't appeal as much as before!). My grandparents have been on many cruises, and for years I'd been saying that I would like to try one. So after a bit of research, we decided to go for it.

Why this particular cruise? Mostly for the itinerary. I had never been to any of the places before, and Florence and Santorini were very high on my bucket list. Add that to the decent price of the cruise, and I was convinced.

Although I'm from the UK, Frankie is Spanish and I have lived in Spain for the last 9 years. With the current economic situation here neither of us really earns a decent salary, so we decided to plan a cruise "on a budget." So this review will also go through how we did that. At each port (except Kusadasi - I'll explain why later) we did everything on our own, no tours or anything.

Now I'll admit that although we were looking forward to the holiday, we had our doubts as well. We had never been on a cruise before, were we going to like it? The doubts were also mainly due to quite a few of the reviews we had read on this site. Terrible food, poor service, a lack of organisation... were we both going to be crying ourselves to sleep at night wishing we were back home?

Well, in a word, no. :)

As we live in Spain we didn't have to worry too much about getting to Barcelona, it was just a 4-hour train ride away. However as Frankie had never been before (and I hadn't been for 10 years or so) we decided to spend a few days there before the cruise.

So we got there on the Monday afternoon (the cruise started on the Thursday) and checked into our hotel, which gave us 2 and a half days to explore.

We decided to spend the first afternoon at Park Guell, and after a quick metro ride we were there.

TIP: If you are going to spend a few days in Barcelona, you have a couple of money-saving options to get around the city. You can get 10-journey tickets on the metro (called "abonos") for just under 10 euros, or tickets for 2, 3, 4 or 5 days covering nearly all means of transport for 14, 20.50, 26.50 or 32 euros respectively.

Park Guell is quite hilly so expect a few walks uphill! Luckily they had escalators from the metro stop up to the entrance which makes it a bit easier. There are some great views when you get there.

They were charging 7 euros to enter the Monumental Precinct part of the park which we thought was quite expensive. As there was a bit of a queue we decided to leave it, perhaps others can comment and say if it's worth it or not! There is plenty to see without that part in any case.

After a few hours here, we then decided to go up to Tibidabo. This is a theme park situated on a hill to the West of the city. There is also the impressive Sagrat Cor church. We took the funicular up which cost us 7,70 euros return each. You can get into the theme park without a ticket, the only thing is that obviously you can't get on any of the rides. We really loved going up in the evening, just as the sun was going down. We were treated to a great light show which we enjoyed as well. With that and the views of the city it's definitely worth going up there.

At 10 p.m. it was time to head back to our hotel!

Looking forward to the rest of your review. Good start!

Waiting with anticipation!

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Really looking forward to your report! I'm on Vision in two weeks time so hoping to learn from your experiences!

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Our second day started with a much needed lie-in! We then decided to head towards the Gothic Quarter and spend the majority of the day there. We strolled around the area, going down La Rambla. It's a lovely part of the city, you can get quite lost if you start exploring all the narrow streets there!

There are quite a few places worth visiting there as well, including the Cathedral, Basilica de Santa Maria del Pi, and Basilica de Santa Maria del Mar.

After a lovely late lunch we then headed over to the Sagrada Familia. Unfortunately we only reserved the entrance tickets a couple of days before. What we didn't know was that when you reserve the tickets, you have to choose a time. However, if you also want to go up the towers, you need to select a different time for that as well. If you leave it too late, you won't get times that coincide, which would mean 2 trips to the area. As we didn't know that we weren't able to go up the towers which was a shame, but just going into the main part was breathtaking.

TIP: Make sure you book your Sagrada Familia tickets in advance!

After a bit of a wander around the area near the Sagrada Familia we were off for dinner and an early night!

On the morning of the Wednesday we decided to go to Montjuic, which is a hill to the South of the city centre. There are some lovely gardens there, a castle, and also the venue of the 1992 Olympic Games! Unfortunately we weren't able to see everything there because it was just so hot. We ended up taking quite a few breaks for fresh fruit and drinks (although everything was quite expensive up there).

The Olympic Stadium

In the afternoon we took the funicular back down to the city centre, and headed to the port area. Basically we had absolutely no idea where we had to go the following day for the cruise! So we thought we would try and work out what we needed to do. After asking a few people we discovered we could get a shuttle bus to the port terminal from near the Columbus monument (I'll put more information in the post for embarkation day).

Happy with that, we then went exploring La Barceloneta, a neighbourhood from the 18th Century. After a while the heat really was starting to get to us, so we started heading back towards the hotel. Thought it would be best to get an early night so we were fresh for the start of our cruise!

Thank you. Love the pictures. Waiting patiently for the next segment of your cruise.

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woot! woot! cant wait to see your report!

We woke up very excited knowing that today was the first day of our cruise! After breakfast and some last minute shopping (it was quite handy that our hotel was right above the L'Illa Diagonal shopping centre) we packed our cases and got ready to go. We also had our rucksacks prepared to take on board with the things we thought we would need for the first few hours (thanks to the tips from everyone on CC!). We then headed over to the metro station.

After a short ride we got to Drassanes. From there it was just across the roundabout where the Colombus monument is and then a right down a little side street which is where we caught the T3 PORTBUS shuttle. A single ticket cost us 2 euros (they advertise returns for 3 euros but that is if you are coming and going the same day).

TIP: If you are going to Barcelona port by metro, the closest station is Drassanes.

It was a great feeling going over the bridge and seeing the ship in the distance, knowing it was going to be our home for the next 12 nights!

We arrived at about 13.30, got off the shuttle, dropped our cases off outside the terminal building and headed inside. We then went straight to the desk, filled in a couple of forms, got our Seapass cards, went through security and were straight on the ship! It was a really smooth and easy embarkation, we were impressed. I was also able to take 2 bottles of wine on board without a problem whatsoever.

The first thing we did was locate our cabin (which I'll talk about in the next post) which was ready for us. We then headed up to the Windjammer for lunch. Afterwards we were suprised to find our cases in the cabin waiting for us (about 4pm) so we unpacked, and at 5pm we headed up to Deck 9 to watch us leave Barcelona!

Bye bye Barcelona!

After dinner in the MDR at 18:45 we then spent the rest of the evening exploring the ship! As there was only one show that evening we missed it as we were having dinner, but we loved looking around and making a note of where everything was. Our cruise had begun!

Ah there was something I missed in the last post, the muster drill!

For some reason 5 minutes before we were supposed to go to our station, I decided we would probably need to wear our life jackets, so put mine on. Literally just as we were about to leave, there was an announcement reminding us that it wasn't necessary to wear them. That would have been really embarrassing :o

The drill was over and done with in less than half an hour, the only delay was because of some people not turning up (quite a few in our group), and others turning up 10-15 minutes late, which I didn't really understand, there was plenty of warning!

Cannot wait to see more. Never cruised before but thinking about cruising Alaska in 2016 and the Med in 2017. Your itinerary looks exactly what I want for the Med therefore looking forward very much to your experience. Many thanks indeed!

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Apologies for the delay! Unfortunately reality set in on Wednesday and it was back to work. Hopefully I should be able to update a bit more this weekend...

Choosing our stateroom was one of the easier decisions to make as we quite simply couldn't afford anything but an interior! Plus as it was our first cruise we didn't want to splash out on anything else in case we ended up not enjoying cruising. So when we made the booking, we were given a Q category stateroom on Deck 2.

However, a couple of months after making the booking we saw that we had been upgraded to a Large Interior (Category L) on Deck 3, 3613, which we were happy about.

In short, we really liked our stateroom! The bed was comfy, and we slept really well throughout the cruise. We hardly noticed any ship movement at all. The only thing we did feel were slight vibrations in the morning when arriving at the different ports, but most of the time we were already awake so they didn't bother us at all. We were below the MDR which meant there were a few bangs in the evening from people leaving, but that was only until around 10pm.

We were able to put our suitcases under our bed which meant we had a bit of space. Frankie loved the mirrors in the room, and I thought the TVs were pretty cool. I was especially happy to have ESPN as one of the channels as it meant I could watch Premier League football matches!

The wardrobe was great, we had brought extra hangers with us as recommended in some posts on CC, but there were actually plenty there for us and we ended up not using ours. Perhaps it would have been good to have a couple of shelves inside the wardrobe, but apart from that storage space was fine!

The one aspect which I'd read about in reviews and worried me was the shower. But actually we found it to be fine. I'm 1.83m (6ft) and had no problems with space, and the shower curtain worked fine. The only thing was that there was no shampoo or shower gel, but thanks to CC we knew this and took our own. I can imagine some people being disappointed though thinking they would be provided and then turning up without any!

Our attendant Derron was really friendly and always asked us how our day had been in the evening. We loved all the towel animals he made and he kept the room nice and clean. No complaints at all there.

We got back to our stateroom one evening after dinner to find the TV on. We were sure we had turned it off before going! Then we realised who had turned it back on... :)

The other thing we liked was how quiet everything was, I have no idea if there were guests in the rooms next to ours, if there were they were really quiet. I don't know why but I expected lots of people making noise in the corridor at night so that was a nice surprise.

For our next cruise, we would be quite happy to have another Interior. In Spain we have shutters on all our windows and so we are used to pitch black rooms, no window wasn't really a problem for us. I can see the advantages of having a balcony though, so if we were to splash out in the future we would be quite happy to go for one of those :)

If I've missed anything or anyone has questions please let me know!

Great review so far! We're thinking about taking a similar cruise in a couple of years so I'm very interested in what you have to say.

Thanks for your review! We're going on the Vision next month! [emoji5]️

Apologies! Work has been pretty hectic the last couple of weeks! Let's get this review updated.

I've decided to put this as a separate post to give a general review of the days in port. As I said in the first post in the review, one of the reasons I chose this cruise was because of the itinerary. I hadn't been to any of the ports before, and so as you can imagine I was very excited to see all the different places. Having seen some of the prices for excursions through the ship, we decided to try and explore the ports ourselves, thereby saving money. Although the general recommendation is to book through the ship on your first cruise, we felt that our experience of travelling in Europe would help make it a success.

Now having read various reviews before leaving, I went on the cruise with the following impressions (and was therefore dreading...)

- At tender ports, there is very little organisation/information regarding tickets.

- At all ports, if you haven't booked an excursion through the ship, you won't be able to get off the ship for a good few hours after docking/tendering.

- Getting back on the ship is crazy and we would be madly dashing back in order not to be left behind.

So, as you can imagine, I knew this was going to make or break the cruise. As much as I was looking forward to having a relaxing holiday on board, the adventurous side of me was eagerly anticipating doing some exploring. Add to that the fact that we were on a completely DIY cruise, I was slightly nervous...

I had no reason to worry. This area for me is where Royal Caribbean excelled.

We were on the FIRST TENDERS for Cannes and Santorini. At the other ports, we walked straight off the ship. We were always back on the ship immediately, we didn't have to queue once. The cruise compasses always stated that we would be able to leave the ship 30 minutes after docking (so if the ship was due to arrive at 7am, we would be allowed off the ship at 7.30am). However, most days we walked off at 7.15. This meant we were able to make the most of our time in each city.

I don't know if this was because we tended to get up early and so were ready before many others. In any case...

TIP: If you love visiting ports and have an early arrival time, make that extra effort and get up early, giving you more time to explore. You can catch up on sleep during your days at sea!

There was one example where Royal Caribbean really stood out. In Cannes, we headed back to the port at around 16.45 (the final tender was at 17.15). We arrived to see an enormous queue, stretching back a long way. Not only this, but these passengers were forced to wait in the sun and 30-degree heat, with no shade whatsoever. Fearing the worst, we got closer to see if this was going to be our fate.

Nope, different cruise line!

There was no line whatsoever for Royal Caribbean passengers, and next to the tender stops they had set up an area with shade, seats, drinks, and free wifi so people could wait comfortably. In any case, there were two tender boats there picking people up so we walked straight on! We were really impressed with their efficiency and organisation.

Ok! So as I said in the first post, we didn't book any Royal Caribbean excursions, and only at Kusadasi did we book an independent one (and I'll explain why later). At almost all ports, we organised everything ourselves, taking trains, metros and buses. I will explain in as much detail as possible how we did that. We found it was a great way to save (A LOT OF) money, so great for those on a budget. It also gave us the freedom to see what we wanted when we wanted.

Let's go to Cannes!

Our first stop!

One thing I wasn't sure about before I left was how the tender ticket system worked. However, the Day 2 Cruise Compass was great in detailing everything. Tender tickets were available from Chops Grille from 8am-10am, with the first tender departure at approximately 9.30.

So we got up at about 7 and I jumped in the shower. I was thinking of going up for the tender tickets at about 7.50, but as I was actually ready at 7.30, I decided to head up to Chops Grille to see if anything was happening.

BEST DECISION OF THE CRUISE SO FAR. I got there to find 20-30 people waiting already! By 7.50 the line was really really long. I'm not sure but I think a few people started pushing in a bit, perhaps talking to "friends" they had made, because by 8am there seemed to be a lot more than 25 people in front of me (perhaps I'm mistaken and they were just family members). In any case we were given tickets in Group 2. So we headed up to the Windjammer for breakfast and then got ready to go.

TIP: If you need tender tickets and want to be one of the first off the ship, it's probably a good idea to get there 30 minutes before they start handing them out.

Luckily for us, Groups 1 & 2 were called together at 9:15. So we were on the very first tender off the ship! We were really happy about this as it meant it would hopefully give us a bit longer in Nice. After reaching shore we walked straight through the port towards the exit (a very short walk).

See you later!

Just as we reached the main road, a local bus pulled up. Our original plan had been to take the bus, and this one was going to the station, but the driver told us that with all the traffic it would actually be quicker to walk. As I had a hand-held GPS and the coordinates for the train station, we decided to take his advice and head there on foot.

It was a very easy walk to the station. We walked straight up Quai Saint-Pierre (with the port to our right) until we got to what looked like a coach/bus park. We went diagonally right across that onto Rue Félix Faure, and walked along that (later it the street name changes to Rue d'Antibes). We walked past a load of shops and decided we would have a look in some of them later if we had time. We then turned left up Rue du Maréchal Foch, and at the end of the road we saw the station. It took us about 15 minutes in total to get there.

We entered the station and headed to where the tickets were sold. We entered a large room to see some ticket machines, and quite a long line leading up to a number of ticket desks. So Frankie went to the back of the line, while I hovered near the ticket machines. After a few minutes it was clear that the line for the ticket desks was moving reasonably quickly, so I joined Frankie and we soon found our way to the front.

We got two tickets for Nice. The lady at the desk informed us that it was an open return ticket for the day, which meant we could get any train we wanted as opposed to specific ones. This we thought was quite handy. In total we paid 28 euros for the tickets, so 14 euros per person. There was a train leaving in 3 minutes, so we quickly ran to the platform, which was just round the corner (it's quite a small station). When the train arrived we jumped on and headed to Nice!

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USEFUL INFO:

Cannes Train Station Coordinates: N43 33.230 E007 01.165

Nice Train Station Coordinates: N43 42.250 E007 15.700

Price of Open Return Ticket to Nice: 14 euros per person.

More please!

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Great pictures so far:D

Keep it up!

The great thing about Nice is that you can go everywhere on foot. It's quite a small city and with the station being near the centre, it's easy to explore.

We came out of the station, went down some stairs in front of us and took a left onto Avenue Thiers. At the end we then right onto Avenue Jean Médecin. This is the main street in Nice, it's really wide with trams going down it and shops on either side.

Our first stop was the impressive Basilique Notre Dame de l'Assomption.

We had a little look around inside, before heading further down Avenue Jean Médecin. We then took a road off to the right (Rue du Maréchal Joffre) and went to the first Russian Orthodox church built in France. Unfortunately it wasn't open so we couldn't look around inside, so we took a few photos from the outside and then headed to the main square, Place Massena.

Place Masséna is a huge open square at the end of Avenue Jean Médecin. We were impressed as we approached by just how big it was, with all the different coloured buildings around the square.

To the left of the square there was a huge fountain with jets coming out of the ground, there were loads of kids running around there and cooling off (it was a really hot day). We were tempted to join them! Instead we took a right and headed to Jardin Albert Ter, where there was an enormous sculpture, another fountain, the Théatre de Verdure and the Monument du Centenaire.

After taking a few photos we headed to the famous Promenade des Anglais, along the beach front. We had a nice little walk here to the West, before turning back the way we came. We then continued along the sea front, before turning left and entering Vieille Ville, the old part of town. We walked through a market and saw the cathedral, before deciding it was time for lunch.

I had done a bit of research online, and found a place on TripAdvisor called Marc de Cafe. We had a great lunch there, with free wifi and at a much better price than other places in nearby streets.

With just a couple of hours left before we had to get our train, we then headed to Castle Hill, to the east of the old town. We took quite a direct route up (there are apparently escalators on the south side). The heat was starting to get to us by now, so we headed past a beautiful fountain, and up to where most people were taking photos. There were some wonderful views from there! On one side you could see the beach, and the other the harbour with a variety of different boats.

After a walk around taking photos we started heading down back toward the centre. We decided to take a different route back, first through Place Garibaldi, then zigzagging back to Avenue Jean Médecin and to the train station. Then it was back to Cannes!

As we had given ourselves plenty of time, we had about an hour in Cannes before we had to get back on the ship. So we decided to visit the famous red carpet as it was on our way back. We got a couple of photos there, before going back to the ship.

We really enjoyed our day in Nice, we were glad we went there instead of staying in Cannes. Next stop, Livorno and Florence!

Marko loving your review and photos! Keep it coming!

We were due to arrive in Livorno at 7am, which meant an early start for us. We decided to get up at 6.20, have a quick shower, and then head up to the Windjammer for breakfast. By 7.15 we were ready. Although the Cruise Compass said that the estimated Ship Clearance was at 7.30, by 7.10 people were starting to leave the ship. So as we were ready, we decided to join them! We walked straight off the ship without a problem.

We weren’t really sure what the situation was with shuttle buses before we started the cruise. We had been considering getting a taxi, but that depended on whether we could find people to share with. At first I couldn’t see any taxis, and we were all shepherded towards a shuttle bus. We had to pay 5 euros each (it was a return ticket). We were a bit disappointed by that, but as it seemed to be the only option we decided to pay it.

Once the shuttle bus had filled we headed off. Pretty much as soon as we left I spotted the taxi rank just a bit further up... d’oh! So for anyone wanting to take a taxi, when you get off the ship, walk past all the coaches and shuttle buses, and the taxis are further up on the left.

The shuttle bus dropped us off in one of the main squares in the centre of Livorno. We had been talking to a couple from Toronto on the bus, and the 4 of us decided to get a taxi from the square to the train station (it was a couple of kilometres and we wanted to get to the station quickly). There was a taxi in the square, and the driver said it would cost 12 euros for the 4 of us. We considered 3 euros each to be pretty reasonable so jumped in! So in total it cost us 8 euros each to get to the station (with the shuttle bus return included).

We went into the station and got our tickets. Like Cannes it was an open return ticket which meant we could return whenever we liked. The tickets cost 18.60 each. We validated our tickets, and managed to get the 8.12 train, arriving in Florence at 09:32. This gave us about 6 hours to explore the city.

TIP: When travelling by train in Italy, remember to validate your tickets in the station or on the platform before getting on the train.

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USEFUL INFO:

Livorno Train Station Coordinates: N43 33.250 E10 20.150

Florence Train Station Coordinates: N43 46.572 E11 14.952

Price of Open Return Ticket to Florence: 18.60 euros per person

Shuttle Bus: 5 euros return per person

Taxi from Shuttle Bus Drop-Off Point to Train Station: 12 euros