Vision of the Seas - WORRIED

I would switch cruise lines all together.

You should look into NCL or Carnival out of Tampa.

I would do the CCL Legend or the NCL Star over the Vision..

Thank you so much! I am feeling much better, especially hearing your older children had a good time!

My adult daughter and I were on the May 26 Vision cruise to Cozumel and Honduras. We had a fine time with nice service. Our main dining room server was Adonis and he was probably the best I've had in about 30 cruises... Friendly, helpful and worked hard. We had Captain Srecko Ban as the commander in chief, although it was his last voyage with this ship. He was charming (and Handsome) and his crew seemed to like him. Did not use bar service as I mainly have my drinks in Diamond Lounge.

The balconies are small but enough room to sit on and watch the sea go by.

We did eat in Chops and I had a wonderful veal chop and my daughter raved about her filet. Service was pleasant without being overbearing.

For a short cruise, I thought the Vision was very nice. I honestly don't know what people are complaining about.

Please don't worry. It's a beautiful ship and you will enjoy your cruise. Keep your patience with the bar and you'll be fine. Same with dining room, where in spite of one or two confused servers, most of the food was very good and served hot. Room stewards reviewed on this board, including ours, seem to be as good as they come.

After our Memorial Day weekend experience, i I wouldn't buy the unlimited drink package again because it annoyed me to wait in line for beverages we had already paid for, but that's just me. Enjoy the Park Cafe, the R bar in the Centrum and all the other nice spots. Can't wait to sail the lovely Vision again this fall.

Ellen

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I returned from a 5 day sailing on Vision just 4 days ago.

 

Frankly, the service we received was the worst I've ever experienced on a cruise ship. I'm debating if I should do a full review of the cruise, but the overview is that from the pier check-in agent to our stateroom attendant to our waiter in the MDR to even the cashier in the shop, we received bad service after bad service.

 

The ship itself is in beautiful shape, though.

 

Which 5 day itinerary are you on (there are a couple)? We did Key West and Grand Cayman.

Was on that same cruise last week. I agree with many points, although check in was great for us, stateroom attendant great, but I was disappointed at other services.

That said, the MDR staff, Maitre D' on down will take care of your needs, no question. There are enough activities going on (music, dancing etc for a 19 year old to forget about her woes. A cruise with Royal is still good no matter what.

Don't worry, be happy.

Please don't worry. It's a beautiful ship and you will enjoy your cruise. Keep your patience with the bar and you'll be fine. Same with dining room, where in spite of one or two confused servers, most of the food was very good and served hot. Room stewards reviewed on this board, including ours, seem to be as good as they come.

 

After our Memorial Day weekend experience, i I wouldn't buy the unlimited drink package again because it annoyed me to wait in line for beverages we had already paid for, but that's just me. Enjoy the Park Cafe, the R bar in the Centrum and all the other nice spots. Can't wait to sail the lovely Vision again this fall.

Ellen

 

 

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I am curious -- is there a different line for people to purchase beverages that don't have the drink package? If you are on line for a drink how do they know who has the drink package and who doesn't unless there are different lines. Wouldn't you have to wait regardless?

I am curious -- is there a different line for people to purchase beverages that don't have the drink package? If you are on line for a drink how do they know who has the drink package and who doesn't unless there are different lines. Wouldn't you have to wait regardless?

The bar person only knows when you hand him/her your Sea Pass card. This usually happens at bar after you order your drink. If not at a bar the bar person takes your card with them to ring up your order. There are no formal lines and on Vision last cruise experienced a few New York elbows while seated at the R-Bar :(

I would switch cruise lines all together.

You should look into NCL or Carnival out of Tampa.

I would do the CCL Legend or the NCL Star over the Vision..

What was it about the Vision that you disliked? Just wondering since we will be sailing on her next year. Thanks!

UCF-Knight, what stateroom were you in that was so noisy? We are on the June 28 sailing with the same itinerary (Key West/Grand Cayman) and are in a Deck 2 outside cabin (near the aft elevators).

msbr- hoping that we both have wonderful experiences on Vision! I am just looking to reunite with old friends and relax, and I usually have lots of patience, so I am hoping that the service (or any lack thereof) will just roll off my back because I am on vacation and not at work, and that is the most important thing. :)

Sounds like the specialty restaurants are more than worth the extra cost. Not sure I'll be able to convince any of my friends to pay up though.

Also looking forward to Darkwolf's review.

In the right upper corner of your seas pass card is a sticker with the drink package level you bought.

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Not sure if you have seen this, but this will give you an idea. Pretty much what I saw in my 4 day on BOS in April. I must say the classic chicken was excellent.

http://www.royalcaribbeanpresscenter.com/press-kit/9/culinary-press-kit/

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I was on the May 26th trip, and we I felt that all the staff was great! There were lines at the bars, especially on the first day, but it wasn't because the staff wasn't working, there were just a lot of people trying to get drinks at the same time. The same thing goes for the waiters that we had in the MDR, they were running, but they just had a lot of tables, so the Head waiter helped them out, after the first night, and all went fine after that.

We found that the Casino bar seemed to get things done quicker, when it came to getting a soda refill. The one bartender would look around the bar, and get all of the soda refills out of the way, while he was making other drinks.

All of the other staff that we came in contact with, were very friendly, and spoke to us!

Don't miss the acrobats on the last night, doing their show in the Centrum! Everyone loved it! That was the only show that we went to, so I can only tell you that the people at the dinner table next to us, went to all of the shows, and enjoyed them. We spent our evenings swimming in the Solarium pool, and loved that!

We try to go on a ship that we haven't been on before, but we would go back on the Vision, to go to a port that we haven't gone to yet.

We had a wonderful cruise, and I hope that you do too!

We are booked on the October 18 sailing to Key West and Grand Cayman. We are also worried as the reviews for the ship have been poor since the ship left Panama and started sailing the Western Caribbean. The complaints seem to be centered around the poor bar service including understaffed bars, long lines at the bar and no servers around the pool areas to take orders. Hopefully this will be corrected.

Adam

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UCF-Knight, what stateroom were you in that was so noisy? We are on the June 28 sailing with the same itinerary (Key West/Grand Cayman) and are in a Deck 2 outside cabin (near the aft elevators).

We were on deck 3 in an interior stateroom in what we thought would be a quiet interior hallway. However, our walls were paper thin and we could hear our neighbors talking as if they were in the room with us. I've never experienced that before on a Royal Caribbean ship other than one connecting cabin we had on Radiance where you could hear a little bit of noise through the connecting door. This was not a connecting cabin, though. The conversation was carrying through the wall and you could hear every word being said.

The worst part of the cabin noise didn't come from the neighbors, though. There was unfortunately a service area right behind the wall where our heads were positioned in bed. This was the room where they apparently cleaned ever ice bucket and glass on the ship. I think they clean the ice buckets by tumbling them with rocks, because the noise was like giving a dozen kindergartners some pots, pans, and sticks and telling them to make as much noise as possible. There was extremely loud clanking and clanging right behind our head from 8am until midnight some nights. They would also noisily roll carts full of glasses and ice buckets back and forth across the floors and would often bang them right into the wall behind the bed, which would cause the whole wall to shake.

I honestly don't know what people are complaining about.

I'm glad someone on the ship was getting good service, because we certainly weren't. I've decided to write a full review with all of the good and (mostly) bad we experienced on Vision. Until the review is done, here are just a few examples:

Pier check-in:

The agent never even said "Hello" or "Welcome" to us or try to have any conversation whatsoever. All she said when we walked up was "I need to see your IDs and credit card". She did some stuff on her computer, handed us the cards back, gave us the SeaPass cards, said "Here you go", and pointed in the direction we were supposed to go. While efficient, it didn't really give us a welcoming feel.

Stateroom attendant:

Our stateroom attendant was nowhere to be found for pretty much the whole cruise. He never came to introduce himself. In fact, we didn't actually see him for the first time until the 3rd night of the cruise! His first words to us the first time we ever saw him at 6pm on night 3 were "Good morning"!

There were dirty socks from a previous guest under the bed and fuzz/dirt balls on the floor.

MDR waiter/assistant waiter:

The waiter never introduced himself. He only described the menu one night. He would usually just wordlessly hand the menu to everyone at our table as we sat down and then would walk away. We wouldn't see him again until he came back and asked "Ready to order?" (usually his first words spoken to anyone). After serving dessert, he would disappear and never be seen again. He never came back at the end of the meal to talk to us, ask how the meal was, or tell us about tomorrow (the dining times/activities/port information waiters usually provide)

The assistant waiter let our water cups go empty often, forgot to bring drink orders, and never remembered to bring us coffee after dinner even when we reminded him.

Cashier in shop onboard:

We had to fight with him for a couple of minutes for him to apply our 10% off $25 Royal Caribbean Merchandise coupon from Crown and Anchor. He kept insisting a t-shirt we were buying was not Royal Caribbean merchandise. He kept saying "It has to have the Royal Caribbean logo on it". The T-shirt featured a giant crown and anchor logo filled with the names of all of the Royal Caribbean ships.

There were lots of other inconveniences and poor service experiences around the ship, but these are just a few examples.

Maybe we were just extremely unlucky with the service crew members assigned to us. We did actually get really good service a few times at bars and almost always in the Windjammer. For most breakfast and lunch meals in the Windjammer, there was a waiter right there as we sat down with our food to ask us if he could go grab some drinks for us so we wouldn't have to. Several of the area captains in the Windjammer were also very friendly and would frequently come around to talk to guests and make sure everything was OK.

UCF KNIGHT:

We, had the same experiences you had. Dirty t-shirt and water glass with cigarette in it on floor upon entering cabin,etc. Our cabin attendant serviced cabin twice a day, but no extra time--only saw him in hallways. But, I think they have too many cabins assigned to them.

We were 3 in an OS. On the balcony, there were only 2 lounges and 2 small tables. We asked for a third straight balcony chair and were told there were none available. Eventually brought us up a small armless kitchen chair.

We were on the first 5 day cruise in May . I would hope by now, that things were running more smoothly. It is a beautiful ship.

Sure hope the Vision improves be we board. We have never had these experiences on any RCCL ship.

I am curious -- is there a different line for people to purchase beverages that don't have the drink package? If you are on line for a drink how do they know who has the drink package and who doesn't unless there are different lines. Wouldn't you have to wait regardless?

Soflacruiser - They don't know. Yes - It's all the same line. What I meant was, it was frustrating to me to wait in a line for a drink I had already paid for. I'd rather not pre-pay $55 a day for drinks that were difficult to obtain, and pay for only those drinks that were served to me in a comfortable setting. Which will mean I probably get fewer drinks, but that's ok.

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Soflacruiser - They don't know. Yes - It's all the same line. What I meant was, it was frustrating to me to wait in a line for a drink I had already paid for. I'd rather not pre-pay $55 a day for drinks that were difficult to obtain, and pay for only those drinks that were served to me in a comfortable setting. Which will mean I probably get fewer drinks, but that's ok.

 

 

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I understand your frustration - maybe they should have a special drink card "line" to service those who pre-paid, although that would probably be a costly expense to RCL for the extra help as well as the cost of more cocktails/beverages being served. So much for the beverage concierge idea! Cheers!

OK, I'm not going to worry about this any more. I'll just wait until next year and form my own opinions about this ship. I have read a lot of reviews. Some people like it and some don't. The best thing for me to do is experience it myself. :D

Happy cruising everyone . . . regardless of which ship you sail on!

I was on the Vision for the 2 night cruise between the Transatlantic right after the refurb and the transition to Panama.

I think they did a great job with the refurb. As far as staff goes, they were trying their hardest. They had 2 cruises to deal with "american" culture, cuisine, and expectations followed by repositioning to Panama, so there were some service issues with some of the food, but, again - Im sure this was only a temporary thing due again to the VERY short stay in the USA at the time (November)

They were also getting used to hoving a Concierge and Diamond lounge as well as the other new bars. The first night was a bit rough, but the made it up to us the second night. The officers did a great job of taking feedback the first night and making it work the second night. Good job to them!

I personally wouldn't think twice about going on it again!

We are interested as well. We have two cruises booked in February - same week, same itenerary just one day apart. Norwegian Sun and RCL Vision of the Seas. We have sailed the Sun before and have sailed Grandeur of the Seas twice. The Sun was very nice but more of an "industrial look" to it. The Grandeur was beautiful and one of our favorites. We need to make a decision by December.

We are concerned about all of the negative reviews of Vision. We even asked RCL about them and they tried to assure us that with a 7 night sailing there would be full staffing of the ship as opposed to shorter sailings - didn't know that.

Thanks for the opinions and we'll keep watching.

I am a little surprised we saw nothing from Darkwolf since the ship was in Charleston SC today. Good pix's of the ship and my Sept aft cabin! Getting me excited.

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Can someone tell me if cabin 8565 will be quiet? It's inside aft. Above is the pool spa area. It is in the middle so the noise from the pool/ chairs shouldn't be an issue but I'm not sure what the empty space is above?

We are avid cruisers. We cruise 1-2 times a year. RCI was always my favorite however, once my dd was dx'd w/Celiac, Carnival was the front runner in dietary needs. Unfortunately, our New Year's cruise on the Breeze was far from a "breeze" and I made a decision to return to RCI.

 

 

 

On a whim, I booked a 5 night cruise for July on the Vision of the Seas. I am now really concerned because all I see is very disappointed reviews regarding this ship. We are not necessarily mega-ship fans. Too many crowds, too few servers, quality of the experience seems to go down. On Carnival, we love the Legend, Miracle, Pride and Spirit.

 

 

 

Can anyone give me any positive feedback regarding the Vision Class ships with RCI? Is there a piano bar? Is there a comedy club? Is my 19 year old going to bored out of her mind on this mother/daughter surprise? Any current Compass available for the 5 night Western Caribbean itinerary?

We just returned last week from a 5 night trip on the vision of the seas. We had nothing but positive experiences the whole trip. Our room was clean, our attendant helpful and funny, our waiters at dinner on top of our dietary needs and the shows and entertainment were good. She is a beautiful ship.

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