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Vision of The Seas: March 20 to the 27th


KAP

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After all the good information I found on Cruise Critic, I wanted to return the favor by giving my own review of our family’s cruise.

 

 

My family is a typical middle income family with three children ages 13, 9 and 4. We had never considered a cruise before because I assumed it would be too expensive. My wife and I went on a cruise 11 years ago and loved it so it was always in the back of my mind. Last summer on a whim, I started checking cruise prices. We live in Oregon and I have frequent flyer miles that I have saved up so I checked out cruises to the Mexican Riviera. We want to go during our spring break in March and the prices were fairly high. I learned this was because it was the week before Easter. In July of last year, inside cabins on the Vision of the Seas dropped several hundred dollars to between $500 and $600 dollars per person. I felt I could afford that so I jumped on the price and purchased the tickets. A week later the price went back up to almost $800. My first lesson learned for the budget conscious, start checking prices early and weekly. Its easy on the Internet. I booked through Expedia and they treated me great. I made several changes latter on and the phone service was a breeze.

 

 

Because of black out dates, we had to fly down one day early and come back a day later. We flew into LAX and rented a car from Budget. Our rental car was under $50 a day which was cheaper than a taxi or shuttle service. We spent Saturday night in Long Beach at the Travel Lodge. The Travel Lodge is a old 1960 style economy hotel. We paid $45 per room for two rooms on Priceline. The rooms were clean and the Travel Lodge is right in downtown Long Beach. We walked to Pine Street where there are tons of restaurants. Everything from very expensive to very cheap. We ate at Sizzler and then walked to the water front past the Convention Center. We found Long Beach an interesting town. There are many more upscale hotels for those not on a limited budget. Sunday morning we slept in then I ran too McDonalds and we had breakfast in our room. We spent an hour walking around the Queen Mary and the waterfront again. I then took the family to the cruise terminal in San Pedro and dropped them off at about 11 a.m.. It is a 15 minute drive. I then dropped the car off at Budget in downtown Long Beach. There were a number of people dropping cars off then heading to the cruise. I shared a taxi with a couple from Alaska. The Taxi cost $15 and we split the fare. I got back to the pier at 11:45 and we checked in. The whole process took about 30 to 40 minutes and we timed it just right because the line really got long at about 1 p.m..

 

 

My kids were really impressed with the Vision of the Seas and so was I. We went to the Windjammer café and had lunch. We then went to check out our rooms, cabins 8551 and 8553. I didn’t know it before hand but these rooms were great for us. They were right next to the stairs and the elevators and one floor down from the pool and Windjammer. It made for easy access to those two areas where we spent a lot of time. I was worried that it would be noisy but that proved not to be the case. Inside cabins are not the biggest but they worked for us. My wife, daughter and youngest son shared one cabin and my son and I shared another. Many of the inside cabins have bunk beds that swing down from the ceiling. My youngest son loved them. I wouldn’t recommend this arrangement for adults or older children but if you have young children it works great. We had plenty of space for our clothes and we slipped the suitcases under the beds. The mattresses aren’t the thickest and I was worried how I would sleep. It turned out that I slept great. I am 5’10” and weigh 220. If you are any bigger than that, the inside cabin beds would be a tight fit. Remember a night light and portable alarm clock.

 

 

We met our cabin steward, Samuel, and I gave him a $20 tip upfront because I knew my kids would require a lot of extra work. Samuel was great and quickly became a friend of the family. My youngest son got a special animal every night (and so did I). It was spring break and many of the cabins had 4 to a room. I noted that the cabin stewards worked far longer than the hours stated in our welcome aboard brochure. Just a quick comment. One of the highlights of our cruise was getting to know the staff. Every staff member that we reached out too was so friendly and eager to help. The bar tenders loved making my daughter Shirley Temples and every one gave my 4 year old lots of attention (he is very cute). Unfortunately, I saw some passengers treating the staff like slaves. That really bothered me and made me question some of the comments about bad staff that I have read about.

 

 

Sunday afternoon, we went to the Adventure Ocean orientation. My feeling about this program is very simple, it was great. Our teenage son went to the first activity Sunday afternoon and we never saw him again until our land excursions. There were plenty of teenager’s and the staff did a good job of providing all kinds of activities. My teenager didn’t go to all of them but the activities gave him the chance to meet and make friends quickly. I didn’t see any problems with the teenagers. My son has informed me that we can only go on cruises for vacations in the future. My nine year old daughter quickly made friends with another girl who had been on cruises before. We allowed her too check herself in and out of the program as long as she kept two simple rules (my older son had the same two rule) never go into someone else’s cabin and never be by yourself. We also expected our daughter to let us know where she would be at generally (yes bring those yellow stickies, they work great). My daughter loved this because it was her first opportunity to plan her own days. She and her friend loved to swim and shop so they spent a fair amount of time doing that. She also enjoyed the evening shows. There were so many kids in my daughters age group that during the day, they took over the teenagers lounge then at 10 p.m. they moved back to their normal area. The teenagers didn’t mind because they didn’t really use the lounge much during the day (if teenagers wanted to stay up past midnight, they either had to be with an adult or in the lounge area). My four year old lived at Adventure Ocean. By the second night, he didn’t even want to eat supper with us (there were three nights where you could have your kids eat dinner with the Adventure Ocean staff). I was really impressed with the attention my little guy got. They did so many things but the highlight was the night we were sitting the Masquerade Theater waiting for the show and in marched the Adventure Ocean kids chanting “Pirate’s Rule” and there was our son, the littlest one of the bunch. They did a skit and my son knew all of the motions and words. The crowd loved it and as the kids left the theater, my son got numerous high fives from the crowd (yes I am a proud parent). The only bad point was that we didn’t know about it beforehand so we didn’t have our camera. Because of Adventure Ocean, my wife and I got some very precious time together with just the two of us and that was the highlight of our vacation.

 

 

Monday, Friday and Saturday were sea days. I really liked having those days to be lazy and not feel rushed to get somewhere or do something. We spent time at the pool and my kids had a lot of fun even though the salt water in pools bothered them a bit (bring goggles or a mask and it makes the water more bearable for kids). Monday to Friday were warm days and the pool deck was jammed by 10 a.m.. You could always find a chair back under the upper deck in the shade but those in the sun were at a premium. I didn’t see much chair hogging unless you count someone laying in the chair most of the day. Most adults did not use either the outdoor pool or indoor pool. The hot tubs were very popular. Late Friday afternoon and Saturday were too cold and windy to swim although a few diehards tried.

 

 

We found the food to be great. As a family we tend to eat at family restaurants so the evening meals seemed like fancy dining to us. Our waiter, Andre, and our assistant waiter, Zolt, were great. On the first night they learned what we liked to drink and had it waiting for us from then on. We even got to know our head waiter who would cut the children’s meat and popped the shells off of our shrimp and lobsters. I grew up on a ranch that raised premium beef so I know red meat. I found the prime rib, steak and pork chops to be excellent. I got adventuresome one night and tried the duck which was very good. The lobster and shrimp were also excellent. My family fell in love with all the fruit soups. Some of the other appetizers we tried we didn’t like but that was more of a matter of personal taste. We never tried a desert that we didn’t like and some of them were out of this world. We enjoyed the formal nights. My wife and daughter wore nice dresses and I wore a suite and tie. We fit right in. There were many tuxes and formal dresses but also many slacks and shirts with ties. We ate breakfast and lunch in the Windjammer. The food was fine and we always found something we liked. Some of the deserts at the Windjammer leave something to be desired. We bought my two oldest children the pop card and that was a good investment. I am sure they drank more pop than mom wanted them too but I think they loved being able to go up to any bar and get a drink at any time of the day or night.

 

 

We didn’t do many of the organized activities on the ship but it seemed like there was something for about anyone. We enjoyed the shows each night. On the first night, I thought the show would go past the closing time of the Children’s program but I discovered the shows always ended about 5 minutes before closing time. Apparently my oldest son went to the shows to with his teenage friends and they also liked them. We watched a movie or two on the TV. Our favorite pass time was sitting on the muster deck (it was very quite with very few people), doing nothing but talking and listening to the ship’s waves.

 

 

We had an excellent time at our port cities. In Cabo, we met some family friends who were staying there and went snorkeling at Chileano beach. This beach is 8 miles south of town. The snorkeling was pretty good. I bought peas in Cabo and the fish really swarmed me when I fed them. I have snorkeled in the Caribbean. The water in Cabo is cooler and there aren’t as many fish but if you like snorkeling it is a good spot. Afterwards, we returned to our friends timeshare and swam in a beautiful pool overlooking the ocean. There were some other passenger from our ship there. Apparently, the beach right below the time share is the best surfing and boogie board beach near Cabo. I think the time share was called “The Colonial”. Cabo is a tender port. I got in line to get tender tickets and got tender 4 tickets. I thought it would take awhile so we were taking our time to get ready. The first call at 10 a.m. for tender tickets was for tenders 1 to 6 so we had to rush. I think everyone who wanted too got off the ship by 11:30.

 

 

We rode horses with Randi in Mazatlan and had a great time. I highly recommend this excursion to anyone that want to see a bit of the real Mexico. We rode in the back of pickups to the local marina. The local marina was packed and smelly. The water taxis were the same ones that the locals used. Once we got to Stone Island, we rode on a trailer pulled by a tractor to the beach. We went right through the middle of town. My children got to see pigs in the front yard, houses that looked like shacks and local people with big smiles and friendly waves. The beach we went too is the one locals go to. There were no hotels or fancy restaurants. Randi is very entertaining and introduces you to everyone. She even has her preferred vendors that know not to be too pushy (we even bought some thing from them). The horse ride was excellent. If you are worried about safety or ability, my four year old rode his own horse (his uncle has horses so he gets to ride horses once every summer). The family Randi works with is very friendly. I speak Spanish so I had a great conversation with the two ladies who were helping (they spoke no English). After the ride, we ate at Victors restaurant which was very good. We headed back to the ship and were on board by 2 p.m..

 

 

In Puerto Vallarta, my oldest son and daughter and I did the canopy tour (zip lines). It was the highlight of our cruise. We went with Canopy Tours De Los Veranos. We rode a taxi through town to their offices. From there we rode in a truck for about 40 minutes up into the jungle. The zip line site was fantastic. Most of the lines went back and forth over a canyon with a river in the bottom. If you like excitement, don’t miss this excursion. It was very safe and they take really good care of you. Afterwards, we went swimming in the river to cool off. We were back to the ship by 4 p.m.. Since the ship stayed in port until 10 p.m., my wife and I left the kids on the ship at their programs and we went back into town. We walked along the Malecon, window shopped and visited the local Catholic Church. Puerto Vallarta is very beautiful. I would like to go back some day and spend a week.

 

 

Overall, we had an excellent time. Each one of us got to do what we wanted to and we had time together as a family too. We are already planning a cruise for next spring break. We loved the ship and the ports. I would recommend this cruise to anyone.

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Thanks for the great report on the Vision, I was on this ship Last December and I love reading other views on the vision. I don't have that went and I did other tours but everything was great.

 

Was Capt. George still on the Vision?

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Thank you so much for the review. We are going on the Vision May 8th. Same cruise we can't wait. I just hope our 19 year old son finds some people to hang out with besides his us. We also want to do the zip lines in the Jungle. Was it cheaper doing it yourself than booking it with Royal Caribbean?

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We were on the Vision 3/13-3/20.

 

I believe the Captain's name was Michael Roy (from Canada).

 

It is cheaper to do the zip lines on your own than using RCCL. Also, RCCL does not use Los Veranos for the ship's excursion and many cruisers consider them "the best". We booked Los Veranos on the internet at a cost of $63 pp.

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Kviolsr is correct. Los Veranos also accepts children down to I believe 8 years although the key is their weight. If a child is too light, they can't make it accross the cables. We saw plenty of 19 year olds on the ship but it was spring break for many college students.

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Oh be still my heart - Michael Roy is the most handsome captain ever! But, alas, he has a beautiful family to go with it! My friend Vince and I are sailing the Vision again in May and have been chatting as to whether Captain Michael was still on the Vision!

 

I am perfectly happy! sigh...

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