LIVE FROM VOYAGER 7th MAY

Well, we are now all safely at sea, although not without one or two hiccups, mainly to do with embarkation. Apparently US Customs carried out some form of spot check on passengers getting off Voyager , so there were long delays in getting on. More about this later. The internet situation on Voyager is pathetic. I have now given back my cabin connection, and have taken a wifi connection which is still not working, maybe tomorrow. I'm typing this on the 50cents a minute connection to let everyone know that the Voyager Vagabonds are making their presence felt . I have loads of pix to download, but unless things speed up a bit, they will have to wait till I get home.

Sorry I cant go into more details tonight, but more tomorrow (hopefully) from the wifi connection.

Philip

Great to hear from you on this awesome ship. Not sailing her again until Dec but I still can't wail to hear about, well everything.

Well, we are now all safely at sea, although not without one or two hiccups, mainly to do with embarkation. Apparently US Customs carried out some form of spot check on passengers getting off Voyager , so there were long delays in getting on. More about this later. The internet situation on Voyager is pathetic. I have now given back my cabin connection, and have taken a wifi connection which is still not working, maybe tomorrow. I'm typing this on the 50cents a minute connection to let everyone know that the Voyager Vagabonds are making their presence felt . I have loads of pix to download, but unless things speed up a bit, they will have to wait till I get home.

 

Sorry I cant go into more details tonight, but more tomorrow (hopefully) from the wifi connection.

 

Philip

Ditto here, Embarking was slow for the Navigator too. Even with priority embarking. Cyber cabin took forever to get on too, but all else is well. I have pix of the Voyager....as we passed you all.:) Ship is great though.....

Need to get some sleep now....

We were on the Voyager in February. Everything was fabulous! How is the food? Is Becky Thompson the CD? Is Casey the assistant CD? We liked bingo with Casey. The food for us was great.... and we loved our waitress Rebecca adn the dining room singing and dancing. The ice skating was great... Megumau broke a world record... a triple axel. How is the band... we alos loved the pool band.

Enjoy adn I hope to hear a good update.

-Matt

We were on the Voyager in February. Everything was fabulous! How is the food? Is Becky Thompson the CD? Is Casey the assistant CD? We liked bingo with Casey. The food for us was great.... and we loved our waitress Rebecca adn the dining room singing and dancing. The ice skating was great... Megumau broke a world record... a triple axel. How is the band... we alos loved the pool band.

 

Enjoy adn I hope to hear a good update.

 

-Matt

Hi Matt, we sailed of Voyager Dec 2004 (it was our first cruise) and had Becky as CD - that lady is just nuts :-) So hyper and peppy, almost to the point of being annoying (but you definately cant complain that she's boring). How cool about Megumau's triple axel. We really enjoyed that show also. Amazing some of the things they do skating, much less doing it on a moving ship.

Can anybody say "hello love". Becky was definitely the most involved and exciting CD I've seen so far.

phbr- Thank-you so much for taking the time to post. I really love to see the "live posts" it is so exciting to hear from others on their trip. Hopefully you will be able to get a better connection - I would love to see those pictures. looking forward to your next post. have a great cruise!

I am watching for your posts because I am on the opposite repo. I will be there Sun in NJ to watch the ship arrive.

We've made plans on Sunday to go take a look at her...

Second day at sea. Sailing along the northern coast of Cuba at the moment, seas calm, weather cloudy with some sunny intervals. Quite a stiff breeze.

Those that asked, Becky is still the CD and an excellent one as well, full of energy.

There has been no internet connection on board for the past 6 hours. Its an area that RCI must look at. There are many disgruntled passengers who have handed back both their in cabin access and wifi (my self included). Its not 1997 any more and a 56K or less connection is not good enough.

Anyway, before I get cut off, heres a few things that have happened. so far.

EMBARKATION.... We arrived at 11a.m, were checked in by 1120am. Thats as good as it got, though. We stood in line for 2 hours while US Customs did a thorough search of crew and passengers leaving the ship from the previous cruise. This is not RCI's fault of course. What was their fault was to let people who had just arrived on the ship ahead of those there for over 2 hours.

SAILING.

As usual, there were bags being loaded right up to sailtime and beyond. It was nearly 6 before we left, the Navagator leaving just before. The Carnival Triumph was the only other ship in port on Saturday. The Voyager Vagabaonds in the Orange Leis were everywhere (especially around the bar !!!). Great bunch of people and really friendly.

CABINS.

We are in a D1 on deck 8 and its the biggest cabin we have had so far. Cabin attendant excellent so far.

MEET and MINGLE

This was held in the High Notes Jazz venue at 1145 today. About 60/70 turned up. They had a quiz on RCI, usual stuff. Enjoyable. Again, the orange leis were very prominent and the T shirts are getting quite a few comments.

FORMAL NIGHT..

First one is tonight. Food last night in the Magic Flute was very good. Plenty of unoccupied tables though. Lot of people very tired.

PHOTOS.

I have about 50 to download so far, but given the speed of the internet, I'd be home a month before the download would finish. I'll post them when I get home.

Another sea day tomorrow, and hopefully, I'll get to post something then.

Philip

We've made plans on Sunday to go take a look at her...

How funny, there will be two of us waiting for the VOS arrival. I just wish I was getting on the ship for a cruise then.:D

Will Becky still be there in November for the other Repo?

I just got off the voyager yesterday, Drew Devine was the CD. He was just OK, didn't see him that much. Sounds like Becky would have been better. I would rather had casey as the CD, enjoyed him in bingo. Make sure you go to "The Quest" it was so much fun! Drew did show up there. Have fun on your trip, i'm ready to start looking for next years already.

Thanks for posting everyone.. especially live.. it is very interesting! How is Becky and Casey? Has Becky mentioned that she was off? Please let us know if she mentions the world record broken in the ice show in February. Also, we'd love to hear about anything from events, food, and the how everything is. Can;t wait to hear. Have fun!

-Matt

I'll be watching for her too, from across the river in Manhattan.

Can anyone share what the itinerary is for this repo?

Its the same as mine only opposite.

Miami - Aruba - Labadee - Bayonne

8 nights total

Maybe someone else can post the days they are in which port.

I'm confused...I thought Voyager was on a 9 day cruise from Bayonne, NJ right now. In any event....we sail on her in 11 days and I can't wait. It's great to get live updates!

Barb C

Voyager is on a nine day departing from Miami and returning to start her season from NJ. Our son and his girlfriend are sailing on her right now and we will be in Bayonne on Sunday to pick them up. Kinda a dry-run for us since we will be sailing on Voyager in August! Thanks for the updates phbr, say hi to Pete and Michelle for us lol, we were wondering how things were going for them on the cruise! ENJOY yourselves!!!!!!!! Pete

Phbr, could you please give me some more details on the in-cabin connection? What is a wifi?(I'm assuming that's wireless) I'm sailing on her in a few weeks and it's important that I be able to use my laptop. I would love to leave it at home but can't. I have used the connection modem supplied by Celebrity, it was slow but usable if you have patience. Was yours not working at all? How much does it cost? Is there a time limit? Celebrity offered a cost per day of $25 and I made the mistake of thinking it was unlimited but it was for 50 mins/day. I had a huge bill as after I managed to get connected I was reluctant to shut it off.... I would really appreciate any info you can give me.

We had the same problem with the internet last Oct on the Navigator. I paid for the cyber cabin connection and it only worked the first and last day. Apparently they were working on the servers and re-doing the entire system to wireless but neglected to tell everyone BEFORE we took our laptops along.

Guests were so angry because so many people depend on e-mail to correspond with people back home and if we had known before hand that it was going to be down we would have made other arrangements for contact as well as not dragging along another piece of luggage that we did not need, our laptops.

By day 3-4 they had some of the computers in the internet cafe working enough for guest to use, and eventually let everyone who purchased the cyber cabin service to use those computers free as well as refunding the cyber cabin fee of $100. But it was VERY inconvenient since there were probably 100 people wanting to use 3-4 computers that were working. Talk about angry passengers LOL..

By day 6 they had everything up and running ok but for those couple of days it was not fun trying to send or get an e-mail.

I'm wondering if any of the Voyager class ships now have wireless? I can't believe everyone is still experiencing problems. I definitely think people need to complain to RCCL about this problem.

BTW.. Debbie & Pete when are you sailing in Aug? We are August 26th from Bayonne.

Tell Becky (CD) my husband and I say "HELLO, LOVE!":)

Have a fabu time!

Its Monday afternoon, we are making good speed and should be in Aruba on time at 7a.m.Tuesday.

The weather is warm and humid, temperature about 80 degrees. Quite a stiff breeze, but the pool areas are all very full.

Since last post, these are a few things that have happened.

FORMAL NIGHT.

Huge crowds on the Royal Promenade as early diners mingled with lates to hear the Captains speech. He introduced all the key officers from the bridge that spans the promenade. Becky was there as well, just back from Paris and whatever she's on, can I have some of it ? She is by far the most energetic and enthusiastic CD I have seen.

FOOD GENERALLY.

I feel that the food on Voyager is superior to Serenade, my only other RCI experience. The waiters are top drawer, very attentive, and eager to please. Our waiter is Saib, from Madras in India. He also makes the pasta at thePasta Station at lunctimes. What we have noticed is a lot of empty/half filled tables at late sitting. There appears to be a lot of people just using Windjammers and Johnny Rockets on this trip.

CABARETS

Went to 2 last night, the Drifters at 1045, and comedian Ric Seizler (spelling ?) at 0015, both in La Scala. The Drifters did what they.ve been doing for years and were very pleasant. Ric Seizler was excellent and his adult content would not offend anyone except the management of Starbucks, (he had a right dig at their counter staff). All in all a very enjoyable night.

COMPUTER ACCESS.....AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

To anyone thinking of bringing a laptop for cabin or wifi access, my advice is don't bother. Connection times are prehistoric and I'm now just using the Internat Cafe to post. You can get 151 mins for $50. There are a lot of stressed people on board trying to hook up in cabins. Give it back toCustomer Services, they don;t even raise an objection, they must be so used to it.

Note to RCI management, upgrade your internet access before someone sues you for false advertising (on the Voyager anyway). In my opinion, they are advertising a service that they are not properly delivering.

SUMMARY.

So far so good apart from the internet. Great ship, good crowd, the Voyager Vagabonds are still going strong and everyone os looking forward to Aruba tomorrow.

More later.

Philip

The Roving Reporter in Cabin 8520

Thank you so much for posting live! Is Casey still the activity manager? Is the ice cream in the promonade fixed yet? Is Eric Tanglesont he captain do you know? How is the pool band. Have a good day in Aruba, and I hope you are enjoying your trip. I can't want to hear more about the trip.

-Matt

Glad you are enjoying Voyager. She is a great ship having sailed on her twice. Could you find out who the Guest Relations Manager is now. Enjoy the rest of your trip and do enjoy your postings.

Landed in Aruba at 7a,m., off the ship all day and posting this from a free broadband site in a jewelry shop in Aruba.

Weather cloudy and humid. Hired a car and did most of the tourist spots, Natural Bridge etc.

Last night, the Dreamscape show in La Scala was awesome and the Quest was hilarious. GReat fun.

More when I get back on board

Philip