Voyager of the Seas - Singapore to Shanghai 23rd March 2013 Review

Just a little background before I start my review of the cruise.

This is my first cruise on Royal Caribbean. I have cruised before but mostly on Star Cruises which is based in Singapore. My parents were the ones who booked this cruise late December last year. They have cruised once on the Legend of the Seas.

I was really excited when they confirmed the booking and started to surf the web for more info on the cruise. That took me to Cruise Critic and I have been hooked on these boards ever since!

My initial focus was to look for posts and reviews specific to VoTS and hopefully a thread on a similar itinerary. The best review I found was the one by Iluvcruising2 >> http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1656116.

I also enjoyed reading the many threads on tips and tipping, reviews, dining, activities, dressing etc. I was also particularly concerned about Norovirus which seemed to be coming up in the posts during the time I joined CC.

Before I digress further, this was our scheduled itinerary -

Day 1 - Depart Singapore (5pm)

Day 2 - At Sea

Day 3 - Arrive Phu My, Vietnam (7am), Depart (10pm)

Day 4 - At Sea

Day 5 - At Sea

Day 6 - Arrive Hong Kong (7am), Depart (6pm)

Day 7 - Arrive Xiamen (12noon), Depart (7pm)

Day 8 - At Sea

Day 9 - Arrive Baoshan, Shanghai, China (6am)

We spent 1 night in Shanghai with a city tour and hotel accommodation arranged by Royal Caribbean as part of the package. I am posting this just a few hours arriving home from Shanghai. (Kinda obvious that I am from Singapore) :D

We booked this cruise through a local travel agent. The price we paid included the cruise, post-cruise arrangements and pre-paid gratituties. Having done my research on CC, I created an account on the Royal Caribbean site to do our on-line check-in, as well as pre-booked a tour in Vietnam. I also joined the Roll-Call for our cruise and registered for the Meet and Mingle. My only gripe with the arrangement is that our local agent didn't seem to know much about the post-cruise portion. We only got our final documents 3 days before our cruise which included the hotel we were staying as well as the flight details.

As I am still uploading my photos on Shutterfly, I would like to summarize the cruise as mostly positive (just a couple of minor "down" moments which will come along as I post a day-to-day account) and my only real "complaint" is that I have to now burn a ton of calories after all the food I ate :D

I think I had about 5 hours of sleep before I got up this morning to leave home for the cruise. I was really excited about the trip but did tell myself that the main aim is to just enjoy the cruise and not get too "stressed" by wanting to do everything.

Anyway, according to our documents, boarding was suppose to be at noon for us. My brother gave us a lift to the Marina Bay Cruise Centre and we got there around 11.30am.

This is the view as we were approaching the cruise centre. Both Legend of the Seas and Voyager of the Seas arrived this morning and both were due to depart at the same time later at 5pm.

My parents didn't really know much about the VoTS and were surprised by the difference in size of the two ships. :)

Looking forward to your review and photos.

My wife and I were on Voyager when it arrived in Singapore on March 23rd (32 day B2B from Sydney) and we did a similar itinerary to the one you just did on Legend of the Seas in March 2011.... we loved visiting HCMC, Hoi An, HK, Xiamen and Shanghai.

The first thing we did was to drop off our bags.

Overall the entire check-in procedure was fairly quick and smooth.

This is a shot inside the terminal.

The first thing we did when we boarded (rooms not ready till 1pm) was to head to the Windjammer for lunch (thanks again to CC for tip on boarding early and heading there quick to get a place!). From the WJ, we could see the Legend of the Seas!

As I am uploading photos this moment, I just realised that most of my food pics for lunch were taken by my camera. The current batch of photos being posted were taken with my iPhone. I did switch between the two initially, but as the days went by, I used more of my phone's camera instead.

This was the ONLY food shot that I took with my iPhone for my very first WJ lunch. My initial impression of the food was that it was generally WAY better than the buffet meals we get on Superstar Virgo (Star Cruises), especially the desserts! In general most of our meals were of better quality (personal opinion) and the only major advantage SS Virgo had was that they had more Asian (esp. Chinese) options. My mum didn't enjoy the food when she went on the Legend of the Seas in 2010, but she did comment that the food this time on VoTS was a lot better.

I forgot to mention that we booked an ocean view stateroom on Deck 2. I think we would not have minded booking a balcony cabin, but (another gripe with our local agent) we were told that the only available cabins that could take 3 people were on Deck 2.

Our cabin number was 2582. Being typical Singaporeans, we like to play our local 4-digit lottery (known as 4D) and we bought our cabin number for the draw on that day. Around dinner time (this reminds me of something which happened then which I will elaborate on later), the results of the draw came out (we were still at port, again another little "story" to share about the departure) and both me and my dad won some money (about 2500 usd between us) as 2582 was one of the winning numbers!

When we got into our room, the first thing I did was to check out the cruise compass and see what else was in store. Our bags were not sent to our cabin yet and we got them around 3-3.30pm later in the afternoon. I did accidentally step into a "crew access only" area by mistake and saw our bags there (this was the small area between the aft/forward cabins corridor which prevented us from having a length-wise access to the aft and forward section of the ship. Our cabin was located mid-ship on the "aft" section (most of the deck 2 cabins were located along our stretch) and in order to get to the La Scala theatre and aft areas, we had to go up to Deck 4 (through the Casino) or 5 (via the Royal Promenade).

Our stateroom attendant was Tammy and we found her service over the cruise to be very good.

In addition to the Cruise Compass (I will scan all of them when I have the time later), we got our Gold coupon booklet (Dad was a C&A member from his previous cruise) as well as the timing for our Ice-Skating performance. They assigned all passengers to 4 sessions and we got the first one.

One of the first things I did after settling down and freshening up in the cabin was to EXPLORE the ship!

I have read and seen (on photos/videos) of the Royal Promenade and that was the first place I headed to. While I wasn't surprised with what I saw (since I had already spent months "preparing" myself), I was still quite excited when I finally got to see it with my own eyes.

The next thing I did was to head to the MDR to find our assigned table. My parents had opted for the main-seating which was at 5.45pm and our table was 425, located on Deck 4 at La Boheme. I wasn't entirely excited about our table position which was located neither near the window nor the edge looking into the rest of the MDR but didn't bother to ask for a re-assignment. The plus point was that it was near to the entrance and was convenient for my mum as she walks with a walking stick (due to a fall she had a couple of years ago).

The next place I explored was the Casino Royale.

I did spend many of my evenings here (yeah I love gambling) but not at the expense of missing out on shows and activities. I will share some of my experiences and observations in my later posts.

During my pre-cruise research, I found little useful information (to me) about gambling on Royal Caribbean cruises and I hope that cruisers who like to do some gaming on cruises would find some nuggets (of info) :D

BTW - there are NO CRAPS tables on VoTS (I did see quite a few posts about Craps in the Casino section of CC). I guess this is largely due to the fact that most Asians are not familiar with this game (myself included).

I spent about an hour or so exploring the different parts of the ship including the chapel on Deck 15.

For the sail away, I decided to just laze on Deck 12 on a deck chair. This is the main pool area which was never quite full during the cruise (I only used the hot-tubs and pool at the Solarium during my entire cruise) and finding a deck-chair was never a problem.

This is the view of the cruise centre as well as the Singapore skyline. You can see the financial district on the left and the Marina Bay Sands and Gardens by the Bay on the right of the photo.

One of my favourite spots on the ship was this hot-tub at the Solarium :D I never did manage to try the one in the ship-shape centre though.

Finding a deck-chair today (and for any day during the cruise) wasn't too difficult. The weather was great for sun-tanning the first few days but it did get colder as we journeyed north towards Xiamen and Shanghai.

Before the sail-away, we had our safety-drill. The crew did check us off the list, but it seemed a little chaotic and they just checked the 3 of us off their list even though my mum stayed in the cabin to rest.

Some pics of La Scala Theatre which I took. Our sail-away show was a magic show -

We missed this one as we were too tired and slept early (10am) that night.

I did mention that I have something to share about our departure that day.

We were scheduled to leave at 5pm, but we didn't leave till about 6-6.30pm (at least). I believe the delay was due to the faulty "satellite ball thingy" which they replaced. For some reason or other, Legend of the Seas didn't depart as scheduled at 5pm too. My initial guess was that both ship captains wanted to do the sail-away in tandem, which would have been fun since this was a rare occasion here with both Royal Caribbean ships at port.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to confirm my guess as I had to get ready and head down for our main-seating dinner at 5.45pm. If the ships had departed on schedule at 5pm, I would have had a chance to properly experience my first sail-away :(

I was really excited about my first dinner at the MDR. I read so much about the quality of the food and was anxious to find out how good (or bad) it was. The first thing we did before dinner was to clean our hands with the purell hand cleaners located at all dining places as well as the casino and theatre. I think our hands have never been cleaner due to the constant use of these machines everyday! :D

Our MDR attendant was Osden and we really loved his service throughout our cruise. He would often bring us extra dishes to try!

I did mention about us winning our local lottery earlier and that I had another story to share about our dinner. One of the first things Osden did was to ask us how we would like to be addressed, I introduced my mum as Pat and myself as Robin, and when it came to my dad, (since he didn't have an English name) I jokingly said his name was "Lucky". This was just a few minutes before we received an SMS of that day's lottery results... I think I shall introduce my dad as "Lucky" more often :D

For dinner, I chose the onion tart for appetizer.

I also ordered the spinach salad.

Both were good.

I had the Atlantic Cod as my main. Not overly impressed with this dish, but it was ok. I think it was just a tad over-cooked.

I must admit that I have a sweet tooth and I loved ALL THE DESSERTS!

I had the chocolate cherry cake and strawberry pavlova. I especially liked the pavlova.

We had a Dreamworks parade at the Royal Promenade this evening. It was well attended. My parents and I did intend to watch the welcome show at the theatre later but ended up sleeping instead as the excitement of Day 1 took its toll.

Am going to sort out photos for the later part of the cruise and also scan the cruise compasses. More to come tomorrow! Feel free to ask any questions about the cruise :)

Subscribing.

Definitely subscribed. Thank you. :)

Thanks for taking so much time and effort!

We loved VOTS so much!

Your photos are making me feel a little 'homesick'.

Keep up the great work!

Gae

I think I had about 5 hours of sleep before I got up this morning to leave home for the cruise. I was really excited about the trip but did tell myself that the main aim is to just enjoy the cruise and not get too "stressed" by wanting to do everything.

 

Anyway, according to our documents, boarding was suppose to be at noon for us. My brother gave us a lift to the Marina Bay Cruise Centre and we got there around 11.30am.

 

 

This is the view as we were approaching the cruise centre. Both Legend of the Seas and Voyager of the Seas arrived this morning and both were due to depart at the same time later at 5pm.

 

My parents didn't really know much about the VoTS and were surprised by the difference in size of the two ships. :)

We got off not long before you got on:) This pic is very similar to the one I took,its a pity I couldnt get any better shots due to the size of the terminal building!

Den

We came off on Sat 23rd as well. Subscribing :-)

They were working on the ball thingy during our cruise and they did a swap in Laem Chabang as well.

Thank you for checking out and subscribing to this review :)

Our cruise staff! I did bump into the CD several times during the cruise and he was quite friendly.

Cruise Compass for Day 1

Hmmm Shutterfly isn't ideal for posting scans of the cruise compass. Will try another photo site later.