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My report: Voyager of the Seas - March 10-17, 2007


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Hi everyone,

 

I've been working on my review throughout the week, though I still have a lot to write, so more will be coming in segments. First of all, let me warn you that I have quite a bit of pre-cruise info to share ... I just think it may be helpful/interesting ... but to those who just want details about the ship, there will be quite a bit to skip. ;)

 

PS ... I have my pictures posted in my sig. I haven't really done a final weed-out, but I hope you enjoy them.

 

For your information ....

 

This was my 12th cruise and second in a row with Royal Caribbean (for a total of 3 overall). It was my first large-ship experience with Royal Caribbean. Coming into this trip, I had no strong feelings anyway in terms of preference for either Royal Caribbean or Carnival, and to be honest, I did not expect this to change. I have had very good cruising experiences with both companies.

 

This trip was booked in November of 2006, which is fairly late for me. I am a graduate student and Purdue University and had been looking at cruises during my spring break for some time. My initial plan had been to go with a friend, but that fell through. At that time, I had been looking at either Royal Caribbean or Carnival to see which would offer me the cheapest trip possible. When I saw the price of Voyager drop severely on a senior discount, I asked my mom (and past cruise companion) if she felt like braving the spring breakers for a great deal. I was fairly insistent, especially since I’ve been wanting to cruise a Voyager-class ship for a while, so she agreed and I set about making plans. For some reason, convoluted planning appeals to me, so I made some strange decisions driven by the desire to save a few (or quite a few) bucks.

 

I like arriving at my destination a day early to avoid unforeseen air delays or cancellations (like on my last cruise), so I was bound and determined to arrive in at least the vicinity of Miami before Saturday. This left me with a budgeting problem, however, because that meant that I needed to not only get a flight from Indianapolis to Florida during spring break, but I would also have to try to find at hotel of at least modest quality for a single night without trying to ask for another student loan. Some preliminary estimates on airfare plus hotel plus rental car (if not an airport hotel) almost equaled our total cruise fare, so I set out to do a little finagling. I first tried to shop for some hotel deals through Priceline and Hotwire , but nothing was coming in under a hundred dollars a night (2.5 star or better) for either Miami or Fort Lauderdale. I kept bidding for a few weeks, but to no avail. I finally found what I thought was a compromise … the Miccosukkee Tribe Resort and Gaming Center. It was on the outskirts of Miami and I was able to book a single night’s stay for a total of $90 through warehouse club’s website. It was my hope that a casino resort would offer at least decent accommodations. Trip Advisor offered a few decent reports, though they were all over a year old.

 

On the airfare side of things, I monitored prices for a few weeks and never really saw anything less than $380/per person for roundtrip airfare to either Miami or Fort Lauderdale. It was at this point that I made an odd decision: I decided to book a Southwest flight to Orlando and then drive to Miami. One reason for this decision was that Southwest’s flight to Orlando was $100/per person cheaper than their flight to Fort Lauderdale. The second reason was that my mother and I had accumulated about $35 apiece in our online accounts with Southwest due to price drops during our previous cruise. We were not sure at that time if we would be able to take Southwest again by the time those credits expired, so we figure we’d might as well use them now. For the return trip, we booked a direct flight from Miami to Indianapolis on AirTran, and that flight actually dropped in price a few times after we booked, so we actually accumulated some AirTran credit after calling about the price drop.

 

With the flight and hotel planning done, it was time to start thinking about a rental car. I had been on the Cruise Critic boards trying to find out which car rental companies offered free shuttles to the port and from what drop-off location. I was really looking for a company situated at the airport that had a shuttle because I wasn’t too thrilled about the idea of having to drive in downtown Miami. I finally found a one-way car for about $50 after taxes from Budget, but I waited a day to book and in that day, the price shot up $20. I then decided to do something different and tried Priceline for my rental car. I put in the dates and that I wanted to pick up a economy car at MCO and drop off in MIA. I started my bidding at $20 (so $30 after taxes) figuring that I would low-ball my bids at first. That bid actually won, so for $30, I had a car reserved through Alamo.

 

With my planning pretty much done, I only had to start counting down the days until the cruise and hope that everything fit together as expected ….

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Friday, March 9

 

 

Our Southwest flight was scheduled to leave out of Indianapolis at 10:20 AM and arrive in Orlando at about 12:20. Even though I had checked in early the day before and gotten “A” passes, I wanted to arrive at the airport at least two hours early. The last time I had flown during spring break, I had very clear memories of very long lines and extra switchbacks installed for Southwest. Arriving at about 8:20, though, I was extremely happy to find absolutely no lines whatsoever. We checked in, had our bags tagged, and were heading to security by 8:25. The flight was absolutely fine, though full. Just in case you were interested, people started lining up for in the “A” cattle-chute at about 8:40, with the B’s quickly following. My general rule, especially when I have an “A” is to refuse to line up until the passengers from the arriving flight are at least coming off of the plane. Sticking to this rule, we still found ourselves occupying two seats of an empty row number 10, with those who waited lined up the longest landing rows 4-7 and the exit rows. The flight actually left Indy early and arrived early at Orlando, pulling up to the gate at about 12:15.

 

Once we collected our bags at the baggage claim, we headed to the rental car counters in the lower level of MCO. Alamo (of course) had the longest line with about 10 people waiting. They also had some automated terminals that looked to be similar to the kiosks used by the airlines (which I don’t mind using), but I skipped them just because I thought my reservation may be oddly handled since it had been prepaid through Priceline. This might have turned out to be a mistake because I ended up a very foreign, male agent who seemed bound and determined to pressure me into taking all of the add-ons that Alamo offered. For about fifteen minutes I had to put up with his hard-to-understand, pressure sales tactics. Let’s see … some of my favorites … I was told :

• I needed to upgrade to a compact because an economy would only hold one suitcase and one backpack

• I needed to upgrade because it was a long trip to Miami and I would want a CD player because the radio is boring

• I needed to buy insurance or else the car would spend weeks in the shop and the charges would be placed on my card and they didn’t care if it was my fault or not

• I needed an insurance card in hand to be able to waive insurance

• I needed to prepay 2.55 for gas because it would be 2.89 in Miami and if I didn’t buy it and turned in the car without it being full, I would be charged 6.25 a gallon (of course … he forgot to mention that if you prepay, you pay for the whole tank, regardless of how much you use)

 

After putting up with this, I finally just told the guy to give me the car I paid for. He wrote 2-door economy on my ticket, circled it, and told me that once I left the counter, I would have to go out, then come back and wait in line when I had realized the errors of my way. Needless to say, I walked over to the garage where they keep the cars irritated beyond belief. The man in charge of the cars at the entrance to the second level of the garage looked at my ticket, then told me to pick a car out of the section marked “compact”. We went to that section, but the only things there were four-door cards. I went back and told him that I couldn’t find a two-door as listed on my ticket, and he said that it didn’t matter … just choose whatever I wanted that was in that section. We ended up in a Pontiac Vibe, a four-door with a hatchback that very easily fit our two suitcases, garment bag, and carry-ons. The car also had a CD player (not that I had CDs) … so if I had been sold an upgrade at the desk, I would have ended up with the exact same car … interesting.

 

I had been told it was around a four-hour trip to Miami from Orlando, and even though it was more expensive, I decided to stick to the toll road just to make it easier on myself. It went very well until about 100 miles out of Miami, then the toll-road turned into a parking lot. There were lots of stops, horrid toll areas where 10 lanes of stopped traffic tried to converge into 3, etc. That last 100 miles took us about 4 hours, making our total trip about 6 hours and placing our arrival in Miami after dark. The hotel room turned out to be fine … nothing spectacular, but something similar to a clean Holiday Inn room with a bit of flair. The lobby was definitely smoky, however, as were the gaming rooms. I thought the room smelled fine until I woke up in the middle of night and then thought that the smell of smoke was very strong.

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By the way, your pictures are AWESOME. I especially liked the PR views as our room is 7591 facing the PR and it is fun to try and pick out which room might be ours It still looked like you tendered in Cozumel, did you?

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Sorry for the delay... hit a few writing roadblocks yesteday ;). More to come this afternoon.

 

Lynne, we actually did dock in Cozumel. They had told us all week it would be at the international pier, but we ended up docking at Puerta Langosta which is right downtown.

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Hey silentbob, wer're on the same cruise with emd1 and what can you tell us about the piano bar or other fun things to do onboard the Voyager. Do they have any night time pool parties with music and dancing?

 

BOB:confused:

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March 10, 2007 - Day 1

 

We awoke the next day around 8 AM and spent the morning trying to kill time until we thought it would be good to head to the ship. We left the casino at about 10 AM and headed the 10 miles to Miami International Airport. There was a lot of road construction on the way to the airport, but we followed signs that indicated “rental car return,” even though Alamo never seemed to be on the list. Eventually the signs started to include Alamo, which made me feel a bit reassured since the area we were driving around didn’t seem to be the nicest. I then saw a gate with tire spikes, which was the entrance to the return lot. After driving by once to be sure, I turned in and was quickly checked in by a lady who scanned the barcode on the car and then printed out a receipt. It was definitely a relief to have my first rental car returned undamaged. I then asked her if there was a bus to the seaport, and she pointed to a bus with a line of people and said that the bus left every 30 minutes. Luckily for us, the line of people were just the ones getting off, and we were able to climb aboard with our luggage and about six other people. We found ourselves at the Port of Miami 20 minutes later, and were dropped off with our luggage in front of the Voyager at about 11:00. We tipped the driver of the bus for helping us with our luggage, and we tipped the porters for grabbing it when we got off. In retrospect, not including the gas tank fill-up, our rental car and transportation to the airport only cost a few dollars more than the set fare for a taxi from MIA to the port. We were never asked for proof that we had rented from Alamo, so my guess is that an enterprising individual could take the shuttle over to the car rental area, then hop the free shuttle to the port.

 

Anyway, with our checked bags taken care of, we headed into the terminal even though there were signs all around stating that embarkation time was 2:00. We went through security, retrieved our Sea Pass cards (having filled in the relevant info online), had our pictures taken for security, and were directed to line of probably about 300 people waiting to board the ship. We probably waited about 10 minutes until the line started quickly moving forward, and at about 11:50, we found ourselves onboard our first Voyager-class vessel. As per usual, our first destination was the Windjammer, which had quite a line as they hadn’t opened the back part of it yet (Island Grill). The food was decent and included honey-kissed fried chicken breasts and a carving station. We sat right next to the drink station, so it was interesting to hear from first-time cruisers … identified by them asking the drink attendant if the lemonade or water had a charge.

 

Once lunch was finished, we wondered the ship for a little while then headed to our room, 6487, a standard inside room on deck 6. The room didn’t seem a whole lot bigger than our inside room on the Grandeur in December, especially when the beds were put together into one (as they were initially). Having separate beds does seem to give the room more space, but to be honest, the one large bed just doesn’t seem to fit in the cabin. You have crawl over the corner of the bed to get to the side of it … it just doesn’t quite work. I was a little disappointed with the closet space available, but it was manageable. I liked the fact that the shower had a glass sliding door instead of a curtain. I wasn’t too thrilled about the fact that the sink drained very slowly (unless I just pulled the stopper all of the way out) and that our showerhead was cracked so that a little stream of water always arced out the top if it.

 

Our cabin steward was Keith and he did a fairly good job, though we never really saw him. I’m not sure if this was because he was never around, or if it just so happened that a majority of his rooms were in an adjacent hallway that we didn’t use (we were at the end of the middle hallway, essentially right across from the aft-balcony rooms). He did get our beds separated right away, so that was nice.

Our bags arrived in strange intervals. My mom’s bag arrived very early (around 3), but my bag and our garment bag didn’t arrive until around 6ish. The muster drill was at 4:30, and we did our best not to be the first ones there so we wouldn’t have to wait in the back of the crowd. For some reason, though, they stacked us differently this time and built vertical lines instead of horizontal ones. We still ended up in the front, so I was thankful for that. They did check off our cabin to ensure that we showed, but other than that, the muster drill seemed fairly relaxed. The crew made a few attempts to make people keep their life jackets on or not talk on their cell phones … but with the number of college-aged kids who showed up with a beer bottle in one hand, cell phone in the other, and no life-jacket … you could tell it was spring break.

 

After the muster drill, we headed to the helipad out on the front of the ship to watch the ship pull away from the dock and head out to sea. It was fairly empty out front, though more and more people came as time went on. We could see the Navigator follow us out to sea, as can be seen in my pictures. After we were out in open water, it was time to explore the ship, wait for luggage to arrive, and prepare for late-seating dinner.

 

The Royal Promenade was usually fairly bustling, but that night it was extra busy as they had the Voyager Expo running to demonstrate services available onboard. We tried some food made at the Portofino table, and for the first time ever, I bought a soda card. The liquor store on board was already overrun by confused people who couldn’t understand why the couldn’t take their purchases back with them to their room … perhaps that rule needs to be well-posted in store.

 

We went to the (only) Welcome Aboard show at 8:00. The show was fine with a juggling act and some singing. The cruise director was Kirk D. and he seemed to do a fairly average job. He used a lot of the usual CD lines, along with the “you’re on vacation” routine. I thought that the tech crew did a fairly lousy job at this show, as the orchestra vastly overpowered the voices of the singers, who seemed to be balanced very low. After the show, we headed to dinner at 8:30. We were at table 550 in the Magic Flute dining room which was a table for 8 near the back. We were placed with some interesting married couples, some of whom seemed a bit disinterested (and perhaps displeased) about the others they had been seated with (including me and my mom). After dinner, there was the “Party Around the World” parade in the Royal Promenade at 11:00, which was pretty fun. After that, it was time to rest up for our first sea day.

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Hey silentbob, wer're on the same cruise with emd1 and what can you tell us about the piano bar or other fun things to do onboard the Voyager. Do they have any night time pool parties with music and dancing?

 

BOB:confused:

 

I didn't really spend any time listening to the piano guy in the Schooner Bar ... seemed to be mostly an older crowd in there (no judgement ;)). I walked by once and her Jack & Diane, and another time it was Master of the House from Les Mis ... seemed to be an eclectic mix. There was also Rosario Strings in the Aquarium Bar, Latin music in High Notes, music in the Pig and Whistle (not sure what kind), Ballroom dance music in Cleopatra's needle, and contemporary dance music in the Vault.

 

One night there was a buffet on the pool deck ... not sure if there was a party along with it or not. There was also a "high school prom" in Studio B one night which sounded like it was a lot of fun (but was too late for me). ;)

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March 11, 2007

 

Though I'd hoped to sleep in a little bit on the first day, I still found myself up around 7:30. We headed to the dining room for breakfast and ... well ... let's just say that this was the only day we ate breakfast in the dining room. We were part of the first table seated and the service took forever and our food was served cold. I had a nasty, cold serving of eggs benedict on an untoasted english muffin with eggs that were not cooked all of the way through. There was also an interesting occurrence at our table ... as we were sitting, one of the very large paintings on the wall fell off. From the attacking decor to the food ... it just wasn't the dining room's crowning performance.

 

My mother and I had decided that, just like on our December cruise, we would participate in as many ShipShape activities that we could (and were interested in). We headed to do the Walk-a-Mile at 9 which was a good way to stretc in the morning. We also participated in the bean bag toss a little later on and, as usual, I was lucky to hit the platform, let alone get it in the hole. Next we signed up for the "closest to the pin" competition in the golf simulator. You get three shots and my closest from 70 yards was about 31 feet ... something I'd be ecstatic with in real life but nothing close enough to win (31 inches). This was a fun and free way to use the golf simulator if that interests you (think, swinging a club in a dark room). We also played a round of mini-golf at Voyager Dunes which was extremely challenging given the waves in the carpet.

 

In between walking and our other activities, ice tickets were scheduled to be available from 9:30-10:15. We went down about 9:20 and they were already handing out tickets. We had to wait in line for about two minutes, then were very easily able to get tickets for the Tuesday 7:00 show for late seating passengers. Ice show tickets were also available at 1:30 for those who missed the early give-away.

 

We ate lunch in the dining room, which was set up in the Brasserie 30 format. The dining room offered a fixed menu for lunch with only a few specials that changed. They also had a pasta station where the pasta and sauce is made to order. Lunch was decent, though we never had a meal that lasted less than an hour.

 

After lunch it was time to relax a bit before the afternoon activities. Our favorite relaxation idea was to go down to deck 4 and sit on the outdoor, covered deck.

 

At 3:00, I participated in the dodgeball tournament on the basketball court which boiled down to about 50 guys trying to wail on each other. Foam balls instead of rubber ones were used, so getting hit wasn't too painful unless, like me, you get clocked from the side right in your glasses. This was actually a great spectator event, as some strange rules were put into place and a large quantity of the guys playing were already drunk. Needless to say, confusion was the word of the day.

 

At 5:30 we went to The Vault to learn how to swing dance. This was fun, but believe me when I say that I worded harder for this dollar than any other throughout the week. After about 30 minutes of the class, sweat was pouring down just about everyones face.

 

Tonight was the captain's party, but instead of having two shifts in one room, it was held only once (supposedly in between meals) in the promenade. My mom and I ended up sitting in the cafe, watching people, and drinking champagne. In case you were curious, the wait staff was very intent on checking IDs before handing out glasses of bubbly (seapass and driver's license required). Dinner was nothing too special.

 

The celebrity headliner of the night was Charo, who put on a surprisingly good show (more than me were shocked). There was also a midnight "adult" comedy show that was thankfully not dirty just because it was adult. The comedian (sorry, don't have name at the moment) was very funny.

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Who was your waiter and assistant waiter?

 

To be honest ... I don't remember. Our waiter had a name that started with "J" and told us to call him John because it was the English equivalent. I ate dinner in the dining room only 4 times this cruise ... an all-time low for me.

 

Bob, I guess maybe we will be doing the "coochie coochie" w/Charo on our upcoming cruise....

 

Maybe :). It is kind of funny how she approaches it ... she's a classically trained guitarist, but "coochie coochie" put money in the bank.

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I was interested in Labadee before going on this cruise as it is one location that I had not yet visited. I had originally planned to do some sort of excursion in Labadee, but then decided against it because I hate having to meet up with tours at tender ports. That's not to say that I still didn't go back and forth about an excursion ... I was severely tempted to do the jet ski tour as I've always wanted to ride one. I chose not to, however, for two reasons. First of all, I worried about having trouble seeing if my glasses were continually being splashed and speckled. I also didn't really want to spend $90 for a 50-minute excursion ... it should be obvious by now that I can be quite cheap ... er ... frugal. ;)

 

Anyway, at the show the night before, we were advised that the peak time for trying to grab a tender was 9:30 to noon and that if we really wanted to go ashore, we should show up before that to avoid lines. Well, after grabbing some breakfast at the Windjammer, we ended up heading down for the tender right at 9:30. The timing was almost perfect as the tender was almost already full so we only had to wait about 5 minutes before take-off. A few mintues later, we found ourselves stepping onto the shores of Labadee (or Haiti, if you prefer).

 

Neither my mom or I are beach people, so we basically decided to explore the bit of land available to us. We walked to Dragon's Rock and then each of the beaches. We also walked one of the trails near the beach that seemed like they might go somewhere but ended up just being the long, treacherous route from one point on the main path to another. Perhaps they were trails used for machinery/equipment for the zipline they are installing ... I don't know.

 

We looked at some of the wares being offered by a few of the sellers outdoors, but I can't think of anything that would convince me to step into the building of the flea market. The sellers outside were pushy enough, and even as we approached, security was there to tell them to step back closer to their areas. We did walk in to some of the shops and I tried some rum there, but didn't really see anything too interesting to me.

Port highlights: Labadee seemed very pretty and I enjoyed walking around it. There seemed to be plenty of beach space and shade, though hammocks were few and far between.

 

Port lowlights: There was a bad taste in my mouth left by the tip culture of the people working on Labadee. I felt like I was hounded to stop at a beach so that a chair could be retrieved (for a tip). At Dragon's Rock, a man in a Royal Caribbean uniform was there offering to use passengers' cameras to take pictures ... for a fee. Even the tractor-driver on the tram wanted tips, telling us that we could only board if we tipped him at the end. I know how poor Haiti is, but I'm the type of person who doesn't like being told to tip ... if its obligatory, it's not a tip. It's a fee ... and if there are fees, then they need to be posted.

 

Anyway, after a few hours on Labadee we headed back to the ship and had lunch in the dining room. While this is my preference anyway, the dining room is the only establishment open for lunch on board(besides the cafe promenade) while the ship is ported at Labadee as all of the Windjammer staff serve lunch at various points on land. After lunch, we pretty much relaxed with a few activities like line dancing and reading.

 

The show for the night "Music in Motion" is a revue of movie themes. It was pretty good, though it featured a lot of music from movies I'd never heard of. There were some interesting sets and costumes, such as the ones for The Pink Panther.

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I completely agree with the tipping situation in Labadee. I was on this cruise as well and got ashore on one of the very first tenders. When I went down to the beach a gentleman approached me wanting to set up chairs for me. Well I forgot to bring cash with me so I told him I didn't need help and was just going to use a chair already set up. He insisted on following me to the chairs and then trying to put my towel on the chair for me when I was already doing it myself. If I had brought cash I would have given him some money, but I felt pretty bad not being able to offer him anything, even though I told him I did not need his services. Overall I enjoyed the place though.

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