Voyager, Just back on the July 11th

Over all we had a great time. I was 5 other family members. The ship over all looked very nice. A few things stood out to me needing a little work but overall very good.

The food was over all good. Dining room service good, Cabin service could not have been very much better. We travel more on Celebrity and I did miss many of the extras. The waiter had so much more to do as our waiters helper also had to work with a second waiter. He had to clear our table most days and did many of the things normally not handled by him. As a result service ran a little slow. We did not mind as we always enjoyed talking while we were there. Small things lacked in the service due to a heavy work load on each team member. Each eveing our waiter took time at the end to let us know some tips for the next day. Our food was most times provided in rather large servings. I would rather have less and a little bit better quality but as I said over all all was good. Windjammer was fine when we ate there. The food could just be hotter but I know it is hard to keep hot in that type of service. Johnny Rockets was very good for what it was.

I know the ship is very large but it did not seem overly so to me. I enjoyed the Ice skating and did that several times over the trip. We also tried all the other extras and even did the Rock wall. I enjoyed the promanode and all the entertainment. They have so much going on over the week from parades to comic teams to bands and singer. We also enjoyed most of the shows. the three production shows were all very good. One night they had the Platters which were good and the last nights show was good as well. One night they had a comedian that was not at all family oriented. Many of his jokes were very off color and I do not feel this is the right type of show to have with so many children present. I saw 2 familys leave and I am sure others did as well.

We enjoyed all the ports other then Grand Bahama Island. The private beach day was out of this world. By far the best private beach I have been to with a cruise ship.

My end comments would be that we had a great time over all but I would not select to go on RCI again I am rather sure. With all the ships extras I still prefer most of the other cruise lines I have been on. Between NCL and RCI it may be a close call but in my view Celebrity is quite a bit better. One thing I could not get over was that they don't even give you hand cream in the rooms, only soap and shampoo. A small thing but its all those small things that add up to make a big diffrence. By the way if you are going on the Voyager I am sure you will have a good time, as I said we all did!

Bill thanks for your honest review. We will be leaving on her this Friday or the 9 nights. We too have been on Celebrity and have done several RCI cruises since. This will be one more. Looking at spring 2005, and not seeing anything on X that is grabbing me, again, thus the cruises on RCI. I'd look at Bermuda with X again, but they don't seem to want to post those dates either. :rolleyes:

Coasterbill:

Thanks for your comments.

I must say though that I was surprised that after a generally good overall review, you then said you wouldn't go back to RCI. Having been on 3 of the ships you've been on, plus the Voyager coming up in a few weeks, I see a variety of differences between NCL, RCI and Celebrity, but I can't say I would say no to any of them if the ship, itinerary and price were okay.

What exactly caused you to say "I would not select to go on RCI again"?

(P.S. I think the lack of hand cream is pretty cheapo too.)

Its not that the RCI has a bad product, I very much think their product is quite good. I just am not into a lot of the types of things they provide such as shows that are not fit for Children at the main show and events such as quest just are not my families style. Also it seems you can not get away from smokers. While the ship has areas you are not to smoke at it seems people do it there anyway and to walk around the ship you are going to run into it much of the time. Other ships have not seemed to be quite as bad on our past trips. The ship also often had mobs of people when you try to get to events and places on the ship. Evening hours were very packed. RCI puts a lot more people on ships and gives not all that much more public space for the numbers. I also feel I like the crowd that Celebity attracts more then that of RCI. Just not quite as pushy of a crowd. These are my views I know. Other people love the RCI product and I can understand reasons for those views. I have friends that have been on RCI 8 times and Celebrity once. They love RCI. These different ways of doing things do attract different people so this is why we have 2 very different lines, both owned by the same company. I should not say I would never go on RCI again as I may but I will not be back on unless the price is just so good over other lines that it makes it crazzy not to select them.

On the positive the ship has so much to do and in that way is one of the best. Its all in what you like. My wife is 39 I am 47 my daughter is 16 and others that were with us were 21, 64 and 73. We had a wide age range. Everyone other then the 21 year old felt they would rather not return to RCI. The 21 year old did very much like all the Voyager class extras and would select it again.

Feel free to ask me anything and I will try to answer as best I can.

Nice critique and clarification Mr. Coaster. I can definitely understand your feelings.

The only thing I would say I disagree with you on (as far as yeah or neah on RCI) is the smoking problem. Being rabidly anti-smoke, I am very sensitive to this issue. It seems to be the luck of the drawer on various ships (and inividual cruises) regarding smoking. Last year on RCI's Seranade, we had no problems and the non-smoking areas were well marked. However, on our recent NCL Dawn cruise, there were tons of inconsiderate smokers in the non-smoking areas. The non-smoking areas were also not well marked. But on previous NCL cruises we have not had problems.

I very much agree that you can have smoking problems on any ship. It very much depends on the group you have on the ship the week you go. One large problem I found was that the areas for smoking/non smoking were poorly marked. Tables were mixed up with some saying no smoking in smoking areas and some not so marked in non smoking areas and it was rather unclear at times what area you were in. The ship staff needs to be sure areas are marked as they should be and then help by telling guests when they are in the wrong areas smoking.

One other problem was up on the pool deck. This is always a problem but I have never seen it as strong as this time. Guests would come up to the pool deck and put things on the chairs early in the am and then leave. I would be walking the track in the am around 7 and saw this every day. By the normal time you would come up to the pool nothing would be left most of the time around the pool. It is so wrong for people to do these things. If they would just use the chairs when they are at the pool there would never be a problem. I think they should remove any items left if no one is at the chair for 1 hour and set up a place you can go to try to find their things. Post that this will happen and staff one person to make it happen and I really think the problem would take care of it self. When you have a ship as with as many guests as Voyager, they need to be sure to take steps to prevent this rudeness.

A positive suggestion if you go on Voyager is take the Back Stage Tour of the theater. It was provided on the last sea day and was very nice to see. They were willing to show anything we wanted to see and they had a real pride for their operation. It was intresting to see all the staging and props stacked up so high to make them fit in such a small space. Anyway if you are the type that likes to see how things work then you will enjoy this tour. Note that it happened at like 9 am and if I had not read my daily news letter the night before I would have missed it.

I really do like to share things that were great as well as those things I did not like. There are always great things as well and once again the negitive points did not stop any of us from having a great time.