Just back from Voyager Repo Cruise - 5/7. Any questions?

[MonaCK]

I was going to do a day by day trip report, but forgot to bring a wire bound notebook with me, and then couldn't find one while on board to take notes. I will try to remember instead, by segments, as best as as I can.

 

Pre-Cruise: We arrived at the Best Western near Newark airport REALLY late. For those who know me, Friday the 6th was the series finale of Third Watch, and for various reasons, I did not want to risk missing it so we didn't leave our house until after it was over. We got about 2 hours sleep (we shared a hotel room with friends of ours), before having to wake at 4:30am for our 7am flight out of Newark down to Miami. We stayed on a parksleepfly deal where you spend $$ for one night at the hotel, and you get to keep your car there for up to 10 days.

 

Our flight out of Newark was smooth. We looked for other cruise critics, but to be honest, I didn't have my orange lei on because it was just too early in the morning and we got to the gate only about a 1/2 hour before the plane boarded. Anyway -- our flight left on time, and even touched down a few minutes early. Almost everyone on the flight was going to be on Voyager. That was pretty cool. :)

 

We grabbed a van from the airport to the cruise terminal. We watched as a porter lifted all of our bags (3 couples, 12 big bags) onto one hand truck.

 

Embarkation: We arrived at Port of Miami at approximately 11am. Check in was smooth -- and we headed off to the platinum and diamond members lounge to wait for boarding. Well... we waited. And waited. And waited. And the FINALLY let us on the ship at about 12:40. I know. I know. You're not technically supposed to be on the ship until 2... but...

 

The good news was, we were on the ship so late that we were able to get right to our cabin.

 

Cabin We were in cabin 7275 - a promonade stateroom. I -really- liked it. Both of us did. It was configured, in our opinion, better than a regular inside stateroom, and we liked having the window to be able to people watch. We've decided that for our next cruise, if we do another voyager class ship, we will book this type of room again.

 

Food Overall, we found the food to be quite improved over the last cruise. There was very little that we found that we had to return, or didn't like. However, they definitely use MSG in the food (or at least the soups). We had some funky FUNKY dreams.

 

Portofinos: WHAT an experience. I highly recommend that everyone eat here. Definitely the best food and best service on the ship.

 

Service: We felt the service this time around was "okay" rather than last time, where it was superb. It took a few days for the dining room to get their cadence going -- we had our assistant waiter switched on us mid-stream because the original one was sick. And it took until the last night of the cruise for her to learn that we had soda cards and would want diet coke with our dinner. The waiter was a little slow at first (we missed The Quest because dinner took too long ), but we realized that once we told him that we needed to be out at a certain time, he worked much faster. My father and our friends both ordered Wine and Dine packages and found it to be a good value for the money. We brought our own wine onto the ship and wasn't stopped or questioned. We paid the corkage fee in both the dining room and Portofinos for when we consumed them. We did not find that we were treated poorly at all for having the soda cards. We found that service in the dining room was lacking during breakfast and lunch, and one waiter wad downright rude to me during one meal. We ate most meals except for dinner in the Windjammer.

 

Activities/Pool: To be perfectly blunt, we -totally- vegged out on this trip. We did a whole lotta doing nothing, but there was plenty for us to do if we chose to do so. My father participated in a bridge game every day. I played in a slot tourament, and my husband did both Blackjack ones. The bingo on the last day went for over $15K to ONE person. We found that the issue that others have had finding chairs by the pool was not an issue with us -- but then again, we chose chairs in the shade and limited our time in the sun. We loved the adult pool (though apparently, according to my Dad, one night two people took "adult" to the extreme ).

 

We also participated in Karaoke Idol. I won't go into how we felt the judging was, but my friend Susan and I both made the finals for the "duet" category. That was actually a lot of fun because we got to sing with a live band. We won cute little statues, some pens, and a bottle of champagne.

 

The Love and Marriage Game Show was a hoot and a half. The 3 couples they chose were -really- good sports and made it that much more enjoyable to watch. I would comment on The Quest... but unfortunately as I said we missed it. Oh well. It's a reason to book another cruise.

 

We -really- enjoyed Martin at the piano in the Schooner Bar. You should definitely visit him. He's immensely talented, and we found (as usual) that we enjoy singing with the piano player more than we enjoy singing at karaoke.

 

Ports of Call: Can I tell you how much I love sea days? I think i could have an entire cruise of nothing -but- sea days and be happy. We only had 2 ports of call on this cruise -- Aruba and Labadee. For Aruba, we rented a jeep on our own and drove places that no vehicles should ever be driven. ;) It was a lot of fun, though. At night we did one of those booze bus thingies that was okay, but really not our scene. In Labadee, we did parasailing which both my husband and I loved and then spent the rest of the day on an empty ship.

 

Cruise Critic/Meet & Mingle: I wish that I had had more time to hang with cruise critic friends. It was hard being in a group of my own to be able to really spend time -- but I'm glad I got to meet those that I did. I hope that all of you had as good of a cruise as we did, and I hope to see you all on future cruises.

 

Debarkation We arrived in Cape Liberty and we allowed to leave the ship starting at 9am. We had orange tags, which put us as the 2nd off the ship.

 

Well.. unfortunately, Cape Liberty was just as much of a nightmare as it was last year, if not worse. They seperated the luggage by color... but not by number. So it took forever to find our bags. And then our friend Susan's bag was -destroyed- by the cruiseline while they were taking it off the ship. Then it took about an hour and a half for the van to pick us up from the Best Western to take us back to our car. It was a rather unfortunately stressful end to a wonderful week of total R&R.

 

Overall? The cruise was -awesome-. We were ready to stay on the ship for another week. We are very much interested in booking a repo for next spring again.

 

I think I got it all -- feel free to ask any questions and I'll try to answer to the best of my ability.

[matt690]

How was Becky and Casey? How was the poolband? Was the ice cream machine (sprkinkles) fixed in the Promonade? How was the ice show?

 

-Matt

[MonaCK]

I thought that both Becky and Casey did great jobs as CD and Activities Director, respectively. Becky II (another Becky Thompson on the CD staff) was great as well, and we met her a couple of times while she ran karaoke.

 

The poolband was Impulse. We really enjoyed them and thought they did a good job of covering both "caribbean" and popular music.

 

The ice cream machine was not fixed in the promonade, but we were able to get ice cream most of the time up near the pool by the windjammer.

 

The Ice Show was -better- than last year, I thought. They actually did triples on the ice this time!

[matt690]

do you have any pics?

[Nothin' But Sun]

I am curious about the Repo cruise. I have a few questions. Cost any less? About how much? Only two stops? Is this usual? Still a full 7 days? Obviously the $ for the flights was less, again about how much? I am interested too in a Repo, especially if the $ is right. Dumb question coming, where is Cape Liberty and is this the usual route for VOS?

[MonaCK]

Matt: I have a few pics, and will try to get some up. We also took some video.

 

Nothin' But Sun: The cost of this cruise was considerably less than the regular cost of the cruise. It was an 8 day cruise -- we were on from last Saturday until this morning. The cost of the cruise itself, for 2 people, for the promonade stateroom (including insurance) was $973.50.

 

The ship repositioned from Miami up to Cape Liberty, which is in Bayonne, NJ. Voyager sails out of NJ from May until November, when it repositions back down to Miami. From what I understand, Explorer of the Seas will be repositioning next year, though I was unable to book that trip yet. We tried to do so on the ship but the loyalty ambassedor didn't have the dates available yet.

 

Two stops are the norm on this respositioning, if I'm not mistaken. I know that it did the same itinerary on it's way back down to Miami in October.

[matt690]

$978 altogether or each?

[MonaCK]

That's the total price for both of us. Add on another $125 each for airfare down to Miami, and total cost was around $1225 for both of us. We incurred another $1000 in expenses while on ship (including gambling and tips.. if we didn't gamble, it would have been about $400 less).

[MILEMRKR63]

Just got back about 2 hours ago from this sailing. My friends and I had the BEST time. The 6 of us made so many new friends and each had final seapass bills in the 1200.00 range. Yes we drank quite a bit and I am sure feeling it. I am literally exhausted. We paid 410.00 p/p and recieved a 50.00 p/p cabin credit each from my t/a. We had Promenade cabin and air from AC to FLL was 88.00 each.

 

My thoughts:

 

Cabins 7601/3/5 all promenade. We LOVED them. Our cabin stewart left ALOT to be desired but we could have cared less. Just clean towels are fine for us. We can make our own beds which we had to do the first 3 nights but that was rectified after a phone call. I think these cabin types are the best and would definitely book one over a balcony anytime. I LOVED people watching from our perches and yes we would see some nekkidness and I am sure we gave our showings to the others across the way. hehe what fun.

 

Dining room experience was average. Our wait staff team must have been new because they were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. They made their best effort but even though dinner was very slow, we enjoyed the food. Good selections and I have to say it all seemed very salty. The garlic soup the one night was superb and my god their blue cheese dressnig was good.

 

Jonny Rockets: LOVED IT!!! We went in their the first formal night because we had all gotten alot of sun and determined it would be uncomfortable to dress up while being so burnt so we went here. We had a BLAST with the staff there. We sang like fools, danced like animals and laughed till it hurt. We ended up being in their 3 hours that night just singing with the staff and acting like fools. We didnt enev eat the burgers but we sure did tear up some apple pie ala mode. 2 days later we walked in there and got a standing ovation for the staff. The first night we had 3 C/A one visit free coupons and there was 6 of us. The just waied the fee for all so we ate for nothing. They also gave me 6 additional coupons and said since we were so much fun that they would like to treat us to a dinner there. So we did just that and again sang, danced and laughed with the staff. Custonmer service could not have been better.

 

Deckchairs were never an issue and I didnt see many chair hogd. Even with the breezes out it was dam hot. I vegged out from 8am - 6 every day. LOVED IT and am tan as hell.

 

Beverage service was something else. The drinks from the Skybar from the bartendender Lesha that works there were unbelievable strong. I would get quite a buzz from the very strong cocktails. Also swear by the steady rule that if you take care of your barstaff they would take care of you and thats what she did. She truly is an assett to RCCL and since I thought I read RCCL monitors these boards I wont get very specific. We closed the Vault EVERY night including last night at 430am. Excellent barstaff there and the waitress Natalie was unbelievably friendly. She tended to us like we were the only ones there and she earned the nicely padded envelope at the end of the cruise. Lesha and Natalie and the other barstaff they introduced to us were excellent and heavy fisted.

 

Embarkation: We arrived around noon to a sea of people and were on board by 130. They seemed to have some confusion of moving peiople around but my friends and I didnt mind since we were recovering from a serious night of partying in South beach and someone (hmmm who could it have been) didnt get back to the hotel until 7am.

 

Debarkation was a cluster **** (excuse my french) We had light blue tags and werent off the ship until 1145am. I had 3 of my companies limos waiting for us along with a luggage van since 1000am but my friends and I parked our drunk asses in deck chairs and swore off alcohol forever (as we did each morning but it never worked)

 

I thought the ship was in great condition and the staff works very hard to keep it shiny. Becky the CD was just OK and seemed too fake and snobby but that dam "Hello Love" started irking me the second day. I also think they made a few more announcements than I prefer to hear.

 

Pool band was one of the best I had ever heard. Great mix of music mixing carribean and ballads nicely. Enjoyed listening to them. The other band with the female lead singer was also quite good. She did a great rendition of Janice Joplin's Bobby Magee that made the hair on my arms stand up.

 

OK I am rambling but I truly enjoyed this cruise and look forward to sailing RCCL again. My friends and I each booked a future cruise while onboard. We have also decided that if cabins open up for the reverse route in November that we are going to go again.

 

Thanks for reading my thoughts.

[BlueEyesNJ]

That should be for both. I paid roughly $417 per person for an inside room located near the aft elevators (paid $10 a person for location).

 

I can't believe anyone on here honestly thought Becky was a good cruise director. She came off a bit snobbish and the shows she hosted were awful. Love and Marriage and Battle of the Sexes come to mind. No audience voting, no fun prizes, the shows just ENDED. Very annoying and not at all what I expected given my past experience on this ship. The last cruise, last September, we had Richard who was superb as a CD.

 

Overall I was pleased with this cruise, but I have been on this ship twice and Explorer before that, so the Voyager class offers very little that is new or exiciting to me at this point.

 

Service I would rate as a 6/10. I did not feel the level of service was anywhere near what it had been previously. Little things don't ruin vacations for me, but I don't want to ask for my bathrobes and wait until day 3 to get them. They should be in my stateroom when I walk in. Dining room service was fair. Considering the immense amount of work going on it's amazing it functions at all, but again, it wasn't up to previous service I've received. More than once we found ourselves rushing from dinner to get to a show. The staff in the dining room was friendly, and the maitre d' <sic> really went out of his way looking after my nephew on more than one occasion.

 

The Food I would rate as a 7/10. Good selection overall, dinner in the Windjammer is much better than you would imagine, with nice carving stations, sushi stations, a station to create your own soup. Very nice. Windjammer lunches were about what you'd expect from Buffet style lunch, but one nice touch they did after a few days was setup hamburgers on their own station with two crew members making a burger to your order, thus allowing them to open up another line for the regular buffet. Made sense and it worked.

 

The Pool area, I though, was total Mayhem. Since when were the hottubs there for 15 kids to splash and spit and pi$$ in? There are pools for them to play in, as well as a kiddie pool out back. Out of 8 days I was able to enjoy the hottub for about 20 minutes. Irritating. And not to sound too snobby, but do people have a CLUE what formal wear is for the evening? I saw way too many slobs strolling into the dining room looking like they were in their pool deck finest for the second formal night. They should be asked to leave or to dress properly. All in my humble opinion. Take it for what it's worth

 

The Quest was fun, I was #29, and made the farewell show video (for better or worse), and the ice show was fun as well, but no different than the last time I had seen it. This time I had access to the concierge lounge on the ship and really enjoyed it. I don't think I missed a single evening in there to have a couple of relaxing cocktails before dinner. Coupled with the captains welcome back party and a few other invite only sessions there was a fair amount of free spirits flowing. Nice touch.

 

$4 to eat at Johnny Rockets? $4 isn't much, but come on, you can get a hamburger anywhere on the ship, is the $4 charge really necessary? Doesn't make a huge difference to me, but I can definetly see changes RCI is making with each cruise to squeeze every inch of profit out and they are riding a tight value per dollar line.

 

There are changes to the ships layout I'd love to make, but that's neither here nor there (put the Latin dance bar where the Schooner Bar is, put the Schooner Bar in the Viking Crown, build the kiddies a hottub <shudder>). For a first time cruiser it's an excellent ship to go on. It offers so much to do and so much visually it's all a bit overwhelming, but the ships are clean, quiet, and relatively stable.

 

It's hard not to keep going back when they offer such crazy prices for the "off" itineraries, and all in all I had a great time, but if you have other questions feel free to ask and I'll answer (if I have one)

[MonaCK]

The other band with the female lead singer was also quite good. She did a great rendition of Janice Joplin's Bobby Magee that made the hair on my arms stand up.

 

The Liza Hendrix band. Must agree. They were quite good -- and it was great having the opportunity to sing with them. :)

[BlueEyesNJ]

The Liza Hendrix band. Must agree. They were quite good -- and it was great having the opportunity to sing with them. :)

They were good. Deak in the Pig and Whistle was great as well, and the Piano player at the Schooner Bar was good and made sure everyone had a good time. All of the music entertainers on board were quite good I thought.

[MonaCK]

I can't believe anyone on here honestly thought Becky was a good cruise director. She came off a bit snobbish and the shows she hosted were awful. Love and Marriage and Battle of the Sexes come to mind. No audience voting, no fun prizes, the shows just ENDED. Very annoying and not at all what I expected given my past experience on this ship. The last cruise, last September, we had Richard who was superb as a CD.

 

Well, do be fair - the ONLY show that I saw Becky host was the Love and Marriage Game Show. We also missed the Battle of the Sexes because we were in Portofinos for 3 hours.. .;) The wine was flowing.... ;)

 

But anyway -- that's quite likely why she didn't get on my nerves. We didn't go to any of the production shows either.

 

Incidentally- as another aside - I got tired of the staff constantly ribbing on Carnival...

[MonaCK]

They were good. Deak in the Pig and Whistle was great as well, and the Piano player at the Schooner Bar was good and made sure everyone had a good time. All of the music entertainers on board were quite good I thought.

 

 

We didn't get a chance to see Deak, as we spent most of our time with Martin at the Schooner bar.

[PH8]

The Pool area, I though, was total Mayhem. Since when were the hottubs there for 15 kids to splash and spit and pi$$ in? There are pools for them to play in, as well as a kiddie pool out back. Out of 8 days I was able to enjoy the hottub for about 20 minutes. Irritating. And not to sound too snobby, but do people have a CLUE what formal wear is for the evening? I saw way too many slobs strolling into the dining room looking like they were in their pool deck finest for the second formal night. They should be asked to leave or to dress properly. All in my humble opinion. Take it for what it's worth

 

 

I TOTALLY agree with you on these points...........we just got off the Sovereign and it amazes me how the little kids are allowed to take over the hot tubs....their parents were sprawled out on deck chairs while this went on...........why doesnt RCCL enforce this??? Afraid of offending those loving parents??:mad:

And even though the Sovereign is a shorter cruise(which tends to be more casual),why let the slobs in shorts in the dining room even on formal night???????? It says right in the brochure,no shorts.........

Lots of other areas where rules are not enforced.................guess it is all just a matter of the all mighty buck.....RCCL doesnt want to upset the customers who in turn spend their money..................:mad:

[MILEMRKR63]

[incidentally- as another aside - I got tired of the staff constantly ribbing on Carnival...

 

 

I have to chime in on this. I like Carnival Cruise Line ALOT. I like RCCL ALOT too but I honestly don't see much difference between the 2 lines except the fact that for the price of one RCCL cruise, I could sail 2 on Carnival.

[MonaCK]

All that the ribbing made me want to do is try Carnival to see why RCCL suddenly felt the need to bash them...

[sleeples23]

Sounds like a great time was by all of you. Glad to hear it!

 

I do have a couple of quick questions. First is the location of the promenade rooms. Can you tell me what each of your rooms was over so I can try to figure out where I might be in July? I have 7597 and it is difficult for me to figure out what I'll be looking down at on the promenade level. Also, were your rooms good for viewing the parades? I've heard the center of the promenade rooms is not where you want to be, but I can't imagine why. If the parade is marching the whole length of the promenade, I'm thinking the center should be perfect.

 

My other question is the about the Piano Bar. I have only cruised once before and it was on Carnival. One of the best parts of the cruise for me was the piano bar with a great entertainer who would get the whole room singing every night without fail. When I ask if that is available on the Voyager, I get such half hearted responses such as "well there is a piano in the schooner, but I don't know about the singing part". Then people go on to tell you all about the Karaoke, whichi is totally different that what I'm looking for.

 

Anyway, thanks for your help!

Donna:o

[MonaCK]

Well, my cabin was 7275, and we overlooked the Pig and Whistle. It was very close to the bridge where a lot of the parade action took place. To be perfectly blunt, we were in Portofinos for so long on Thursday we missed the Marti Gras parade too. ;) Oh well. Another reason to book another cruise. ;)

 

The Piano Bar BOTH times we've been on Voyager has been located at the Schooner. In both instances, the piano player was -very- happy to have other people sing - as in full on solos and not just along with him (though that was fun too). Martin even had instruments for others to play along with. My dad plays a killer Wax-covered comb. ;)

[MILEMRKR63]

7601/3/5 were great locations for us. When we looked out our windows, we could see the pursers desk and the entrence way to the promenade was to our left. I believe from your window if you look down you will see a jewelery shop.

 

You'll love the cabins.

[cruznurse]

just a quick question. my family(all 20 of us) are going on this ship this summer. was wondering which dining room you feel is the best in terms of location, staff etc. also we have all the cabins linked so hopefully we will be all together -- same seating and same dining room but has anyone found that traveling with a large group causes problems when trying to be seated near each other?

[MonaCK]

All the dining rooms are located in the same part of the ship -- the aft of the ship. They are on decks 3, 4, and 5. I doubt there is much of a difference.. I've been in the one on 3 (carmen) and the one on 4 (la boheme) and felt very little difference between the two.

 

If your reservations are linked together, you should be at the same table (or near each other). If you're not, you can talk to the head waiter the first day to clarify it.

[PSCruiser]

Another question about promenade rooms- will 6th deck be noisy, will 8th deck be too far up to have an interesting view? Also, on some cruises the only cabins available are near the ends of the promenade - any reason these are particularily undesirable?

[MonaCK]

Don't know about 6 or 8 as we were on 7... but I can't imagine that they would be noisy. We heard no noise from the promenade the entire time we were in our cabins...

 

the only thing that I can think of why the ends would be less "desireable" is because they don't have as much of a view? But they're right near the elevators.. so...

[LESTRELA]

Embarkation:

this was my worst one yet waited out side 2 hours till we got into the peir, once past security it was great, we traveled with a group of 12 so all are seating where different, went to the dinning room they changed all of us within a couple of seconds.

8300 balcony it was a very nice room elevator was right there so even better. windjammer was ok, though it was filling!! Dinning room i loved my waiter & asst. waiter, { MONA } mine to was sick, we ended up with Vic & Robert, & Bin for the matre D<-- he left back home to India, he was the best i have ever had as a matre D!!!

All the shows where great, nothing bad to say, I thought the CD Becky was good though when you meet her in person she is a snob she gives you a bad attitude, & i was not the only one that complained!! Pool chairs never had a problem, it was windy though it felt good while catching some sun, we where alway out there, the bar service was great!! Met wonderful people and had a great time!!!

Aruba & Labadee are wonderful islands-

Aruba -

did the jeep safari, we had a blast!!!

Labadee-

did the wave runner & the bannana boat, that was also a blast!!!

We would stay up till 3am in the pool & Jacuzzi, never had a problem with kids at all!!!

We had a ball now we will al have cruise withdrawel, can not wait to book another cruise looking into the Freedom or Adventure of the sea's for next year!!!

ROYAL Carribean is the best cruise line & I will always stick with them, nothing bad to say.

NJ port what a mess, my suitcase's where damaged, people rushing you out while others coming onto the boat for there cruise, NJ needs to figure out a better plane...

well any ??? I will also hear you out!!!!