Pink Boas and Pirates commandeer Vision of the Seas to Bermuda!

[emmy]

The "Rum Raiders" bit got created by me simply as thing to give an alternate color choice and add a few more laughs. I just don't do pink, but the PBC crowd is way too much fun to not want to hang out with. Besides, pink and black go together just fine. Just ask our 11 year old with the pink and black zebra striped curtains in her room! :D

 

Indeed!!!!!!! we did work well together :)

[Darkwolfe]

So, due to the late change to add Mimi to the cruise, she wasn't able to get the non-stop flights to and from Fort Lauderdale. Indeed, she didn't want to fly out with us on Saturday simply because she was getting home from Colorado the day before. Needed a little time to do wash, repack, have a glass of wine, etc before setting out again.

 

That set up the plan that she would join us at the hotel on Sunday night so we could all get to the pier bright and early the next day. Easy enough, right? Eh, well not so much. Someone who shall remain nameless (another family member who has already been suitably razzed) didn't get her to the airport on time and she missed her flight. Mimi being Mimi, she just got with the Southwest folks and figured out another way.

 

She wound up on a flight to Chicago Midway and spent the night at the airport. They got her on a flight to FLL the next morning at 6am and she was on her way. I figured she'd just grab a cab and head over. Instead she found the RCI bus for the ship and made use of that. It meant she had to wait a little longer to reach to reach the port, but it also meant there were no worries either.

 

She also used the bus on the way home since she had much later flights out than we did. Again, that worked out just fine. All things considered, for literally walking up and asking to use the service, Royal's transfer process handled things extremely well.

 

Mimi arrived on the bus about 11:30am where we were waiting outside the pier. I should say "sweltering" since there was no breeze in front of the terminal and it was near to 90F and similar humidity. Phew! Like Houston with extra sauce really. I understand why snowbirds go back north in the summer!

 

Once we had her luggage delivered to the porters, we headed into the terminal for what was one of the fastest check-ins ever. Straight to the counter with barely a pause and we were on the ship scarcely five minutes after that.

 

A few minutes of looking and we found seats in the Windjammer without too much trouble. It was hectic, but not nearly so much as some of the larger ships.

 

After probably 30+ hours awake and still smiling? I don't think I could do that, but she did.

 

Pink Boa Cruiser Mastermind, Emmy! Plus some fellow photobombing like a boss.

 

Pink Boa Cruiser Wendy with Emmy's husband Rick in the background. All smiles these folks.

 

Once the cabins opened, Mimi flaked out for a much needed nap. I took her picture and we scrammed out of the cabin to let her sleep until muster.

 

Up next "Sail away with Pink Boas and Pirates". Including a "Super Sized Balcony" and " Hey look! Carnival got soaked!"

[TwoHearts22]

We are boarding Vision on July 3rd and have been anxiously awaiting your review. We don't expect much except clean surroundings and pleasant staff. We don't eat anywhere except the buffet or room service and we love not having a schedule. Sounds like most of the kinks have been worked out. Can't wait to relax on deck with a drink of the day!

 

On the June Bermuda cruise, Vision was spotless and the staff attentive. You'll have a good choice of drinks and plenty of space to relax in comfortable chairs and loungers. Happy cruising.

 

Trudy

[jpurdy]

On the June Bermuda cruise, Vision was spotless and the staff attentive. You'll have a good choice of drinks and plenty of space to relax in comfortable chairs and loungers. Happy cruising.

 

Trudy

 

Awesome! Thank you so much! First time on RCCL in 10 years after cruising Carnival exclusively. We are so excited.

[TwoHearts22]

Awesome! Thank you so much! First time on RCCL in 10 years after cruising Carnival exclusively. We are so excited.

 

 

Yes, it's a good ship w/attentive staff.

 

Incidentally, I decided to use the "thread tools" in upper right corner, then "printable version" in lower left of screen to skip the many repeats of the photos. I'm happy everyone had a good time.

 

Trudy

Edited June 21, 2014 by TwoHearts22

[Darkwolfe]

Between lunch and muster, I did a quick wander about the ship and took a look at some things new and some things familiar.

 

Vision looked nice and clean throughout the trip. Barring the occasional passenger that was a pig and left a really obnoxious mess somewhere (Hey, you! The bum that left an entire piece of pie in front the deck 4 cabin hallway door... Ya, you know who you are. [Admittedly not likely to be a CC member])

 

The R-Bar

The young lady in the dark green dress in the background is one of the servers here. They were constantly moving around the Centrum, cleaning up, taking orders, and delivering drinks.

 

New Centrum Lighting

The new lighting is more dynamic than we saw on Serenade. Serenade's new lighting was good, but Vision's was quite a bit more impressive.

 

Pool Deck

The new screen by the pool developed a bad panel one day at sea that I noticed in passing. It was repaired before the day was over.

 

Izumi

Izumi's location on the back side of the Viking Crown Lounge actually works fairly well.

[Darkwolfe]

After clearing muster, we joined the crowd for sail away. That was the largest group wave I've been privileged to join in on yet. I've already posted a couple of pictures from that most entertaining event, but here's one more just because.

 

Pink Boa Ladies, plus one Pink Fedora

 

Immediately after this, one of our roll call contributors followed up with a general invite to check out the deck 7 corner aft balcony they had for this cruise. The location was extremely nice, but they discovered that they had a pretty bad vibration in the cabin for most of the cruise. That would put a damper on the experience for certain.

 

Deck 7 Corner Aft

You will note that Mimi is keeping up with us, despite having only had about a two hour nap. She has more get up and go than people thirty years younger.

 

As we pulled out of Port Everglades, the weather got decidedly nasty behind us. We had scrammed out of port just in time!

 

Oh the weather back there was frightful....

No joke and no funny stuff with the picture either, it really was that dark.

 

We got out clean, but the Carnival ship following us out, wasn't nearly so fortunate.

 

Batten down the hatches!

Carnival got thoroughly soaked. I bet their muster drill was rather more exciting than normal.

 

You might have noticed a couple of recurring dark spots on some of my pictures (especially that last one). Well, that was a major "Oh, nuts!" moment that led into a bit of a saga. And some props to a department on the ship I almost never deal with, the Photo Shop.

 

More to come...

[Tropical Moon]

I was also on this Cruise, was worried after all negative post prior to my cruise. I would go on the vision again in a heartbeat. Great cruise. Staff was the friendliest. Bars were very quick around deck, they even had small temporary stations set up around pool for drinks. Only glitch for me was My Time Dining. Reservations are a must and never could get in prior to 7:30 with party of 4 or party of 6...don't know why. If thinking of Vision of The Sea..go for it..

 

Sorry to bump into your review, enjoying very much, can't wait to read more on my cruise :)

[Darkwolfe]

I was also on this Cruise, was worried after all negative post prior to my cruise. I would go on the vision again in a heartbeat. Great cruise. Staff was the friendliest. Bars were very quick around deck, they even had small temporary stations set up around pool for drinks. Only glitch for me was My Time Dining. Reservations are a must and never could get in prior to 7:30 with party of 4 or party of 6...don't know why. If thinking of Vision of The Sea..go for it..

 

Sorry to bump into your review, enjoying very much, can't wait to read more on my cruise :)

 

Perfectly okay! I appreciate input and other viewpoints. I can't see everything after all! :D

[BugsyCruiser]

Enjoying the review. Gotta watch those Pink Boas... Party animals for sure ;)

 

Sent from my HTC6600LVW using Tapatalk

[Bailey & Sophie]

It would be my pleasure to explain. We are a group of cruising friends mostly who have connected through Cruise Critic (Thank you CC) and have chosen to wear Pink Boas for the Ladies and the men Pink Fedoras. The pink boa is a symbol of our cruising friendships and it is all about FUN ~ FEATHERS~ FRIENDS

 

 

We have been gathering new members quickly on our cruises and we like especially to wear our pink boas and pink fedoras/shirts at sail aways especially when there is a PTZtv webcam so that we can wave to family and friends back home. We also wear our PINK at formal evening, Meet & Mingle, other events on the ship.

 

Anyone can join in and wear a pink boa on their cruise and be part of the group. Thank you for asking. :) We always have a fun time.

Got it!! Thanks. Maybe someday I'll be lucky to join. I like FUN!!

[DreaAST]

Nice review! Can't wait to read the rest :)

[smeck]

Great review thus far. Really enjoying the read.

[Justmekaren918]

That deck 7 corner aft which side? What was causing it? Did they fix it? Was this an issue migrating up decks? Was this a propulsion issue vibration?

 

I am enjoying your report!

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

[Darkwolfe]

That deck 7 corner aft which side? What was causing it? Did they fix it? Was this an issue migrating up decks? Was this a propulsion issue vibration?

 

I am enjoying your report!

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

Deck 7 starboard, but I noticed some vibration all around the stern. I have heard, but not been able to totally verify, that Vision has a prop shaft bearing that's causing some of the trouble. That being said, that same cabin had generator noise in port too.

 

On the upside, I didn't detect any vibration on deck 4, where we were, at all.

 

I will be back sometime tomorrow with more for the review! Thanks much for the encouragement and good comments. :)

[Coralc]

That deck 7 corner aft which side? What was causing it? Did they fix it? Was this an issue migrating up decks? Was this a propulsion issue vibration?

 

I am enjoying your report!

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

Those deck 7/8 aft cabins have been like that for a long time. :) It is really only a bother when you are docking or moving away from the pier. We watched the champagne glasses vibrate off the coffee table one afternoon. But I had totally forgotten about it until it was mentioned here. :D:):D

 

I am enjoying your report...and it is nice to finally see a photo of you wolfe. :D

[insulationbabe]

So glad to be following this thread - going on the Vision at New Years and next February and March - thanks for posting the pictures.

[Darkwolfe]

I'm going to pause and hit the questions listed in my "Nine Days..." thread now.

 

Some of the questions got answered in that thread so I will skip those.

 

MDR Menu order- It's different on the 10 night than the 5 and 4 night runs. I'd hoped to make a list, but that turned out to be impractical. The good news is that they have the Oasis style video boards up throughout the ship and they were working just fine the entire cruise. If you aren't picky about time, you may well succeed in doing Chops on the day the menu doesn't appeal to you.

 

Trivia- You will happy to know that Kaycee is back on board for now, doing trivia and other activities with her usual energy. Times didn't vary much from what I saw, typically later in the afternoon for the trivia games.

 

Sea Day Activities- Seemed to be relatively normal, but were a little slow at the beginning of the cruise. You had your normal poolside games, plus trivia, various dance classes, Park West noise (They have them stuck back in the aft lounge and NOT in the Centrum), and of course random sales in the shops.

 

C&A crowd- 1500 C&A members on this sailing. There were so many that the initial welcome back party had to be done twice. Once for Gold and once for everybody else. Handled as well as could be expected which honestly wasn't bad. Top tier event was in the Some Enchanted Evening lounge and was quite full. I heard a few grumpers, but most folks were reasonably content. There were 25 Pinnacle members aboard as well, one of whom was at our table.

 

Bar Service- Delay? Line? Only if you count two or three ahead of you in the R-Bar. That was the worst I saw. Most of the time it was walk up, order, get drink. Pretty much that fast.

 

Public Transportation in Bermuda- So long as the Union doesn't call a strike like they did right after we left, you're golden. Ferry and Bus stops are a short walk from the ship and clearly marked. Get the day pass and go get lost. That's actually not a joke. The system is super easy to use. Shuttle "trains" run in the Dockyard area on a regular basis.

 

Charleston Transportation- There are more options than we actually used, but what we did was get the Water Taxi day pass and go over to Patriot's Point. There are some free "trolley" buses running as well, but we didn't use those this time.

 

Shampoo/Soap- Bars of soap provided, but no "mystery goop" in the showers without asking. I suspect that the long haul runs of "Don't use that stuff" comments on CC and elsewhere led too that cut. Personally, I don't miss it at all, but I see there was a hidden group of people that do/did use it. If you ask, it will be provided.

 

Food- We did not use the specialty dining options this trip. The delay on night one in the MDR did not continue through the rest of the cruise. My personal experience with the MDR food was good. I had no complaints EXCEPT for the creamed mushroom soup. That was seriously poor and all three of us that tried it, sent it back.

 

Minor rant- As I tell my customers, "If you don't tell me there's a problem, I can't fix it." This is VERY true on board a ship. Anybody's ship, not just Royals. Both our headwaiter and Digordo (Shore Ex Mgr) said nearly the same thing word for word to me in various discussions during the cruise. Our table had a couple of minor issues, Rob (Pinnacle member sailing solo) had a mix up with his wine delivery. He spoke up, it got corrected. The mushroom soup issue had a pretty solid feedback discussion with the headwaiter. I have another story for the photo shop also, but I'll relay it later.

 

Always always always, bring up a problem when it happens and leave the vinegar out of it if you can. Resolutions will come about if you make the proper effort and don't get bent out of shape on the people responsible.

 

Back later with more...

[kftw]

Thanks again for your review.

[Darkwolfe]

Thanks again for your review.

 

YW. You happen to live in my old stomping ground. I grew up in Ellis county. Burleson, Alvarado, Cleburne, etc.. All old familiar spots. Or not so familiar now. Lots of changes, not all for the better. :/

[kftw]

YW. You happen to live in my old stomping ground. I grew up in Ellis county. Burleson, Alvarado, Cleburne, etc.. All old familiar spots. Or not so familiar now. Lots of changes, not all for the better. :/

 

We're still outside the city limits on some acreage but once we leave home it's a different world. :mad:

[Darkwolfe]

Off we go for our first sea day!

 

It seemed fairly quiet overall. Luke Aerosmith was still on board, but keeping a low profile. Steve Davis was under the weather as well so "Magic Marvin" was doing most activities. I didn't see much going, but that may have simply been due to people getting organized with the CD switch. Steve got back on his feet and was in the thick of things fairly quickly. Did a great job at the events I was at.

 

"Magic Marvin" you have earned yourself a small jab in the ribs though. Now maybe I'm just being picky, but it's probably not a good idea to refer to the Cruise Critic crowd as the "Rumor Mill" (or something similar) when hosting the M&M. I can't tell you about other parts of the VCL, but over where I was sitting that remark got greeted by some silence. True, we do see a lot of rumors on CC, but most of them are in the form of "I heard this, can it be verified?" I won't say they are all like that but the large majority is.

 

Without further ado in that line, a few shots around the ship....

 

Casino

P1000002 by Wulfgar28, on Flickr

 

Artwork outside Izumi

P1000008 by Wulfgar28, on Flickr

 

Captain's Reception

P1000016 by Wulfgar28, on Flickr

 

Captain Lis

P1000021 by Wulfgar28, on Flickr

 

Coming up.. Charleston, SC.. Old Steel Sailors, two surviving and one whose time has run out.

[Darkwolfe]

Welcome to Charleston!

 

I woke up when the ship's motion changed a little and I realized we were entering port. Saw a small pod of dolphins on the way in, but they dived and vanished by the time I let Jolene know. That got me one of those patented "You dare wake me?!?" looks. Oh well, I tried.

 

Charleston is of course where the Civil War officially started. But, my interest lay more with the old veterans of WWII. Specifically, CV-10 USS Hornet and DD-724 USS Laffey. A third vessel, the submarine USS Clamagore is also currently on site at Patriot's point with the other two.

 

Best way to get to Patriot's Point from the cruise pier is to walk off the ship, hang a left on Concord and go the huge big one block past the Fleet Landing restaurant down to Waterfront Park. Go out on the pier there and the water taxi stop is on the left. Get the day pass because you will do the entire loop in your trip to Patriot's Point and back to the ship.

 

However, Charleston doesn't really get out of bed until about 9am. So if you have an early docking like we did, get some breakfast and go walk for a bit. We nosed around taking picture of this and that before heading to the water taxi.

 

Fleet Landing Restaurant

P1000040 by Wulfgar28, on Flickr

 

Custom House

P1000041 by Wulfgar28, on Flickr

 

Waterfront Park

P1000070 by Wulfgar28, on Flickr

 

Fountain at Waterfront Park

P1000071 by Wulfgar28, on Flickr

 

Waterfront Park is very nice area. Later on in the day, kids were playing in the fountain. They had a fair bit of chlorine in the water there as well. You could smell it easily.

[wieslaw]

Darkwolfe - I enjoy reading your posts - thank you.

[Darkwolfe]

Darkwolfe - I enjoy reading your posts - thank you.

 

You are quite welcome!