Vision of the Seas - Photo Review - 1/10/15 VOS

[cebee123]

Will be sailing on the vision March 14-21 and this is getting me really pumped!! Thank you!

[mj]

Great review so far.

[smedley_odwin]

Thanks for taking the time, loving the review so far, we are sailing this itinerary on Vision in November, only our second cruise and the last was on Freedom, so interested to see all your information and details :)

[WinksCruises]

Can I ask how you get so many shots without borders into the same frame on the board?

Norris

Sure, I create a montage of the photos in Photoshop and then merge (flatten) them into a single picture. So you're really seeing one picture, it just happens to be comprised of 2 or 3 other ones cropped to size. Hope that makes sense.

[WinksCruises]

LOL - glad I could be the strangest thing you've ever encountered during embarkation! :) :D

It was nice meeting you, sorry we didn't run into each other later on board.

[At Sea 4Ever]

Waiting on more of your review to get thru work today lol!

 

 

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[Folk Singer]

And speaking of dinner...

 

 

The 1st night's dinner menu

 

 

 

nice. :D:D

[Folk Singer]

Sure, I create a montage of the photos in Photoshop and then merge (flatten) them into a single picture. So you're really seeing one picture, it just happens to be comprised of 2 or 3 other ones cropped to size. Hope that makes sense.

 

 

Keep up the great work. :D

[WinksCruises]

 

Slumming the Suite Life...

 

We’re that rare (and practically extinct) breed of loyal to Royal bird: the Diamond member who is also a Suite guest. Defying blatant logic, we foolishly continue to book a more expensive category of stateroom even though our Diamond privileges (aka, free drinks from 5pm to 8pm) were safely secured many voyages ago. We’re supposed to get with the program, we are told by those who hear our story and gasp. We need to start booking ocean views and inside cabins… okay, if we must, a Junior Suite if we’re that hung up on getting double cruise credits. Why would we continue to book suites when the prize of free drinks has already been earned?

 

The double takes and funny looks… The jaw drops and gazes of bewildered puzzlement we get… and that’s just from the crew members who have put this 2 + 2 together about us! You can actually see them catch themselves from stating what’s patently obvious: Why would you book a suite when you already have Diamond perks available to you stupid rubes!

 

The answer is simple. We won’t rest until we reach Diamond +. It’s the Everest to our Mount Denali, the gold medal to Diamond’s third place bronze, the Chops to surf & turf night in the MDR. Well, actually, we just like the bigger stateroom and find the concierge lounge more chill than the Diamond lounge.

 

Suite Positives

Here’s what we found interesting about our particular room, 8016. It has a large center sliding door to balcony. We both noticed this as “different” so we’re thinking it was part of the renovations. Some people have complained about the water pressure on this ship. We found it to be more than sufficient. People have also complained about the hard beds. We found ours came with a mattress topper and was fine. Firm, but fine. We also loved the location, only a flight of stairs below the Windjammer, literally just 30 seconds away from coffee at any time.

 

Suite Negatives

You can hear Windjammer traffic… but it didn’t seem overly loud. White noise.

Balcony had teak chairs but regular aluminum loungers w/ vinyl webbing – no pads.

Not a particularly large or wide balcony

Suitcase did NOT stow under the bed. The beds are lower to the floor, our bags haven’t grown!

DVD player in our room was broken… but at the same time it’s obsolete, really.

No clocks in room, not even on the phone.

Most RC suite bathrooms have a tile design on the shower wall… missed it in this room.

 

Probably what irked me most as a diamond member who still stupidly splurges on suite accommodations… there are 5 Owner Suites and a giant Royal Suite on this ship that essentially dwarfed our Grand Suite status. And they each have nice little cameo door adornments that make our puny doorbell look like aluminum siding! And they’re all located right off the bridge so they run into the Captain and senior officers all the time! Oh the things that burn me up!!! Never have I felt so diminutive as a diamond pin wearing suite guest in my life! Oh the humility.

 

 

Okay, so with the rant out of the way, let’s get to the stuff we all want to know about, even you gold members. What do Diamond members get on Vision? Here’s a list of the amenities and note, they’re all associated with your Sea Pass card.

 

 

We found the Sea Pass card system worked… including the 3 free drink vouchers you could use at any ship bar during the Diamond drink-a-thon time slot. Let me tell you, there’s nothing more fulfilling than that first time you’re handed a receipt by the bartender at the Schooner Bar that reads $0.00!

 

With Captain Marek and Flavia

 

As suite guests, Mrs. Winks and I were invited to a Suite Guest only event to meet with the Captain and his senior officers in Chops one morning. I’m not sure if this is a feet wide initiative, but the visibility of senior officers on the Vision has been made a top priority. They were judges in the belly flop contest, they led the Make A Wish walk around the deck, Captain Marek led the pool volleyball team. We didn’t simply meet the officers at this one morning event and forget about them, we now had a team of people we ran into numerous times on the ship…. It was an astounding and special experience. The same familiarity you might only have had with your room steward or dining room staff was now extended to the Esther, the head of housekeeping, Flavia the director of Hospitality and Sanjay, the director of hotel services.

 

The Concierge Lounge on Vision

 

We stuck our head into the Diamond Lounge the first day at sea and figured it was just too small to adequately house the growing multitude that make up our less than elite club these days. So Mrs. Winks and I chose to spend our pre-dinner in the sanctity of the Concierge Club which is housed up in the Viking Lounge.

 

I feel so bad for the Viking Crown Lounge. It’s the most underutilized bar space on the ship and yet it’s really the greatest place to be. Such a cool and sexy lounge… with great views day or night. But we found it on Vision, as on most ships, painfully under occupied. A real shame since we hear Royal is considering getting rid of it as a feature.

 

Anyway, the Concierge Lounge is a narrow, elongated spaced carved out of the circular Viking Crown Lounge. It’s has a significantly altered layout from the other lounges we have been in, but we found it served as a delightful way station nonetheless. Our Concierge Vojtech (pronounce Voy-Tech) was superb. Very helpful, sociable and just fun to interact with.

 

Hanging with Voytech

 

The lounge was outfitted with food and drinks throughout the day (fruit, pastries and cookies) and at night, drinks, cheeses, crudite and a hot tray of nibblies were the main attraction.

 

[floridanainai]

Looking forward to your next entry....we leave on the Vision on Feb14

[TexCruise371]

What a fun review ! I laughed so hard that I had tears running down my face from your last entry! FANTASTIC!

 

 

Sent using the Cruise Critic forums app

[Beachammo]

Great review......I'll see her February 21st

[bellemiche]

Your review is getting me excited for our cruise on the Vision in March. :D

[CntPAcruiser]

We have to wait almost a year (January 2016) to experience Vision, but I'm glad of your review. It's a nice preview of what we may expect to enjoy on our next cruise.

[WinksCruises]

Sorry for the delay in posting everyone. Mrs. Winks and I needed to attend a formal function this weekend (Who gets married in the middle of January in the heart of Pennsylvania on the heels of a winter storm!!?? Argh!)

 

Anyway, we'll have a new installment of this never ending cruise story for you to read tomorrow (Sunday).

 

Thanks for our enthusiastic responses and readership.

 

You have every reason to be psyched for your upcoming cruise on Vision. One of our best voyages yet.

[floridanainai]

Waiting impatiently.......

[artypharty]

We'll be on Vision Feb. 7. After all the bad reviews, really enjoying your take on the ship.

 

Tap, tap, tap, tap ....... .... ..Tap, tap, tap, tap

(oh, that's just me, tapping my foot, waiting for the next installment!) :D:

[Alohaaloha]

Loving your review! We will be Diamond on our Vision Med cruise in September, and we are in a Grand Suite on Explorer in May so I am learning such a lot from your review- thanks! Looking forward to more.

 

 

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[WinksCruises]

When you cruise from the Port of Tampa you get a unique experience... a real treat, actually. The ship sails under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in St. Petersburg. With only 180-feet of clearance between the roadway and the waterline, it’s a tight fit for a cruise ship. Vision just squeaks by. I heard some people on the deck claim we make it with only 5-feet to spare, but when I asked him about it the next day at the officer meet & greet, Captain Mareck informed me it’s more like 20-feet of clearance, but that’s still an extremely tight fit as bridge clearances go.

 

So, about 2-hours after the Vision pulled away from the dock in Tampa, and alerted by the captain’s announcement earlier in the afternoon, about a hundred passengers gathered on the top deck to witness this passage - as the ship finally breaks free of Tampa Bay and steers a course to the Gulf of Mexico.

 

It’s really exciting. You honestly get the sense that the ship’s mast towers and stacks are going to scrape the highway decking above. The most amazing aspect is how quickly it happens. There’s such a build-up to the approach (and it’s a very pretty one) and then bam, you fly under the 90-foot wide roadway in a heartbeat. And that heart in your chest is a racing one. There are gasps and shouts and then the crowd lets out a cheer. It’s a fun moment - and one I recommend you pull yourself away from other first evening activities for.

 

Sailing under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge

 

In our cabin, we found an invite to the Cruise Critic Meet & Mingle we’d signed up through our cruise's roll call weeks prior to embarkation. It was being held in the Viking Lounge at 10:30am our first day at sea. Mrs. Winks and I put on our ID badges we had printed out at home and headed off to our first CC event.

 

The meet-up was hosted by the ship’s cruise director Marvin. He greeted us with a welcoming gift, a cute Royal Caribbean branded notebook and Sea Pass holder you could hang from your neck (appropriate for cruise critics, I guess) and a raffle ticket for prizes they gave out later, including champagne bottles, free internet minutes, and a free lunch at Giovanni's Table, one of the ship's specialty restaurants.

 

Marvin was funny. He said many of the crew members were "lurkers" who read Vision of the Seas reviews here on Cruise Critic, many times to see if they were included in the pictures, but never commented. He kiddingly called us "Critters" and mostly rumor starters! But then acknowledged how important our contributions to the Cruise Critic community were to the industry and how we provided them important feedback on what they were doing right and what they needed to improve on.

 

We chatted with Nebraskans Karen and Nikki (pictured with the bottle of bubbly they won) as well as Canadian Tyler and folks from his party, plus others whose CC monikers I recognized but didn’t end up getting to meet.

 

It was a fun time. There’s a chance to win some nice prizes and an opportunity to meet Cruise Critic members you’ve read useful posts from in the past. Also recommended.

 

Marvin hosting the Cruise Critic Meet & Mingle.

 

Our first port of call was the notorious Roatan island, located off the coast of Honduras. It’s notorious for the rare crew member shooting or passenger mugging that typically results in a cruise industry boycotting of the stop for a few itineraries as a form of economic hand-slapping. And while our driver boasted its three Bojangles fast-food chicken n’ biscuit restaurants as a badge of the island’s modernity, a trip outside the sanitized confines of the Diamond International sponsored pier town reveals you’ve pretty much landed in a third world experience. It’s a scene baby.

 

We had booked a private tour for a beach day at the off-shore resort called Little French Key, a beautiful spit of land that features white sand and watersport activities - and an odd little sanctuary for rescued circus animals! To hook-up with our tour, we had to brave the gates of the Coxen Hole pier, running a gauntlet of dramatic vendors warning us that we were risking our very lives by doing so. “Those taxi drivers out there will take you into the hills and kill you!” they admonished passionately. But we’ve risked life and limb to circumvent the cruise industry imposed monopoly on trade before - and, so far, have lived to tell some quite colorful tales.

 

It’s a little intimidating walking outside the gate. We’ll give you that. Sort of like entering a middle east shopping bazaar filled with throngs of aggressive haggling merchants. Here in Roatan, it’s transportation jockeys hawking their island tours, typically from low riding personal cars, promising you the best deals and endless delights. But we soon spotted the vendor we’d booked our excursion with. He was where they’d told us he’d be, holding his sign and welcoming us to Roatan with a big smile. Much to the chagrin of the other peddlers. We shuffled through the street anarchy to a loading area where the owner’s son picked us up and whisked us away in what appeared to be his Honda Civic. It’s crazy, but very real and fun.

 

 

Street scenes of Roatan, a shoe store and hanging outside the pier gate waiting for our ride.

 

We were driven through the center of town, and then past two of the three heralded Bojangles joints, and then twenty minutes later were on a dock where a boat picked us up with several other guests and thusly shepherded us off to Little French Key.

 

As I mentioned at the beginning of this report, the weather pretty much sucked at the start of our cruise. So we ended up enjoying Little French Key under cloudy and windy conditions. While the water was temperament enough, the beach side activities bordered on downright chilly. Sad. Because it was clear to all of us the Little French Key would be an unsurpassed and uncrowded island paradise given the right conditions. Intimate settings… various beach hideaways… decent BBQ lunch… kayaking, horseback riding, incredible coral reef snorkeling, spa services, a refreshing laissez faire attitude and the unique opportunity to swim with not a dolphin - but a real life jaguar!

 

 

Little French Key - Private island resort

 

In the center of the island is a series of cages in what ends up being a makeshift zoo, though the French Keyers refer to it as a animal sanctuary. They have toucans, macaws, monkeys, a donkey, a sloth and a lion and jaguar… all allegedly rescued from circuses or harm’s way of some sort of another. It seems strangely out of place on a property that already boasts enough natural attractions - and it's also kind of sad to see a creature like the King of the Beasts so far away from his natural element - caged up on an island off Central America.

 

We didn’t partake in it, but at one point they walked the jaguar down to the water for a swim. Beach goers were give an opportunity (for an additional fee) to swim with the jaguar and take pictures. Incredible to see, given the sheer size and bulk of this feline. Not to mention how far away the nearest medical facility must be! But again, also sad.

 

 

The island of misfit rescue animals...

 

 

Despite the lackluster weather we had a good time at Little French Key. Mrs. Winks dived off its 20 foot high diving platform, snorkeled at the reef offshore and had drinks at the swim up bars. Lunch was decent and I can’t help to think how exceptional this would have been if it had been a sunny day.

 

We headed back to shore where the same driver took us back to Coxen Hole. He was able to drop off us within the confines of the pier, thankfully. We spent a few minutes browsing the sanctified shopping area of the pier city, but we might as well have been at a hundred other port “malls” each offering the same essential goodies. So we were glad we had mustered up the courage to take on Roatan life on our own.

 

Maybe the best way to approach a “sketchy” port like Roatan is to partake in a ship sponsored shore excursion… just to get an idea of what the island is like. But for some real fun, we recommend a trip out to Little French Key (if the weather is fair), which is a trip we booked directly through their web site.

 

 

The safety and sterility of the Coxen Hole pier...

 

 

 

 

Next up Belize City… but not really.

Edited January 25, 2015 by WinksCruises

[Mrs. Winks]

I can't wait to see what we did in Belize....lol!

[grand isle joe]

Love you review so far. We are sailing her in a few weeks and your review make us more excited. Thanks. We sailed Splendour a few years back and still is our favorite RCL ship. Hope you are out of the snow that is to fall. We are too far north for this one but is a worry for us flying out of Burlington every winter. Cheers.:)

[WinksCruises]

For those of you who missed it, here's Mrs. Winks doing a cannonball off the diving platform at Little French Key.

 

 

Now here are the pages from our Cruise Compass from Day 2, our Sea Day. (Note the Happy Hour drink deal on page 2).

 

 

 

 

They also placed inserts into the Cruise Compasses. New to us were the discount on Specialty Dining Restaurants when you booked several... and the double points at the Casino after midnight.

 

 

Finally, here's the menu from Evening 2:

 

 

Again, these were features on our of particular voyage. Your mileage may vary.

 

 

Edited January 27, 2015 by WinksCruises

[CroozDoggie]

loving your review! More, please. I'm boarding this saturday. Can't wait!!:D:D

[WinksCruises]

Thanks again for your continued readership. It's your muted excitement about your own upcoming adventures that keep us motivated to go on with this sad account of our pathetic ones!

 

But first... we interrupt this trip report for an important public service announcement.

 

 

I tried to videotape the cute and addictive Wash Your Hands commercial they run on the stateroom televisions, but it never came on during the times I was set up with my tripod to record it. Anyway, the Purell sanitizer containers were everywhere as well as the constant reminders to soap up. The ship appeared well taken care of and very clean.

 

And now here's my own makeshift public service announcement: a shameless plug for the Viking Crown Lounge. It's the best lounge on the ship and no one ever seemed to enjoy it, save the spill-over crowd from the Concierge lounge. But with furnishing like this and the best view at sea, how couldn't you?? Make sure you have a drink there at some point during your cruise... it's especially romantic at dusk.

 

 

Okay, just to keep us in sync with the trip report, here are the Cruise Compass and Main Dining Room dinner menu from the Roatan port day.

 

 

 

 

 

If you have trouble viewing these, on a PC you can hit the Ctrl key and the + key at the same time and it will zoom in a bit. Ctrl Key and the - key will bring you back to your regular viewing resolution.

 

 

 

[Cshgrand]

More! More! Sail on vision next month and your review is making me look forward to it even more.