Vision OTS – March 12, 2016 – Review

[capsoncc]

I travelled with my wife and our 7 year old son (he turned seven on cruise). My wife is a teacher so we generally travel during spring break (March break for us here). You could tell it was a much younger crowd because of this.

 

Embarkation

We needed to return our rental car so we swung by the port to drop our luggage off, and then returned the rental car. We also walked from the rental car facility in order to kill some more time before trying to board the ship. It was a fairly short walk, only about 20 minutes (going slow). We arrived at the port a little later then we usually do hoping to avoid rush, but we were wrong. You can tell this cruise port is very small and the security lineup was the slowest I have ever saw. We are diamond members and there were no special lines to help things move faster, until after you go through security. The terminal is very tight on space. I am not sure that the terminal could take a ship any bigger then Vision of the Seas. It took us over an hour to get on board.

 

Stateroom

We were in stateroom 4540. The good news is that we were late boarding so this meant that our room was available as soon as we got on the ship, maybe around 1:15 the announcement came in that cabins were available. Our luggage was also relatively quick in getting to our cabin. This is the first time in a long time we haven’t had a balcony on a cruise, and we missed it some of the time. We didn’t book one this time since the costs was quite a bit more, and with the CDN dollar being low it didn’t help. One complaint I had was that the pillows were the thinnest pillows I have ever seen. Another odd thing we noticed was there wasn’t any shampoo and conditioner provided. Does anybody know if this is standard practice? We have never experienced this before.

 

WIFI/Internet

For us the internet just wasn't usable. I was expecting slow but I couldn't even load basic web pages half of the time. I tried at different times of day also thinking that might help – But it didn’t.

 

Ship

All the staff were very friendly during out cruises, and overall the ship seemed to be in good condition for the age. The layout of this ship seemed reverse to most other ships we have been. E.g. Gym was at back, normally at front. Windjammer was at the front, generally I remember it being at back of the ship most other times. It seems that guest services were overwhelmed at times with requests. One big problem I see is this ship hasn’t updated its technology. For example, there is no way to check your account on your TV, or do anything else except watch TV. I would think they would at least have a couple kiosks in the guest services area for people to check their bills, and many of the people who travelled on other cruises lines were bringing this up. I would have though since this ship had been in dry dock they would have upgraded the technology and the internet better. One other thing I didn’t like was you would have to go sign out towels every night by the pool for the next day, since they would never leave towels in your stateroom. This was something we got accustom to on other cruises lines, where they would leave and take the towels from you daily on port days. One less thing you have to worry about when getting off the ship. Correction there was one towel station you could sign out towels when exiting the ship just before where you disembark.

 

Gym

The gym was very small on this ship and the first few days it was hard to get machines, but this rectified itself since a lot of people seemed to give up on hitting the gym. One surprise was this the spinning class didn’t have a lot of bikes, but it wasn’t sold out. First time I have seen this happen, generally there is a waiting list. The instructor was good and each of the classes focused on different elements of spinning.

 

Main Dining Room

We had traditional fixed 5:30 pm dining. This was earlier then we have had on other cruises for early seating. We had amazing service in the dining room from Abel and Duje, the best we have had in awhile. I would recommend if anybody can sit in their section to do so. Their service was amazing and they were very outgoing and social. I found the food was just OK in the dining room, there were a couple nights where I struggled to find a main entrée I wanted. I generally had the Escargot every night as an appetizer. I found most nights the desserts selection was good. Like others said there was no prime rib on first night. We had asked for table for 4 for us since generally I don’t want people that do not want to dine with children to be forced to sit with us in the main dining room (we bring our son to dinner every night). Nothing against people who want to go on vacation without kids, that is why we generally try and get a table by ourselves and want to respect that others want to enjoy their vacation also. We arrived in the main dining room and were seated at a table for 6 with a couple and their adult daughter from Pennsylvania. It was amazing and we all got a long great. It added to our cruises experience. One word of caution for any cruise for people if you are really stuck on table size and seating I would head to the dining room and talk the Maitre’d as soon as you are on the ship.

 

Windjammer

You could tell this was an old ship, and I didn’t like the layout at all of the buffet area. It was very tight and crowded and food selection wasn’t great. I really like the setup of the newer ships where they have pod stations with different types of food.

 

Specialty Restaurants

We didn’t try any of the specialty restaurants this time.

 

Entertainment

We generally don’t attend any of the shows since we go spoiled with the entertainment on our cruise on Allure of the seas. We tried to go the aerial show in the atrium, but sea conditions were too bad and they had to cancel it. I could tell as soon as they were testing out the equipment there was so much sway there is no way the show was going to happen.

 

Adventure Ocean for kids

Our son (7) went many times to Adventure ocean, generally after eating dinner with us in main dining room. One thing we were surprised at was that we found the kids program on past cruises of Celebrity to be better, maybe because this is a small ship. We found the staff much friendlier on Celebrity, and they seem to do more activities with them. One thing we didn’t like was they did a lot of the family activities at 5:15pm, which was too close to dinner for us to attend. Celebrity would generally do these on sea days. Our son said he enjoyed his time there, so that is the important part. I just would think that RCCL is more family oriented, and this being sprint break time, they would have had a much better program then Celebrity.

 

PORTS

Sea Day - There was lot of confusion on the first sea day about what time it was. The big problem was that daylight savings time occurred on the first night, but the ship didn’t adjust their times. The problem was that everybody’s cell phones or other electronics automatically adjusted, but the ship hadn’t. I was initially thrown off by this, but I hadn’t seen any notice in our documents that night indicating there was a time change. Guest services the next day was flooded with people calling to ask the time. I double checked what the time said on my tv on the RCCL and assumed that was correct.

 

Belize – This was a tender port. This was the longest line I have ever waited in to get off at tender port, and people were getting frustrated. We were lined up early to get off also, but we booked a private excursion to do cave tubing and RCCL really made anybody not doing their short excursions pay the price of waiting in line. It took over an hour to get onto the tender. The tender ride was very long, also maybe 25 minutes, but was relatively smooth. Cave tubing was fun, and it took as about an hour on bus to get to where the cave tubing was, I would definitely recommend it. We used a company called “Butts Up” that had been recommended to us by a friend.

 

Roatan, Honduras – I couldn’t find a lot of information on this port for beaches, so we took the safe way out on this one and booked a ship excursion to ‘Tabyana Beach Break’. This included the bus, Lunch, and chairs (no umbrellas). We were lucky enough to find a nice area with some sun and shade. One thing I did notice is that there were a lot of people from the ship that got there much later then us and had much better chairs. My guess is they probably just took a taxi there. I will probably do this next time. One nice thing about this place was venders were not allowed to sell you stuff in the chair area, but could between chairs and the beach. So you were generally approached each time, but they were polite and took no for an answer. We also purchased a bracelet for our son that cost $20 for the day that allowed him to go this inflatable water slide all day long, and he loved it.

 

Costa Maya - We docked there, but the ship struggled to get to the dock, and it was 4am when we docked. The reason we docked so earlier was because of a Medical Emergency. I was woken up early to the sounds of the engines trying to push us in. I went to the captain’s discussion on the last day of the cruise and he basically said that was about the max capacity the ship could deal with. I bet we probably wouldn't have docked if it wasn't for medical emergency. Honestly we went to the beach there and we didn't think it was anything special, and our son wasn’t as happy with this place since it was just a beach, no slide. There were a lot of seaweed areas, but honestly the BlueKay area had the better beach access. We grabbed the tram at $3 each for adults and we went to BlueKay, but one word of caution is to make sure you are sitting in their area since all other areas you need to pay $50 each for bracelet. We were confused at first and thought it was all BlueKay. We were then approached by the owner trying to sell us bracelets for $5 each, (this included your chair and a welcome drink) but as long as you ordered food there they didn’t seem to charge. We had lunch there and had a good day and then grabbed a taxi back to ship for around $7. We were surprised that the tram only appears to run one-way.

 

Cozumel – After reading many reviews on here we decided to do this port on our own, specifically since we had been here many times and had did the dolphin swim the year before. At first our son said he didn’t want to go the beach here, but as soon as I showed him all the water toys from a picture I printed for Paradise Beach he couldn’t wait. We grabbed a taxi from the port and I believe it cost us about $15 each way, actually it was $16 back for some reason. We arrived there and were greeted by staff who gave us an opportunity to go scope things before we paid for them to stay. We picked our chairs and umbrella and paid them $3 for each of us. They also expect you to order at least $10 of food and drinks from them, which seemed easy since drinks weren’t cheap, but food prices were reasonable. The drink prices weren’t a big deal for us since we aren’t big drinkers, but I think most frozen drinks were around $8.50 each which seemed expensive for Mexico. There was a large number of water toys here, the biggest selection I have seen. This costs an extra $18 for the fun pass I think they called it. Our son thought this was the best port/beach ever, and he was exhausted by the end of the day playing on all the slides, climbing walls, and water trampolines. It seemed all the families there enjoyed their time there also. One piece of advice from everybody, when you enter the water at this beach enter from the right hand side. The left hand side is very rocky on entry and harder and more dangerous to enter. The right hand side is all sand and a breeze to enter.

 

Disembarkation

For the first time ever we did walk off for disembarkation. We were advised to go to the majestic theater for 7am. By 7:30am we were being called to “walk off” the ship. This was the fastest we have ever been able to get off a cruise ship, and clear customs. We were at the Tampa air port by 8am. We had booked a connecting flight to go home for 11:55am. We could have made the 10:55am direct flight if we would have known this earlier. We didn’t want to push this as we had heard that that Tampa port sometimes is delayed because of the fog.

 

Overall

Overall we had a great trip, but we noticed every cruise the cruise lines appear to just keep cutting things in order to cut more costs. E.g. No Shampoo, and horrible pillows. I know the cruise lines make a lot of money off of their shore excursions, but they really shouldn’t punish you as bad when trying to get off on tender port. We lost over 2 hours of total time at this port just waiting and getting tendered. The food in main dining room was good, but not great for us, but service was amazing. Embarkation not so great, Disembarkation was great.

 

Let me know if anybody has any comments or questions.

[birdylady]

Thank you for your review. We board Vision in 2 weeks. I'm disappointed about the Belize tender delay you describe as we also have a private tour (with 21 in our group). I really would hate to waste an hour just waiting to get a tender. Did you happen to notice how many tender boats they had running back and forth?

 

Also, did you happen to notice what nights they did the Quest and Love and Marriage games?

 

Thanx

Erika

[champagne123]

Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed review. I enjoyed it.:):)

[majorjan]

Thanks for the great review of the Vision. I'll be on her in 3 weeks. :)

[Clarea]

Well written review, thanks!

[Keith1010]

Thank you for your balanced and very thoughtful review.

 

Keith

[KirkNC]

Thanks for your report.

[capsoncc]

Thank you for your review. We board Vision in 2 weeks. I'm disappointed about the Belize tender delay you describe as we also have a private tour (with 21 in our group). I really would hate to waste an hour just waiting to get a tender. Did you happen to notice how many tender boats they had running back and forth?

 

Also, did you happen to notice what nights they did the Quest and Love and Marriage games?

 

Thanx

Erika

 

They do not use the small ship life boats for tender. They use local tender boats. I think they had about 3 maybe 4 of them running back and forth. I would guess they were able to hold 200+ people each, but i guess part of the problem is the roundtrip time. I wouldn't worry about missing your private tour since the tour we booked we didn't have to pay until the end of the excursion and they will wait for you since they know the delays because of the tendering process. We had no line to get back on the ship when we returned from our private excursion to get on a tender.

 

I have no problem with their excursions getting priority off, but my complaint is they could have at least dedicated half the tenders to non RCCL excursion people. They weren't even trying to hide the fact they were marching hundreds of their excursion people past us to load on the same tenders, which they denied and said there were different tenders. Again i realize this is a big revenue generator for them, but i always find their private excursion overly inflated in price and there is always such a large group that you waste so much time corralling everybody up and loading them on/off buses.

 

Another thing i forgot to mention in my revue was formal nights. The first formal night for us was the sunday night, but i was expecting the second formal night to be on Thursday night, but it happened Wednesday night instead for some reason. I have always remember the second formal night being on the second last night of a cruise.

[dopey1200]

Love & Marriage was on Tuesday, Quest was on Wednesday

[son3cruisers]

I was on this cruise as well. It was nice reading your review and reminiscing :)

 

Do you know that Royal has sold the Vision, and after Oct ( Nov) she will no longer be a part of the Vision Class of ships with Royal? I was pleasantly surprised with how nice the ship appeared and staff were amazing. Knowing that it will no longer be a Royal ship, is why they probably haven't updated a few things.

 

I was on the same floor as you, front of the ship. That 4am docking was loud, but with a medical emergency, those things happen.

There was quite a bit of drama going on with that ship , spring break I guess.

I travelled with 4 teens and 2 20 year olds so they heard a lot of things that happened. In Belize there were a few people left in port, ( the captain announced it) and as well, across the hall from you, closer to the front of the ship there was an arrest for drugs. Passenger ( teen) was escorted off the boat in Honduras and his room was ripped apart by security. It was a sight seeing all the security guards in that narrow hallway. Our stateroom attendant confirmed it, as security did check a few rooms.

My only complaint would be the Belize tender.

There was no tickets handed out. No waiting in the theatre. We lined up and waited. And waited. 5 floors high.

For those of you that are familiar with the ship, our line, starting on the first floor, wrapped was all the way up the stairs to the 5 th floor , ending in the middle of the Casino.. It didn't budge for what seemed like forever. We lined up about 1/2 hour after they opened disembarking. I would say we waiting well over an hour in that line. People were really agitated.

 

We really enjoyed the cruise. The ports were amazing!

[son3cruisers]

They do not use the small ship life boats for tender. They use local tender boats. I think they had about 3 maybe 4 of them running back and forth. I would guess they were able to hold 200+ people each, but i guess part of the problem is the roundtrip time. I wouldn't worry about missing your private tour since the tour we booked we didn't have to pay until the end of the excursion and they will wait for you since they know the delays because of the tendering process. We had no line to get back on the ship when we returned from our private excursion to get on a tender.

 

I have no problem with their excursions getting priority off, but my complaint is they could have at least dedicated half the tenders to non RCCL excursion people. They weren't even trying to hide the fact they were marching hundreds of their excursion people past us to load on the same tenders, which they denied and said there were different tenders. Again i realize this is a big revenue generator for them, but i always find their private excursion overly inflated in price and there is always such a large group that you waste so much time corralling everybody up and loading them on/off buses.

 

Another thing i forgot to mention in my revue was formal nights. The first formal night for us was the sunday night, but i was expecting the second formal night to be on Thursday night, but it happened Wednesday night instead for some reason. I have always remember the second formal night being on the second last night of a cruise.

Actually, we were told because we were the only ship in port, they were using smaller tenders at first ( which caused a big delay) but after an hour or so, the larger tenders came. At least that's what we were told. We were on bigger boat after 9:30 am ish.

And again we waited over an hour to get back to the ship. Huge line up at the port around 4 pm. We were on one of the last tenders back to the ship.

Edited March 29, 2016 by son3cruisers

[birdylady]

Do you know that Royal has sold the Vision, and after Oct ( Nov) she will no longer be a part of the Vision Class of ships with Royal? I was pleasantly surprised with how nice the ship appeared and staff were amazing. Knowing that it will no longer be a Royal ship, is why they probably haven't updated a few things. !

 

How did you find out about this? I ask as I find it odd that they are selling her this year but have cruises scheduled into next year.

Erika

[son3cruisers]

They are taking her to Europe, and then she stays there

That's what our dining team told us, and they will be transferred to new ships.

 

I didn't realize that sailings were still posted past November.

 

I know there was a post back a few months with people also discussing it.

[Seamingo]

I can understand your frustration of waiting while the ship excursions go first, but RC's guarantee is that the ship will wait for their own excursions to return, so it is in the ship's best interest to get their own excursion groups off on time to get them back on time.

Edited March 29, 2016 by Seamingo

[son3cruisers]

How did you find out about this? I ask as I find it odd that they are selling her this year but have cruises scheduled into next year.

Erika

 

I just took a look and yes, cruises sail until Nov 2017. Maybe I miss heard and it was Nov. 2017? I'm sure they said this Nov. Strange.