Review: Royal Caribbean - Voyager of the Seas - [July 02 , 2004]

[Net Reviews]

Review By:

Reviewer Comments:

Voyager of the Seas - 9 Day Western Caribbean from Bayonne (Cape Liberty)
July 2-11, 2004.

Previous Cruise Experience 1 - Carnival Victory New York/Canada

Traveling party: 2 adults(late 40¹s) one teen (16) one child(11)

Embarkation: On the roads in the port area traffic was awful. Dropped
bags off... no porters, you just leave the bags in a designated area and
pray they get on the ship. Security and check in took less than 30
minutes. Very efficient.

Cabin: We had an outside view quad. Slightly smaller than Carnival, but
still roomy enough. Very good storage. Met Christian, our steward and
asked for robes. Had them by dinner time. Christian did a great job
meeting our requests throughout the cruise. Wish we could have brought
him home. Gave him more than the recommended tip.

Dining Room: went to find our table. it was a table for 4 in a back
corner on the 3rd level. Went to the Maitre D’ and requested a window
table with others and were switched immediately with no problem.
unfortunately the curtains by the windows were run electrically and had
malfunctioned so no view during dinner.

The dining room does look class oriented. Chairs and decorations seemed
much more elegant on the lowest level. We were on the top level which
was very nice but not as opulent. everyone ate on the lower level for
breakfast and lunch.

Muster Drill: Easy and well done.

Left 45 minutes late due to luggage problems. great weather, smooth
seas.

The ship: In great condition and fairly easy to find your way around.
each deck has a model of the ship in several places so you always know
where you are and where the fore and aft are. Elevators tend to be slow
and overused. Another bank of elevators would help.

Spent most of this first evening exploring the ship and playing
shuffleboard. Attended the Welcome aboard family show and the bon voyage
parade.

Food: Dining room food was outstanding for all meals. Anything beef was
prepared perfectly as ordered and was as tender as butter. Good variety
and alternative menu. On July 4 the menu was on a scroll with the
Declaration of Independence on the opposite side. We got to keep this
menu as a souvenir. Milk was whole milk which seemed extra creamy since
I¹m used to 1%. Our waiter was very good and his assistant was a real
gem. Each night the head waiter for our section would come over and cut
my 11 year olds meat. On lobster night he came and removed the lobster
meat from the shell for each person. Service was incredible throughout
the cruise. We felt pampered. One night they brought my teenager the
roast chicken instead of the grilled chicken breast. It was corrected in
2 minutes!. At breakfast and lunch there seemed to be a large number of
supervisors, all helping. Food was always hot. At lunch there was always
a pasta bar where the pasta was prepared in front of you in addition to
a regular menu with daily specials. On formal night EVERYONE dressed
up. No empty tables and everyone looked fantastic!

On day 8 they ran out of grits ( go figure -- this was a cruise of
mostly people from the NY/NJ area). On day 9 they ran out of Cream of
Wheat and Iced tea. Because there was no iced tea, soda was offered
free at meals the last day.

Windjammer: College cafeteria at best. nothing special food lukewarm
to cool Worst pizza I¹ve had in years. We ate here only when we had to
because of excursion schedules. Carnival¹s buffet was far superior.

Island Grill: Burgers , hot-dogs and fries. The fries here were
excellent. The burgers and hot dogs were identical product as Johnny
Rockets, just served in bulk in trays and therefore not as good,

Johnny Rockets: was much better than the one near my home. Again,
incredible service. When you sit down, bowls of hot fries and onion
rings are brought before you order. No surcharge on VOS but you do pay
for drinks here. The shakes are well worth it.

Portifino: Did not eat there. I see no need to pay a $20 per person
surcharge to eat on a cruise.

Activities: mini golf has some challenging holes and when it is windy it
is impossible. Still it was fun to have available. Each morning we did
the one mile walk around the ship and the half hour fun fitness program.
Tim Campbell was a great instructor...easy going and fun. We collected
ship shape credits for these and got a T-shirt and hat on the last day.
My kids also loved the basketball court and volleyball. Nice amount of
ping pong tables. As far as self leveling pool tables are concerned they
are in the crew areas only. Great gym facilities
My wife also attempted the rock wall and got about three fourths of the
way up.

We do not gamble so we did not use the casino.

We were grateful that RCCL offers worship services. we attended the
protestant worship on Sunday morning. there was also a Catholic service
and on Friday a Sabbath service.

Each day you can pick up an 8 page digest of the New York Times (with
crossword), a British paper, Canadian paper, Spanish paper, and two page
sports round up (these are put out in the business service areas on deck
6). the ship also has a nice two story library with internet stations.

The pool deck was often crowded and loud but that did not effect us
since we preferred deck 4 on the side of the ship which was great for
relaxing and reading. You could also walk completely around the ship on
this deck and play shuffleboard there.

I was impressed with the number of wheelchair bound people on this
cruise. They were treated well...on Labadee RCI even had motorized
wheelchairs made for the sand available.

Shows: Very well done, especially the Broadway review. Dreamscape had
great production values but was just weird and hard to follow. One night
we had a concert by the Platters which was outstanding. the farewell
variety show was also excellent. The Ice show was outstanding,
especially the jugglers from Italy. Do not miss this one. The cruise
director, James Andrews, was wonderful.

Crowds: The ship was full with over 3500 people and it never felt
crowded (except at the elevators). There were 400 teens and 300
children. All seemed well behaved. There was one fight for deck chairs
between a 90 year old man and an 80 year old woman that took security
about an hour to break up.

Ports and Excursions:

Labadee: I want to go back... a real paradise. Did Kayaking in the
morning and relaxed in lounge chairs and in hammocks on the beach in the
afternoon. Plenty of room and beautiful beaches. a nice BBQ lunch is
provided. Security was invisible. We did go to the market.

Ocho Rios: Climbed Dunns River Falls which was refreshing. Also went to
Dolphin Cove. If you are not on the ³Dolphin Touch² excursion or the
³Swim with the Dolphins² excursions (which are both quite expensive) you
can skip this. All you do is stand on the sidelines and watch what those
folks are doing.

Georgetown: Two Carnival ships arrived when we did making the port extra
crowded. We did the glass bottom boat at Stingray City and toured the
island including the Turtle Farm and the town of Hell. Very nice
excursion

Freeport: The port area on the port side of the ship reminded me of
Elizabeth, NJ. Oil tanks and industry. The Big Red Boat 2 was docked
there and looked as if it had been neglected for a long time. The
beaches, shopping and excursions were on the other side of the island.
We did a snorkeling excursion which was fun. The two level catamaran has
a waterside and small rock wall. A pilot boat had to bring a couple that
was late for sailing to the ship while in motion. Everyone cheered as
they jumped on board..

Adventure Ocean Children¹s Program: Outstanding. My 11 year old wanted
to be there whenever possible. We kept him with us for excursions,
dinner and shows.

Weather and Seas. We had 10 minutes of rain total for the 10 days and
the seas were smooth... we actually would have preferred a little
rocking. Several crew members comment that this was the smoothest the
ocean had been all year. On our last night dolphins swam along side the
ship for a while.

Overall: This cruise was definitely the best family vacation we¹ve ever
had. There was something for everyone and we really felt relaxed and well
cared for.. We wished it was longer. We met a lot of nice people at
various meals. One couple was on their 20th cruise and have been on all
the cruise lines. They told us that this sailing was about as close to
perfect as possible.

Don¹t buy the cruise review video... very brief and not much from your
specific cruise. The documentary DVD on the building of the ship is well
worth the cost.

Disembarkation: Docked at 10 AM (two hour early). The ship was cleared
by 11:30 and colored tags began to be called. The dining room was open
for breakfast until 11:30, the rock wall until 1 PM. Sandwiches, cookies
and beverages were provided in the lounges. New port security. put into
effect July 1 makes disembarking slower. Don¹t expect to leave the ship
until your color luggage tag is called. You need to keep one tag and
show it at the gangway to depart. You also now need photo ID for
immigration at the gangway. Our color, orange. was the last to be
called, which was fine by us. We sat on the deck and watched the luggage
go off, the food being loaded for the next cruise, and refueling. Every
pallet of food was sniffed by dogs before being loaded on. Everything
was SO efficient. Once our color was called we were off in no time. We
did have to wait over an hour for the person picking us up because
traffic in the port was again awful. People were leaving while early
arrivers were dropping off their luggage.

RCCL is responsive to this. Three days after getting home we received a
letter from the VP of RCCL stating that he was there that day and found
the traffic situation unacceptable. He outlined steps they would take
immediately to fix the problem.

We had a wonderful cruise and would easily choose RCCL again... and the
Voyager of The Seas. Although we enjoyed the Carnival Victory last
year, we will probably not go back to Carnival. RCCL was superior in so
many ways

Next year we are booked on the QM2 for a 4th of July cruise to nowhere
which includes NYC fireworks. We also hope to take a one week to Bermuda
in late July 05.