QuantumLeapUltra

31 minutes ago, FLcruisergrl said:

We haven’t been to Coco Cay since it was made over, so I’m REALLY looking forward to that!

Coco Cay is excellent!  I spend the entire day at the Oasis pool... which is by far the best pool I've ever experienced.  It is chill in the morning, with the bar serving up drinks in a flash... but as the day moves on, the bar area of the pool turns into a party zone with a DJ and a tipsy, younger crowd.  The other end of the pool (zero depth entry) remains relatively quiet all day, as it is far from the bar because the pool is enormous.

If the beach is your style, there are plenty of options for that!

4 hours ago, ROYAL CARIBBEAN DUDE said:

Showgirl and Tap Factory are the one I've seen so far.

There's also:

• Hector is Magic - great magic show with excellent close-up card tricks
• Peter Grant - vocalist equal, in my opinion, to Michael Buble.
• Cary Long - comedian that I did not relate to.

"The Book" (in Two70) was excellent and surpassed some of the headline shows.

I was just on Odyssey last week.  To board AND receive a special "I'm vaccinated" wrist band that would get you into certain events, you MUST show your vax card (they photograph it)... and EVERYONE (vaxxed or not) must present a negative COVID test taken within 3 days of boarding.  Either test will do, PCR or (rapid) ANTIGEN.  We did both tests just to be sure.  They look for the name on the test, the date, and the negative result... and they photograph it.

We took our tests at home (at CVS) 2 and 3 days before sailing. We brought physical print-outs of the results.

Masks must be worn indoors, with the exception of special vaccinated only areas... like the Solarium.

As you say, things might well be very different in October, but that's how it was last week.  Oh!  And we sailed from Fort Lauderdale, so that's another variable... things might be different at Port Canaveral.

One more thing... we cruised once on Mariner and LOVED it!

8 hours ago, Bleueyes44 said:

Do you recall the name of the shows onboard ?

Yep!  In order, they were:

• "The Book: Seven Chapters, One Adventure" in Two70 venue - Very entertaining, cool tech.
• "Cary Long" - Comedian focusing on unrealistic hyperbole between the sexes. I did not relate.
• "Hector is Magic" - My favorite show with amazing magic and close-up card tricks.
• "Showgirl: Past, Present, Future" - An oddball spectacle with a mixed message.
• "Peter Grant" vocalist (crooner) - Slightly cheesy, but the guy is truly talented.  Equal to Michael Bublé.
• "TAP FACTORY" - High energy percussion and dancing with humor for kids.
• "Francoise: Comedy Juggler" - Traditional juggling and comedy.

14 minutes ago, ticketsunlimited said:

Great insight, thanks so much!!  Did they have a cover band for the trip?  

Yep, the "Sea Surfers".  They said they are from Argentina, and they sounded great.  The keyboard player is amazing.  Another guest asked for Amy Winehouse, and they immediately played 3 of her songs without even giving it a thought.  So clearly they have a huge catalog at their fingertips.

42 minutes ago, bmblob said:

Thank you for your thoughts.  What were the dining venues like?

 

We are new cruisers, so possibly easily impressed.  We didn't do anything fancy, mostly eating in the main dining room for dinner.  We were all extremely impressed with the food and staff in the main dining room!  We openly discussed and wondered why people choose Specialty Dining when the main dining room was so amazing.  There were stand-out selections every single night!

We ate at Izumi for a sushi lunch one time, ordering a la carte rolls.  I thought it was excellent, but we were pressed for time and had to rush.

It's going to sound crazy, but I only ate in the Windjammer 1 time for breakfast.  While I was impressed with the facility and variety of food, I wasn't thrilled with my particular breakfast, and I wasn't hungry enough to go up and pick something else.  My kids (17, 20) raved about the Windjammer though.  They reported eating a wide variety of food and really enjoying it.

My favorite breakfast venue by far was the 270 Cafe because of the simplicity and seeming quality of the food.  The thin breakfast burritos were my addiction.  Also, sitting in the wonderful 270 venue and watching the ocean through the incredible, enormous wall of windows was amazing.

It was only on Day 4 that we realized the Solarium Bistro, almost literally above our stateroom at the front of the ship, served the exact same breakfast as the Windjammer (at the other end of the ship).  The calm, relaxing atmosphere of the Bistro is a wonderful place to eat the same breakfast instead of at the busy, hectic Windjammer.

My favorite lunch spot was El Loco Fresh on the pool deck.  It was so convenient and delicious.  Nachos, tacos, and burritos at your fingertips.  It didn't feel "cheap" to me at all.  The food seemed equal to our favorite, local Mexican restaurants at home.

Late night pizza at Sorrento's was quick, friendly, tasty, and comforting.

40 minutes ago, Merion_Mom said:

 

Was it Mike Szwajkowski?

YES, I believe that was him!  I thought it was strange that they exclusively referred to him, and announced him as...... "Mike".  (Even in the Cruise Compass)  I only heard his last name 1 time, and I do believe that it sounded just like that.

(EDIT: I should note that we are new cruisers, having only been on 3 so far.  That's our perspective.  We may not notice things that veterans would look for.)

We embarked on "Odyssey of the Seas" for the 8/8 sailing, and just returned this morning.  We visited Cozumel, Costa Maya, and Coco Cay.  (The three "C"s.  Odyssey of the "C"s.  Hah.)

• The Captain was "Per", and the Cruise Director was "Mike".  Both were absolutely excellent.
• We had 1700 people onboard, with a ship capacity around 4500.
• Masks were required INDOORS except during events marked as (*V) vaccinated only (or seated in a vax only section)
• A brand new ship is a lovely thing!  Everything is just all brand new and sparkling.  The exterior of the ship is a light sky blue with embossed (!) lettering.  Just all around beautiful.
• An "empty" ship is a mostly wonderful thing.... but not always.  There were a number of events that essentially flopped due to very low participation.  The headline shows were slightly less exciting due to half-empty theaters.  (A good audience is catalyst for an amazing show).  One night we decided to watch the live band, and we ended up being the only party in the entire lower level of the Music Hall.  It was awkward... but the band still bravely put in everything they had.
• On the other hand, the common decks were AMAZING with lower capacity.
  • Getting drinks - easy, carefree, and virtually instant
  • Empty pools except for a few hours here and there during peak demand, which I only noticed on 1 day.
  • The Solarium was truly a sanctuary.  Typically empty, cool, comfortable and mostly quiet.
  • The Esplanade was never crowded, and often virtually clear of traffic.
  • FlowRider line was 12 people long at the very most.
  • RipCord was easily scheduled... and NorthStar even more so.
  • Bumper Cars were not a problem either.  They ran them a number of times and each "run" was 10 cars in action.  The lines I saw would be depleted in about 5 runs, so roughly 50 people in line or so.
• There are some bugs here and there onboard.  Here are some random ones I came across.
  • All elevators have 2 interior screens that show the deck number.  Some elevators have 1 screen that is "off" by 1 deck number.  So the screen on the left might say "12", but the right screen says "11".  We thought it was funny.  The elevator voices the deck numbers, so it is a non issue.
  • The overhead vent in our cabin shower would almost broadcast the speech of the behind-the-scenes crew in other areas of the boat!  I'm not kidding.  If I could understand rapid Spanish, I could have heard a lot of crew conversations simply by standing in my shower.  NOTE that this only seemed to happen at specific times of the day for about an hour.  I only really noticed it in the early morning.  It was a curiosity more than an issue.
  • The "RED: Dance Club Experience" on the final evening was a mess... but once again, merely a curiosity and not anything to complain about.  Nobody really cared too much, but there were no Cruise Director Staff or any crew at all at the door to let people in.  We all stood in the hallway while the music and lights blared within the "270" venue until Security arrived to investigate what was going on.
  • A couple of times, the elevators seemingly went into "priority" mode and kicked us out!  It was kind of hilarious.  The elevator stopped at a deck and, I seriously believe, said "GET OUT!"  (It previously made an announcement that it switched into this mode and would kick us out at the next available deck)
• Zone Zero was the most difficult reservation to get.  I was blown away by the tech, and it ABSOLUTELY requires 2 runs to understand what you are doing.  Even though you are overwhelmed with getting suited up, they don't actually explain what you will be doing once you go through the portal.  To get the most out of the experience, you might want to read up on it or something.  Because even with 2 VERY experienced video and VR gaming people in our party, we felt mostly lost during our run.  We were half way through before I noticed that the narrator who was talking to us was the parrot.  BE SURE TO LISTEN TO THE NAME OF THE AVATAR YOU CHOOSE!  The parrot refers to players by the name of their avatar.  If you miss who you are, you will be lost immediately.
  • It is still immensely cool though.  Not to be missed!
• The crew was insanely awesome.... always eager to impress with any service or desired request.
• Coco Cay was fantastic with a max of 1700 guests on the island.  So much space and room to spread out and relax.  "Getting a chair" was no issue.  I heard multiple people say that they wished the cruise had just skipped Cozumel and Costa Maya and spent more time at Coco Cay.
  • I didn't get off the ship in Cozumel (family did), but I did enjoy Costa Maya.  Basically we just went to the pool in "town" (which was GREAT) and the Aviary (which was very good).  TIP: even if the Aviary is "sold out" through RCCL, you can still just show up and pay $12.
• We made a point to find and visit with Chris Wong in the Casino.  He is a very nice guy!
• We saw the Oasis of the Seas as we were docking in Coco Cay.  They appeared to be leaving.
• The Celebrity Edge (with Captain Kate, I guess) appeared to be out and about as well.
• The Carnival Breeze showed up at Costa Maya on the same day.

Ask me anything about our experience on Odyssey, and I will try to answer if I can!

10 minutes ago, JessyCruises said:

I am sailing on Odyssey 8/22.  Someone that boarded today asked guest services what the expected # of passengers is for next week and they said around 600, so around 14%

I just returned from the 2nd Odyssey cruise, and I was told by multiple crew members that we had 1700 onboard.  The ship capacity is somewhere around 4500.

In most respects it was pretty awesome to have a "private" ship and also a sparkling new ship on the same voyage.

We just saw Oasis heading out of Coco Cay yesterday. 😁

Wow!  I feel bad for them, but yeah, I guess the testing requirement is a good idea!

19 minutes ago, ticketsunlimited said:

You will never again have it so good. It will be like being able to go on splash mountain in Disney as long as you want without getting off and back in line.

Hah!  That's awesome!  We are big Disney people, so we definitely relate.

The funny thing is, we originally had connecting cabins but RCI said they couldn't do it when we were moved from the Indy to the Odyssey.  We just called them to see if we could re-establish connecting cabins, and they claim the Odyssey is "completely sold out".  Hmmm.... who to believe?

Wow!  Thanks for the info.  That sounds perfect to me, considering there appears to be about 4200 passenger capacity, 2200 sounds like a nice comfortable number.  53% full sounds pretty nice.  Cheers!

We are heading out on the Odyssey in a couple of days, and I'm not sure what to expect.  I *think* I'm expecting a rather empty ship.  Based on other threads, it seems like people are cancelling due to testing requirements.  I'm not sure why, as it was super easy to get BOTH the PCR test and Antigen test.  All negative here and ready to go.

I wouldn't mind a less crowded ship, but I'm also wondering if a ghost town ship would just be... weird.  Also, I'm wondering how the first Odyssey cruise is going.  I haven't really seen too much about it.

Anyway, fellow 8/8 cruisers... see you onboard!

I'm confused about why there is a pool in the middle of a bunch of restaurants... and it's not clear (even on the official website) how the pool works.  Where would you put your stuff (clothes/shoes) if you were targeting the pool and maybe the pool bar?

Thank you so much for the replies!  I'm already learning some good tips.

• I LOVE the whiteboard idea, and would never have thought of that.  I assume the cabin doors are metal... therefore magnets work?
• I didn't realize that in-app messaging (for $) was an option.  Interesting.

Hello everyone!  Thank you for your help!

1) We are not interested in Internet packages (prefer to remain unplugged) - so how do we communicate onboard when spread across the ship?  What do you do?

2) What are the VERY FIRST things you do when stepping onboard... to get a jump on everyone else?  It is wise to maybe grab a drink and then sit down with the app and make all necessary reservations (for shows and such - COVID requirements)?  Will we have access to the app even though we won't have internet?

3) We have the Deluxe drink package, so I assume that there is no need to bother with bringing anything (ie, water) onboard with us, right?

4) Are there any "hidden gem" events, or things that should otherwise NOT be missed?

5) We are huge Disney fans, and are well versed in many Disney "secrets"... ie, asking for secret menus at certain restaurants, knowing how to trigger secret events and such.  Is there anything like this onboard RCI cruise ships?  Any fun, known, ways to interact with events crew or the cruise director or such?  We are BIG into participation outside of our comfort zones.

6) Any major tips for Coco Cay?  How to maximize our day?

Thank you so much!

Sailing 8/8 on Odyssey (was originally Indy)

We have be assigned cabins, but don't think that RCCI is "making us whole".  On the Indy, we had 2 connected cabins (which is very important to us because of kids), while on Odyssey they are refusing to give us connecting cabins.  We have called twice now, and both times the rep goes away for a while and "asks for approval", which is denied.

And strangely, Odyssey has an entire (small) class of cabins called "Connected Ocean View Balcony" (yellow on the deck plan) which cost more without any explanation (that we can find)... even though there are many regular connected cabins in "Ocean View Balcony" that are also connecting.

RCCI is happy to have us pay $600 more for this strange new cabin class, but is refusing to give us connecting rooms in our current class.  You can even see that many of the connected cabins only have 1 of the 2 cabins assigned, so they appear to be putting people who don't need connecting cabins in those locations.  😞