luckybecky

The Good Cabins were ready at 1:00 on the dot, so as soon as we finished eating we were able to go to our cabin. I had carried my luggage on so I wanted to drop it off. LOVED the cabin. I am a balcony person. I always want a balcony. But this was a last minute trip that we really hadn’t planned or budgeted for, so I couldn’t justify the cost of a balcony. We went with Category 2T promenade view inside cabin 7591. I was not looking forward to an inside cabin because our last inside cabin experience was poor. On Carnival Dream we had an inside that literally barely fit the bed. There was a tiny desk with a tiny stool. The bed took up the entire space. It was claustrophobic and I really didn’t like it. So I was very happy to see that this promenade view cabin had a small sofa and a bay window seat, as well as a chair (not just a tiny stool) at the desk. The window made it feel much more airy. My daughter had left her suitcase with a porter outside. It was delivered to our room around 3:30 or so. The Bad: This cabin does not appear to be updated. I had read somewhere that this ship was updated just last year, but the cabin does not appear so. The outlets for example: two US and one European outlet at the desk. Newer or updated ships seem to be installing USB outlets, and ports near the bed. None of that here. The furnishings didn’t look new, and drawers didn’t open and close smoothly. Bathroom mirror looked very old, peeling around the edges. Telephone looked positively ancient, and didn’t look like it had been cleaned in years. It was pretty disgusting. Don’t get me wrong, the cabin was fine, but I’m just saying that it doesn’t appear to have been updated in a long time. Beds needed separating. Our steward took care of that while we were at supper. I unpacked, then we went and explored the ship. Made reservation for Izumi for later in the week (we tried to do it in the app but it wanted to charge us. We had pre purchased Chops +1 package so there should be no charge). Here's the cabin Here is an example of what I mean about not being updated, the mirror is worn. But the room was fine.

Hello Cruisers! I have a lengthy commentary about our recent Western Caribbean cruise on the Voyager of the Seas. If you are interested, I welcome you to follow along. We had a good time, but this wasn’t my favorite cruise of all time. I have quite a few criticisms and I know some people don’t like to hear anything negative about their favorite cruise line. This was just our experience. YMMV. We still had a great time! Any opportunity to travel and every day on a cruise is a gift to us. We don’t let these little things ruin our time. My adult daughter had some vacation time that she had to use soon, or lose it. And she had a birthday coming up, so we booked a last minute mother-daughter cruise out of Galveston. We left San Antonio at 8:15am, arrived at the cruise port about 12. We parked at Park 2 Cruise, a few minutes’ walk to RC terminal. Make sure you have reservation because they were maxed out. We arrived at the terminal at 12:15. Our boarding time was 12:30-1:00. The Good: Easiest embarkation process ever! No one checked our boarding time, or else we were close enough that nobody cared. NO wait at all to check in, or for security. No lines whatsoever. The terminal was very nice. Lots of seating that looked comfortable, but we didn’t have to use it. Got right on board. Also, they seemed completely unconcerned about booze smuggling. I had 2 bottles of wine in my suitcase (as allowed) which were not checked. Some cruise lines inspect every bottle to be sure you aren’t trying to smuggle on liquor. Likewise, coming back from Costa Maya, I had a nearly full bottle of water which sailed through security without being checked. We went directly to our muster station, took maybe 30 seconds to check in. We had watched the short safety info in the app on the drive down. Took the elevator to deck 11 to Windjammer, very crowded as expected but we miraculously found a table by the window. We ate light because we have Chops tonight. The buffet looked very typical. I just had a salad and some veggies so can’t really comment on the quality of the food because a salad is pretty basic. There seemed to be a good variety and everything looked good. Here's the terminal All aboard!

Thanks for posting this. We did the exact same cruise a week after you. I'm working on a review of our own. Interesting to hear other people's perspective.

Thanks for posting this! We just booked this same ship/itinerary for Nov 4. Sorry to hear about the slow bar service. Did any bars seem better - less busy - than others? Were there any options for lunch on embarkation day besides the buffet? The buffet always seems to be so mobbed.

Me too. Hopefully just a short update or something.

Thanks again, everyone. I had no idea that simply asking what to see in our various ports would be so divisive. FWIW, I don't have an opinion on what to see. That is why I asked! My question was from the start: here are our ports, do you have any suggestions for what to see? I have to admit I was a bit taken aback to be told, essentially, that I shouldn't even bother. I mean, this is a cruising forum. We love cruising and were excited to go to New Zealand. We still are. But I have been surprised at the negativity for such a simple question. And IMO, it's never good to start with "I don't want to be rude, BUT...". So with that said, I won't continue this thread. I appreciate everyone who gave constructive suggestions. I don't want to continue contributing to any negativity so I'll just leave it at this. I'm here to learn and just enjoy cruising. I hope that we will in fact be able to do this cruise and that I'll be able to report back later that we had a marvelous time. Happy sailing to all! 🛳️

Yes, I get your point. But this is a cruising forum, after all. I'm disappointed that we might miss the most exceptional sights. But my question has been from the start, what CAN we do from these ports? Is there absolutely nothing worth our time? A day trip that can be done in 8-10 hours? Nothing? I can't believe all ports are that devoid of anything at all worth seeing. I really do appreciate your input and that of others. I understand what you are saying and sorry to discover that the ports aren't more exciting. But if we do go ahead with the cruise, which we probably will, then we would like to make the most of it and not have to spend up to $400 per person / per excursion for ship excursions. That's what I was asking for help with. Thanks again.

Thanks everyone for the input. Some interesting responses. I'm disappointed that it will be difficult for us to see any nice scenery. Is there really nothing at all that can be recommended for these ports, aside from the Otago harbor cruise and Zealandia that were mentioned? We have relatively long port times of 10-11 hours in most ports which I had hoped would be long enough to get in some good excursions. The cruise line has some listed but they are ridiculously expensive, especially the longer tours, so we are hoping to find some providers outside of the cruise line. Renting a car for the day would not be completely out of the question but would not be our first choice. As for wildlife viewing, we were thinking about seals, sea lions, penguins, etc. I believe there is an albatross center too. We are going to have scenic cruising in Milford, Dusky, and Doubtful Sounds so hopefully there will be some nice scenery along the way. As for being committed to the cruise, well, yes and no. Technically, no, because we have only a small deposit invested. It would be possible to change to something else. But we are really excited about this itinerary which includes not only NZ but several ports in Australia and then moving on to Fiji, American Samoa and other South Pacific Islands before finally ending up in Papeete Tahiti. It covers a lot of ground and all the ports are new to us except Moorea and Papeete. So, yes, in that sense we really are looking forward to the cruise. Again, thanks everyone for the feedback. We still have a lot of time to plan the trip and appreciate everyone's expertise. @possum52 We are in Melbourne on March 25, for only about 9 hours. I found a walking tour there that looks interesting and would also leave us time to explore some of the city center on our own. @yarramar Thanks for the links. I haven't had a chance to look at them closely yet but at a glance it looks like there is some good information there.

I see that you are from Melbourne -- which is another of our ports! I've been reading and gotten some great ideas for what to do there, but have the same problem. Should we schedule a tour or just DIY? So many lovely things to do. As much as we love cruising, this exposes the drawback. With only a few hours in each port it is so hard to decide what to do. I'm hoping for some good advice from some New Zealanders who can guide us. 🙂

Sorry, I know my thread title is overly broad. Let me explain. We are doing a cruise in March that includes several ports in New Zealand -- a bucket list destination for us. We want to get the most out of this but also have to watch our budget. We are doing a B2B totaling 25 days with many ports. Excursions could easily run into thousands of dollars. So I'm looking at doing many of these ports on our own. And from my research (admittedly limited so far as we have only recently booked this cruise) it seems that many of our ports are do-able on our own. It appears that in most of these ports we could get off the ship and into city center relatively easily and find many wonderful things to do. But as charming as the art deco architecture in Napier or punting on the Avon in Christchurch sound, we do not want to spend all our time in towns and never see the incredible scenery and wildlife that we have dreamed about. We are going to have to pick and choose carefully in order to maintain a reasonable budget for excursions. So long story short, of the following ports, does anyone have suggestions for must see scenic tours especially wildlife tours? Is there something we just cannot miss in the following ports? FWIW, we are not into Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit, and tours related to those really don't interest us. We are relatively fit for our age (early 60s) and can handle moderately strenuous activities. Our ports are Auckland (we will arrive a day or two before embarking on our cruise), Tauranga, Napier, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin. Any suggestions as to where it would be worth it to splurge on a scenic/wildlife excursion? And which ports would be best to save our money and DIY a city tour? Thanks very much for any suggestions. Counting embarkation and debarkation ports, we have a total of 18 ports to research/plan and it's a little overwhelming.

Sounds like you have a great TA! 🙂 I get your point. Sometimes you can get perks that help offset the price. But in this case the price difference was just too much for us to swallow -- no matter how much I love to have a balcony. The price for an IA cabin (not gty) is about $3500 including taxes and fees. For a balcony BC it is currently approximately $9750. Ouch! And that is just one half of the B2B that we are planning. Almost three times the price is just not worth it to us. Add the other half of the B2B and we are talking really big money. We've done a few cruises and the balcony is usually not THAT much more. Not sure why it is so much higher on this one. Maybe just a very desirable itinerary? So unless we are able to snag a really amazing upgrade, we will be hanging out in this inside cabin but with very close access to the outdoors and a pool. I hope that I'll be able to report back here in a few months that it was amazing! 🏖️🍹🛳️

I can't log in at all. Keep getting the page took a vacation message. 🤔

Thanks for the iuput Asawi. Glad to hear that there were no noise issues. The particular room we have appears to be long and narrow on the deck plans. I'll be interested to see what it looks like. Hopefully not too small.

Does anyone have experience/ pictures of aft inside cabins on the Spirit deck 10? We usually sail in a balcony but for the B2B South Pacific cruise that we just booked, the price difference between inside and balcony (or even OV) was just nuts. There was no way we could justify spending that much more so we booked inside cabin 10175. We chose this cabin specifically because it appears to be in very close proximity to Spice H2O. So we can just walk out our cabin and be outdoors in seconds -- Spice H2O will be our not-so-private "balcony" hangout. We also like that it is a very close trip to stairs outside at Spice H2O or the inside aft stairs/elevators to go up to the buffet and main pool area. I'm curious if anyone has been in one of these aft inside cabins. Is there a noise problem with foot traffic going to and from Spice H2O? Is there a noise problem at night when it apparently turns into a party venue? (We are not early to bed types so not terribly concerned about this unless things run really late and loud.) I particularly love to have some wine on my balcony before bed while enjoying the stars at night, and hope this location will work for us. Just curious if anyone has any thoughts. I generally really don't like the inside cabins we have had but I'm hoping that our very close proximity to outside will make it OK. I figure I can just throw on a swim coverup anytime I want to go outside and not have to wander far to get there. 😄 We are going to be in this cabin for 25 days (!) our longest cruise ever.

@mscdivina2016 Sorry, don't want to hijack your thread but want to ask you a quick question and the CC private message function seems to be disabled. Could you please email me at ptn1 at aol dot com regarding the spreadsheets you created for March NCL Spirit South Pacific? I'd appreciate it. Returning to your regular programming...

Thanks everyone for the comments. Lots of excellent information. Bigdogwon thanks especially for your detailed comments about your recent cruise. We are truly undecided. I love the many Caribbean island stops -- and long port times -- as well as the 3 stops in the Azores. But as I already mentioned, this would be a huge expense on our budget, more than we typically spend on land or sea vacations. And, we would want to spend some time in Portugal at the end of the cruise. We have not been there before. And to add more to mull over, our daughter is getting married in February, putting additional considerations on the budget. We are continuing to mull our options. One possibility might be to do only the Caribbean portion of the cruise. Thanks again for all your comments. We have a lot to think about. 🙂

We are considering the 20 night Philipsburg to Lisbon transatlantic in May 2024. The itinerary looks amazing with many ports in the Caribbean that we have never been to, plus three stops in the Azores. This cruise would be a huge splurge on our budget. I'm interested in thoughts anyone may have about this kind of small ship travel. We have only done one other small ship cruise, on the Paul Gauguin. That ship is about 300-350 passengers, so larger than the World Voyager. Otherwise, we have only cruised on large mass market lines. Our favorite is Celebrity, but we aren't ashamed of traveling on inexpensive lines like Carnival for great value -- and they sail out of our home port of Galveston. One of the things I like about the big mass market ships is the variety of activities on board. We enjoy the casino and nightly shows. Obviously I understand that cruising on Atlas will be a very different experience. I'm curious about those differences. We will have a solid week of sea days if we do this cruise, plus a couple more sea days at the end. What is a typical sea day like? What kinds of activities, if any, are offered? We are active travelers and don't really spend of lot of time lying around the pool or spa. How would we spend our week of sea days? Also, any thoughts about a Horizon cabin versus Veranda? I understand that the Horizon is larger, but only has a window that opens. I'd love the extra space, but not sure I would like just having a window as opposed to a true balcony. I REALLY like to have a balcony when we cruise. Would the trade off be worth it to have the extra living space in the Horizon stateroom? Any comments on these questions or any other thoughts you might have for us as newbies to this kind of travel would be welcome. TIA!

So both of them were able to supply unlimited amounts of those two very specific products? I'm sorry that you have to deal with this issue. It can't be easy for you and I don't want to be insensitive, as I have spent the last 30 years also dealing with difficult disability issues. But I have cruised on a few different cruise lines, including all those you mentioned, and have never seen these two very specific items available. So were the other cruise lines able to source these items especially for your family? How did that work? Were you able to go to the dining room and request these off menu items? Did they deliver them to your room? How were you able to be sure that there would be enough for the entire cruise? I'm not trying to be difficult here, I am truly bewildered about how this would work and curious about how those other cruise lines handled it since those are not items that they normally would have in stock.

I have no idea what is the case for the OP's son, but I can say that many people on the autism spectrum have food issues of all kinds including aversions to certain textures, smells, flavors, etc. Although this does seem an extreme case. In the case of people with autism, it is not a medical need like a food allergy would be, but it can be very difficult to get a person with autism to try new foods. I speak from experience. Again, I don't know if that is the case for this person. Whatever the case may be, I agree with you that this is beyond what would normally be expected as an accommodation. If it were me, and there was simply no substitute for those two foods, I would never expect any cruise line (or resort/ hotel/ restaurant etc) to stock those foods specifically for my son. It's not the same as asking for a gluten free diet, or avoiding nuts in the case of a nut allergy, or the many other types of needs they are trained and able to accommodate. I agree with the several others who suggest taking those foods on board with you and notifying the special needs department. If it is that crucial to have ONLY those foods, I would want to be sure I had them in hand.

We did not have it delivered to our cabin on the Dream last week except for I think embarkation day. I had to go looking for it. I find it much quicker to scan the printed version than having to scroll through the app, changing from one category to another (dining, activities, music etc).

Saturday May 20 Debarkation We got up around 7am. We had set out clothes the night before and were pretty much completely packed so it didn’t take us long to get ready to go. We didn’t try to fight the crowd in the buffet, just waited in our cabin until 8am when debarkation began. We (almost) always do self debarkation. Our one time using the cruise line (NCL in that case) having them handle our luggage was a disaster. So they started calling self-assist first, by muster station and ours happened to be the first one called. We didn’t even attempt to get an elevator. Clearly that was not going to happen. The stairwells were jam packed with lots of people grumbling about how “they need to have a better system” and “I guarantee you that lots of people in this line are not in the first group that was called!” Eventually we shuffled off the ship amongst the crowd. The process in the terminal was easy peasy. Facial recognition check. Then someone asking us if we had any alcohol or tobacco (No.). And we were out the door about 40 minutes from the moment we left our stateroom. We had nearby parking and were on the road in no time. A couple of other thoughts: there are things I like, and don’t like about every ship. On this one, I didn’t like that there is no observation lounge. We have been on a couple of ships that have lovely lounges on the upper decks with huge floor to ceiling windows. But this ship does have the Serenity deck which is nice, and also has the forward areas on decks 6 and 7 that I mentioned, which few people seem to know about where you can view sail in, sail away, or pier runners. Another thing is the miserly bartenders. Not their fault, I’m sure they are just doing what they are trained and required to do. But every glass of wine I ordered (and there were many LOL) was carefully measured in a carafe – and not a drop more! One bartender even gave me a homemade “red blend” by combining the last ounce or two of one wine with a new, different wine. Late one night, a bartender told us both exactly how many drinks we had remaining. Also you cannot order a double (at least, not under Cheers. You have to pay extra for a double), or two glasses of wine at a time. You only have to wait five minutes but this was enforced. I know Carnival is sort of a party line, and they have to take measures to control excessive drinking. But we have not had this kind of penny pinching on other lines. On our last cruise, one bartender would give us what he called the “friends and family pour,” meaning a large wine glass filled almost to the rim, when he knew we were heading back to our balcony for the night. On other cruises, friendly bartenders would happily top us off or not bother to run our card every single time, once they knew us. This is not happening on Carnival. Every single drink is measured and counted. Overall we had a wonderful time. The ship was nice and we enjoyed our beach time. I can’t say that this was my most amazing cruise experience ever but it was a lot of fun – especially since it was so last minute and unexpected. The crew were great, food was good and we enjoyed the entertainment. The casino was a bust but you can’t have everything. Lastly, important to note that this “free” cruise was far from free. It was a great deal –yes. But nothing is ever really free. Of course you can’t avoid the taxes and port fees. And then there are the gratuities. On top of that we always want the drink package – when we are on vacation we want to be able to enjoy ourselves and not worry about the cost of every single soda, bottle of water, or glass of wine. So we always do Cheers which is very expensive. Add to that the casino losses and cost of excursions. But still, with all of that said, we felt that we got a good deal and would do it again. But we just can’t afford to do it every single time one of these “free” offers lands in my mailbox. We are going to have to be more selective if we continue to receive these offers. If you are still here, thanks for following along! Please let me know how your experience on the Dream compares to ours or if you have any other comments about the cruise.

We have not eaten the buffet at supper on this cruise so we went up just to see what it looked like. The salad bar looked fairly extensive but the hot food section seemed relatively limited. Several items were the same as on the dining room menu. One thing I noticed is there is apparently no longer any concern whatsoever about Covid, or even norovirus for that matter. Every cruise I have been on since Covid has had a person we called the “washy washy girl” (or guy) posted at every entrance to the buffet reminding people to use hand sanitizer before they go and start touching all the serving pieces and everything else. Not here. In fact I had to look for the sanitizers because they were not always prominently placed. One for example was tucked in a little nook past the soft serve machines, and that was the first one you encountered. The washy washy people really do help improve compliance. I’m not a germaphobe but I know norovirus can be a real concern on cruise ships and with hundreds and hundreds of hands touching things all over the buffet, it is nice if those hands are clean. The show was good. It was We Are The World where they introduce crew members from the many different countries that work on the ship, and then singing by the cast. We gave the casino one last chance. It has been awful for us this cruise. We like to play video poker. The pay tables are horrible. (7/5 for double bonus) But I honestly began to think the game is rigged and not playing like true poker. I played multiple times over 6 days and only got one four of a kind. That has never happened to me ever. I tried a few slots and they were no better. This may have been the worst cruise I’ve ever had in terms of gambling. I'd be interested in hearing the experience of any VP players who might be reading along.

Later we went to the Q and A with cruise director Franco. We found out that this was his very first sailing as a CD. He did an amazing job. He seemed polished and professional, I would never have guessed that it was his first time. And he got trial by fire: an aborted departure within an hour of sailing, thunderstorms raining on the sailaway party, a medical emergency, and a water rescue, all in his first sailing as CD. He said he started as a trainer in the gym in 2018, worked for a couple of years and then of course there was the Covid shutdown. When the restart began, he wanted a change of pace so joined the fun crew. Seems he climbed the ladder pretty quickly, to go from a trainer to CD in 5 years, especially considering the time in lockdown. Not much was happening in the afternoon so we packed, and then took a nice long nap. We went to dinner early so we could be finished in time for the 7:30pm show. Except for slightly slow service at the brunch, meals have gone very quickly with fast service. Sometimes almost too fast ! We almost always have two appetizers (often soup and salad), main and dessert so that’s four courses. Usually in and out in only about an hour. Frog legs Dill lemon comfort soup Cobb salad Short ribs Fried chicken Baked Alaska I had the chocolate melting cake three times on this cruise! I didn't bother to take a photo because I know there are thousands of pictures of it online.

Friday May 19 -- a Sea Day At 6:30am, the loudspeaker directly above our bed jolted us awake when a woman called for the medical response team to go to cabin #xxxx. A couple of minutes later she repeated this announcement. The speakers both in the hallway and in the cabin are EXTREMELY loud. I hope the person was OK. But I feel sorry for families with young kids who were awakened too early. Does anyone know, is it normal to make that announcement in the cabins? I would have thought the medical people would have pagers or walkie talkies or something. It just struck us as odd that this would be broadcast inside the guest cabins. I guarantee that every single one of the 4000+ passengers were awakened. We tried to fall back asleep. We eventually got up and went to the Sea Day Brunch. First they tried to seat us at a very crowded table where when I tried to sit down I was literally rubbing shoulders with the two people on either side of me. I wasn’t comfortable so we asked to be reseated. On the app, when you check in, there is the option to request a shared table. I had not selected that option. I wouldn’t have minded if the spacing hadn’t been so tight. In fact the people already sitting there had removed one of the chairs and placed it to the side because it was too crowded. They offered to put it back so we could sit down but we just asked to be moved. Service was just a little off today. Not terrible. The people who were seated at a nearby table shortly after we arrived were served and had almost finished their meal by the time our food arrived. My omelet arrived without the potatoes that are included on the menu. I asked our waiter for them and pretty soon he came with a portion of potatoes that looked extremely unappetizing, and didn’t taste much better than they looked. They were covered in some sort of tomato puree. Otherwise the food was great. Fried chicken Omelet

Here is the standard bar menu: