Vision of the Seas~B2B~Spanish Immersion~Feb. 8th & 15th~My Diary

[maxs mom]

Thanks for all the nice comments, y'all!! Got to work a little this morning, but I'll be back a little later.

[berylde]

One more time !!

You mention the Maitre D gave you an invite to sit in special area. But, if eligble, can you sit there without invite?

AND, if you had a choice which deck level of the restaurant would you pick for dinner?

Thank you, thank you-----------

[cruisenfever]

One more time !!

You mention the Maitre D gave you an invite to sit in special area. But, if eligble, can you sit there without invite?

AND, if you had a choice which deck level of the restaurant would you pick for dinner?

Thank you, thank you-----------

The Area on Deck 5 that Jane is referring to is for Gold Card Holders which would be Full Suite Guests and C&A PC Members. We were able to use this area on our b2b last June and it was wonderful.

 

When we were on board Deck 4 was Traditional Dining and half of Deck 5 was for MTD. There was talk of making all of Deck 5 MTD after the ship went in for her enhancements.

[MADflyer]

One more time !!

You mention the Maitre D gave you an invite to sit in special area. But, if eligble, can you sit there without invite?

AND, if you had a choice which deck level of the restaurant would you pick for dinner?

Thank you, thank you-----------

 

Vision had a Gold Seapass area available for private breakfast and lunch deck 5 aft in the area where they have "my time dining" in the evening. The main dining room is only open, otherwise, on deck 4 for breakfast and lunch.

 

This benefit was not listed on the full suite benefit list in the suite, but turned out to be my favorite perk on Vision.

[TravelerThom]

Enjoying your thread and looking forward to the continuation. We did B2B on Vision out of Santa Domingo in 2009; it was not billed as "immersion" but it had no US ports (hence no US visa required) and I'd say 90%+ were Latin Americans, so Spanish and Portuguese were much more common than English. LOTS of energy at the parties! I have never lived in Latin America, but have traveled extensively, so it came as no surprise to me that customs are somewhat different - not better, not worse, just different. I think one of the biggest shocks for people who haven't traveled to a particular area is that ways of doing things that they took for granted is not the only way to do things.

 

Glad you enjoyed your trip, and are taking the time to share.

Thom

[Realtor at Sea]

So happy to hear news of Capt. Lis Lauritzen. She was our captain on a TA on the Brilliance years ago. I have never seen a Captain who was literally everywhere as she was. She even greeted us on our visit to the bridge, the first Captain to do that in our experience. The crew absolutely loved her!

[chellecruise12]

Anyone know her schedule? Will she be on Vision in May? Just wondering since it seems like everyone really loves her.. :)

[MADflyer]

Suite Guests usually have a special area set aside in Chops or somewhere like that for breakfast and lunch.....SIZE]

 

While I recall waiters serving bread, juice and coffee at breakfast in Chops on the Liberty crossing last year, I thought you had to go out to the Windjammer to get the breakfast and lunch items. While it was an exclusive sitting area, it was not full main dining room breakfast as I experienced on Vision.

 

I am also very much enjoying your thread. Very well presented.

[MADflyer]

Anyone know her schedule? Will she be on Vision in May? Just wondering since it seems like everyone really loves her.. :)

 

I copied this from the 'Current Captains Con't' thread

Vision OTS - Capt Lis Lauritzen (started rotation 1-4-14)

Vision OTS - Capt Felix Shrecko Ban

 

While I hope she is still on for the last sailing from Panama in late April, I think they do 10 or 12 week rotations, which would mean she would not be. I am really disappointed to miss her again, if that is the case.

[BoyntonBeth]

Anyone know her schedule? Will she be on Vision in May? Just wondering since it seems like everyone really loves her.. :)

 

I copied this from the 'Current Captains Con't' thread

Vision OTS - Capt Lis Lauritzen (started rotation 1-4-14)

Vision OTS - Capt Felix Shrecko Ban

 

While I hope she is still on for the last sailing from Panama in late April, I think they do 10 or 12 week rotations, which would mean she would not be. I am really disappointed to miss her again, if that is the case.

Lis will go on vacation a week from Saturday, March 15. Srecko will be on for 10 weeks. I planned this b2b to spend a week with each of them.:cool:

[chellecruise12]

Thank you for the Captain info. :)

[maxs mom]

OK....I think most of the questions have been addressed by our most knowledgeable readers. Thanks, guys.

 

So I will continue with the review/diary.

 

We got back to the ship that day in time for a late lunch.

 

 

We had lunch in the Windjammer today.....not my favorite place, but today it was very pleasant as most guests were in port. No one was there and it was so very nice and quiet. This WJ is small and doesn't have quite the selection of WJ's of the larger ships, but the food was very good.

 

 

The afternoon was spent relaxing and reading in our cabin. We received an invitation under our door to have dinner with Capt. Lis tomorrow night.

 

We went to the CL for drinks this evening and met Julie and Joel there. We had the place to ourselves. Really nice and quiet.

 

 

 

Julie and Joel were dining in their suite tonight and we went to My Time Dining.

 

We got seated right away at My Time (which by the way, was the entire level of Deck 5). Dinner was vey good. I had the Beef Carpacio, a spinach salad, and a spinach filled pasta for the main course. I enjoyed everything. There was warm chocolate cake for dessert.

 

 

[maxs mom]

We paid a visit to the casino before going to bed. We both won once again!! Yay!!

 

This was waiting on us in our cabin when we got back. We set our clocks one hour ahead tonight.

 

[maxs mom]

Monday ~ Feb. 10, 2014 ~ At Sea

 

Yay! A Sea Day. I was up around 7:30 and off to the CL Had a very nice visit with Betsy this morning. We were still rocking and rolling in the night. But it wasn't too bad.

 

Got to breakfast around 8:30. No one there!! It was heavenly.

 

 

 

I actually went to the gym after breakfast!! John needed to rent a tux, so he met the tailor at our cabin and took care of that.

 

Later I met John on Deck 5 where he was sitting comfortably and reading. We sat there for a while and Betsy came along and joined us. Soon DeDe saw us and joined us as well. We chatted with them for a long time. DeDe and I compared hair colors and weight and she remembered that I drank white wine. She was very happy with her new job as Guest Services Manager. She has her eyes set on becoming Hotel Director next. She'll get there! It's so great to connect with old friends!

 

 

I walked round a little bit after lunch and found the little Diamond Lounge. It's on Deck 6 just past the Schooner Bar. It's very nice.....but like the Concierge Lounge......very small. I don't know what they will do when they come to Florida. Open up a larger bar area I guess.

 

 

 

We relaxed in our cabin this afternoon. We watched a little TV. But the TV on this sailing is very limited. Most everything was in Spanish, but there were a few things that you could watch if you wanted to watch the same thing over and over again. We only had the International news feed.....and we did not see one thing about the Olympics! Oh well. The TV was hardly ever on. That's why we bring a speaker to listen to music from the iPad.

 

This was formal night and dinner with Capt. Lis was early.....6:40. She had to eat and get to her greeting duties at the Capt.'s cocktail party by 8:30 or so. We went down to the dining room entrance to meet everyone. Here is the invitation that we received.

 

 

Ready to go:

 

[maxs mom]

At the dining room entrance we met the other diners......Manuel (famous Pinnacle Member....this was his 6th week on board) and Rheinhold from Germany, Frank.....who just became Pinnacle on this sailing, Jennifer and Gary from Toronto (who just that afternoon booked a new cruise...but somehow it got charged to our account!....The LA straightened that out....I hope), and three lovely ladies from New York.

 

Here we are:

 

 

We got started with our dinner before the first seating crowd came in at 7:00. Dinner was very good. Two sampler soups, a scallop or salmon appetizer, a filet, fish, or crepes for the entrée, and a fabulous dessert.....vanilla ice cream with berries presented in an edible almond bowl.....quite good! That is the only picture of food that I got at the dinner. This dessert was fabulous!!

 

 

The wine kept coming, Capt. Lis was a great hostess, and we enjoyed the dinner immensely. She remembered the other cruise that we were on with her....the Radiance out of Tampa. She had to take over for the Captain who had a medical emergency. This was right before she got her own ship. We had great conversation all through dinner, however passengers on three occaisions came to the table and interrupted so that they could get pictures or a signature for a game they had going. Sheesh!

 

 

One of the ladies had a birthday, so they brought a birthday cake to the table and sang "Happy Bursday".

 

 

It is such an honor to be invited to the Captain's Table and we thoroughly enjoyed it!

[maxs mom]

Dinner was over fairly early in the evening so we went to the Shops on Board (which were pretty nice, by the way) to get John a new hat. He left his in the car at the airport.

 

Then we watched the Captain's Welcome Aboard festivities from Deck 6.

 

 

 

 

That finished up with a small aerial show. These guys were fantastic.

 

 

 

[maxs mom]

We ran into Julie and Joel here, so we went to the Schooner Bar to talk to them for a while.

 

 

It was so loud in there that we couldn't hear each other, so we went over to the empty Diamond Lounge and sat in there for a while and talked.

 

 

 

After that, we went back to the cabin for the night. Right where our cabin was on the starboard side, there is a little secret staircase that goes up to the spa area.....you can get into the Solarium really fast by using this shortcut. I really enjoyed that.....kinda cool. I've never seen that on a Vision Class ship before. We've never had cabin in that area.

 

[Tropicalgal2]

Jane,

Thank you so much for all you have done. The photos are great. Thanks for taking the time to do this. I'm sure it will help others to "see" VOS! :)

[CruiseGirlKS]

Wonderful pics! :)

[maxs mom]

Tuesday ~ Feb. 11, 2014 ~ Bonaire

 

Up early again. We are sailing into the port of Bonaire. This is our first time to port at this island. This was the view from the Concierge Lounge this morning.

 

 

Had the place to ourselves at breakfast again this morning. Saw the Pilot Boat coming in while we were eating.

 

 

We docked shortly after. This is a beautiful place. Reminds me a lot of Curacao.

 

 

 

 

[MADflyer]

[quote=max'smom

 

Then we watched the Captain's Welcome Aboard festivities from Deck 6.

 

 

That finished up with a small aerial show. These guys were fantastic.

 

 

QUOTE]

 

I am so glad to hear that they now did an actual aerial show! This was not the case in November.

 

I had my family all situated and seated and then all they did was have 2 dancers come down to stage level and then take photos with 16 'lucky' guests on each side that got a glass of sparkling wine. Then they did a photo shoot with the Captain for about a half hour on the stage. We were all expecting there would be some sort of show due to the venue and were very disappointed.

[maxs mom]

We had a snorkeling trip booked today. We booked this privately on the recommendation from Hoopster here on CC. We were to meet at 11:30 at the end of the pier. So at 11:00 we walked off the ship and found the booth for Woodwind Snorkeling. We paid for the trip there and were given instructions on where to go to catch the catamaran. Our trip would start at noon. They leave from the Divi Flamingo Resort which was about a half a mile walk to the right as you get off the ship......not too far.....but when it's a little hard to walk.....we had to take it slow.

 

We got to the resort and found out that they have free Wi-Fi so we parked ourselves at a beach bar there and took advantage of that until it was time to board he boat. We found out that the crew likes to come down here and spend some time. It's not a bad place to hang out.

 

 

 

You can see the ship from there.

 

 

At about noon we could board the Woodwind. There were about 20-25 of us and a great crew!

 

 

 

As we sailed out to the reef, Dee gave us our instructions. We got fitted for masks and flippers. (By the way....their equipment is top notch!!) My feet are so small....I had to get some child size flippers. We also got UV protective shirts to wear. You could have gotten a wetsuit if you wanted.

 

[maxs mom]

Here we are making fashion statements in our protective UV shirts!!

 

 

 

They divided us up into three groups and we had a guide to go with each group. We were in group number one and were the first into the water when we got out to the reef. Yikes .....the water was cold, but we got used to it quickly.

 

 

 

 

The guide would point out all kinds of fish and reef life. It was really beautiful. This was some super snorkeling! All was going very well for a while.

 

Apparently......we suck at snorkeling. After a while John got pretty tired so he had to get back on the boat. They would signal for the boat to come pick us up if we were having any trouble. A few other people got back on the boat at that time as well. I stayed out a bit longer, but when my mask started filling up with water and I couldn't get it to stop.....I had to go in as well. But the time that we spent in the water was amazing!! The whole time in the water for everyone was about an hour and a half. Of course we didn't stay out that long, but the time we did stay out was good quality time. We got some great pictures. Some are ours and some are from the professional CD that we bought.

 

We actually saw this sea monster:

 

[maxs mom]

Here are some more pictures from this wonderful adventure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[maxs mom]

And here are some more. I have honestly never seen such clear and pristine water anywhere!