Review of Vision of the Seas - March 12, 2016

[cruisefan0110]

Vision of the Seas – March 12, 2016

 

Background - My wife and I are early 60’s and this was our 8th cruise. All on Royal Caribbean. This was our first cruise out of Tampa and only our second cruise driving to the port. For this cruise, 3 ports were new to us, Roatan, Costa Maya, and Belize.

 

Parking and Embarkation - We pre-purchased parking from the Parktologists parking lot. It is about a half mile from the terminal. We also took the extra discount to drop our luggage and my wife at the terminal before going to the lot. This worked really well as there were porters who were waiting at the back of the car before my wife was there. They took the luggage. My wife waited for my return. I drove back to the lot, parked the car and within 5 minutes the shuttle was there to bring me to the terminal. This was very easy and I would recommend this lot if you are looking to save money on

parking. Once back at the terminal we were directed to the Check-In area. We filled out the Health Questionnaire. Here is where I can’t help much. I use a cane to get around and so I was put in the Suite and Pinnacle line. We were called immediately to the window. Our paperwork was all in order. They took our picture at the window instead of as you board. This seemed to work well. We were boarding in less than 10 minutes from entering the building. I cannot give wait times for the other lines. They appeared to be moving fairly

quickly.

 

The ship - VotS is in terrific shape. I did several quick looks both in and out of our cabin and did not see any rust or those irregularities that show the age of the ship. Our room was a Superior Inside cabin on deck 4. The deck 4 staterooms are forward and share deck 4 with the Centrum and the dining room. This limits the traffic in the hallway. The room was quiet. There was a little noise from above, but ended well before we turned in for the night. I would pick this room again. The crew was efficient and friendly. Several crew members stopped to chat while I was waiting for one thing or another.

All were smiling and had a friendly “Hello” as they passed. More on

the crew later. The chair hogs, I am happy to say, avoided this cruise. We crossed the pool deck each day about 9:30 A.M. and just about all of the seats around the pool were available. The few seats that appeared to be occupied I believe were occupied by the people already there. The ship was 100% sold out as many states and parts of Canada had Spring Break. There were a good number of kids on this sailing. We did not notice any unruly kids running around.

 

Food – Breakfast was in the Windjammer each morning. Standard RCCL

breakfasts. No complaints. We had lunch in the dining room on the

first sea day. Very good choices and the service was at a good pace. The Windjammer lunches were good also. The fried fish was excellent. They had a few selections as well as the usual burgers and hot dogs. On Thursday they had a special section with all of the St. Patrick’s Day favorites. Dinners in the dining room were very good. A good selection of both daily items and then the items always available. Many days I had a hard time limiting my Soup/Appetizer selection to 2. On Friday, there were 5 choices I could have made. The main courses were very good. I found the desserts to be good also. I know several reviews have said they were fairly tasteless, but I did not find that. We did have one dinner at Chops. It was fantastic. Thank

you Cruise Critic and RCCL. The one thing to say about Chops is to

make sure you save plenty of room for dessert. The desserts are very

tasty and also quite large.

 

Activities – There were plenty of activities if you cared to partake. Both the main pool and the Solarium were well used. The Meet & Mingle was well attended on the first sea day. We got to meet Moose the Caboose who was the fountain of information in Tampa. We had several fine conversations. We met several other CC members and saw them throughout the week. For us, the highlight of the Meet and Mingle was winning the raffle for dinner for 2 at Chops. Our activities included trivia, the art auctions, and the Majority Rules game. My wife did a few line dance classes. The only issue we had was that the trivia events are held in the Schooner Bar and were very well attended. The Schooner Bar on this ship is rather small and for several of the events, there were a good number of people having to stand.

 

Shows – The first 2 nights were comedy shows. We, personally, do not

care much for cruise ship comedians. The reviews by people who did attend the shows said they were okay. Nothing special. We attended the first stage show, “Broadway Rhythm and Rhyme”. We found this show to be disappointing. Most of it was performing the music of Broadway in a very up-tempo, urban style. Sorry, but, IMHO, the song “You Got Trouble” from “The Music Man” cannot be performed in this fashion and the performance of “The Impossible Dream” in the singers weak voice was bad. Again, my opinion. I also believe that the singers and dancers were far below that of the other ships we have been on. Based on this, we did not attend the “Boogie Nights” show. Due to scheduling conflict, we missed “These Guys”. This show was praised by all we talked with. The group did one number in the dining room as a preview of the show. They sounded very good. VotS Has an aerial show

in the Centrum. The aerial artists perform on bungee type apparatus. Get there early as seating fills up fast.

 

Debarkation – Debarkation was smooth and orderly. We put our bags out

with a debarkation group of 14. Due to the sold out ship and the number of kids on board, we were unsure of what to expect. We had breakfast in the Windjammer, went to our station. We were called about 15 minutes early. We used a porter for our bags and were through customs in a short time. In fact, it was our porter who recommended we call the parking lot shuttle to pick us up at the handicap area instead of the regular pickup area as that was a bit of a walk. No problems at all.

 

Overall – We had a great time. We met several people which we have shared our personal information with and hope to meet up with these people again. As stated earlier, the crew was fantastic. Major shout outs to Zeljko and DelRoy in the dining room. Zeljko was very good with the kids at our table. We were a few minutes late a couple of times and were still handled in a timely fashion without interruption of our tablemates, who we apologized to. Another shout out to Daniel, our cabin steward. We had only one special request and it was gladly granted. We had 3 towel animals over the cruise. And one last shout out to Georgiana in the Schooner Bar. She kept my Coke cup full.

 

Thank you to all.

 

If anyone has any questions, please let me know and I will do my best.

[Clarea]

Thanks for the review.

 

We were on the immediately preceeding cruise, and they did not even attempt to do the production show "Boogie Nights" as the production cast was brand new and needed more time for that show.

[sojodave]

Thanks for the review. I'm sailing on Vision on April 9th. Our last cruise was on the Oasis and it will be interesting to compare a smaller ship to the huge ships.

[Keith1010]

Rick, thank you for the very detailed review.

 

Keith

[cincicruisers]

Thank you for taking tine to post your review

[KirkNC]

Thanks for your report.

[CRUISEBOY305]

Thank you for your review. I love Vision. Sailing on her again in exactly 25 days :D