Another 2/10/08 Voyager OTS Review (Long)

wsantelope · February 20, 2008

This may take a few days to complete....maybe not....we'll see how far I get!

SATURDAY

We left the Dallas area on Saturday, the day before the cruise as I feel that even with only a 5 hour drive too much can happen on the way to the cruise terminal and we turned out to be right!

After leaving the house at 9am we didn't arrive Galveston until 8:30pm. :eek:

As it turned out we discovered upon airing up my tires on my 2003 Subaru Outback that they all needed to be replaced at 9:30 am on Saturday morning - yeah right! Fortunately Discount Tire saved my bacon and had us back on the road in 40 minutes. Yep. You read that right! Whoooohooooo!

More car trouble along the way....I'll spare the details....several stops with kids and seniors and then late enough for dinner.....

Pulled into the LaQuinta Inn and Suites Galveston at 8:30....fortunately we did confirm our room earlier in the day.....we did have some trouble with the other LaQuinta loosing a reservation for 2 other families in our party on a sold out weekend on the island for many hotels....because they didn't call or check in by 6pm. If we hadn't had their confirmation numbers they would have been dead in the water. The two hotels made it work between them. The "Inn and Suites" was a great hotel...newer and clean. Further from the terminal (Still only 10 minutes) on about 69th and Seawall. Front desk was a little rude (Kind of like prison wardens!) but we just overlooked it. It was really busy.

Those who stayed in the NON Inn and Suites hated their hotel....said it was older and mildewey - though much closer.

SUNDAY

Had a great free breakfast in the lobby....Waffles, Eggs, Bagels, Yogurt, Cereal, OJ etc.... buffet style with many other cruise passengers.

We paid $10 for the shuttle and $10 to park an extra car....parking was free....and we didn't use the shuttle going - The shuttle didn't start running until 11am and ended around 1pm and we wanted to be earlier than that so we self shuttled. We got dropped at the pier at 10:30 by DH but still didn't board the ship until 12:45 waiting for them to take the cars back and return by shuttle. Bad idea. In the future we'll all take a taxi over...take the free parking....skip the shuttle and we'll leave in the future by taxi at 10am. No going back and forth. Can't believe it took that long!

Boarding was a piece of cake....mom is handicapped so they walked us up the express lane to the x-ray....after we were through that we were at the check in counter 5 minutes and on our way to the ship. All the lines after the XRay were short .... the ones before the XRay huge....not sure what the deal was there.....

They "Bling-ed" us in and we were finally onboard! I was amazed how much the ship looked just like the pictures (Imagine that!)

We were lucky enough to book the Royal Suite on this sailing (Usually we're on deck 2 with a porthole!) and we walked straight to our room, happy to find all our luggage waiting for us in the hallway. The room was amazing....a player piano....electric lights, curtains, TV's, Entertainment centers....you name it we had it. Yes, this suite was bigger than our house. No joke.

Wet bar....dining room table...L-Shaped sofa....Circular bed....walk in closet...hot tub on the balcony (More like a glorified bathtub)....and the most amazing bathroom.....A seperate bathroom with a pedastal sink, medicine cabinet(s), toilet and bidet, and then next door the glass shower / steam room with THREE shower heads, whirlpool jacuzzi tub and twin vanities. If I could have cut off the main shower head and brought it home with me I would have! Best I've ever had!

We were in the suite about 15 minutes when our concierge (Gershwin) asked if he could "Present Himself" .... he wound up being the down-side of our cruise but I reviewed that elsewhere.....I'm choosing to stay more positive in this review.

We met Rudy K. our cabin steward who was actually the best we ever had onboard a ship and he took note of all our special requests for bedding and such and got everything right first try. His service was consistent throughout the cruise....he always went the extra mile....extra chocolates and towel animals on my sons bed....extra bedding for us.....definately kept up with the ice all week.....just a great guy! He needs a promotion!

We had a small sailaway party (Without sailing away as the port was closed due to fog) after the Muster Drill with the rest of our family onboard and then went off to the Magic Flute Dining Room on Deck 5 Aft.

Our Waiter was Hennery Sitohang from Indonesia....also the best I've ever had on a cruise ship....I can't even tell you everything he did.....Robin was his assistant and Carl the Head Waiter (He's been with RCCL forever!!!!). Please say hello from us if you run into any of them. They will remember our 5 year old Garrett more than us probably.....actually there were 17 of us they took care of all week. He was PERFECT! Always prompt...bought lots of extra things for us to try as a table....always had cheese plates brought to us or waiting for us when we got there and sent extra deserts to our room. We missed Lobster Bisque soup Monday night and he got the kitchen to make it from Scratch for me so I could have it on Wednesday. Can you feel the love ?!?! :D

Dinner was good though early ... as mentioned now it's 5:30 for the early seating...way too early....and the Welcome aboard show (A comedian) was short and a little too suggestive....we could have skipped that and not missed anything......

After a quick walk-about on the ship we all decided to call it a day and start fresh tommorow.

MONDAY (At Sea)

Woke up with the sun a little after 6:30 (EEEK!) and decided on breakfast at the Windjammer before Yoga. Yoga was very basic and the sequences were rushed (Taught by one of the physical trainers) .....I wouldn't spend your time or money here.

It was a very cold and windy day so the pool deck was out.....

We enrolled little Garrett in the 3-5 year old Adventure Ocean class and went off to explore the ship.....

We enrolled the kids in Adventure Dining for the evening as we decided to forgo the first formal night and show (Elvis Tribute) for Portofino's (This is where I missed the Lobster Bisque). Prior to dinner I checked out the Concierge Club gathering - moved up to Cloud 9 on Deck 14 due to the large # of Platinum and Diamond Guests....and had a few snacks....finger foods, chocolate dipped strawberries and the like. Met a nice couple in Real Estate (My profession) there from a small town outside of Houston....

Portofinos, contrary to some of what I read on this forum was incredible!!!! We're so glad we didn't miss it and we all swore we wouldn't eat again for weeks!

Pay the money and go - you'll be glad you did!

IMHO the food was far superior.

We ate soooo much that we had to leave and go straight to bed.

I got seasick for the first time this night between 12-4am in 14-16 foot seas. It didn't help that the ships horn blasted about every 2 minutes right over top of my room (And I'm a light sleeper).

The fog was thick and the rain horizontal. I felt like I was the "Night of the Living Dead" or something...walking the decks like a zombie trying to get any piece of fresh air. Found about a 1' x 1' portion of the covered deck I could sit in when it let up for a few minutes....I finally went up to the Viking Crown / High Notes. Saw about 5 people out and about. 2 maintenance and 3 drunk.

I didn't care....I honestly just wanted to jump overboard! I can't decide what made it worse - the sea or the Meclazine!

Nothing worse than being seasick with no fresh air and nothing you can do about it.

I finally went to sleep a little after 4am with the trash can by my bed.

I'll continue tommorow.....

wsantelope · February 23, 2008

Sorry guys...I crapped out in the middle! I've had the flu for the past 4 days - barely able to move. :o I'm still down but can type!

I prayed that I wouldn't get sick until AFTER the cruise! Careful what you pray for !!! :rolleyes:

I forgot to mention the CC Meet and Mingle on Monday @ 11am in the High Notes lounge.....It wasn't a good one....No mingling took place I only met a few people because I thought I recognized them from their online pictures....the cruise director's staff just thanked everyone for our online publicity and did a raffle for some cheezy prizes and then quickly got ready for a scrapbook workshop. I was a little late but I don't believe anyone on our thread was impressed....This was my first so I have nothing to judge it by. I have heard other's say that in the future they would grab the staff and let them know that we wanted time for introductions and mingling....notes for future reference.

Silly me...(That's what I get for writing late at night!) I also forgot that we attended the ice show on Monday at 3 pm. Our concierge did not come through with our tickets --- 17 people --- (We had asked for them a week earlier and re-confirmed onboard) Marcella @ Guest Relations (She is GREAT!) finally got them to us at 2:45 and by the time we got down there with our huge group there was barely any place to sit let alone a place to sit together....we sat where we could (We finally got an obstructed view seat behind a pole) and enjoyed the show.....It really was great! Tarot card theme...and special guest Vladimir who did a neat routine with a large metal ring on the ice. We could have used our VIP tickets for another performance but we never did get back around to it. I heard all of the shows had all their tickets given out so get your tickets early for this show if you want to see it!

TUESDAY - COZUMEL

This was a great day! I always wake up with the sunrise and the sun seems to rise early on cruises so I was up at 6:30 in the morning....We lazed around in the cabin for awhile --- I always like watching the "Ship's Channel" that showes the camera out the front and the weather --- don't ask me why!

We went out on the balcony about the time we were docking (Finally it's warm and humid!) and right behind us came another RCCL ship docking along side (On the port side - our side) ... I forget which ship....silly me...but it was much smaller. Radiance OTC maybe??? It was fun to see them pull in right next to us....we got a birds eye view of that ship and it was fun to waive across balconies at everyone. We even got to peek in some rooms! Today's forcast was for rain and scattered showers but the weather sure looked great this morning! A huge change from 12-4am!!!

We got ourselves together and went for breakfast at the Windjammer where I had some of my favorites...chesse and strawberry waffles with whipped cream. Garrett had Hot Chocolate (As well as the rest of the kids) and we had a nice time just having a slow breakfast.

We all met not long after at the gangway - Deck 1 - Aft and did the ritual picture taking once off the ship. It was a nice picture with the two ships right next to each other....we also posed as a group for the cruise photographer.

This port had been well-repaired since our last stop here in May of 2006 - post hurricane (It used to look like a bomb went off!) almost as if it had never been damaged...everything bright, shiney, new and GREEN!!! If you looked hard at the tops of the trees you could still see some barren areas but overall a huge improvement!

We strolled through the "Mercado" out to grab a taxi - a van full of us (11) to Paradise Beach for the day .... The lowest we could get the driver down to was $30 but I wouldn't budge....they weren't happy about it but hey....six of the passengers were small kids.

This was our first trip to Paradise Beach - I posted on the Cozumel forum.....

AWESOME beach for the day!

No charge for the chairs or umbrellas....$10 for wrist bands for unlimited beach activities (Water Trampolines, Ocean Kayaks, Snorkle Gear etc) and the best tortilla chips, guacamole and nachos! I can't wait to go back!

Everything was very reasonably priced....great fresh water showers and clean changing rooms

They also have 15 minutes of free internet that I forgot about and had I remembered I wouldn't have spent the $30 for the package onboard. The connection onboard was REALLY slow anyway - and no good email.

I didn't try the massage on the beach and had this stop been after formal night I would have had my hair braided so I didn't have to mess with it but the young girls did and they were soooo cute!

We headed back to the ship about 3:30 for a 5:00 (I think) departure and stopped at the Pharmacy enroute to the ship.....

Then it was RUSH RUSH to shower and change for the 5:30 dinner.

Dinner was good as usual and then we went off to the show.

Tonight was comedian Jeff Jena who everyone - not even the comic-inclined enjoyed....not only REALLY funny but surprisingly really clean - which we appreciated given all the kids along. It's hard to be really funny AND clean!

By the end of this show I was "Cooked" and retreated to the cabin for the night. Wednesday would be a big day!

wsantelope · February 23, 2008

WEDNESDAY (Roatan, Honduras)

This was the day I have been MOST looking forward to and pulling into port I was sure that I was going to not be dissapointed.....!

It was a beautiful shoreline and there were some amazing houses on our approach. It did not look very populated and everything looked very native - not all polished and commercial.

I think we ran through the Windjammer and ate quickly before disembarking on the island.

We had booked a private tour through Bodden Tours and lucked out in getting the owner himself (Victor) as our personal guide for our large group! It was amazing!!! He was amazing!!!

We had to walk out of the cruiseship terminal and had no trouble meeting Victor...we then had to walk a few blocks along a very busy street with no sidewalk and heavy traffic to where the van was parked.

We went to the Jungle Canopy zipline which was a true canopy tour in the actual jungle - an hour and a 1/2 of ziplining through the trees....all the kids were able to go (Ages 5-9) and all had a GREAT time!

It was very hot and humid and definately wear good walking shoes (No flip flops) if you do this!

After ziplining (Sightseeing along all our drives on the island) we went to Victor's house and paid $2 each to see his "Petting zoo" - Monkeys, deer (A new born fawn an hour old), an anteater etc..... We got to play with the monkeys and hold them for about 30 minutes and it was just neat! Victors house was humble but neat and clean and everything on this island (Except where they're developing) is so .... well just native. I think it's GREAT and really appreciated the opportunity to see this island.

After Victor's we went down to the picture - perfect West Bay Beach and dropped my two brother's off at a dive shop so they could do a two-tank dive...the rest of us ate lunch at Mavis and Dixies on the beach where Dixie herself waited on us. Great restaurant and great atmosphere - good and reasonable food ... service was a little slow and we didn't have the luxury of time we had packed so much into the day. Victor of course hung out and shot the breeze with us the whole time.

Several of the kids found a small Hermit Crab and had a blast playing with him during all the waiting.

While here we also changed into swimsuits to get ready for the second part of our adventure.

After we were done we went and dropped two in our party off to Horseback Ride on the beach...Victor had arranged for the guide to bring the horses down close to where we were and we wouldn't see them for a couple of hours.

We went on to the dive shop to get snorkel gear for all of us to do a quick snorkel trip above our divers.....the bummer is that the dive shop had almost no gear for anyone and what they did have was sub par. Word of advice: Bring your own gear!

Fortunately I had brought floaties along for my son and his own snorkel mask equipment. I borrowed my SIL's dive mask and snorkel (She forgot her swimsuit) and went w/o fins. We decided to go out anyway and Victor arranged a very cheap price for the dive boat to take us out to the reef.... so we went out and snorkeled for about an hour sans lifejackets and switching out equipment. Three of us adults were lifeguards and we wanted the kids to have the experience they were so looking forward to so we took our chances....we didn't stray too far from the dive boat and everyone got a few good peeks under the water. Mission accomplished though we know now for next time!

The cool thing is that Victor came with us to watch the 2 children of the mom that couldn't go (Pregnant and no swimsuit!) He even got wet on our account. This folks is the mark of a true Tour Guide! :D Did I mention his English is great too?

When we got back to shore it was time to head back to the ship.....the Honduras pier personell kept telling him the ship left at 5pm and he was very leary of getting us back at 5pm even after we showed him our Compass listing the 5:30 departure....We told him to trust us but it still made him nervous.....

Of course the ship didn't leave until 5:30....well it was after 5:30 as two people (Again) were missing from the ship until about 5:55pm when I heard a bunch of hooting and hollering off the balcony and I walked out to see two middle-aged people - looking entirely sober - at a dead run up the pavement to the gangway. Sure would have loved to hear that story!

Another rush to dinner.....and we were Off!

Dinner - Great (Again!)

The show tonight (I think!) was "Broadway Rythem and Rhyme" - a production show and it was very good....the part I was awake for. Yes, we were the ones asleep on the first row! :o Perhaps it would have been more productive to see the show early and sleep through dinner at the late seating! It would have been a lot easier on the waistline!

Guess what we did after the show?????

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......

wsantelope · February 23, 2008