Spanky Cruise 1

What a typo there...August 2019..thanks!

We are going to be on Ovation in Jan 2019 to Alaska in a Grand Loft Suite which is part of the Star Class.

We were previously on Ovation in Jan 2019 for an Australia/New Zealand cruise.

Does anyone have any ideas on how the ship will be different. The only things we have thought of is taking out the coffee place and replacing it with Starbucks and taking out King Fu Panda and replacing with Johnny Rockets.

Look forward to any thoughts. We are really looking forward to another cruise with a Genie...

I don’t feel like the genies are over worked. They also help each other out to cover all of the rooms. Royal Caribbean sends out communication tools - the loop - about two weeks prior to your cruise. The genies are busy with current cruisers which is why I think you can’t contact you4 genie too far out.

your welcome.

Thanks Cruising Everday. Have a great time and make sure to report back!

I meant to say fresh fruit...

Hi - No problem to answer questions. I know how it is to find information - difficult. I am sorry to say I don't know what charcuterie is...but we received cheese and crackers, small dessert snacks, fresh food. Basically anything that is served on the ship you can get. I even asked for a milkshake and even though they are not made on the ship, the genie got CK to make one for me. Regarding wine/liquor in your room. You can't have bottles of wine in the room (they did leave us one on the first day) but you can ask for anything and they will bring. I assume they would leave you glasses of wine. They left us shots of Jamison since they wouldn't leave the bottle.

The key is to tell the genie what you want...and if you don't want to bother them you can tell the room stewards or even the guy who delivers the drinks to your room. They all will bend over backwards to help.

On our first excursion day I never thought to ask for snacks for when we got back on the ship...(the lunch hours are short on the days at shore) so we didn't have anything in our room. From then on I made sure to tell him the night before....

It is no bother at all to answer any questions.

Sarah

Hi - I am happy to answer your questions. I spent a lot of time looking for answers prior to going on our cruise as well. So I totally understand.

A few days before your cruise (I believe it was 2) we received an email from our genie which had instructions for boarding and luggage tags (special VIP ones). We had already told our genie what time we planned to arrive in a prior email. When we arrived there was a person holding up a genie sign...(there was also a star class banner up by the entrance) when we then pushed our way through to that person who then took us to the front and we were checked in and walked right onto the ship without our luggage who we didn't give to anyone until we got to the front. People may try to take it but don't let them. We then met our genie on the entrance to the ship and went right to lunch.

A few things I learned about Star Class. Our genie did read our survey answers from the survey that RC sent out with the sort of silly questions, which surprised me. The loop is a website not an app that I used prior to the cruise to ask questions but never on the ship. We were not given a phone to call the genie on board but did have his number and could call anytime even though he did give hours he was on-duty...but they didn't seem to apply.

The services of the genie are for those only in the star class...that was made pretty clear on the first day when he went over our schedule and the program. We let him make all of our arrangements and then we modified throughout the week.

We tried not to be too bothersome to him ... we learned that he would check in around 11 am with us and then around dinner time...unless we contacted him. It would have been nice if he had told us that he would be doing that but we figured it out....

Ask away...

Sarah

nope, all free...if you want to go longer you have to pay. the free time seemed enough and you could go multiple times for free.

It was a mix crowd - a number of Aussies, some from Asia, and a few Americans...from what people said to me it didn't have as much of a Wow factor as Oasis but to us we thought it was pretty cool (mind you we haven't seen Oasis). Due to the level of service and the variety of food we liked it a lot better than Disney Dream.

no problem. we never ate there -- the one time we thought about it it was closed due to the weather.

King Fu Panda -- chinese food place...

I just got off Ovation with a Star Class suite and am happy to answer questions.

My post can be found here: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2590814

Do you mean "the living room" - it was a game room...the other side was Coastal Kitchen...

Hi all,

We recently returned home after taking a 9 night cruise on the Ovation out of Sydney to New Zealand and back. We stayed in a grand loft suite (which was wonderful) and were in the Star Class. The Ovation did not have Johnny Rockets or a Comedy Club.

We greatly enjoyed and used the room service benefit -- having room service from Coastal Kitchen each day for breakfast, many days lunch from Michael's Pub and dinner from Chops.

We found our Genie was not as proactive as we thought he would be -- but it turns out it was his last week on the ship so there was a lot going on for him. We learned to ask for afternoon snacks in our room and were pro-active about drinks and room service. He reserved the seats we wanted in any shows and went out of his way to be helpful.

Major disappointment were the sandwiches in two270, the sea scallops in Coastal Kitchen and the coffee anywhere which was basically 3 shots of expresso with hot water.

Overall, we had a wonderful time and getting on/off the ship was a breeze since we had the services of the genie. Even on the pier on the first day they had plenty of signs for the genie...made it very easy.

Our Genie, Josh is moving to the Harmony in March.

Any questions regarding Star Class or the ship I'm happy to answer.

Interesting to read this. We leave for our cruise 10 Jan out of Sydney on the Ovation in Star class. I hope we do not have a similar situation.

Thanks for the suggestions. We were looking at Hertz as well.

Thank you -- we will email them and go from there.

Hi all - We are traveling star class on the Ovation in Aus/NZ in January. I have read what people have said about Star Class in the Caribben and Asia. Has anyone been in Star Class in Aus/NZ? We were wondering what might be different and what might be the same.

I do plan on writing a review when we get back so there will be more information out there for people.

Thanks.

Hi - We are arriving on RCCL Ovation of the Seas in January and think we would like to rent a car and drive around the area in Wellington.

From what I can tell Hertz and Omega both have rental car offices in the ferry terminal. Is this near the area where the Ovation will dock?

Thanks for your help. Much appreciate it.

Sarah