easytiger

7 hours ago, MMDown Under said:

Have you cruised with them before overseas ?  What did you enjoy about Disney Cruises?

Have been on a few Disney Cruises out of Port Canaveral.  It goes without saying that the entertainment is  second to none.   Really enjoyed the adults only areas as cruising without children.  I didn't think the food was any better or worse than any other cruise line,  although the rotational dining where you get to experience 3 different restaurants with the same wait staff is pretty cool.   The Wonder is one of the older ships and has that classic liner feel.   It's Disney .. what can I say 😀

Early booking for Castaway Club members ( previous cruisers ) opened on the 27th . 

Just booked a 4 night cruise from Brisbane  A$5450 for 2 ,   for the cheapest balcony cabin. Crazy prices !!

Great, sound like it might be fun. We also have some friends from the UK joining us. There are a lot of new destinations for us as well, so we are very much looking forward to that. We've also decided to spend a few nights in Honolulu to break up the journey to Seattle. Good times !

Hi Rick and Joe,

Yes, this cruise is long overdue for us, and we too are looking forward to a long relaxing break.

Would be great to catch up .. all the LGBT meets we've been to on RCI have been a real

bust, always planned for 10pm in the Champagne Bar, and no one turns up. We did a transatlantic last year on Celebrity and the meets at 7.30 in the Martini Bar were always

well attended.

Hello Gents,

We"ll be joining you on this one. Looking forward to meeting up.

We are Brett and Frank

Welcome Alan, thanks Wes and Dave, look forward to seeing you.

Any ideas for where to meet for a drink onboard ?

Thanks CC and JP.

The countdown is on. It's a big trip for us .. We'll be travelling with another couple and then joining them on the Allure from FLL.

Our first time on Celebrity.

Hello Gents

We'll be joining you as well. Looking forward to a great time. We are Brett and Frank from Australia.

Hi Bruce and Sam

We tend to wear a suit and tie on formal nights but by no means is a tie essential. Sounds like you'll both be looking smart anyway so whatever you're comfortable in will be just fine.

We fly out tomorrow so we'll see you both soon. Have a good journey.

Hi Bruce and Sam

We tend to wear a suit and tie on formal nights but by no means is a tie essential. Sounds like you'll both be looking smart anyway so whatever you're comfortable in will be just fine.

We fly out tomorrow so we'll see you both soon. Have a good journey.

Hi Rob - many thanks for the info, it's much appreciated. Hopefully see you on board.

Not long now Bruce, we need to start packing soon. Hope you are ready.

Brett and Frank

We are staying at the Copthorne ,near Dubai Creek. We found that most of the hotels we looked at were quite expensive. We don't have any set plans while we are there but have kind of attempted a list of what we want to see. We arrive a little late on the 21st, so only really have a full day on the 22nd and the day we board the ship.

How about you guys?

Hello Bruce and Sam - yes, we will be on the Dubai to Singapore cruise and then we are staying on the ship down to Fremantle - Australia. We arrive in Dubai on the 21st and look forward to meeting you guys on board.

Brett and Frank

Hello Well you're definitely not the only gay couple onboard but I don't imagine there will be very many.

It's looking highly unlikely that we will be attending the meet and mingle party since it's slated to be at something ridiculous o'clock in the morning !

Maybe see you in the R Bar which is where they normally schedule the LGBT meet.

Hope you sorted the visas out.

We were on the Jewel a few years back doing a Transatlantic and the pool was very cold. A few of us spoke to the cruise director and the following day, the water had been heated considerably and remained that way for the rest of the cruise. So it seems they can heat the water if they want to.

This was our main annoyance on Voyager after her dry dock last November. Waiter service around the pool was non existent, bars were always very busy with not nearly enough staff so if you wanted to get a drink yourself, it always took a very long time. Service in the lounges was hit and miss with the bar staff seeming totally disinterested in offering table service and even gesturing for people to come and order from the bar.

This is the first cruise that I have ever experienced this on and was hoping it was a temporary glitch and not a by product of the drinks package fleet wide.

Thank you for posting such lovely photos. We are looking forward to being onboard in a few days time.:)

Yes, negative issues are certainly a personal thing. For me - a non coffee drinker - I never felt crowded on VOS anymore than any other ship.

Some people in reviews have stated they couldn't find a quiet spot to read - yet when I was on board I found loads of spots.:)

 

In reviews of all the ships I have read people not finding spots in the windjammer for breakfast - yet we never have this issue - probably because we are there around 8am before it peaks at 9am.

 

Negative issues I think can arise more often if your personal daily schedule places you smack in the middle of peak time for everything. If that occurs for me I adjust my schedule to avoid the rush hour, I arrive early at the theatre so I have a good choice of seats, if the activity I'm interested in has a largish queue I just do something else & try again later etc - quite often a little flexibility & planning of your day can alleviate quite a few of those annoying issues that gets everyone's blood boiling! :D

 

For the coffee lovers out there, can you order specialty coffees from room service? If so that would be a way to avoid the queues?

I totally agree ! We experienced most of the issues that have been raised in the reviews but organised our day so that they did not impact so much on our holiday. We had a great stateroom and an amazing stateroom attendant and this made our cruise.

My point remains that there are issues on the Voyager that need to be resolved and that would not be tolerated outside the Australian market. We will be on her again in April so look forward to seeing if there are any improvements.

 

 

For anyone worried about booking Voyager, I think the idea that there are some new registrations with bad reviews is a very interesting point. They say that about 5% of cruisers are on Cruise Critic, and I can't remember what percentage of those actually does reviews.

 

There will be things that are not perfect, but there are a lot of people that keep coming back, and sometimes it is what you make it. Sometimes you can be very tired before you get on board and it can make people grumpy.

 

Writing this review would have taken quite a while, and I enjoyed reading it, and hope it has helped people feel better about Voyager. Cruise lines and their staff are doing their best most of the time, which is like how it happens on land. :)

Many thanks for the review. I am finding it strange however that some people seem to be taking offence at the many negative reviews that have been posted on the Voyager. We were on the repositioning cruise after dry dock and whilst we had an enjoyable time, many of the issues that have been raised, we experienced first hand. You will find that all the reviews are very consistent in what is being reported so I am hoping RCI is paying attention. There are many issues that need to be resolved with understaffing being the priority. Having spoken to customer relations after our cruise, they themselves admitted that there were many notes on their computer about this ship. I am not a professional whinger, rather a concerned customer who has other cruises booked with this company. I'm pleased that the OP had a wonderful cruise but let's not bury our heads in the sand about the issues on this ship.

We were also on the Singapore to Sydney cruise and would tend to agree with most of the poor reviews that have been posted, finding them to be accurate and at the very least, consistent. Like most people on these boards we have been on many cruises and in comparison, this one was definitely well below the standard we have come to expect . This is also the first time we have ever felt the need to write negative comments on the post cruise survey. Whilst there are no complaints about the refurb itself, the standard of service on this ship was nothing short of abysmal. Dining room service was mediocre at best, table service in the bars was virtually non existent. I really hope that someone from RCI is paying attention to all these reviews as there is something not quite right on the Voyager at the moment.

Hi, Anyone else joining us on this cruise ?

We booked a day room at the Ibis at Sydney Airport for $ 99 . I think check in time is 9am and check out by 6pm, so could work for you if you just wanted to rest before your flight home.

Hi Does anyone know if RCI ever do world cruises or have done so in the past?

I am sure they are discussing this on the Celebrity board:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=28

 

and the RCI board:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=83

Many thanks . Found this from your link .. the 2015 release dates so it should be similar for 2016 for anyone who's interested.

Week of February 10th ~~ Summer/Fall Caribbean and Northeast & Fall Canada

Week of February 17th ~~ Europe / Alaska

Week of February 24th ~~ Additional Europe

Week of March 3rd ~~ Additional Europe

Week of March 17th ~~ Winter Caribbean

Week of March 24th ~~ Australia/Hawaii and Winter Caribbean

Week of March 31st ~~ Short Caribbean & Bahamas

Week of April 7th ~~ Exotics and Brazil & South America

Mid 2014 ~~ Singapore