Just off the Vision of the Seas....

[CruisinShips]

Some of you may have read my post from a few weeks ago (that turned into a lengthy thread) wherein I said I wrote RCI preemptively about our concerns over the many negative reviews on here about the Vision.

 

As many of you know, many of the negative comments were about the service, the attitudes of the staff, the feeling of understaffing, and the overcrowded feeling of the ship.

 

I am pleased to say we found NONE of those things applied to our experience on the Vision.

 

We did the 5 night cruise with stops at Key West and Grand Cayman. We stayed in a family suite on the 8th floor. Our party consisted of two adults, two 16 year old boys, and a 10 year old girl. All experienced cruisers with many RCI cruises in particular.

 

I will post random comments as they come to me, so bear with the way I am writing this please!

 

 

• The ship itself looks good. Older design, but very clean and pretty;
  
• Embarkation was pretty easy. Nothing out of the ordinary, went fast;
  
• We thought the staff was extremely friendly, welcoming, and generally couldn't be nicer. Our cabin steward was a doll. We got off to a little bit of a rocky start after finding a pair of tighty whities in a dresser drawer in the closet, but she couldn't have been sweeter, we saw her all the time and she was always good for telling us when she saw our kids around and was generally cheerful and upbeat;
  
• We stayed in 8520, a family suite, and it was OK...maybe a little smaller than what we had hoped for, but no complaints. But the only complaint is, as others have mentioned, noisy as hell at night in there. Not just a little noisy mind you, but chair dragging, banging, stomping, scraping, water splashing noisy. You deal with it and accept it, but I would be leaving out a big component of the overall experience if I failed to mention it;
  
• Main Dining Room...food was what you have come to expect. Not great, not horrible, but perfectly fine. Our 16 year old boys ate more at one sitting than small countries consume in a day, and they loved it all. The service was slow, our waiters were nice enough and meant well, but they weren't memorable in a positive way like we used to experience on cruises. They seemed stressed and spread thin, messed up way more than their share of orders, and dinner took 3 hours. LIke I said, they were nice enough and tried. Cocktail waitress was pretty hard to find after the first night;
  
• Chops was our best dining experience. We met the "WOW" stars of our cruise, Uri and Karoly there on night two and they were awesome guys. We had a truly enjoyable meal, and then the next morning we took advantage of a suite perk and had breakfast in the dedicated suite area on deck 5 and they were the servers. They were there all week and they provided that experience that makes people love cruising;
  
• We ate at Giovanni's the last night and it was excellent as well;
  
• Windjammer is the Windjammer. Same as other ships in my opinion...no better, no worse;
  
• Park Cafe is the basic go-to food spot for between meals. Salads and pre-made sandwiches, carving station, some little pizza slices. Nothing to write home about, but it serves its purpose;
  
• Concierge Club was fine, never overcrowded and a nice getaway for a happy hour drink or two;
  
• Pool deck, while small, had chairs available (as long as you got there at a reasonably early time) and didn't feel particularly overcrowded as some have suggested;
  
• Never had a problem getting a drink anywhere (except in the MDR);
  
• Ports/Excursions: Key West we did the Conch Train tour which was fine and the kids enjoyed it, and then walked Duval. It was very hot but overall a nice day. Grand Cayman...we booked the Moby Dick tour and those people were great and we had a very memorable day. Boat ride, snorkeling, and stingray city. I recommend Moby Dick Tours unconditionally. All good;
  
• And now the general commentary...the large ships spoil us. This ship, while nice for what it is, just doesn't offer much to do (in comparison). Particularly for kids (and there weren't an excessive amount of them, and I guess people knew this better than we did and that's why there weren't many kids). There are very few dining options, very few activities, small pool area, only a few shops. Limited options. We all made the best of it, and we had a nice time nonetheless, but that is just something to be aware of particularly if you are cruising with teens. They could have used a Johnny Rocket's or a pizza place;
  
• Disembarkation...the fastest we have ever experienced.
  

Overall a positive experience. And I want to be clear we were so very impressed with the staff and crew and those people working on that ship couldn't have been nicer.

 

 

 

We live in Ft. Lauderdale area, so these cruises are an easy getaway for us. But parents cruising with kids, particularly those who have been on larger ships, should be warned this is a relatively lean ship in that regard.

 

 

I'm sure I will think of more, and I am happy to answer any questions.

Edited July 17, 2014 by CruisinShips

[Keith1010]

Thank you for your report.

 

Keith

[ShipRiders]

Excellent "as it was" review. Nothing exaggerated or flowery, just as it was.

 

Thank you.

[maxs mom]

:) :) :)

[JimAOk1945]

Thanks for your review. We are looking forward to our cruise on her next year.

[akcruz]

Thanks, we are down to just a few weeks for our turn and appreciate the comments.

[TheInnocentAge]

Thanks, we're on the Vision in September and will be doing the same route (5-day, Key West & Grand Cayman). Good to see more positive reviews of this ship!

[Merion_Mom]

Some of you may have read my post from a few weeks ago (that turned into a lengthy thread) wherein I said I wrote RCI preemptively about our concerns over the many negative reviews on here about the Vision.

 

As many of you know, many of the negative comments were about the service, the attitudes of the staff, the feeling of understaffing, and the overcrowded feeling of the ship.

 

I am pleased to say we found NONE of those things applied to our experience on the Vision.

 

We did the 5 night cruise with stops at Key West and Grand Cayman. We stayed in a family suite on the 8th floor. Our party consisted of two adults, two 16 year old boys, and a 10 year old girl. All experienced cruisers with many RCI cruises in particular.

 

I will post random comments as they come to me, so bear with the way I am writing this please!

 

 

• The ship itself looks good. Older design, but very clean and pretty;
  
• Embarkation was pretty easy. Nothing out of the ordinary, went fast;
  
• We thought the staff was extremely friendly, welcoming, and generally couldn't be nicer. Our cabin steward was a doll. We got off to a little bit of a rocky start after finding a pair of tighty whities in a dresser drawer in the closet, but she couldn't have been sweeter, we saw her all the time and she was always good for telling us when she saw our kids around and was generally cheerful and upbeat;
  
• We stayed in 8520, a family suite, and it was OK...maybe a little smaller than what we had hoped for, but no complaints. But the only complaint is, as others have mentioned, noisy as hell at night in there. Not just a little noisy mind you, but chair dragging, banging, stomping, scraping, water splashing noisy. You deal with it and accept it, but I would be leaving out a big component of the overall experience if I failed to mention it;
  
• Main Dining Room...food was what you have come to expect. Not great, not horrible, but perfectly fine. Our 16 year old boys ate more at one sitting than small countries consume in a day, and they loved it all. The service was slow, our waiters were nice enough and meant well, but they weren't memorable in a positive way like we used to experience on cruises. They seemed stressed and spread thin, messed up way more than their share of orders, and dinner took 3 hours. LIke I said, they were nice enough and tried. Cocktail waitress was pretty hard to find after the first night;
  
• Chops was our best dining experience. We met the "WOW" stars of our cruise, Uri and Karoly there on night two and they were awesome guys. We had a truly enjoyable meal, and then the next morning we took advantage of a suite perk and had breakfast in the dedicated suite area on deck 5 and they were the servers. They were there all week and they provided that experience that makes people love cruising;
  
• We ate at Giovanni's the last night and it was excellent as well;
  
• Windjammer is the Windjammer. Same as other ships in my opinion...no better, no worse;
  
• Park Cafe is the basic go-to food spot for between meals. Salads and pre-made sandwiches, carving station, some little pizza slices. Nothing to write home about, but it serves its purpose;
  
• Concierge Club was fine, never overcrowded and a nice getaway for a happy hour drink or two;
  
• Pool deck, while small, had chairs available (as long as you got there at a reasonably early time) and didn't feel particularly overcrowded as some have suggested;
  
• Never had a problem getting a drink anywhere (except in the MDR);
  
• Ports/Excursions: Key West we did the Conch Train tour which was fine and the kids enjoyed it, and then walked Duval. It was very hot but overall a nice day. Grand Cayman...we booked the Moby Dick tour and those people were great and we had a very memorable day. Boat ride, snorkeling, and stingray city. I recommend Moby Dick Tours unconditionally. All good;
  
• And now the general commentary...the large ships spoil us. This ship, while nice for what it is, just doesn't offer much to do (in comparison). Particularly for kids (and there weren't an excessive amount of them, and I guess people knew this better than we did and that's why there weren't many kids). There are very few dining options, very few activities, small pool area, only a few shops. Limited options. We all made the best of it, and we had a nice time nonetheless, but that is just something to be aware of particularly if you are cruising with teens. They could have used a Johnny Rocket's or a pizza place;
  
• Disembarkation...the fastest we have ever experienced.
  

Overall a positive experience. And I want to be clear we were so very impressed with the staff and crew and those people working on that ship couldn't have been nicer.

 

 

 

We live in Ft. Lauderdale area, so these cruises are an easy getaway for us. But parents cruising with kids, particularly those who have been on larger ships, should be warned this is a relatively lean ship in that regard.

 

 

I'm sure I will think of more, and I am happy to answer any questions.

 

Windjammer, whirlpools or both? :eek:

[SPacificbound]

Thank you for your review. :)

 

We will be on Vision next year, and having cruised both Rhapsody and Legend we love this size ship.

[Trainman-2]

Thanks,

 

Nice Review...

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the report!

[ekekasyunx]

we're on the Vision in September and will be doing the same route

[MADflyer]

Thanks for your review.

 

I just want to mention that we have had GS 8016 and OS 8502 with no noise at all noticed from the deck above.

 

I had a friend, who is a Pinnacle member, who was in 8020 for a sailing last November and she reported no issues with noise.

 

I did notice that the one evening each cruise, deck party was on the 85-- starboard side. It seems carts are as well traveling starboard side to a storage area outside the entrance to the spa.

 

Maybe a good piece of advice from my experiences would be to first select cabins on the 80-- portside to avoid noise.

 

Aft K 8579 and JS's 8588 and 8592 also were absolutely perfect.

[Clarea]

Thanks for this. We have a couple of cruises coming up on Vision and this was timely.

[aurelius180]

Glad to hear that it went well!! :)

[EpcotBill]

It's good to read something positive about Vision. I have to wait until April 2016 for my Vision cruise but I'm already getting excited about it.

[Justmekaren918]

Thanks for the great trip review! Will be on Vision in Sept.

[EvelynAlexa]

We had a good time on the VOS Bermuda cruise in June..

It's good to read you had an equally positive vacation.

Thanks for the review.

 

Eve

[Tripin']

Thanks for the wonderful review.

 

We will be on the Vision next year, twice, 13 day and 11 day Europe cruises. This will be our 1st RCL experience, we usually cruise on Princess but loved the itinerary they were offering. Can't wait!

Edited July 18, 2014 by Tripin'

[CruisinShips]

Thanks for your review.

 

I just want to mention that we have had GS 8016 and OS 8502 with no noise at all noticed from the deck above.

 

I had a friend, who is a Pinnacle member, who was in 8020 for a sailing last November and she reported no issues with noise.

 

I did notice that the one evening each cruise, deck party was on the 85-- starboard side. It seems carts are as well traveling starboard side to a storage area outside the entrance to the spa.

 

Maybe a good piece of advice from my experiences would be to first select cabins on the 80-- portside to avoid noise.

 

Aft K 8579 and JS's 8588 and 8592 also were absolutely perfect.

 

Probably good advice. We tried to figure out what it could have been on the other nights...we were below (I guesstimated) the area along the perimeter beside the pool deck. We heard the party that one night, but that wasn't even the noise issue. It was more just the moving and scraping sounds that we couldn't quite figure out.

[BillOh]

I remember that post, Thanks for coming back. I've not been on a Vision class, but would consider so on an intinerary such asthis.

[Kar313]

Thanks for the review. We will be on the Vision at the end of the month. Glad to hear they seem to have address some of the earlier concerns/problems.

[CruisinShips]

SOMEONE WORE SHORTS IN THE MAIN DINING ROOM!!! :p:p:):):):)

[akcruz]

SOMEONE WORE SHORTS IN THE MAIN DINING ROOM!!! :p:p:):)

 

AAHHH!! They better fix that before I get on board it will just ruin my cruise :rolleyes: :D

[Deptacon]

We are going in FEB on the 7 night Roatan, Belize, Costa Maya, Cozumel Trip. Its a dive trip for us.

 

Not looking forward to the smaller ship...as you said, but I believe it will meet our needs to down to some great diving locaitons.

 

Thanks for the call it as you see it review. I think many of the bad reviews were people being crabby and not realizing that Vision is one of RCCL smallest (and oldest) ships now and if they have been on the bigger / newer ones...it is no comparison.