Cruise review: Ovation Of The Seas // 8 Night Tasmania & Southern Australia

[brad_p]

My partner and I travelled on this cruise. It was her second cruise (last one was RCI's Independence Of The Seas around the Caribbean) and my fourth (1x P&O and 2x RCI - Radiance and Independence).

 

I was nervous about this cruise after some of the negative reviews here. However I was pleasantly surprised! Although I'm a believer of a cruise/holiday being what you make of it, the teething issues that some experienced in the first few weeks seem to have vanished.

 

Ship:

A brand new, sparkling, feature-packed ship! The decor was stunning, so was the art work. It's a real treat to be able to sail on such a new ship. Everything was very clean and tidy.

 

 

Embarkation:

Very easy. We had the earliest check in time and done all the check in online including uploading our photos. We were naughty and arrived about 20mins early. There was a big queue at this stage and they hadn't started letting people in. When they did it was a bit of mayhem but as I had some low status (Platinum) we jumped the queue. Check in took less than 10 mins and we were probably about the fifth or sixth person on the ship :-) Baggage arrived mid-afternoon.

 

Moral of the story: don't be naughty and arrive before your scheduled time.

 

 

Cabin:

We had a balcony stateroom: 12162. My last two RCI cruises were in a Junior and Grand suite so I was worried about the size of a normal balcony. This one in particular was a D1 which had an oversize balcony. It was fantastic! A great size for the two of use, the large balcony was great and I was even impressed with the size of the shower. Water pressure and temperature were not an issue. As with all RCI cruises, you will need to take your own toiletries.

 

Our room was made up/turned down twice a day and our room attendant did a fantastic job keeping everything clean. I think we got about three towel animals during the cruise.

 

Unfortunately there was no $35 bag laundry special which we were counting on as we like to do some washing on the ship. So we paid for the full price laundry for some items. At about $4.50 for a short sleeved shirt and $3.50 for a t-shirt to be wash and pressed, the cost adds up.

 

 

Dining:

When we booked the cruise it was advertised with the four main dining rooms (Grande, Chic, Silk and American Icon) as having different menus. This really appealed to us and after looking at the sample menus online I was excited to have a different dining experience each night free of charge.

 

About a month before sailing it was changed to the My Time or Fixed Time dining with each of the four dining rooms having the same menu. Grande and Chic were for traditional dining times with Silk and American Icon left for My Time.

 

I understand why they changed this as it would have been very challenging for the kitchens to have to prepare four menus. However I don't understand why head-office didn't foresee this? It also makes the themes of each dining room redundant.

 

In the end, we had My Time dining but only visited on embarkation day. This is not due to any fault but because there were so many other options available that it just turned out that way.

 

The night we visited (embarkation night) we had a booking made online so five mins before our scheduled time we went to the restaurant. The lines outside were manic. The staff on the desk were manic. As we had a reservation, we could go into the separate queue from those just turning up. After two mins in line we were shown to our table - I'm glad we made a booking.

 

We enjoyed the service although drink orders were a little slow. Food was very yum and a lot of options to choose from. Overall and based on our one night in the main dining room, the food and service were no better or worse that any other RCI ship. The have the usuals on the menu such has chilled fruit soups and prime rib etc.

 

We had a three-restaurant dining package but you can't reserve a restaurant or time online with this package. I was nervous and disheartened when I saw online that no specialty restaurants had reservations left for Valentine’s day. When we got on board I went straight to one of the specialty restaurants who explained they only put on about 50% of availability online and leave the other half for bookings made on the ship. This is because those that aren't tech savy wouldn't have a chance otherwise. Thankfully we made all our bookings for the restaurants we wanted (Jamies, Chops and Wonderland) then and there. I heard from others that after the first couple of nights there were no reservations left so get in quick.

 

Solarium Bistro was one of my favourites and an excellent spot for dinner. You choose your main course from a menu but they have a buffet setup for starters and desserts. We had great service too. No charge and although we did book online it wasn't busy so you could have just turned up.

 

Windjammer was a trusty friend for any meal. All the usuals there and good service too. Most people were searching for ages looking for a seat but if you go further back in the Windjammer there were a lot of empty tables. I know it's a little further from the buffet but just think that you can have that extra dessert as a reward.

 

I would disagree with anyone who said there was not enough variety of food on this ship. Whatever you wanted was pretty much there. Yes they will charge you for snacks at Vintages (because its tapas from Jamies) but go around the corner to Cafe at 270 and you can have your own free snacks.

 

Went to the dog house once and the dogs were cold. I told the staff member about that as it was a food safety issue but he didn't understand/care and just said "ok sir" and left them available for others.

 

The only other food based issue was Chops. The food was great but we didn’t have a waiter! The host seated us, gave us menus and then 10mins later asked for our orders. No explaining the menu etc. At the end of the meal she apologised for us not having a waiter and made some excuse about a miscommunication?

 

 

 

Entertainment and Activities:

Lots to see and do on this ship. As you all probably know, there are some fun and unique features on the Quantum-class ships: iFly, bumper cars, North Star, roller skating etc. We made bookings for all activities and shows that we could well before our sail date and this is key. We did bumper cars at about 4pm on the embarkation day and there was no line. I also did it again at about 11am on the last sea day and there was a queue but it moved fast, I was in it for about 15mins.

 

The production shows including Pixels in 270 were fantastic! They rival shows we've seen on shore. You MUST making a booking online for production shows and when they allowed those without bookings into the theatre there was nothing left for them. Remember the theatre holds about 1500 people and there are 4000 people on this ship.

 

With that in mind, even with bookings, you do have to arrive early. We got to Pixels at 270 about 30mins beforehand and still got 'bad' seats all the way at the back upstairs. Doors open 45mins before shows so we went to all the others early. I think you just need to build this in to your nightly timetable. We got great seats when we were 45mins early and it was nice having a drink while people watching.

 

We could always find a seat in the solarium on sea days. The pool attendants consistently came around and cleared towels from loungers.

 

The North Star doesn't go out the side of the ship as per the advertising. When I queried this with the staff she said it was because that setting takes 20mins to complete and opposed to the 9 min cycle the up/down one takes. She said in Asia they charge people for that. Aside from that, it was still a fun activity. As mentioned, make a booking! No bookings needed for port days but there seemed to be a decent wait for a ride (maybe about 20mins?).

 

 

Ports and Shore Excursions:

We didn't do any of the tours through RCI. With only two ports of call we made our own arrangements which was easy to do and a lot cheaper. We appreciated having one and half days docked in Hobart.

 

We nearly kissed the ground in Adelaide after 24 hours of rough seas beforehand. Huge ship movement which wasn't fun. We even had to change course to avoid the worst of the seas.

 

 

Drinks:

Deluxe package brought on board was USD65 per day and included drinks up to $14. Surprisingly most bars/restaurants had Kim Crawford Sav for either $13 or $14 so all within package. There would normally be one or two white and red wines by the glass included in the package although no sparkling wine was covered.

 

Another weird thing is that most bars didn't have cocktail menus. Some places had their own unique menus (eg: Schooner and Boleros etc) but none of the pool bars or casino bars. Made it hard to choose what cocktail you wanted when you were feeling indecisive.

 

There were staff coming around pool loungers taking drink requests.

 

Both Freestyle machines in the Windjammer were out of service. Seems a bit of a shame they didn't fix them as I had read this in older reviews too. The two machines in Sorentos were out of stock for any low-cal drinks. The hidden gem seemed to be the one remaining machine by the dog house which had all options we wanted.

 

Bionic bar was heaps of fun and never crowded. All drinks were included in the drinks package.

 

 

Disembarkation:

Or is it debarcation? Whatever you call it, was smooth. We self-carried our luggage and there were two options: 6.30-7.00 and 8.00 - 8.30. As we had a late flight we wanted to sleep in and have a later breakfast. We called guest services who said you can leave whenever you want if your self-carrying. We ended up leaving at about 8.45 and I think the fact that there was no customs (domestic cruise) made life a lot easier.

 

 

Tips:

 

 

• Book as much as possible online before going!
  
• Forget the Wow bands. Benefit did not outweigh the cost.
  
• Download the free app. Then you don't have to carry around paper to know what’s going on. You can also plan your day with a personalised calendar. You don’t need an internet package to use the app.
  
• Internet was slow. We got Surf and Stream but couldn't stream. We shared one access code between two devices by logging in/out.
  
• The loungers outside North Star Bar are amazing, get one quick!
  
• We had a random $11.90 mini bar charge but after querying it, Guest Services removed it. A cynic would say this is a big money maker for them?
  
• Shops on board are high end stores only. There was one tiny logo-shop that had next to no stock for souvenirs.
  
• This is a big ship with a lot of people. If you don’t like crowds (which was a common complaint) then stick to the smaller ships. Someone asked the captain at Captain’s Corner if RCI will build some new ships that are smaller and he said he doubted it as RCI need the scale of larger ships to grown and profit. So seems like they’re here to stay.
  

 

Happy to answer any questions :D

[Painter]

How many of the shows do you think I need to book for?. Will be doing this cruise next year.

[wolfegizmo]

How many of the shows do you think I need to book for?. Will be doing this cruise next year.

 

 

Book for all of the shows that they offer bookings for!

We were on Ovation for the New Years cruise to New Zealand and loved it!! We prebooked all of the shows and we're really glad that we did!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[datolim]

I was on the Ovation in March for 5N from Singapore.

I agree Ovation is a wonderful brand new ship and I had a wonderful time. I was worried also after all the bad reviews but was totally shock I did not have one bad experience. There are a lot of people on the ship(4000) but she is a big ship and there are a lot of vacant spaces.

I did not have any waiting time or queuing for the shows but maybe in this part of the world we are not heavy on these things. Must be tech savvy though as everything should be book before sailing.

I was quite shock to hear that Ovation would only do 1 cruise in SG in 2018 and I quickly book for that on the ship. Our lost is your gain as I see she would spend 4 months in your region next year.

From what you wrote my guess is the spend onboard is much higher than in our region. I only paid for 2 beers and 1 lobster dinner. No internet, drink package and food package.

[brad_p]

How many of the shows do you think I need to book for?. Will be doing this cruise next year.

 

As many as you can. There's a show almost every night in the theater but only a couple of them are "headliner" shows which you can pre-book online. You also should pre-book for the show in 270.

[Painter]

Thank you to those who replied to my post....how long before cruise will I be able to book on line?