Voyager 1/4/09 Western Caribbean (review)

[nilsbyy]

I apologize in advance for how jumbled this is --- a lot of things needed attention when I got back but I wanted to try to write my review promptly anyway. If there's anything else you want to know, just ask!

 

Boarding (and delays): Our vacation got off to a bit of a rough start. We arrived in Galveston at about 1:00, and we went directly to the cruise terminal. There was a long line of cars in the drop-off lane, and we waited about 30 minutes before a representative came to the car and told us that the ship was delayed and we should come back around 4:00. We went over to Casey’s and had lunch, and spent a few hours on the beach. We went back to the terminal around 4:30, and the same thing happened: we were sent away and told to come back around 6:30. While the weather obviously isn’t under Royal Caribbean’s control, we did feel that the situation wasn’t handled very well. If there had been a way to let passengers know that the ship was delayed and they shouldn’t come to the cruise terminal yet, it would have saved a lot of confusion.

We finally got into the terminal on our third try, and after about an hour of waiting in line we were able to board the ship. It was, honestly, a zoo in the cruise terminal. They kept putting us in three lines, merging us back into one line, then splitting us again. We had our documents checked about five times before we ever got up to the check-in counter. I know that trying to get 3000 cranky people onto a ship after a long delay is probably pretty hard to do, but again, I don’t think things were handled as well as they could have been.

After we got on the ship, things went smoothly. I was worried that our luggage would be delayed, also, but it was waiting outside our cabin when we got there. Our stateroom attendant, Anthony, explained to us that there would be one open seating for dinner and that they would have the lifeboat drill in the morning.

Our cabin: I won’t lie, it was small. The circular shower in the bathroom is about the size of a hula hoop, and I’m sure that a larger person than myself might find it a little awkward, especially when the ship is rocking. There’s not much space between the bed and the wall on either side, and in any case you’d have to crawl over the foot of the bed because the sofa is in the way on one side and the vanity on the other. The TV pulls out from the vanity and you can turn it to the side if you want to watch from the bed, and there’s also a little sofa in the room. I saw that one of the cabins across the hall had two bunks that folded down from the wall, but I think the cabin would have been pretty cramped for more than three people. There was, however, tons of storage space. We were able to comfortably unpack everything we brought, and we just lined our shoes up under the edge of the bed. You could also shove a suitcase under there if you needed to, but ours all fit in the bottom of the closet. The clothesline for drying swimsuits is actually in the shower, so you can’t fit much on it at once, but there was space under the bathroom counter to set our water shoes out to dry.

Our stateroom attendant made up the room twice a day, once after we left in the morning and again while we were at dinner. We had a different towel animal each day. Everything was very clean and tidy, and we never had to ask for anything.

The toiletries provided were bar soap and shampoo from a dispenser on the shower wall. We brought our own toiletries, but I used the shampoo once and it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

The ship: I love sailing, but cruise ship travel was a different experience altogether. The ship moved a lot more than I expected, even with light and moderate seas (under 10 ft. the whole trip). It was very disconcerting to be in the interior rooms with no view outside, and I got seasick in the form of a bad headache several times. I wouldn’t book an inside cabin again. Otherwise, the ship was great. I've heard a few people complain about Voyager's condition, but it honestly looked fine to me. I expect a certain amount of 'normal wear and tear' on any space that gets 3000 people trooping through every week! The public spaces are pretty and I enjoyed the 'Island Madness' (or whatever they called it) parade a lot.

Food: The food in the buffet wasn’t great for lunch and dinner, but there were a lot of choices and I especially liked that there was fresh fruit at every meal. I also enjoyed smoked salmon at breakfast, and lots of desserts during afternoon tea. Twice we had lunch in the dining room, and both times the food was good. They give you a salad bar, a choice of main courses, and several desserts. We also had dinner in the dining room every night, and the food was absolutely fantastic.

I had been worrying about being seated with strangers at dinner, but it turned out that our table for ten consisted of us, two other couples near our age, two young girls from Mexico that didn’t come back after the first night, and two people who never showed up at all. Another couple that we met on the ship were seated at a table for ten and found themselves alone after the first night, so we had them moved to our table for the rest of the week. It turned out that we met a lot of nice people, and really enjoyed ourselves.

The only bad thing I can say about the food service is that the only thing open late at night is the Café Promenade, and it really doesn’t have much variety. They have cookies, pizza, and two kinds of sandwiches. The room service is also a bit unpredictable; we got an error message while trying to order the first time, and the second time we ordered around 1am, fell asleep after waiting for about an hour, and realized in the morning that the food never showed up. Other than that, it was all great. Our waiters were very nice and worked hard to make sure everyone was happy. We liked them so much that we took a picture with them on the last night!

Entertainment: We only attended one show; it was the farewell show on the last night. We liked the dancing gauchos, but didn’t find the comedian very funny. We also attended the Love & Marriage show (our new friends got picked as the newlywed couple, which made it even more fun), the karaoke competition, and the Quest, all of which were hilarious. We saw a funny cooking demonstration and an ice carving demonstration, too. There was a lot more going on, but we didn’t want to stay too busy on vacation.

We didn’t spend a lot of time at the pool, but it seemed that whenever we went by there were plenty of available deck chairs. The hot tubs stayed full most of the time. The only drinks we bought were strawberry “lava flows” (between the two of us we drank about four during the entire week), but they were good. I also had two diet sodas, and was excited to find out that they had ‘Coke light’ instead of diet coke at the bars. You can’t buy it in the US, and I really like it.

What we enjoyed most was going out on deck during the day. On the first day we saw something that might have been pygmy sperm whales, but we didn’t have our binoculars with us. Another day we saw a bird way out in the middle of the gulf, and on Saturday we noticed lots of ‘flying fish’ jumping out of the way of the ship.

One of the most entertaining things on the ship, in our opinion, was our fellow passengers! We found that the ship’s library is a prime spot for people-watching before dinner; it has a glass wall overlooking the floors below, and you can see both elevators passing from there. You wouldn’t believe some of the strange things we saw.

Ports/excursions: In Cozumel we independently booked a dolphin encounter with Dolphin Discovery at Chankanaab National Park. We were late arriving but everyone at the park already knew the ship was delayed and we didn’t have any problems. Our group consisted of just us and another couple from Michigan who weren’t on the cruise, and we got to play with a lovely dolphin named Ixchel (after the Mayan fertility goddess!) for about 30 minutes. I saw the group from our ship there at the same time, and there were about 15 of them in the water together. They also paid a bit more, I think. After our dolphin encounter we bought some photos (they did take us in and show us the video of our group, but we didn’t feel pressured at all to buy it or anything else) and then rented snorkeling equipment from an on-site dive shop for very reasonable prices. There wasn’t a lot of live coral, but there were lots of different kinds of fish and we enjoyed it. The only drawback is that it’s very slippery getting into the water, so it’s best to have water shoes with good traction and definitely not to put your flippers on before getting in the water! We also had lunch at the park’s restaurant, which had excellent food. Overall, it wasn’t inexpensive but it cost far less than what we’d have been charged for the same things in the US. Our tickets included free admission to the park, so we stayed there for most of the day.

In Grand Cayman we arrived late again, and we had to get tickets for a tender and be ferried across to the island. We had tickets for the 4th tender, but we were in such a panic about missing the tour we’d booked that guest relations told us to take our later tickets and proof of our early tour down to get on standby for an earlier tender. It turned out that they weren’t even checking tickets, and we were in the first group off the ship. We met up with the folks from Moby Dick, and went out on their boat for some very nice snorkeling (lots more live coral, and even more fish) and some time feeding the stingrays on the sandbar. Our tour had about 15 people on it and cost $40 each; the cruise line’s tour cost far more than that, and their boat was packed. The guys leading our tour were very nice and knowledgeable; they had a lot of great information about stingrays, and even pointed out a pregnant female to us. It was lots of fun and we felt very safe. Afterwards they directed us to a restaurant near the pier that wasn’t full of tourists and had great food. It was a bit expensive, but it turns out that everything in the Cayman Islands is expensive. The beach there is also nice, and the water is very clear.

In Jamaica we were a nervous because of all the things we’d heard from other people, so we had booked the “Chukka Ocean Safari” excursion through the cruise line. Fortunately our group was fairly small. Our bus driver was friendly and gave us lots of information about Jamaica on the way. Each pair got on a watercraft that was sort of like a cross between a jet ski and an inflatable raft. After some instruction on how to drive them, we went out and made a big loop in the ocean then came back to a boat that was anchored offshore. Our guide led us snorkeling along the reef and brought up a sea cucumber and an urchin for us to see, and pointed out several kinds of coral. We then got back on the bus and went to the ship. We had fun but were a little disappointed, and don’t plan to book any of the cruise line’s excursions in the future. We much prefer independent tours and time on our own.

Shopping: We bought minimal souvenirs. We got a fridge magnet for each port we visited, a sand dollar from a shop in Grand Cayman, an ink pen with the ship floating inside it, a glass fish and dolphin from a sale table by the pool, a portrait for each formal night, and a rum cake to take back to the neighbors that watched our pets. Most stuff was kind of expensive on the ship.

What to pack: For both formal nights, I wore short black cocktail dresses, one with sequins and one with beading. I felt appropriately dressed. There were a few people in full-length evening gowns, some young girls who were obviously wearing their prom dresses, and a few people who weren’t quite as dressed up as was expected. For casual nights I wore dark jeans or dress pants with a nice shirt, and I also had a knit dress from Banana Republic that I wore one night. Some people took casual to mean casual --- I saw some guys in jeans and tshirts, and one wearing a cap --- and some dressed up. I was in the middle of the spectrum most of the time, so I guess that means I packed the right clothes. For days in port I had three sundresses to put over my swimsuit, and for days at sea I had two pairs of shorts and four tshirts. That was all I needed. I did pack four swimsuits, but they don’t take up a lot of space and I hate putting on a wet swimsuit. We also took binoculars, a digital camera, and a book for each of us to read. I brought lots of over-the-counter medicine in our toiletry case, but I handed out more of it to other passengers than we used ourselves. One couple at our table needed cold medicine and found that you had to see the ship’s doctor to get it. Take lots of sunscreen. Oh, and sunglasses. My partner forgot hers and we ended up buying some ugly ones for $15 in Cozumel.

Other: Since I had questions of this sort before our cruise, I’m going to go on and address this. We are a same-sex couple. I was a little concerned about how we were going to be treated on a mainstream cruise line, but it turns out that we had nothing to worry about. Our fellow passengers were very friendly, and several even asked us if we were on our honeymoon (we weren’t). Overall we felt very comfortable, and didn’t have any problems.

I hope I covered it all!

[donoiv]

Sounds like you REALLY enjoyed yourself!

[johnlcruise]

Excellent review. Glad you had a good time.:)

[mechcc]

Great review!

[bethco]

Thanks for a great review. I'm going on the same cruise in 2 week -hooray- and plan to send your review to my traveling companion. She has never cruised before and this is just what she needs. Glad you had a good vacation.

[abpmillsww]

Thanks for the review! I'll be on the same cruise in 2 days (hooray!) and I'm very excited!

[mimmik]

Thanks for the great Voyager review!:D

[austinlw]

Thanks for sharing your experiences. My wife and I will be on Voyager on Sunday and it's so good to read trip reports like this one. Hopefully we won't have any significant delays like you unfortunately did. Glad to hear you enjoyed the food in the dining room and generally had a good time.

[texascruzer]

Thank you for your review! :D

[shonandsuzie]

Loved your review. :) Thanks for sharing your experiences with us.

[Cclaw]

Thanks for the review, sailing in March, can't wait

[Rancher Dave]

Nice review.