Thoughts on our 1st Royal Carribean cruise on Vision of the Seas
Vision of the Seas Cruise Review to Europe - Mediterranean
Contributor Level:
Purser
Cruises: 7+ cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 45
12 Night Mediterranean Greek Isles (Barcelona Roundtrip)
Sail date: September 11, 2018
Ship: Vision of the Seas
Cabin type: Inside
Cabin number: 3802
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 6 years ago
Review summary
We thoroughly enjoyed our cruise and would definitely cruise on the Vision again. Any negatives in my review were far outweighed by the many positives.Embarkation
Within half hour we were on board enjoying lunch and a glass of wine
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
On the whole the food was good. Occasional night not too much choice but that was because I have a shellfish allergy which meant sometimes 3 of the starters were a no go for me. However I like the way other cruise lines bring out a cheese board together with crackers/ biscuits and you select what you want at the end of the meal. Here it is one of you dessert choices, it comes plated up and with a piece of bread. Also RC you cannot call it fine dining when your coffee at the end of the meal is served in a thick china mug that would be more at home on a construction site. Haven’t you heard of cup and saucers.
My main complaint and the reason for my low rating was the difficulty I had trying to get a slimline tonic to go with my gin. It was a nightmare in the first few days. Due to health reasons I needed a low sugar option. Only place I could get it was the Centrum bar. After about 4 days of asking at pool bar, they finally had it in stock. Fine. Except that towards the end of the cruise I went to the pool bar and ordered my drink instead of relying on the waiters. I saw him add pump tonic. When I queried it and reiterated I wanted low cal he said - oh you want Schweppes and produced a normal tonic. I reiterated I wanted low cal. He said we dont have any. I insisted he checked and lo and behold he found some. Too lazy to look! After that I asked for the bottle whenever I ordered a drink. At the end of the day we had paid just short of £1000 for a drinks package for us both. The least we could expect was the drinks we ordered, not what was easiest for the staff. At this point I should mention bar staff Azra and Fritz who throughout our holiday were excellent and always provided the drink we asked for.
Onboard Activities
We were advised beforehand that this is one of the quieter RC ships re activities but there was enough for us. The games around the pool during the day were fun to watch but we are not the type to participate anyway.
Entertainment
This ranged from dire and leaving the theatre early to absolutely brilliant. Tina Turner and 4 Tops tribute together with Forever were outstanding. RC dancers and orchestra very good. Other acts were really poor - a shadow puppeteer, a juggler who kept dropping things, a mime artist and an illusionist. Too much the same and boring. I fell asleep during the one show and left theatre early on the other nights. While the 2 Rc bands were ok, they were all over a certain age and the music they played was not contemporary at all. My husband and I are both in our 60s but we like to hear some modern music. Anselmo in Schooner bar was a musician who thought he was a comedian but his humour was smutty schoolboy humour. After listening to him talking about mistaking the toilet brush for a toothbrush and starting a Frank Sinatra song ( I can’t remember which one) with the words “spread her legs out wide” we decided to avoid the Schooner bar for the rest of our cruise. I’m not a prude or staid and I like listening to a good comedian but this was just rubbish,
Children's Programs
Service and Staff
Other than the member of pool bar staff already mentioned every single member of staff we encountered was friendly and could not do enough for you. We rarely saw our room steward but our room was kept spotless. Thank you Ingusto. Our table wait staff Luis, Olga and Denis were superb. Bar staff Fritz and Aura were also brilliant. And everyone was so friendly.
Ship Quality
As previously mentioned this was our 1st RC cruise so we were happy with it. Only improvement I would make is the seating in the Centrum. While the extra large chairs which seat 2 might have seemed a good idea and cosy, they were more often than not used by just 1 person. Similarly, the 3 seater setter was only used by 2 people. This meant that the number of seats for people was diminished and during busy times more people were standing than was necessary. During the refurb RC should rectify this.
Cabin / Stateroom
The room itself had everything you needed. Ample storage space. Entertainment and shops etc were on decks 4-6 and disembarking 1 - 2. So being on deck 3 meant we only used the lift to go poolside. Also room next to stairway.
Ship tip
Enjoy!
Thumbs up
0
Ports of call
2nd visit. Florence Just as beautiful as I remembered. Did the ships excursion a taste of Florence. Excellent guide but I saw no need to waste 45 minutes at a leather factory which ate into our time in Florence.
Again my 2nd time in Rome. And again I did the RC excursion Taste of Rome. Excellent guide and really enjoyed our time in Rome. Florence and Rome were the only excursions I did through RCI but I didn’t want to risk being left behind when the ship left port.
did Not do an excursion here. Just got off the ship and went on the grey line hoho bus which took us to the Acropolis. After this we got on the grey line round Athens hoho. When we had finished exploring we caught it back to the Acropolis where we changed onto their Piraeus bus which took us back to the port. All for a cost of 15 €. Very enjoyable.
I have stayed in Rhodes several times. Rhodes itself seems to be just shops and restaurants. But we had a lovely walk at the back of Rhodes so well worth going out of the centre of the town,
Beautiful. We came off tender, took a boat ride followed by bus into town of Oia which was beautiful. Then bus to Fira. Here we had a choice of 3 ways of getting down to boat. Donkey rides which I wouldn’t contemplate as I just object to using the poor animals in this way. Walking down 290 steps which I had heard could be slippery or cable cars. As there was no queue when we were ready to come down we chose the cable car. Never again! But that is me and my stupid fears. I’m sure for the majority of people it’s ok.
Love Valletta but as Malta is somewhere we have stayed a few times we just reaquainted ourselves with Valletta.