Enjoyed the cruise and ship!
Vision of the Seas Cruise Review to Caribbean - Southern
Contributor Level:
Purser
Cruises: 7+ cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 54
7 Night Southern Caribbean (San Juan Roundtrip)
Sail date: January 18, 2020
Ship: Vision of the Seas
Cabin type: Oceanview
Cabin number: 3108
Traveled as: Singles/Friends
Reviewed: 4 years ago
Review summary
This is a smaller ship and lacks some of the "bells and whistles" that the newer ships feature, but its compact size has benefits as well. The ship never seemed crowded, is easy to navigate, attractive, clean, well-maintained, and the staff is great. Overall, I would cruise on the ship again with the right itinerary, and recommend it to first-time cruisers or those looking for a more exotic itinerary.Embarkation
I booked "The Key" package and had priority embarkation: seamless and fast!
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
Windjammer - overall OK, food was consistent. Disappointed that RC does not generally offer ice tea at breakfast. Crew was able to make me some, although I had to push a little bit on the first morning. My other complaint about the Windjammer is I would often have my plate nearly full, then realize that they were out of some things such as bacon or salad dressing. In both of these situations, there was no crew member at the station for me to tell that they were out of that item. I would have to walk around, or stand there and wait for someone to come up to that particular station. They would tell me it was coming out, but I have no idea how long the wait would be. I was concerned about my food getting cold while I waited. but the crew was very polite.
Park Café - The set up was rather confusing. Apparently, there are three different lines. The one for pizza is pretty obvious. If you want a sandwich, you stand in line all the way over on the left. If you want something out of the refrigerated case, you stand somewhere in the middle. there was a drink station just adjacent to the café, but one day at lunchtime, they were out of cups, the ice machine was out of ice (they had brought a bin, but it was nearly empty), and the only beverage options besides water were orange juice, apple juice, and fruit punch. I would’ve appreciated some iced tea or lemonade for lunchtime.
Aquarius Dining Room - We had “My Time Dining,“, and generally did not make any reservations until the day of. We like to make sure that we could fit in all of our evening activities. With that said, we had no problems getting same-day reservations. On the second formal night, we had to schedule our dinner at about 8:30 PM, after I had requested a much earlier seating time. It was not a big deal, but I’m sure that the dining room was in high demand that night. The longest we had to wait one evening was 20 minutes. We had the same servers about four out of six nights in the dining room - very nice and attentive. Food came out in a very timely fashion, and was warm. It's not gourmet, but I don't expect this from a dining room that has to plate probably a thousand dinners. No complaints!!
Onboard Activities
We mostly played trivia and other games, but when I wasn't doing that, or taking excursions, I enjoyed reading in the Solarium. I was not happy there on the last day, though, as there were a couple of families with young, LOUD children hanging out eating. This is the only adult-exclusive location on the ship, and I was disappointed that the staff didn't speak with them. The family pool area is just a short distance away.
My friend and I also got Swedish massages in the spa. It's a nice facility and we enjoyed our treatments, but as this is an older ship, they didn't have any thermal pools/spas or heated loungers.
Entertainment
I'm in my mid 50s so don't really enjoy hip-hop and modern dance music. So I actually enjoyed this DJ! He played a nice mix of music I liked (lots from the 80s). The 70s Dance Party was SO much fun, and I don't even like to dance! I saw one musical production show with Broadway tunes, and was not terribly impressed. The performers are talented but some didn't show mastery of their material (some painful solos), and I didn't care for the theme song that book-ended the show. I'm just a musical theater snob, I guess. We saw a couple of very good stand-up comedians and also enjoyed the various musicians playing in the Schooner Bar. My friend and I are a bit competitive and enjoyed playing in the trivia games and other contests.
Children's Programs
No kids!
Service and Staff
I really liked the staff on the ship. Everybody was friendly and wanted to help.
The staff in the dining room was friendly, polite, attentive, and prompt, from the servers to the head waiter, to the person working the reservation desk.
Our state room attendant was very nice, although around dinner time on embarkation day, we still had not seen him. I had to leave him a note to ask him to bring me the water and extension cord that I had requested for my CPAP. I’m not sure if he was just busy, he forgot, or if there was a communication breakdown with the special assistance office. He did drop the items off, and we met him later. I did run into some issues with the electrical connection. I had to run the extension cord between the bed and the wall in order for it to reach the electrical cord from my CPAP, which was on the small table next to the bed. On at least two days, he unplugged the machine from the extension cord where they were connected behind the bed. I would discover this just as I was getting ready for bed, and I would have to pull out the mattress from the wall and locate the cords in order to reconnect them. If the crew is concerned about leaving things plugged in, it would’ve been much better if he had unplugged the extension cord at the outlet rather than in a spot that was very hard for me to reach.
Ship Quality
Overall, this is one of the smaller ships I have been on, and I have mixed feelings.. One or two more dining / bar venues would be helpful, and I kind of missed the Promenade. But with that said, the ship size was very manageable, and it was very easy to get around to the different venues. I also thought the Centrum served as a great location for ship gatherings. There was a little stage in front of the staircase and elevators, with a dance floor in front of it. There was a small lounge seating area around the dance floor, and then several levels for viewing from the decks up above. sometimes it got rather congested, but it created a really nice sense of community. I think the smaller ship size and smaller number of passengers also contributed to this. It was cool seeing some some of the same people over and over again. I and my friend I was traveling with enjoy playing trivia and other games, and met some fellow passengers to form a team. It was just really nice getting to know them.
While the ship is showing its wear in some places, the decor was tasteful and the seating and other fixtures appeared to be clean and in good repair. While a refitting would give it a bigger "wow," I really don't have any complaints.
Cabin / Stateroom
Our Ocean view room had a good location just a few steps down the hallway from the stairwell and elevators. One floor below the Centrum, so it was quiet down our hallway. The room was clean, and I really did appreciate the sunlight coming in through the windows. When I pulled the curtain back, I noticed quite a bit of corrosion on the frame. I guess this is normal for a sea vessel, but not so pretty to look at. I wonder if this would be addressed at the next refurbishment. Anyway, it was not a big deal. The curtains covered it up if we didn’t actually want to look out the window. The beds were not the most comfortable in the world, and my mattress seem to have a bit of a slope. But with that said, I had no problem sleeping. There was plenty of storage in the room - there was a roomy closet with plenty of hangers, and lots of drawers. Two hooks behind the door for hanging things. The bathroom was small, as expected, and this had to be the tiniest shower I have ever used on a cruise ship. I am only 5‘3“ tall, and while a little bit on the fluffy side, I’m not that large. I could barely turn my body to shampoo my hair. For some reason, the room steward kept turning the showerhead outwards when he cleaned the room. Unfortunately, I usually didn’t notice this until after I turned the water on and sprayed it on the floor. The water pressure was not great, and the showerhead had a sort of pulsing function. The best I can say about the shower is that it was adequate. The sink wasn’t much better as far as water pressure, and for some reason, the water seem to be warm no matter which way I turned the faucet. I was showering one afternoon while we were in Port, and I noticed that the water was not draining properly. At first, I wondered if the drain was clogged. But then I realized that the water was just gathering to one side. I believe this may have just been due to a slight tilt in the ship. It still created a bit of an inconvenience when I was getting out of the shower, as it was starting to leak onto the floor. The floor was very slippery when wet, so I'd mop it up with the floor mat, but it would quickly become soaked. A better-designed shower would have a slightly concave floor to facilitate the flow of the water to the drain.
Ship tip
Don't write off these smaller, older ships. Royal seems to keep these up pretty well, and the smaller number of passengers and more compact layout are both positives.
Thumbs up
0
Ports of call
We spent a couple of days at the Hilton Caribe before the cruise, which was a really nice beach resort, which we enjoyed. We also spent time in town. The San Sebastian (SANSE) festival was going on, so restaurants had limited menus. Walkway to El Morro was closed due to flooding from ocean swells. We returned on debarkation day for a few hours. We had some hand luggage to carry, so did not want to do a lot of walking. We had a late breakfast at Chocobar Cortés, which I HIGHLY recommend (yum), did some shopping, then had cocktails under the shady trees outside Puerto Criollo (where we had lunch the previous week from their abbreviated SANSE menu). The temps were in the lower/mid 80s, but HOT in the sun, comfy in the shade if there was a breeze. We were impressed with seeing so many sanitation workers cleaning, sweeping everywhere. Old San Juan is really clean, and the old/pastel architecture is so pretty. There are still many businesses boarded up and in disrepair, so I hope that someone can infuse some capital and revive this beautiful city!
Tortola, British Virgin Islands
Our excursion to the Baths at Virgin Gorda was canceled due to high/rough swells, I booked a land tour at a discount, and it was okay, It was a "Best Views" tour, but due to the narrow mountain roads, we were not able to get off the bus to take photos at most of the stops.
I took a third-party excursion with Adventure Antigua on their Extreme Circumnav tour around the island. It was a bit bouncy due to the swells, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
I only disembarked for the Sunset cruise, so I didn't see much of the island. But what I saw from the boat was very pretty!!
I took a third-party excursion with Spencer Tours. This was to be the highlight of my trip, but the weather didn't cooperate. It rained nearly nonstop all day, so while parts were enjoyable, it was overall a pretty miserable day. This is no one's fault... I just really wanted to see the Pitons from the water, but the rain and mist prevented the view I was hoping for. I'll have to come back some day and hope for better weather.
Punta Cana, Dominican Republic Did not visit port
This cruise was pretty packed with excursions and other activities, and I wanted extra time to relax and enjoy the ship. It was a nice day, and my friend and I got massages in the spa.
Disembarkation
I booked a transfer/tour, and it was disappointing in that Royal didn't communicate with us upfront about the timing, how luggage would be handled, and I missed out on a special breakfast benefit through "The Key" program to make it to our 7:15 AM meetup.
Traveler Photos
