MegDesk – The Blog

One of the biggest reasons Anne and I booked this particular cruise was the number of sea days.  Knowing that the Voyager of the Seas was even bigger than the massive Sapphire Princess we sailed on in Asia last winter, we expected to have a great time with plenty to see and do on board.

Our very first impression of the ship was that after eight years, it was starting to show its age and was overdue for some rennovations and touch-ups.  But the cosmetic details and flashier colors soon faded into the background behind the smoke.  Much of Australia, North America, and even parts of Europe have gone smoke-free indoors over the past few years, and it’s amazing how much we’ve all gotten used to the clean air.  The Voyager doesn’t have any non-smoking lounges (we asked), so by the end of the first day or two, we were wandering the ship trying to find a place to sit and chat over a drink and some clean air!  The closest to a smoke-free lounge is half of the Aquarium Bar, which is a little more isolated from the smoking half.  Not surprisingly, it was almost always full.  Other venues like the English pub on the Promenade were almost always empty, because even when no one was smoking, the smell stuck around – so we didn’t.

The other annoying thing about the ship is that there was no indoor pool.  Even in the Mediterranean, late November is a bit cold for outdoor swimming – especially with the breeze on a moving ship.  Even smaller ships we’ve sailed have had an enclosed solarium for cooler weather.

On a more positive note, we really enjoyed some of the other activites on the ship.  Lucas and Johnny took advantage of the well-equipped fitness center, and Anne and I had a great time teaching Amy to ice skate.  I wish the ice rink had been open more often later in the trip, but I guess it forced me to do a few other things like miniature golf and inline skating.  Lucas agreed to give it a try and did quite well.  Another good thing in the onboard sports department was the location of the sports court.  It’s quite centrally located on the Voyager, which meant more people used it, and the courtside benches were a good place to sit and people watch.

A return to Royal Caribbean also meant a return to traditional dining, and I appreciated the higher quality of the food and service that comes along with it.  In turn, our waiter seemed to appreciate having a lively, English-speaking table after a long international season.  Another advantage of traditional dining meant that we didn’t have to run all over the ship trying to track down Anne & Johnny before dinner!  (How many times did you sleep through dinner on the Sapphire, Anne?)

The international passenger makeup took its toll on the ship’s activities, but the number of events seemed especially small given the number of passengers.  A few of our sea days seemed astonishingly empty, and one afternoon found half a dozen of us dropping paper helicopters off the highest atrium balcony in an attempt to entertain ourselves.  This also led us to the casino on the last sea day to entertain ourselves with the 1¢ and 5¢ slot machines.  I can’t complain, though, because Anne walked away with over $100 from the nickel slots, and Amy and I stumbled onto $11 from playing just 25¢ in the penny slots.  Add that to the $5 I won in the Las Vegas airport a few years ago, and I think I’m doing pretty well for my casino record. 

Before I move on to our ports, there was one other strange thing about our experience with the Voyager.  As a chance to try something new, we booked a promenade-view interior cabin.  We had a view down over the shops, and I enjoyed having a little bit of light coming in through the window during the day.  At night, the dimmed lighting wasn’t enough to keep us awake, especially after the bright nights of the Norwegian summer.  However, we found that if we didn’t close the blackout curtains, we would be woken up every morning at 2:45 am, which is the ridiculous hour when the promenade lighting switches back to “day!”  This was especially disappointing, since having light from the window in the morning was one of the biggest draws of having a promenade-view room (as opposed to a traditional inside room) in the first place!

Ah, well…  On to the ports!

This entry was posted on Friday, 11 January 2008 at 1:00 am and is filed under Journal, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.