Brian Lashchuk

Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Number of Cruises: 12
Cruise Line: Royal Caribbean International
Ship: Vision of the Seas
Sailing Date: January 6th, 2002
Itinerary:  Panama Canal

This is my 12th cruise and my 6th on RCCL. This was my best cruise with RCCL. The Vision of the Seas is a true masterpiece. The art, the décor of the public rooms, the elevators, dining room, spas, lounges, everything is beautiful, well designed and thought out. The huge glass windows is what I always like. The Vision was a much cleaner ship than its sister ship the Rhapsody. The cabins were clean and all public areas were clean. Though, not as clean as Holland America ships. The only dirty sports were on top deck the running track needs to be redone very dirty and all the deck chairs were very dirty and should be replaced. This was the same thing with the Rhapsody when I took it in 1999.

Because this was a 15 day cruise, everything was geared for older people. I like having older people rather than younger crowd, but this was more than I expected. Many people were in wheel chairs and tons of walkers. Very hard to get around them. You needed to have lots of patience on this cruise. One person died when we were in Acapulco. We saw crew taking off a body in a body bag. We also had 7 Alpha, Alpha messages during the 15 days. When they say on speaker Alpha, Alpha it means something bad happened to a passenger. You can tell this cruise was for older people because all the trivia games name that tone was from 1920’s-1950’s.

Food was a lot better on this ship. The Dining room food has improved since last I sailed on RCCL in 1999. Maybe its because its a 15 day cruise who knows. All the steaks had more taste to them. There were just more items to pick from. Our waiter always gave us extra dinners even if we did not ask for it. He gave me 3 lobsters one day. The Vision I think had a better dinner than Princess, but the Holland America is still the best. RCCL deserts still are just so-so. The Lido deck buffet Lunch was the same as usual. It was not that good. Princess lunch buffet is much better. RCCL needs to improve on selections for buffet food. You can get pizza and hamburgers in the pool area. This is open many times of the day. The pizza was awesome. Everyone raves about Princess pizza which I think sucks, the Vision pizza was 10 times better than Princess. Also, at 3:30 to 4:30 in Lido deck Buffet they have sandwiches, cookies, and ice cream. If you don't like the buffet, the dining room lunch was pretty good. They had some good food at times. Of course if you are still hungry just head to the buffet or the pool area and receive more food. Let’s just say I get my moneys worth. Room service was just ok. Sandwiches and hamburgers. The best room service is on Holland America.

The Entertainment was just ok. Like I said before it was geared towards the older crowd. They did have two comedians. Usually RCCL has some awesome entertainment, but it was just too much singing. The older crowd loved the Entertainment. Here is some Entertainers we had. They had the Coasters, Singer Dolores Park, Comedy Jason Chase, Singer Hal Frazier, Piano person Craig Dahn, Comedian Marty Allen. The ones I liked were Los Diablos Gauchos and Comedian Yacov Noy. All this entertainment was for the older crowd. Also, Everyone got to the theater 40 min ahead of time. This was the first cruise that I had to get to the theater 40 min ahead of time to get a seat.

All the people working on the ship were much nicer than on other RCCL ships. The cruise director Tim Seivert and all the Bingo helpers worked well together. They all were very funny. I think they were better entertainment than the shows entertainment. I had Tim on three ships, Viking Serenade, (rest in peace) the Rhapsody and now the Vision. He is one of the best cruise directors I ever had. All the dining room staff, buffet staff were great. Everyone was so friendly.

Ports

Cabo - Was the Usual. My sister went whale watching. I told her "you don't need to go far from the ship." (Joke) I just went on the tender back and forth.

Acapulco -Was cool place. Very modern. Take the city tour that was nice. You go to the cliff divers, but be prepared to get hounded by people trying to sell you stuff. The cliff divers is not in the nicest area.

Costa Rica -Lots of garbage along the roads. We did the rain forest walk. Not worth the price. All we saw were ants and birds. You won’t see monkeys. My parents took the 8 hr city tour same price as the rain forest and they loved it.

Columbia - "Interesting" I did not go off the ship, but my parents took the city tour and were hounded by people selling you stuff. They would get followed onto their tour bus and would get followed for a few blocks by people wanting to sell them stuff.

Panama Canal - That was awesome. You have to see it in person.

Aruba - Best port - I went snorkeling that was a blast. Aruba is very clean and tons of stuff to do. Tons of shops, casinos and sight seeing. Best of all did not get bugged.

The ship has the Internet for 50 cents a min so you can E-mail your family. The seas were not rough at all. I love when it gets bumpy, but the only time it got rough was leaving the Panama Canal to Aruba. I was disappointed it was not rough.

This was my first time on a 15 day cruise. I thought for sure I would get bored or miss home. But, I loved it. I could have went on for another week. This was so much fun and would love to go on it again.

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