Dean Renner

Age: 39
Occupation: Financial Planner
Number of Cruises: 4
Cruise Line: Royal Caribbean
Ship: Vision of the Seas
Sailing Date: April 2nd, 2001
Itinerary: 11-Night Circle the Caribbean

There were three of us on this cruise: my mother, a female cousin, and I. We’ve sailed with RCCL before, on the Legend, for the Panama Canal cruise in 1999, and on the Rhapsody, for the Hawaii cruise in 2000. We’ve always found our cruises with RCCL very enjoyable, despite occasional glitches; and this cruise was very enjoyable, with only a couple of glitches.

We made our own air transportation arrangements through our travel agent, because we were flying to New Orleans 4 days early to visit a dear friend, whom we had met on our Panama Canal cruise 2 years ago. In addition to all of the other remarkable qualities of cruising, one of the most pleasurable has to be making wonderful new life-long friends!

EMBARKATION / DEBARKATION:

After departing New Orleans, we arrived in Miami a day early, to see some of Miami, and to have additional time to deal with any problems should they come up, as they occasionally do. We stayed at the Double Tree Hotel, at the airport, which is a very adequate hotel, reasonably priced, and I would recommend it. Our hotel package included a complimentary breakfast for each of us, so if you’re staying at the Double Tree, be sure to ask for that. A shuttle bus picked us up at the airport, and took us to the hotel; and then took us back to the airport the following day, embarkation day, so that we could catch the bus to the pier. All of the shuttle and bus services were complimentary.

Arriving at the pier, and seeing Majesty and Vision docked nose to nose, we again were struck by the immense size of these gargantuan vessels. And while RCCL’s vessels aren’t as handsome as, say, White Star Line’s Titanic, they are handsome enough.

Embarkation went very smoothly, as they always seem to. Remember to have your boarding paperwork filled out prior to embarkation, for not doing so will slow things down for you, and everyone in line behind you. We arrived at the pier at 11:30 am, and the baggage handlers promptly had our luggage out of our hands and on their way to our cabin. We wound our way through the check-in line, presented our documents, received our SuperCharge cards, and were on our way up the gangway to the ship by 12:00 noon! All in all, a very expeditious process. Earlier arrival at the pier is always better than later arrival – as we headed up the gangway, we took a last look at the line behind us, and it was very long! A half an hour really makes a big difference.

Debarkation was the quickest we’ve ever had! Debarkation began at 8:00 am, and, perhaps it was just good fortune, but our color was in the second group called, and we were off the ship by 8:20 am! Other reviewers have mentioned slow and inefficient embarkations and debarkations, but being a veteran cruiser with RCCL, I can only say things have always gone very smoothly and very efficiently.

THE SHIP:

The Vision of the Seas is a member of the Vision-class ships, and is an exact sister ship to the Rhapsody of the Seas. Other than different names for the public rooms, these two ships are identical. And can you say ‘beautiful’? Vision of the Seas is all that and more! Lots of brass and glass, in keeping with RCCL’s standard décor. In the Centrum, there hangs a polished stainless steel sculpture – of a dinosaur, or other such prehistoric creature (I think!) – and is very well done. And while I’m sure the sculptor hadn’t intended it to, the sculpture shimmies with the mild vibration of the ship while at sea and the sunlight dances off of it in dazzling patterns. The Solarium is done in an Egyptian motif, and while certainly pleasant to behold, isn’t quite as spectacular as the Rhapsody’s. Nonetheless, it is a wonderful place to relax on the padded lounges, and swim in its saltwater pool. The Aquarius dining room, encompassing two decks in height, is a pleasure to behold. The furniture is beautifully upholstered in pleasing blues, pinks, and whites. The chairs are comfortable and have armrests. The forward pool area is spacious, with lots of lounge chairs, and I never had difficulty finding a lounge chair to lay upon. Even if I did, I could always stretch out on a lounge chair up on deck 10. People have complained about RCCL’s lack of wooden decks on its ship’s forward pool areas, not liking the green ‘Astro Turf’ there. The Vision does have teak decking in the area immediately fore and aft of the pool. But I must say that if you’ve ever cruised in the Southern latitudes, you know that the sun heats those teak decks to such an unbearable degree that traversing them in bare feet is a very uncomfortable experience! Your feet will appreciate the ‘Astro Turf’ if your eyes do not. There are four hot tubs at the forward pool and two in the Solarium. The pools are filled with filtered and heated seawater and the hot tubs are filled with heated fresh water. I spent a good deal of time in the hot tubs on our at-sea days because they were so darn relaxing, and they offered a perfect vantage point from which to view the poolside activities. The ship also offers Internet access up on deck 8, at the rate of 50 cents per minute, charged to your SuperCharge card. Utilizing this service is quite easy, and the Internet service provides access to web-based e-mail services such as Hotmail and Yahoo; and you should establish one of these accounts prior to your cruise, otherwise it will cost you 50 cents per minute to do it from the ship! The ship’s stabilization was excellent – I rarely felt any motion of the ship at all. Interestingly, while on a tour of the Vision’s bridge, one of the officers remarked that we were sailing through rough seas; and I couldn’t feel the ship’s motion at all. If you’re seasick on cruises, I recommend that you bring something just in case. The purser’s desk offers complimentary Bonine, if you forget yours. The Some Enchanted Evening theatre, where the evening’s entertainment is held, is beautiful! The seats are comfortable, with drink holders in each armrest. The stage curtain is absolutely beautiful with wonderful designs; and each evening, before it was lifted, different colored spotlights lit the curtain, transforming it into a new curtain each evening, color-wise. I know I’ve used the term ‘beautiful’ frequently in this paragraph to describe Vision, but I can think of no better adjective with which to describe her.

FOOD:

Seemly everyone’s point of contention with RCCL. That and shower stall size! Well our food was generally pretty good. I’m not particularly hard to please – and hey, someone else was doing the cooking! So I was generally satisfied. But not completely. Having read several months ago on RCCL’s website that they intended to improve the quality of their food, I was expecting some improvement over their previous offerings. And I was a bit disappointed that the food has not recognizably improved. The food is still generally pretty good – but only pretty good. I was looking forward to enjoying the improvements. Our meals at main seating appeared and tasted as one would expect from a nice restaurant in your city. True, the meals may not have been what princes, kings, and presidents are served, but then we were not paying exorbitant fares for this cruise. The salads, pastas, and entrees were more than satisfying to this person’s palate.  Also, I really enjoyed being serenaded by a wonderful piano, cello, and violin trio at dinner each night! Bravo! We ate dinner in the dining room, and I being a late riser, (after being out late at night!) ate breakfast in the Windjammer, and pizza and fries in the Solarium for lunch. The Windjammer offers buffet-style dining, perfect for a single guy on the run. The food is cafeteria quality, but filling, as you can eat as much as you like, without waiting for a server. I preferred breakfast and lunch on the run so as to maximize my time at the pool or other fun activities. My mom and cousin preferred the more relaxing breakfasts and lunches in the dining room. The pizza in the Solarium is so-so – and I was truly disappointed, however, to discover that RCCL has altered their praiseworthy French fry recipe in the Solarium. This alteration has taken their French fries from the spectacular to the mundane. So, food……. While the be all and end all to some cruisers, it’s not of paramount importance to me. Still, RCCL must make improvements in this area, or continue to suffer the slings and arrows of disappointed passengers.

SHOPPING:

I’m a single guy, so as you may expect I’m not the biggest shopper in the world! But all of our ports of call offered more than sufficient opportunities to contribute to the local economy. It’s remarkable the contrast in shopping experiences one will have on the different islands. In Jamaica, the locals nearly come to blows with each other vying to push some necklace or other thing in your face – street vending at its raucous best. And then on Grand Cayman, nary a street vendor to be found – pleasant wandering at its best. Being a collector of Hard Rock Café apparel, I visited the Hard Rock Café on Grand Cayman, and purchased a tank top. How’s that for a shopping extravaganza?! The ship’s duty-free shops offered very reasonable prices on their items – a little too reasonable in some cases! Liquor prices are truly reasonable compared with Portland, Oregon’s. Here, a fifth of Bacardi Rum costs about $12, whereas on the ship you can purchase a liter (larger than a fifth) for $9. And Absolut Vodka was on sale, two liters for $19.

CABIN:

We occupied cabin 2096, a category ‘I’ outside cabin on Deck 2, adjacent to the aft elevators. It was nice stepping out of our cabin and walking into an elevator. Especially for my mom, who has a bad knee and has difficulty walking long distances. The cabin was adequately sized, with enough closet space for all of us. The bathroom was a little cramped, but was the standard size for RCCL’s ships. The shower, again, was a little cramped too, but with some adjustments, it worked out fine. For some reason, our showerhead had the annoying habit of falling out of its holder on to the floor. Fortunately, no one’s toes were broken! We reported this to our cabin steward, and never was any action taken to remedy this problem. Also, the locking mechanism on our cabin’s door was loose and didn’t function properly all the time. We reported this problem several times to our cabin steward and to others, at the beginning of the cruise – and only 3 days prior to the end of the 11-day cruise was it repaired. These were admittedly minor problems, and in no way detracted from the enjoyment of our cruise, but handling passenger problems earlier rather than later, is always better. This cabin, a standard outside cabin, is perfectly serviceable, if you don’t plan on spending much time in it, which I, being a single guy, don’t. If I’m in the cabin, I’m not out doing something more fun! Outside cabins offer the distinct advantage of a window! It’s nice to wake up in the morning, with outside light streaming into it.

SERVICE:

The service on the Vision was very good, with the lone exception of our cabin steward’s mishandling of the aforementioned problems. Our waiter and assistant waiter were very friendly, and very efficient. They had only 2 tables to service, and that seems to make all the difference as far as speedy service is concerned. On the Rhapsody, our waiters seemed to have too many tables to service, and consequently, their service to our table suffered. That seems to be an aberration within RCCL, as our service on this cruise was on par with our previous cruises – in other words, excellent. Two of the evenings, the entire dining room service staff sang to us, and it was marvelous twirling our dinner napkins overhead in unison with them! On this cruise I also learned something I hadn’t known before. The cabin stewards literally start at the bottom and work their way up – meaning that they begin their careers on the lower decks and work their way up to the upper decks. Since this was the lowest deck we’ve had a cabin on, we also had a cabin steward just embarking upon his career. And while his artistic skills creating towel creatures on our beds weren’t as good as we’ve seen before, they were certainly good enough, and we enjoyed returning to our cabin after dinner and seeing them. And am I sounding like quite the jaded veteran cruiser? I swore I’d never allow myself to sound that way……… The bar service was superb! Our drinks were excellent, and served with a smile. On the evening of the 70’s disco dance party out on the pool deck, some one wandered off with my friend’s beer, and the bar staff cheerfully replaced her beer free of charge, even though she was more than half way finished with it.

ACTIVITIES:

This cruise being an 11-day, circle the Caribbean cruise, offered a good mix of island visitations and at-sea days. I’ll be discussing shore excursions in a forthcoming paragraph, and will discuss shipboard activities in this one. There were bingo tournaments, art auctions, cooking demonstrations, horse races, shuffleboard tournaments, Mr. Sexy Legs contests, pool games, the Quest game, the Newlywed Not So Newlywed game, and the like, all of which were way too much fun! There was Karaoke singing some of the nights and it’s amazing how many of my fellow passengers were such good singers! Our tablemate, Jeff, from Cincinnati, was a fabulous singer, singing many fun songs. One night up in the Viking Crown Lounge, it was ‘70’s Night’. This was the one and only night that the lounge was packed to the gills! It was standing room only! And then the rest of the nights up there were dead. Perhaps if they’d played 70’s music up there every night instead of 90’s music, it would be busy every night -- and they’d probably sell more drinks too. However, there was the 70’s dance party and buffet on the pool deck, the evening we were in Aruba, featuring the ‘Village People’, which was wonderful. The music was tremendous, and the Village People put on a good show. The DJ played all the great dance songs from the 70’s, and we all had such fun dancing to them, under starlight, in the 80-degree weather. There were lots of fun pool games, like the battle of the sexes, in which the ladies battled the guys in an exciting game. The ladies won the game on a technicality, but it was lots of fun watching! Also there were the belly flop contest, the pool volleyball tournament, and the Olympic games.

STAFF:

Our cruise director was Marc Walker, newly promoted from assistant cruise director on the Rhapsody. Thankfully his annoying early morning activities announcements were virtually eliminated on this cruise! He is a very personable guy, and genuinely seemed to enjoy his job, and genuinely seemed to enjoy the passengers. Some of the others on the cruise staff bear recognition as well: Toni, and Kolby, assistant cruise directors, went far out of their way to make this a very fun cruise. The commanding officer, Captain Leif Otto Bang was a competent captain, but seemed a bit aloof. I never saw him mingle with the passengers outside of official functions, but his daily announcements regarding the ship’s status were always informative. Otherwise, the staff on Vision was efficient and service-oriented, but merit no special mention.

PASSENGERS:

There were about 2000 passengers on our cruise, out of a capacity of about 2400; mostly Americans, with a large number of Canadians. Many other nationalities were represented as well. The Americans and Canadians seemed to be mostly from the East coasts of their respective countries; and being from the West Coast, it was fun meeting people from that area. The ages of the passengers ranged from youngsters to many in their golden years. This cruise had an interesting mix of passengers – we had 43 newlywed couples, in their 20’s, and many couples in their 60’s. It seemed as though the passengers were newlywed in their 20’s, or married for many years in their 60’s. There weren’t many passengers in between those two age ranges! But, being 39, I met some wonderful people, and made some more lifelong friends!

ENTERTAINMENT:

The entertainment was a mix of Broadway, Las Vegas, and solo performers. We had the Wave Revue Dancers a couple of nights, 4 comedy acts, and 3 wonderful singers. The singers whom I thought were truly fabulous were Kenny James, and Renato. Kenny James we had seen before on our Panama Canal cruise, and he was very entertaining, singing upbeat fun songs. He is such an enthusiastic singer and energetic performer! His enthusiasm was very infectious! And Renato……… What can I say about him? He was stunning! His performance of opera classics and other passionate music was truly divine – and this is coming from someone who isn’t an opera fan! It was truly moving to hear someone sing with feeling and passion. Today’s music, by today’s stars is absolutely boring by comparison. I also enjoyed the Wave Revue Dancers, as the ladies were very attractive and great dancers! Overall, the entertainment was very enjoyable and I always looked forward to going to the show every night after dinner.

PORTS OF CALL / EXCURSIONS:

Key West, Florida: This is about as far out into the world as you can be, and still be in the United States. And hey, even from here, postcards take only 3 days, coast to coast! Duval Street is an absolute must. If you go nowhere else in Key West, visit Duval Street. On it, you will find just about every kind of shop you can imagine, and you will also find Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville. It’s a fun little place, and the service and most importantly, the atmosphere, is wonderful. Key West is also the first place on the Circle the Caribbean cruise where you’ll feel like you’re in the tropics.

Playa del Carmen, Mexico/Cozumel, Mexico: This is kind of a two-part stop on the cruise. The ship stops for 1 hour in Playa del Carmen – just long enough to debark the passengers who have tours to the Mayan ruins. After tendering ashore everyone on tour, the ship sails to Cozumel for the rest of the day. I took the Mayan Ruins tour at Tulum, and tendered ashore at Playa del Carmen. After a 45-minute bus ride, the Mayan ruins are wonderful to see! It’s fascinating to learn about the history of the Mayan culture, and to learn that every one of their structures is situated along the four cardinal compass bearings. And without the aid of compasses, how did they determine North, South, East, and West, anyway? Well, you’ll just have to take the tour…….. But it was thrilling to walk the same ground as those people did thousands of years ago – to reach out and touch the same stones that craftsmen crafted so many years ago. Of course, human sacrifices are a bit chilling, and those areas are now closed off – thank Goodness, for those faint of heart.

Georgetown, Grand Cayman: Can you say ‘thank Goodness for no street venders’?! And what a beautiful island, to boot! And what a clean island, too – there is not a piece of trash to be found on this British island! By the way, since this is a British possession, and cars drive on the left side of the road, I recommend that you avail yourself of the local taxis – unless your collision insurance is paid up! A $5 taxi fare is ridiculously cheap insurance against driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road! I didn’t take a tour on this island – although this is where you can go to the East side of the island and visit Stingray City, and feed the stingrays. I spent the day at 7-Mile Beach. And what a beautiful beach! You know, it’s too bad that the ship doesn’t stay here for 2 days, because everyone could visit Stingray City one day, and then visit 7-Mile Beach the next. It’s just too difficult a choice! 7-Mile Beach is a wonderful stretch of beautiful, sparsely visited beach, with warm turquoise water, and even warmer white sand. Of all the Caribbean island beaches, this one’s truly heaven on Earth.

Ocho Rios, Jamaica: Wouldn’t you know it…… I travel all the way from Portland, Oregon, to get away from the cold rain, and guess what? The day we’re in Jamaica, it’s cold, windy, and rainy. I mean, the rain is blowing sideways! I was going to take the Dunn’s River Falls tour, and climb the falls – but given the cold, cloudy, rainy, windy weather – that hot tub by the pool looked awfully inviting! Of course, meeting a beautiful young lady from Boston that day made up for missing my Dunn’s River Falls tour!

Oranjestad, Aruba: I headed for Palm Beach this day, on the recommendation of a lady whose website I had visited from home. I’ve been to Aruba several times before, and have seen just about everything there is to see on the island. So, I just wanted to relax on the beach, and she recommended Palm Beach, as it is more popular than the others, and it is smaller and easier to meet people on. I spent most of the day there, swimming in the wonderfully warm water, and relaxing on the beach. Later, I took a taxi back to the ship ($8 each way!), and ran into Patti, my friend from Boston. She and a couple of friends wanted to go to Eagle beach, south of Palm Beach, so we headed there in the afternoon. This time, we took the city bus – and it was $1.50 round trip!! And the bus made only a couple of stops prior to the beach – definitely the way to go. Eagle Beach is much larger than Palm Beach, and more sparsely visited. And more water sports activities are offered there. But we just spent the afternoon swimming in the warm water, and strolling the beach. A thoroughly relaxing day. Returning to the ship in the late afternoon, as we were in Aruba until midnight, we cleaned up in our cabins, and then left the ship again, to visit Carlos & Charlies for a bit, and then had dinner at Iguana Joe’s. The portions at Iguana Joe’s are very large, so if you’re not a big eater, you may want to share an entrée with someone! After dinner, we went back to the ship to attend the 70’s dance party!

Willemstad, Curacao: I didn’t take a tour here, being tired and wanting to stay on the ship. People I spoke to said that the Seaquarium beach was very nice, and definitely the beach to visit while in Curacao. It’s a topless beach, so you may want to keep that in mind when deciding where to take your youngsters.

CONCLUSION:

Overall, this was a very fun cruise! I enjoyed it almost as much as our Panama Canal cruise 2 years ago, and much better than our Hawaii cruise last year. With the exceptions of our showerhead never being repaired, and our cabin door taking so long to be repaired – and of course, the food still not being improved – I enjoyed this cruise very much. I had a wonderful time on this cruise, thanks to the wonderful service of the staff, the cruise directors going out of their way to make my cruise fun, the ports of call being great, the tremendous entertainment, and the fun passengers I met along the way. I would recommend this ship, this staff, this itinerary, and this cruise to anyone. Glitches come along – it is the nature of all human endeavors to be imperfect. This cruise however, was close enough to perfect to have my wholehearted endorsement! 

I hope this cruise review has been of benefit to you, as I know the reviews I’ve read here have provided me with valuable information. And please feel free to write with any questions, or if you’re a fellow cruiser on this cruise, just to say ‘hi’

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