Neil K. Gillis

Age: 61
Occupation: retired
Number of Cruises: 7
Cruise Line: Royal Caribbean
Name of Ship: Voyager of the Seas
Sailing Date: February 16th,2003
Itinerary: Western Caribbean

Background:
This was our 7th. Cruise over the past 12 years, starting with CCL “Fantasy” in 1990. This was followed by RCCL “Song of America” in ’92, “Sovereign of the Seas” in ’93, “Legend of the Seas” in ’95, and “Enchantment of the Seas” in ’98. In ‘00, we went on Celebrity’s “Century”.

Precruise:
We were traveling, for the third time, with eight other people, giving the party of ten an age range from the early 60’s down to two children aged seven and three. Madeleine and I flew out of Boston on Delta Airlines via Atlanta on Thursday, the 13th. without any problems. The other eight arrived on Friday evening. We had booked reservations at the Hyatt Regency Downtown with the price including a full buffet breakfast in the “Riverwalk Café.” I became a little nervous after booking the hotel, when I read several negative reviews of the hotel. As far as we were concerned, the location and the hotel itself were excellent. The hotel and the room were spotless and the entire staff was wonderful. It was about a twelve minute walk from the hotel to the Bayside Marketplace, which we visited several times over the three days prior to the cruise.

On Saturday, at the suggestion of the concierge at the Hyatt, we took a boat cruise around some of the islands, enjoying views of some of the prime real estate in Miami, and a view of the five cruise ships tied up at the terminal. Because of security, private boats of any kind are not allowed to cruise past the ships along the Port of Miami. Everyone in the group enjoyed the trip immensely. After the “cruise’ we enjoyed walking around the marketplace. The area was very busy as the marina by the marketplace was one of several sites for the Miami International Boat Show.

Late in the afternoon, my wife and I were walking on the terrace behind the hotel which is next to the Miami River, when I noticed an unusual structure hidden in some trees. It looked like a small piece of New England that had somehow found its way south. It was a wood-framed, yellow clap-board sided house that belonged in New Hampshire rather than in Miami. Upon closer inspection, it was a house built by Flagler in the late 1800’s. It had been moved to this location, partially restored, and was being used by a restaurant as a function room and bathrooms for the outdoor portion of the restaurant next to the Hyatt. It was pretty neat!

We again utilized the services of the concierge to arrange for dinner on south Beach for Saturday evening. He recommended Café Milano on Ocean Drive and suggested that we request a table for 7:15 PM inside the café and not on the sidewalk. This was an excellent recommendation, because of the crowd of people walking along the sidewalk area. When we arrived, we had the inside of the café to ourselves; much to the delight of the two children. Everything was excellent; the food the wine, and the service.

Transporting a group of ten people around Miami could become somewhat of a problem. “Liccia Tours” made it easy. This is a family owned and run business that provided us with excellent service at a reasonable price. I would highly recommend them to any group visiting Miami. They can be reached at Carmenlopez@hotmail.com

Embarkation Day:

After a leisurely breakfast, we left the hotel at noon time and used “Licca Tours” to ride to the terminal. My wife and I are “Platinum Members” in the Crown and Anchor Society which provide us the benefit of a separate processing and boarding area. We were onboard the VOTS in about twenty minutes. We were informed that our cabins would not be ready until after 1:00 PM. They suggested we tour the ship while waiting. However, just before we went aboard, a person from RCCL informed us that our cabins were ready. My wife and I split from the others and stopped for a bite to eat at the Café Promenaded which is located at one end of the Royal Promenade. It was at this time that we had our first view of one of the things that makes this class of ship so exciting; the Royal Promenade. WOW!! We then headed to our cabin, #1612 on the port side of deck #10.

Cabin #1612:

Originally we had a category DA cabin, but received a call from our TA indicating that we could be upgraded to a C category cabin for a small sum. We had never had a cabin with a balcony before and I thought that it was time we experienced it.

The cabin was by far the most spacious we have ever had. My wife was pleased with everything. She was shocked at the amount of storage space, including a walk-in closet. There was enough room for a world cruise. Let me see!?

Having read that a number of people had left the door open to the balcony at night, we were excited that we would be doing that tonight. However, we found that it was much too humid and the further south we cruised much too warm. Consequently, we slept with the door closed at night.

Our cabin steward was “Arthur” from the Philippines. He was ideal; never “in your face’ but always there when you needed something. From the first time we met Arthur, which was about fifteen minutes after arriving in our cabin, he had learned our first names and used them whenever we met. That may not appeal to some, but to us it was an example of his desire to make his service very personal and memorable.

The Ship:

Even though this was our seventh cruise, my wife was somewhat hesitant about booking on the VOTS because of the size of the ship. She feared she would never find her way around this monster compared with the smaller ships we had sailed on in the past. To her delight, she did not get lost once. She found that remembering the food options were in the stern and the theater was in the bow seemed to allow her to orient herself all the time. Also, she could smell the coffee served at the Café Promenade and that would provide a trail to follow.
Much has been written about this class of ship; some in the negative but most of what I have read was in the positive. I won’t go into a detailed description of the ship but I want to make a few observations. I think most of the people who were critical of the ship because of its size were people who had not been on this ship. Once on the ship, we quickly realized that this ship was immense but very easy to navigate. As many have mentioned, you just don’t feel crowded on the ship. The designers have provided for the easy flow of the guests throughout the ship and provide many places for small groups of passengers to gather. The only times my wife and I encountered crowds were on the Royal Promenade in the evening and after several shows in the “La Scala” theater. Under those circumstances the crowds were appropriate and reasonable

The three level dining room, in my opinion equals that of the “Century” in splendor. I must say I missed the view out the stern windows of the “Century”, but the overall layout and design were equal to the “Century”. Our table #364 for dinner was in the lower level, the “Carmen” dining room. The table was located by a large round window on the Starboard side that gave us a nice view of sunset each evening.

Over the twelve years that we have cruised, we have seen the increase in space provided for activities for the younger passengers increase tremendously. Well, this class has wonderful facilities for the young people along with a wonderful staff that provided the kids with a great variety of activities the whole week. It was announced by the “Adventure Ocean” staff that there were over five hundred young people on this cruise. This was a school vacation week in Massachusetts, so we expected a large number to be on this trip. I might add that from our observations all the young people on the cruise were well behaved unlike what I have read about other recent cruises. The two young people in our group did not want to leave the ship at the end of the cruise because of the activities they had experienced and the other kids they had met through “Adventure Ocean”. We would strongly recommend this ship, if you want to bring young people on a cruise.

Food and Beverages:

I guess my memory is getting bad as I grow older. I don’t remember any specific details of food quality on any of our past cruises except that, generally, the food was of good quality. This cruise lived up to that memory. We had dinner in the dining room each night, save for one night we went to “Portofino”. The service provided by our waiter, “Salim”from Turkey, was very efficient and of high quality. This was bolstered by “Marie” from the Philippines the assistant waiter, who was especially good with the young people at the table. The head waiter, a young lady from Sweden, was very attentive to our needs, again with the children, and assisted Salim and Marie on several occasions. I think that the policy of doing away with wine stewards and relying on the assistant waiter to provide the entire beverage service including wine, may overburden the assistant waiters. Fortunately, the head waiter was there to help. The three made an excellent team.

My only complaint concerning the food was the filet mignon I had early in the cruise that was almost tasteless. It probably sat on a steam table for an hour before reaching me. On Thursday evening, we went to “Portofino” for dinner. I must say that the setting was elegant, the service was superb, and the food was excellent. I tried the filet mignon and this time it was perfection.

We only ate breakfast in the dining room on one occasion and lunch on two occasions. The rest of the time we use the “Windjammer” or the “Island Grill” for breakfast and lunch. Madeleine preferred the “Island Grill” which is astern of the “Windjammer”; it was less crowded and you could get individually prepared omelets in the morning which were very good. One day we visited “Johnny Rocket” and had a one of their famous burgers and shakes. With all the possible venues to eat on the ship, you could almost eat each meal in a different place during the week.

In closing, the “Café Promenade” provided you a great place to replenish if you wanted some very good pizza, sandwiches, or cookies along with coffee, ice tea, and water. And that was open almost 24/7.

Entertainment and Excursions:

From my experience, RCCL has always had good entertainment throughout the week. This time my wife and I were disappointed. We thought the “RCCL Singers and Dancers” were excellent, along with the entire cast of “Ice Jammin’”, the ice show. Where we were disappointed was in the quality of the “outside” entertainers. On previous cruises we have seen first rate entertainers and singers. Unfortunately, this time it was not so. Keep in mind, personal preference plays a big role in evaluating much of what goes into a cruise review. To others, it may have been wonderful. So, take our comments with a grain of salt.

Madeleine does not care for excursions. She enjoys the days in port when most everyone leaves the ship and allows her to have “her pool” to herself. I joined two other members of our group in Ocho Rios for an excursion to Brimmer Hall Plantation and Dunn’s River Falls. I thought it was very good trip, especially seeing the “restored” main home on the plantation. The home must have been magnificent at one time, but even though it is represented as being restored, it still needs lots of work to complete a full restoration. I’m sure that this is the result of the poor economy on the island.

Madeleine did venture off the ship with me to walk around Georgetown and to the shops at the end of the dock in Cozumel. Both walks were enjoyable.

Disembarkation:

To everyone I’m sure the worst part of the cruise is going home. This can be made even worse by a slow disembarkation process. Not on this cruise. Arthur, our cabin steward asked us about mid-week, what our arrangements were on disembarkation day. We told him that we were not in a hurry to leave as we were staying overnight in Miami and flying to Boston on Monday. We had a leisurely breakfast in the “Windjammer” and cleared out of our cabin around 8:30 AM. We went down to the two-level library to wait for our “light blue” tag color to be called. We heard the announcement for our color around 9:30 AM. We were back at the Hyatt by 10:30 AM!! To our surprise, the Hyatt had a room ready for us. That was as smooth and efficient as we have ever experienced. Monday we had an uneventful trip home to Boston and all the snow and cold weather.

Overall:

Madeleine and I both had a wonderful time. We would recommend this ship and itinerary without hesitation to anyone. This was made possible by the crew and the beautiful ship we sailed on and the great people in our group. Was it worth it? Absolutely, every penny. Would we do it again? I can be ready in 15 minutes!!!

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