I have just returned from back-to-back Cruises on the Voyager to the East and West Caribbean, quite frankly, I was very disappointed. Don't get me wrong - it was very enjoyable BUT, having cruised a number of times (not with RCI) I would have to say this was the poorest. Most of the people I spoke to agreed, first time cruisers excluded. Those that had travelled with other companies certainly agreed and even RCI addicts agreed that this did not match their previous experiences.
I had told myself not to travel on a large ship but the deal offered overcame my reservations. Well, I was right in my assumptions, whilst Voyager is undoubtably a beautiful ship it is too large. To compound the problem it seemed, at times, that our Cruise was the first time they had done it. On a number of occasions other guests commented that you would have thought that they hadn't done it before!
The shows were brilliant, but some of the headline shows were only performed once. There were 3240 passengers and only 1500 seats in the theatre. I know you expect repeats on a back to back, but the same act was put on on the last day of our first Cruise and the first day of our second Cruise, so we got the same show two nights in a row. Also, on 14 day cruises we have had four different shows by the resident dancers and singers but RCI could only manage two shows repeated each week. Considering the number of back-to-back passengers I think they should provide a 14 day cycle.
Once again, even though this was back to back, surely they could manage a fourteen day Menu cycle, not the same menu two weeks running.
At the same time the variety on the menus was below par, and the desserts, normally one of the highlights of a cruise, were ordinary.
Getting off the boat at their own Port of Labardee was an absolute disaster the first week, having tried at two half hour intervals but turned back by the length of the queues we finally persevered at a third attempt, even then it took just under a hour to get off. At their own port they have large land based tenders which, you would have thought, would speed up the process. On such a large ship you would have thought that they would employ more than one exit, no such luck! The second week was much better but we were unable to work out why. Some passengers quipped that perhaps they had improved with practice.
It should be said that the Staff were fabulous, friendly at all times, but they seemed to have been trained at different schools. The main meal waiters, for example, having a totally different method of working in our first week to those we had in our second week - strange!
We have also been used to having a Wine waiter that provides all drinks, whereas with RCI the Main table waiter looks after the Wine whilst a second Bar waiter looks after any other drinks. In our opinion this overloaded the Main table waiter.
The ship knew exactly how many passengers were on board from each country for each Cruise, they announced it to the Staff at the beginning, but they never printed enough on board newspapers for the British, if you didn't get a copy early you didn't get one!
There were no hygiene hand sprays the first week and the second week most failed to work all the time.
Whilst purporting to support the 'Save the Seas' program, towels were changed every day even though we never requested a change. The amount of advertising material supplied every day was over the top, no conservation of trees policy here.
In all, we had a list of 26 'gripes' which took the edge off this Cruise