Maryanne Roesler

Age: 36 to 45
Number of Cruises: 6 to 10 Cruises
Ship: Vision of the Seas
Sailing Date: April 12, 2000
Itinerary: Panama Canal

We are two female friends traveling together age 42 and 50.

Arrived San Juan at 1:30 pm.  Had to wait on long lines to board the ship.  They moved quickly but it still took a while to board the vessel.

Our luggage started to arrive on our deck around 8:30 pm.  After waiting till 10, one piece was still missing – my garment bag with all my formal clothes, bathing suits and underthings.  I filed a report with the purser’s desk and they said their agent in San Juan would trace this in the morning.  They said it could turn up in St Thomas.

We arrived in St Thomas and had a great day shopping and at Megan’s Bay.  Jewelry shopping is great – bought some Tanzanite in Cardow Jewelers.  Tanzanite is my personal favorite.  Megan’s Bay is reported to be one of the 10 nicest beaches in the world.  It is definitely worth seeing.  When we arrived back at the ship, still no luggage.  I was devastated.  I had to purchase two bathing suits at the Gift Shops and some Formalware but I had a hard time overcoming my disappointment.  RCCL gave me a $150 credit in the gift shop which helped.

After a day at sea we arrived at Curacao.   After a great trolley tour of the island we shopped in the downtown area which was really nice.  We then did the Beach Tour and a fun day at the beach.  We returned to the cabin and my missing luggage was there.  I never found out what officially happened, but I think that when we boarded the ship, the Galaxy was also boarding in San Juan.  In Curacao, we also saw the Galaxy in port.  I think my luggage was mistakenly put on board the Galaxy.  The missing piece did not have a new airline sticker on it but did have an additional Vision of the Seas luggage tag.  I think RCCL goofed up when separating the luggage.  Lesson learned – pack half of the stuff in the garment bag and half of the stuff in the suitcase so that you always have part of everything you need.

On to the Panama Canal. This made the whole cruise worth while.  What a spectacular site.  I can only imagine what it is like to see this from land.  The Vision is the biggest ship to sail through the canal and it was a tight fit.  It is amazing to watch the whole process and to see how quickly a ship goes through the three locks.  Bring binoculars, especially if you plan on a tour in Costa Rica.

Then, on to Puntarenas, Costa Rica. I wasn’t sure I would like this port but it was great.  The tours the ship organized were of a long duration and required a lot of time on a bus, so we decided to stay local and shop at the pier.  This was fun shopping in an open air market.  It had local souvenirs and wooden carved boxes.  Others who did the tours said Costa Rica is beautiful and the tours were great.  The shopping tour was 5 ½ hours but only had 1 hour of shopping at Sarchi, the rest on the bus.

Our final destination was Acapulco.   Again, I was pleasantly surprised to find a beautiful port and beautiful hotels.  Unfortunately, there was also a lot of poverty and hardship next to luxury hotels.  We took a tour in Acapulco and saw the cliff divers, local scenery and the Mayan Palace hotel. If I ever take a land vacation again, I would definitely want to stay here.  It was the most beautiful hotel I’ve ever seen but I’m told the Princess is nicer. Definitely recommend the tour if you have an afternoon flight.  Otherwise, you wait on the ship for hours to depart and then waid hours in the hotel.  And, the Acapulco airport is a disaster.  There is no flight info available and no PA system.  I think the volume of people from the cruise waiting to get flights out overwhelmed them but it was still a bad experience.

The trip home to Newark NJ was exhausting.  After getting up at 5:30 am, we had a tour, then to the airport for a very disorganized wait for our flight,  Then, fly four hours to Atlanta, had a 3 hour layover and then another two hours to NJ.  We had to claim luggage in Atlanta, go through customs, recheck the luggage and board another plane.  We arrived home at 12:09 am and I slept for 16 hours.  I think, in hindsight, doing the reverse itinerary would have worked out better – flying home from San Juan instead.

Reviewing the week on board, the following are good things and bad things:

Good:

- The outdoor pool was great. There were two sections, one shallow and one 5-6 feet deep.  Surrounding these was a ledge with about 4 inches of water and a bench to sit on surrounded the whole pool.  Sitting on the ledge with the water swishing around your legs and waist was pure heaven.

- Itinerary was really relaxing – had quite a few days at sea and the ports were all great.  The canal was really exciting to see.

- We had a beautiful suite with a balcony which was really great.  We watched from our balcony when we went through the first lock which was really neat.

- The ship was beautiful.   The Masquerade Theater was gorgeous.  Two level dining room was really special and they had live music in the dining room some nights.  We had the Main seating and had plenty of time before we had to go to the show.  The Viking Crown Lounge was beautiful – the highest part of the ship with great views.

- Everyone we dealt with on board was great.  Service was excellent from the Cabin

Steward to the Waiters. We also had the best table for dinner.  There were 4 other couples and we hit it off on the first night.  Every dinner was filled with lots of laughter and sharing of the day’s experiences.  We also met at the shows and the pool.

- The TV had some good features.  They played videos of the talks on the Ports, the shopping and the Debarkation talks.  They also played a video of the Newlywed/not so Newlywed Game which we had missed.  One channel had news from the bridge which included temperatures, weather conditions and distance traveled and distance to next port.

- The ship had a daily Times Fax and trivia in the library.

- One other interesting and helpful feature was that the carpets in the elevators were changed daily and had the day of the week on them.  Everyone who has traveled knows that you forget which day of the week it is and this was a fun way to remember.

- There were lots on pool seats but you had to reserve them early.  Plenty of towels too.

Bad:

- Dining room should only have tables of no more than 8.  The larger tables made it difficult to have a conversation with everyone at the table.

- There was no karoke.  The machine broke on the first night and that was the last we saw of it.  Very disappointing.

- The phone in the room was by the desk.  I like it better by the bed.

- The shows by the ship dancers were way too loud.  It hurt my ears and I actually had to leave one show.  The theater was beautiful but the acoustics were bad – it you sat under the balconies, there was a feedback from the microphones.

- Speaking of microphones , we went to the wine tasting and a faulty mike made a fun event into an irritating experience.  The same thing happened at dinner (same room) when the live band was planing Phantom – kept fading out.

- Bingo. Now I know it’s supposed to be fun, and a little silly.  But this crew took this to new heights of inanity.  I don’t think they realized we were all adults and we were there every day.  The childishness of the jokes (and the same ones every, every, every day) was unbearable.  The caller had a little name for every number called.  One example was – “here’s those two little ducks back to back – I 22 – give us a quack”.  I dreaded this number being called, but it was the same for each and every number.  Bingo should be fun and a little silly but I beg RCCL to rethink the Vision’s Bingo routine.

- After my luggage was missing, I wondered why cruise ships don’t check the luggage in when it arrives on board so that they can determine if a piece was on board or not.  This would have helped in the search for my missing piece.  They told me that it could be in someone’s cabin but they really had no idea if it was on board or not.

- Dinner – food was good but I’m not fussy.  I did have one complaint.  The other cruises I’ve been on had sections on menu for Soup, Salad, Appetizers and Main Course.  However, the Vision had “Starters” which grouped cold appetizers, hot appetizer and soups.  Then they had salad and Main course.  The implication was to choose one starter, salad and main course.  However, not really wanting to have salad which I can get at home, I wanted an appetizer and soup.  So, this is what I ordered.  Sometimes the soup and appetizer came out the same time and although it didn’t happen, there is the possibility for the soup to get cold.  I just think they should separate these.

- One of the photographers had a problem when taking portraits and kept us waiting while he tried to fix the camera flash.  He finally did something and continued, but the photos came out terrible.

- There were several instances where we smelled sewage smell while going back to Cabin.  This could have been something out of RCCL’s control but is was annoying none the less.

- As far as activities, we found plenty to do.  We did, however, enjoy just laying aound the pool.  Some other passengers said there were not enough activities, most were fitness activities but we were happy with what they had.

Overall, the ship was beautiful and it was a wonderful cruise. However, our fellow passengers told us not to judge RCCL by this cruise because the other RCCL cruises they had been on were so much better.  It could be because the ship just left dry dock and was still getting things back in swing.  We compared this cruise to our others on the Dawn Princess and the Celebrity Century and found them all equal.  RCCL didn’t blow us away.

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