Cruisin together

Here’s a summary from our 7 nights at sea on Royal Caribbean’s Voyager of the Seas!

Cabin: we had cabin 6680, a balcony cabin on the port side of the ship, practically at the back. The room was larger than expected, though maybe I prepped myself for a tiny room. We had a balcony with two chairs and a table, a king bed, a three seat couch, desk area and bathroom. Plenty of storage...too much for us! We never heard any noise from next door, above us or below us. Our cabin steward was a ninja, we never saw him but he did a great job! B: 7/10, Ali: 8/10. B says it’s a bit dated, which is a fair comment.

General food: we had breakfast in both the buffet and the dining room, depending on the day. Our first time in the dining room was nothing short of terrible. Lucky we gave it another go, because it was better. The buffet had lots of options but was a bit too hectic for us. Lunch we usually had a lighter meal at the buffet, though one day we had the speciality restaurant, Johnny Rockets. The lunch buffet was quiet on the two Phuket days and they had some good options, I liked the choice of different veggies every day, done in different styles. Dinner we had on the dining room all nights except one where we were at a cooking class in Phuket and another we went to the Italian restaurant, Giovanni’s. The food seemed to get better each night, though across the whole ship, desserts were average. Asian dishes were a safe and delicious choice for dinner. B: 5/10 and Ali: 6/10. It was good food, just not amazing and a bit below our expectations.

Dining room experience: we had a retired Brisbane couple on our table who came to three nights of dinner and a 30’s couple from Texas who we really got along with. We went to a few shows with them and had a few drinks with them so we are really glad they were on our table. Our waitress was.. a bit average. She never gave menu suggestions despite asking, she didn’t ask where we were from and didnt ask our names. She also asked us to rate her service on the survey after the cruise, hinting that 10 was what we should put because it was the company standard and can lead to promotions...so I felt that was a bit off. She was nice though, and her service got better. The first night we were in there for 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Speciality dining: Giovanni’s Italian was amazing! We loved everything we ate. We had pasta and scallops, veal, lamb chops, tiramisu, panna cotta and cannoli. Dessert was good, the panna cotta excellent and the others were passable. The savoury items though! They really were the next level and the best food we had for the whole week.
Johnny Rockets is a burger place we went for lunch. It was pretty cheap and just what we felt like. Burgers were great, milkshake was yum! Would go again. B: 10/10, Ali: 9.5/10

Activities: we did shore tours in Penang and langkawi, Penang was the stand out, our langkawi shore excursion was not a great choice, but still good to see some of the land. On the ship we played bingo, various trivia’s every day, sudoku challenge, mini golf, basketball, ping pong, watched people on the flow rider and enjoyed live music in different venues. Some shows were great and some were average but there was a good mix of styles. A comedian would have been good. B: 7/10, Ali 7/10.

Demographics: so I was a bit surprised when we were checking in that there were a very limited number of Chinese people, I was sure there would be a big cohort. A few staff members mentioned there are usually more Singaporean’s on that cruise also, so not sure what happened! The British were the number one nationality, followed by Australians. There were a far amount of Europeans and also Americans. B and I think the average age was about 65. Very different to what we expected. It wasn’t bad but was surprising.

All in all a great cruise, we enjoyed cruising though the trip was very port intensive (we only had one sea day). I think we’d enjoy a few more sea days on a trip. We both finished a book each though, so still found time to relax.

Overall cruise experience B: 7/10

Overall cruise experience Ali: 8/10.Read more