4^th of January, After an eventful morning departing from our base location in Brisbane, we were soon headed to the airport to board the plane to Sydney, after a slight 20-minute delay we were well on our way. Planning is vital to any trip, we soon landed, grabbed our bags and headed down to the train boarding platform to take us to Circular Quay. On arrival, it was indeed a site to see, the enormously of this cruise ship was hard to imagine but in person, you got a natural feel for how big this thing was – Royal Caribbean’s, Ovation of the Seas.

Our Itinerary did change a couple of days before our departure, and the updated version looked like this:

• 04/01 – Departure
• 05/01 – Sea Day
• 06/01 – Sea Day
• 07/01 – Noumea, New Caledonia
• 08/01 – Mystery Island, Vanuatu
• 09/01 – Vila, Vanuatu
• 10/01 – Sea Day
• 11/01 – Sea Day (onboard Galley Tour)
• 12/01 – Sea Day
• 13/01 – De-embarkation Day

As we were leaving Australian waters, effectively travelling into international waters, we had to go through the customs process and from the moment we arrived at the dock to board the boat, it was a very slick operation, with minimal wait times and everyone was there to help you and get you on board as quick as possible. Soon enough, we were onboard and eager to find our room, luggage, and our very good friends, the Renny’s, oh look who we found just leaning around!

This is where my blog will change slightly from other blogs I have written, I will share my honest opinion on my experience of our cruise, including tips or tricks, recommendations, and just honest feedback.

The Planning

• Royal Caribbean App, this is a must, you can use this as soon as you have booked your cruise, this is where discounts can be purchased, shore excursions, upload your travel documents and other pre-cruise items. RCC does send you plenty of emails to keep you informed, which is excellent. The app also has a chat feature to keep in touch with other travellers.

• Boarding, we got the notification to choose our boarding time to allow the flow of embarkment, and it works very well, so if you can, choose the time that best suits your travel itinerary. You tag your bags with your room details and very helpful dock staff are there, ready to staple them on your bag for you, these bags make their way to your room at some stage, allowing you to go and explore the cruise liner.

• Drink Package, we opted to purchase the deluxe beverage package as you would know, I like coffee, but as I mainly had sparkling water, water or coffee you would need to do the maths on this one in terms of value for money. My family crew would agree, you can purchase all drinks onboard, but I guess I thought of it knowing how much I had already spent and I didn’t need to worry about bill at the end of the cruise.

• Mytime Dining, I can’t recall exactly when we were able to book our my time dining, but it was at least a month prior to departure. We chose the 5:30pm session, thinking we could then go and watch a live show after dinner each night etc. I would highly recommend booking your chosen time as you can always cancel but the lines, we saw the wait for tables was ridiculous, more on this later.

• Guest Services, the desk to answer your queries, they indeed were busy already and we were one of the many peeps in the queue, unfortunately, even though we had communicated and received confirmation about 3 x rooms all having mytime dining, our room was excluded. We also wanted to link a separate CC to one of our guests so they could track their own expenses. Would this be the last time we had to see guest services, only reading will tell ya .

• Shore Excursions, we had booked the Tchou Tchou Train tour of Noumea through Royal Caribbean and decided to book our own day tour at Port Villa as what we wanted was not available through RCC.
  

Our Room (s)

We did it in style, we booked 2 balcony rooms, 1 for the young adults (our kids + 1) and 1 for fun (us). Seriously though, the rooms are shipping containers that have been furbished to be a room and most people might not be aware this is what they are. The below pics will give you a small insight into the room and for the 2 of us it was fantastic and I would highly recommend paying the extra for a balcony. Even if you don’t use it as much as you might, you get to experience the sights, sounds and breeze.

Each day your room is refreshed, we were lucky as every 2^nd day as our housekeeper left us a surprise made out of towels.

As our boarding experience was approx. 2:30pm and our dinner being booked for 5:30pm, we didn’t have a lot of time to walk around the cruise liner as we had to unpack and try to get setup for the next 9 nights, however, what it gave us was – eating dinner while overlooking the Sydney Opera House, followed by the cruise departing and being able to head to Deck 14 for the experience.

What we (I) did on board

• Bingo, a very interesting a fun session with the local Mexican “Fernanda”, not your ordinary bingo experience as they only play 1 winner, but the winnings were approx.. $400, $800 & $1200. The cost is approx.. $100 for 3 people to play 3 games. We also snuck into the Casino for a little dabble, well, Belinda mainly, but it was all good fun.

• Trivia, during our cruise, we found ourselves sitting in an entertainment area or pub where we participated in a variety of trivia/games, these included – Solve the Mystery, Battle of the Sexes, Michael Jackson History, General trivia, family feud and generation gap.

• Live Entertainment, we sat around and enjoyed the live music, and watched a couple of dancing shows like Pixels, Beautiful Dream, Live Love Legs (Burlesque) and a magician Phil “Trust Me” Cass. These were all very good and entertaining. We also often found ourselves at the onboard Karaoke competition between cruisers, I was pleasantly surprised by the contestants and how good some of them were, it was undoubtedly a very competitive bunch of singers and very enjoyable.

• Fun, I personally didn’t but others in our party certainly went for a couple of dips in the pools, I had a couple of goes playing in the table tennis tournament, we bagged 8 of us getting onto the dodgem cars and lastly, we went on the North Star (eye) while docked at Noumea.

What else did they have on board? Movies (mainly outside), i-fly (we never secured a spot), wave rider, rock climbing, basketball, soccer and shopping.

• GYM, they have a full gym on board at the front of the cruise liner, the odd part was the treadmills were facing out each side of the ship and with the sea’s current at times it was hard to run in straight lines and it felt like you were naturally running up and down hills. Plenty of weight machines on board, along with free weights as well as the classes but these cost extra.

• Galley Tour, we also booked the galley tour, I will get it over now – don’t waste your money. Our group of approx. 20 people could barely fit in the kitchen area which meant we could not hear what was being said, so we learnt nothing, got to ask nothing and it finished with a lunch, which was the most disappointing meal of the entire trip.. Actually, the only we did learn is; uncontaminated food is processed and dumped out in the ocean – got me thinking is this what they do with human waste as well.

What I Ate

The food is very good, its full of freshness, quality, variety, and quantity. We mainly had breakfast at Windjammers but did go to other cafes, continental breakfast to your traditional cooked breakfasts plus more would be the main theme for breakfast. At lunch time I mainly had salads or a light lunch but there were certainly heaps to choose from and an endless supply of fresh fruit.

Our dining saw us eat at one of the main dining rooms each evening at 5:30pm, this is an al carte 3 course menu, but you can order whatever you wish and/or multiple courses. This dining experience allowed us to have the same tables and waiters each evening, we certainly had quality service with plenty of laughs with our waiters, this added value to our evening that you could not pay for. Thanks to our waiters – Wayan and Iputu (Agus) for their hospitality,

I challenged myself on the last cruise day to eat at all the food venues listed below throughout the day, which was a feat.

The list of dining options that are included and where I ate all on the last day:

• Windjammer (buffet, Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner)
• HotDog Van (multiple flavoured dogs)
• Fish n Chips (should have eaten here earlier, was very tasty)
• Solarium Café (smaller version of Windjammer)
• Main Dining Room(s) (waited dining)
• Café 270
• Sorento’s Pizza
• Café Promenade
• La Patisserie

Shore Day’s

Noumea, Day #4, it was a stinker! the humidity was very high. We had booked the Tchou Tchou Train tour around Noumea and certainly were glad we did before boarding the train. After a minimal bus transfer (we could have walked), we jumped onto the bright yellow train. Our guide for the tour was – would have no idea – as this island is part of the French Polynesian Islands in the South Pacific the primary language is French, and our guide certainly spoke English but with a very distinctive French accent. That all being said we really enjoyed our tour and for the most part we could understand what was being said – at least the important stuff. We were very surprised that the main “shopping area” was closed for the most part as it is a very laid-back culture who don’t work on weekends if they don’t have to, regardless if there was a boat full of tourists eager to spend money.

This is where my blog ends, just like our cruise, unfortunately due to reported Cyclones, Earthquakes, and a Tsunami we were unable to use the tender service to our other planned shore days, being Mystery Island and Port Villa. This meant we spent the next 6 days at sea and I certainly felt we missed out, I guess the question each person needs to ask themselves is – Is cruising about Relaxation or visiting unique places and experiencing other cultures?

EXTRAS

Cash or Card

We had American Dollars in cash from our US trip so it just made sense for us to take it as RCC is American Owned and all ports accept American Dollars. If you wish to avoid CC fees for conversion rates, get yourself an international Debit Card that you have loaded US dollars for purchases (inc Casino), or your boarding pass will charge everything back to your room so you can settle your account before departure.

Do you TIP?

If you purchase your alcoholic drinks onboard, the cost includes the gratitude fee, so it’s up to you. We tipped $5 USD per room per day for our housekeeper and gave each of our waiters $180 USD for the 9 nights that they served us, as I mentioned above, they really made us feel welcomed, engaged, and made the cruise enjoyable for me. Lastly, I gave $10 USD to the barrister I mainly went to see at least once a day.

Opportunity for Improvements

• RCC App, this app is actually a good idea and functions well, but something was amiss with the consistency of notifications. RCC had just made the chat function available for free and it would appear this was untested and/or overloaded in terms of connections. The improvement would be to push out the captains’ announcements via the app so you don’t miss them, as they are not played in your staterooms.

• WIFI, the free WIFI (no internet) which is required to update the Apps itinerary as it changes and is widely used for the chat feature, it is inconsistent and did not work at all in areas. The paid service unfortunately is not much better, when you are paying a premium price then you (RCC) need to be able to deliver this as a high-quality service. We did not get the paid internet service, but Jack did and it was subpar.

• Solarium Area, this is area is +16 breakout area, with its own pools and deck chairs, a protocol of chair reserving was not enforced at all from what we witnessed as peeps throw a towel on it and then go for breakfast, coming back later that day to “their” seat. As it is a restricted area with a limited number of lounges and sun recliners maybe introducing a booking system of some sort to ensure everyone has a chance to enjoy this area.

• Cancellations, while we understand the cancellation of shore days is unavoidable due to weather and our safety is the priority (thank you), when these cancellations happened it gave the sense of, RCC has never experienced this before – there was no plan B. In fact, we saw and heard very little of the cruise director from day #5, this is when Mystery Island was cancelled and the irony of where the cruise director went was a mystery.

Unfortunately, this meant that the next 5 days were very repetitive, but nothing new, no backup movies, trivia ideas or anything it just became Groundhog Day.

Will I cruise again?

This has been the question I have asked myself and been asked by others, to be honest, I probably would not in the South Pacific Islands due to the limitations of not being able to dock. When you have ports, the chances are the safety risk is reduced, so I would say yes, I will cruise again to a different location. Our experience was that we had positives and negatives, but you get this on any holiday, Royal Caribbean Ovation of Seas was an awesome ship to be on board, from the moment you join the queue to departure, all staff are very helpful and friendly. The food for the entire journey was very enjoyable and great variety so I never got bored of eating the same thing. Our room for 2 people was very accommodating and we had plenty of storage space. We enjoyed spending time with our friends and having plenty of laughs and sharing good memories.