At check in for the cruise it would have been nice to have received a warm and welcoming smile from the lady who dealt with us rather than the very unenthusiastic & cool reception we received. However, the elderly folk quayside at Sydney harbour were helpful in directing us where to leave our luggage. I must say that we had expected the cabins to be better than your average ones but they were tinier than some much smaller and less prestigious ships. I had to climb over the bottom corner of the bed to gain access to the small gap between the bed and squeeze between it and the wall to get into the bed. We did offer to pay for an upgrade to a larger cabin but were told there were none available. We had 3 adults sharing our cabin which apparently could take 4 people - in my view storage and cabin space was barely adequate for 2. I would add that we have in excess of 30 cruises under our belts and this cabin would rate amongst the worst. Photographs in the brochures and online showed a "privacy curtain" but when I enquired about this being missing (the third adult was my 20 year old son) I was advised they'd all been taken out. My sister's cabin was the same and she repeatedly hit & bruised her leg on the edge of the drawer/dresser unit trying to get into & out of bed. . . .Then there was the smell! . . . The corridor outside our cabin was putrid - after complaining 3 times, eventually and following several attempts at cleaning the carpet, it was alleviated somewhat. I did notice a similar smell on a couple of other cabin decks too. The ship ran out of Californian blush wine mid-way and despite taking onboard supplies in Melbourne it took a further 3 days before this reached the bars! (So much for having the wine drinks package!). The ship even ran out of packs of cornflakes! Cheap & nasty $4.88 "bargain" gifts & tat were on sale so often along the Royal Promenade we were sick looking at them and especially the repeated wristwatch sales. For those who did make the effort to turn up for the "sales" and excitedly jostled for free ballot tickets, the ballot prize was shamefully cheap, i.e. very cheap holdall, very cheap small bag etc. The shows were disappointingly poor and we weren't enthusiastic at all about rushing to get to them (we noticed lots of people walk out and even more just didn't bother attending). Both the comedians didn't exactly have everyone in stitches laughing either. The ship's entertainment was pretty awful and much of it depended upon guests making the effort to participate and create the entertainment themselves. Tours we found very expensive and not good value for money. We did some on our own for a fraction of the cost. The Tierie Gorge railway trip certainly wasn't worth the huge expense (AU$249 each) although the volunteers onboard the train did make the journey much more pleasurable for us otherwise it would have been totally boring. We were across the iron bridge before you'd know it (it does all look better in the brochures) and the views were mostly of barren scrubland. The Maori village experience involved mainly one guy dressed in a pair of football shorts clearly visible underneath his fur type partial cape - we understood we were going to something rather different resembling a Maori village, but it turned out to be a single community hut with the same guy providing an overview and 3 or 4 ladies singing. Shopping in Dunedin didn't occur either as we were running out of time so the ships newsletter reminding us to take local currency for shopping in Dunedin was irrelevant and the money we had changed to New Zealand Dollars rendered totally useless. However another coach on the same trip did manage a whole 15 minute town centre stop (lucky them . . . ). Photography onboard is far too expensive (AU$20 per photo) and we felt pestered by photographers at every given opportunity. Some backdrops were set beside people having a drink in the lounges thereby inflicting repeated flashing of bright lights whilst setting up (a little consideration to relocate to a more appropriate area perhaps, as God help anyone with a photosensitive condition/epilepsy). At the commencement of our cruise the queues for the Sapphire dining room were dreadful, took ages, and when we were eventually served our meal it was cold, hence we left before having anything further. Subsequent meals weren't exactly hot either and got cold quickly. What was detailed on the menu wasn't always what you got on your plate either. In the Windjammer it was a bit of a free for all given the numbers this ship holds (over 3,000 passengers), that's if you could find what you were looking for and of course by then everything else on your plate was cold too. The food there could have been much better and I especially recall a curry literally swimming in oil. Layout could have been much better too. At the end of the cruise we were repeatedly (3 times within half an hour on one particular occasion) encouraged to applaud all those who had served us despite having paid very handsomely for the pleasure and having already applauded everyone in both main dining areas. I felt this was a little over the top, ingratiating and self gratifying as we had already shown our appreciation to staff via gratuities paid in full as well as further individual extra cash ones. The Voyager of the Seas is a huge ship comprising mainly of as many guest cabins as possible. While staff are mostly friendly and helpful, we felt the ship really is more about squeezing as many people onboard as possible, flogging as much cheap tat for quick profits and extracting as much money from everyone as possible rather than focusing on guests having a truly wonderful & memorable experience which is, after all, what everyone has paid for . Many people we spoke to commented that they were "not enjoying this cruise" and all complained of being "bored" and looking forward to getting off. We reckon that just about summed it all up.

PS I would have posted this on Royal Caribbean's invitation to survey my recent cruise but unfortunately they restrict the time allowed to 1 week. As we stopped off en route home my opportunity to post it on their survey has expired. I thought that rather strange.