I wanted to sail on Ovation of the Seas because of her size and the fact I could sail from Fremantle to Sydney. So I needed to book through the charter company's agent. We had chosen a balcony cabin but misinterpreted the 2 or 1 cabin pricing and had to go down to an interior cabin price. We decided to wait a while as usually the price drops towards the sailing date if there are a lot of cabins left to sell. However on ringing the travel agent a few weeks later, we were told that there were only a few cabins left and the charter company wouldn't be reducing the price and therefore we shouldn't wait any longer to guarantee a cabin. So we booked. A week and a half later, the charter company reduced the price of a Balcony Cabin to $100/person less than we paid for an inside. We were annoyed and tried to get the deal, but they did not respond. We did eventually get un upgrade to a balcony cabin after speaking to the charter rep on board but at a cost. We later discovered someone had been upgraded to a balcony for nothing and that as a Diamond Plus member of RCC, I was entitled to an upgrade for free if a cabin was available. RCC's comment on these issues was that they had no control over the cabins on this charter. The charter company's reps comment was that they weren't obliged to meet RCC's Crown and Anchor privileges, however 2 people we spoke to had in writing from them that all privileges would be met. Will NEVER book a charter again.

I've read lots of comments about the food and people were certainly talking about it on board. I sincerely hope that the standard of the food in the free restaurants and Windjammer was the result of the charter because it was definately not up to RCC's usual standard. I also hope that the expansion of restaurants you need to pay for is not the reason for this. The majority of people want to cruise because everything is included.

The booking system for My Time Dining, the North Star, the flight simulator and some of the shows was frustrating. We tried to book online before we left but it kept coming up saying "book on board". I thought the idea of My Time Dining was to allow you to dine whenever you wanted and for me, if a table isn't available, I either wait or go to the buffet. All dining times were booked when we tried so initially we thought we would have to eat in the buffet the whole time, but it turns out you can go down without a booking and they will fit you in, even if you have to wait a bit or share a table. As it turned out, we missed out on the North Star because at our booked time, the wind was too strong to run it and at out catch-up time, the same thing happened. I've never had to book a show before either (unless it was an Ice Show) so the spontaneity of deciding on the night what you want to do was disappointing. Read more