We just returned from our first fabulous trip to Alaska. Our travel agent recommenced Vision of the Seas as we have a 16 year old son and Vision has a great teen program. Our son had a great time and was never in before midnight. And as we all know, when kids are happy, we are all happy. If you read the other recent reviews, you can get a feel for our trip. I wanted to add that Capt. George went out of his way a few times to make our trip a very memorable one. On our way out of one of the ports he "drove" the ship close to a huge group of seals. He shut the engines down so much that you could hear not only the seals "barking" but also the birds in the trees near-by. The smell of pine trees wafted over the bow as we admired the seals both on the shore and playing in the water. Another time, Capt. George took us close to an area out of Icy Strait that was famous for whale activity. We were not disappointed. A pod of 15 or so whales were playing, rolling and flapping fins which gave us a great show. Once again, the ship came to an almost complete stop so that everyone could take photos and admire nature at its best.

We were on the cruise (Jul. 9, 2004) that hit an iceberg. You can read more about it elsewhere, but suffice to say, I did not feel we went any closer to the glacier than the Holland ship that was near us. There were icebergs a mile away from the calving glacier, any of which we could have hit. We just happened to hit one that was big enough to damage the prop. I felt Royal Carib. handled everything extremely well other than promising us lunch and then not providing it. We received a notice in our cabin Thur. night saying breakfast would be served Fri. our day of departure, until 9:00 a.m. and then lunch would be served at 11:00. Instead they ran breakfast until 10:00 a.m. and cancelled lunch, but did not announce it. Many skipped breakfast "knowing" they could get lunch at 11:00 and were very surprised and disappointed. A simple announcement over the PA would have solved the problem!!

There were many people who had to be re-booked for their flights due to our late arrival into Seward (due to only being able to use one prop--the other was damaged by the iceberg and created a huge vibration when engaged). We had given our departure information to the purser earlier in the cruise so they knew who would need extra help. RCI paid for any cost incurred due to re-booking, did the re-booking, and if you could not make it out that day, paid for your hotel. I feel they did everything possible and efficiently as they could under the circumstances. We were not affected as we continued on a tour (cruisetour) but were the last off (2:30 p.m) and had had no lunch! Read more