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Excellent

Very Good

Enchantment of the Seas

Vision of the Seas

Grandeur of the Seas

Dover

We had a terrific time on this Latin American cultural immersion cruise. There was Latin music to dance to every night. I don't speak Spanish, but all of the Royal Caribbean staff spoke English and we thoroughly enjoyed the Latin American influenced food. The entertainment was excellent, and we loved the acrobatic aerial show in the Centrum. The food in the main dining room was outstanding, and we had a terrific service and wait staff at our table. We had such fun with our table mates at dinners, we were probably annoying the other guests with all of our laughing. Our room steward Zoe was amazing and we loved our junior suite. The only occasional noise we heard was when they rolled carts in the Solarium above us, but it was so seldom that once we knew what it was, we tuned it out. This was my first Royal Caribbean cruise, and I liked that they didn't constantly come over the announcement system telling us the schedule of where we could be and what we could be doing; they give you the schedule the night before, and it's up to you to plan your time and get where you want to go, or not.
I have cruised on Carnival for years and one of my pet peeves was all the announcements. My biggest complaint about Royal Caribbean is that they are selling special meals and "fresh squeezed orange juice" in the main dining room now. I have no objection to the pay as you go dining restaurants, where people can choose to pay for meals if they want to do something other than the main dining room, but in my opinion, the main dining room is part of the all inclusive experience and there shouldn't be "specialty meals" or extra cost food items offered in the main dining room. Before you know it, they'll be charging extra for anything worth having, and you can have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for free. For breakfast in the main dining room, the server asked if we'd like fresh squeezed orange juice and we said yes, and then they asked for our card and said it was $4.95 per glass.
I loved the ship, it never felt crowded. I also have to give big kudos to the guest services and engineering department. A baggage handler broke the main pull up handle off my suitcase prior to boarding. I was very upset as it was a brand new high quality suitcase, but I didn't want it to ruin my trip, so I unloaded the suitcase and put it away and didn't give it another thought until the day of debarkation. I then contacted the guest services to see if they thought there was someone on board that could fix it or even come up with an ingenious temporary fix. They immediately collected the suitcase and it was repaired like new and returned to me within hours. I don't recommend waiting until the last minute like I did, but I was very grateful that they were able to "handle" this for me.

Great Cultural Immersion Cruise - Excellent Ship, Great Staff, Terrifi

Coming from Western Canada, the airfare to Panama was about the same as Miami or Puerto Rico but the cruise was better priced than the others so we chose this cruise. We rented a car at the Airport in Panama City and stayed overnight at the Mariott Metromall. We were lucky enough to buy a toll card from the attendant at Thrifty. The drive to the hotel and the drive out of the City was a challenge. The roads are poorly marked and the maps lack detail. It was nice to have the flexibility of a rental car to stop where you want. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Miraflores for 2 days at the end of the cruise.
We have previously cruised on the Carnival Valor and were expecting a step up ith RCI. We found that the Carnival Valor had better food choices that are included with the price, better on ship activities (eg. basketball and mini golf) and the room was slightly larger. Eventhough the ship had a recent reno, it is showing its' age. It lacks much of the extras that they have on their other ships. Eventhough the RCI website indicates they have added Coca Cola Freestyle machines to all their fleet , the Vision of the Seas does not have it. (Apparently because it is not based in the USA). You still get the basic RCI ship and service but no extras - thus the name of the review RCI LITE.
Our room was at the back of the second level on the starboard side. We called it the sewage section because of the heavy smell of sewage when you walked down the hall. Given its location you expect engine noice but this was more than expected.
As mentioned in other reviews, the majority of passengers on this cruise are Spanish speaking. We enjoy the Spanish culture and this was one of the highlights of the cruise.
Our favorite ports were Cartagena because of the old City and Curacao for the architecture. We went scuba diving on Aruba and Bonaire and prefered Bonaire because of the amount of sea life and the history behind the salt ponds near the diving area.
 

Royal Caribbean Lite

We had a very nice cruise which was both exciting seeing all the new ports and experiencing the Latin American culture and also relaxing as for us there wasn't a lot to do on the ship so there was no guilt in going to bed early!
We stayed the night before the cruise in the Country Inn and Suites Panama Canal and then hired Rudy's Private tours to show us the sites of Panama (both pre and post cruise). We toured Panama City, Fort of Portobello, Gatun Locks, an Embera Indian Village, and Gatun Lake. Stayed the night before departure (Tocumen Airport) at the Gamboa Rainforest Resort. Both hotels were very good and the views from our balconies of first the Panama Canal and then the rainforest/Lake were spectacular.
This was our first RCL cruise and we knew it was going to be Spanish first/English second but our high school daughter is learning Spanish and wanted the cultural immersion and we love experiencing new things. There was no problem with ship communication and the staff all spoke English. The only time I felt "left out" was during the entertainment and playing Bingo. We went to see the Argentinian Gaucho (cowboy) and he was great except most of his stories were in Spanish and the crowd including my daughter were laughing there heads off but sadly no translation but my daughter said he was very funny. Obviously! There wasn't a lot to do at night compared to other cruises I have been on but we decided that that wasn't a bad thing as after long port days, dinner and we went to three of the shows it was good to just go to bed.
Our Junior Suite was terrific. Very nice with a large aft balcony. First time and I loved it! Ship was clean, newly renovated just smaller than ships I had been on in the past. Easy to get around and staff was very friendly, food was good. We liked the variety in the Windjammer. The negatives came from the Spa. the first sea day both my daughter and I had treatments and they were fine, however we each did another treatment and they were both awful. My massage was terrible and then she tried to overcharge me and my daughter was supposed to have a 75 minute hot stones and she arrived back in the room only one hour later so obviously they cut her visit short but still charged 75 minutes. She said she didn't talk much at the end to the spa lady as she was trying to sell her massage oils and she told them she had to talk to me. So I'm assuming that even though you pay for 75 minute massage 15 minutes of that is their sells pitch.
Ports were great: Cartagena we did a private tour with Dora De Zubiria. Beautiful city and Dora really worked with my daughter on her Spanish. Bonaire my daughter and husband went scuba diving and I went on Woodwind snorkeling cruise. Aruba we took a taxi and went to Eagle Beach (MVC resort) and renting chairs along with jet sking and then tubing. For the tubing they picked us up and took us up to Palm Beach. I enjoyed the boat ride just going up the coast. In Curacao we went to the Dive Bus so they could again scuba and I snorkeled off the shore. Very nice people and water clarity was great.
It was a very good cruise and loved all our sights, the ship was nice and we came home rested.
 

Great Ports and good experience with the Latin American

My wife and I took this "Cultural Awareness" cruise last week. Although the majority of the passengers were from Latin America, as English speaking Canadians, we felt no discomfort whatsoever. All of the staff onboard spoke English, and Royal Caribbean delivered their typical excellent service. If you enjoy the evening shows, then you may be dissapointed as the majority where in Spanish, however several were primarily shows with english music, which were excellent, and I felt badly for the Latino guests.
All announcements were made in English, so for us it was much like any other cruise.
We stayed over in Panama City at the Metromall Courtyard Marriot, which was excellent, and booked a transfer online with Panama Travel Unlimited ( air conditioned van, 120.00 US for 2 people) for transfer to the port which is about 1:15 hr away. The driver spoke little english, but we had no difficulty, as the both the hotel staff, and a staff member at the pier were able to translate for us. Our transfer was approx 1/2 hour late arriving at the hotel due to traffic, and the bellboy at the hotel was very helpful, calling PAnama Travel to find out where he was.
The best ports were definitely Cartagena and Curacao. Bonaire and Aruba were more of the typical Caribbean tourist ports, although I we didnt do too much exploring in either.
In CArtagena, we started out just wanting to take a taxi to Old Town, 20.00 US one way. It seems this is a fixed price, however once we were in the car and out of earshot of the organizers at the taxi stand, the driver offered us a 3 hr tour for 60.00 total. He took us to the monestary, the fort and to old town shopping district. He then took us on a walking tour through old town, explaining things and making sure we were not too badly harassed by the vendors. HE also gave us a sticker with his name on to were to indicated we were under his supervision/protection. We thought it a very good tour, more local in flavour and more economical than the cruise shore tours. Our guide's english was enough to explain the sites to us. A prolonged English only conversation would be difficult.
Curacao is a great place for walking, lots of European Dutch influence, shops galore, and apparently great beaches, although it was so windy the day we were there that some complained it was like a sandstorm on the beach.
The biggest (pleasant) shock by far for us was going from -25C in Ontario to +30C in Panama in one day! Don't let the LAtino culture intimidate you! Although a few words of Spanish are definately helpful, you can get on just fine without it, and don't need to know any once aboard.
A great cruise!
 

A great winter getaway

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