Ovation of the Seas is a beautiful ship with quite a few teething problems. Had a fabulous cruise on Oasis of the Seas out of Fort Lauderdale in 2015. Oasis is 80,000 tonne larger than the Ovation and the organisation on such a large ship was faultless. Was looking for the same experience on this ship but not to be. Got the feeling immediately that a cost cutting exercise had been carried out at the passengers expense to save money for the cruise line. Meant lots of the nice little touches were missing from the Ovation.

Cabin TV had same few TV programmes repeated endlessly the entire cruise. No movie channel, you had to pay for movies. Shampoo only in the shower and no clothesline forcing you to pay for any laundry. Stand in an endless queue for ages for a 3 minute ride on the bumper cars. Guest Services were sadly lacking in a lot of the basic knowledge. Went back 3 times to ask the same question. Struck 3 different staff members and received 3 different answers.

Very noticeable that unless you were into beauty or fitness programmes there was very little daytime entertainment. So many of the seasoned cruisers were making the same comments. "A huge disappointment and would not sail on this ship again." Provisions did not seem to be reaching the Windjammer in a timely manner. How can you run out of cheese early into the cruise. At one stage only peanut butter or honey for your toast. Took about 2 days for the jam to reappear. Minor things but put lots of them together and it begins to look like bad management on the catering side. Read more