Beautiful ship but too crowded and too big to maximize cruising Alaska.

We had a later embarkation time (1:30) and we had no issues - walked quickly onboard and had immediate access to our cabins (although our luggage arrived several hours later).

We were a large group with several teenagers so we chose Ovation of the Seas for our Alaska trip as we thought it would provide a better range of activities while at sea. In past cruises our teenagers have really taken full advantage of the on board activities. Unfortunately, the activities on the Ovation had really long lines or reservations were all booked (we even tried to make them before the cruise, on-line, but were not available). My guess is that the suites and those that purchased the "Key Pass" had priority, leaving little availability. We waited in a very long line trying to make reservations on the first day but had no success. We were told to keep checking the RC app for cancellations but the system kept crashing and was unusable. Read more