Pleasant is not enough for a "Royal" cruise

It went wrong with the check in counter at the terminal of Marine Bay Cruise Terminal in Singapore.

Before that awful experience everything went smooth.

It was my wife’s Australian visa, although GRANTED, that caused the uproar.

She is Filipina, a flight attended for 33 years with Cathay Pacific, and applied on line for an Australian Visa, which was granted within 3 days.

The problem, so it seems, was the processing of the visa, there is no link between immigration and the cruise liner’s administration! Therefor they have to call immigration in Australia to verify whether the visa was really granted and attached to her passport.

I send the granted Australian visa months before boarding to Vacationstogo travel agent Lex Harrison and the Royal Caribbean Cruise line, when checking in on line, everything was fine, no questions asked.

2 weeks before sailing I received the boarding pass and luggage tags, late because we are interline (airline crew) and therefor got our stateroom assigned shortly before sailing.

It took 45 minutes at the check in counter, with many officers involved to get the “GO” signal.

It was a humiliating experience, which flashed in my mind as a racial approach.

Not from the officers that only did their job as instructed by their superiors and acted courteous and polite.

But the fact that despites ALL our pre-check-in efforts, NOBODY of Royal Caribbean seemed to check the documents, but only AFTER we were about to board the ship and to than make us feel like fraudsters, because their processing procedure was faulty!

The correct procedure should be that every passenger should submit their visa, in time on line to the cruise liner involved and not when passengers were boarding the ship and therefor prevent the passenger to be treated like a criminal for no reason at all.

Another unfortunate experience is the MUSTER CALL.

We had to endure 45 minutes in the heat and humidity on deck 4, Reason? Waiting for late comers! It took 5 minutes for the drill. Late comers should be penalized.

Sunday mass for the devoted Catholics is at 9.00 AM, but the breakfast starts at 8.00 AM. However the Queue takes 45 minutes to get you to your table.

Was it ALL a mistake? …..NO

The ship “Voyager of the Seas’, a 20 year old , newly refurbished cruise ship, great nostalgic interior architecture, well thought of economic designed staterooms, is quite cozy.

Except for the Sky chapel, which is completely out of line with the rest of the ship, cold, white chalked with huge, white Aphrodite inspired, sculptures.

The food is ok, but not as good as Princess or Norwegian, not many variations, shows ok, but the sound mix bad, singers are screaming and screeching due to overpowering volume and wrong equalizer settings, lyrics completely wasted. The ice skating show very impressive. The top of the bill was the acrobat duo…from Ukraine and Italy. Amazing performance. Talked to Cruise Director Michelle about the sound and I must say it improved a bit in the next show. Two singers: one 25th year old USA male and a …..Italian girl. The male singer performed well, the girl should stick to controlled love songs and ballads and not Freddie Mercury’s “Somebody “. She has a lovely voice, but when howling out it becomes unbearable.

The wine tasting: 5 wines: 2 white, 2 red, 1 sparkling……2 were as planned, 3 replaced by inferior ones, due to late arrival in Singapore of the feature ones, missed the boat. Complained to the beverage manager, felt cheated. So sorry, send a nice bottle of New Zealand wine with 2 glasses to the stateroom.

The Port dockings on this repositioning cruise were absolutely un-interesting, either far off the coast on Anker, so boat transport required, which took very long to execute, or docking in an industrial area, 45 minutes with shuttle bus from town.

The newly refurbished staterooms on Deck 3 were noisy at night, due to cleaning or other activities above the staterooms.

Staff: very pleasant, helpful and attentive. Stateroom attendant Kadek Sukma from Indonesia excellent. Headwaiter Kai and waiter Ryan in dining room very pleasant, did a great job. Carlo was the best, always pleasant, singing in the Windjammer as washi, washi crooner and in the evenings our table waiter.

All and All, a pleasant relaxing cruise. We enjoyed the total voyage despite our criticism !