7 Nights Greek Isles Cruise

Loved our Cruise on Odyssey!

I was a little apprehensive after reading so much negativity in the reviews. Sailing out of NJ in February is chilly as expected, but the ship is so wonderful that staying inside until we reached warmer weather was no issue at all. I’ve been cruising on RCCL for 25 years but took a hiatus since 2018 thanks to Covid and other vacation plans. The advanced technology was amazing and so convenient. What a crew! I saw hard workers no matter where I was, always professional, asking to assist, cleaning up, and being super respectful. Our cabin attendant on Deck 13 was Dwight, and he was fabulous. We had a balcony cabin close to the front of the ship, which was so convenient to the solarium. The solarium was beautiful, and yes of course there will always be chair savers, but many know to remove their items when they are leaving the area, and patient people can find a seat, especially later in the afternoon. It was warm and peaceful there. Food is always subjective, and some meals in the MDR were amazing and others were so-so, but food was plentiful, and it was not a huge issue for us. We had one speciality dinner at Chops, and it was just incredible. The price is crazy high now, but our TA gave us dinner for two (otherwise we might not have gone at the price of $76 per person). It was a wonderful experience and a top-notch meal. Other food venues, such as the cafe and the pizza, were always convenient and easy to get a bite. As a Diamond Plus, we had 6 bottles of water in our cabin and the many free drinks a day at whatever bar we wanted to use them at throughout the day/evening. The drinks were great, even though we didn’t even put a dent in our allocation! As for the ports - Port Canaveral is fairly boring, and Coco Cay was wonderful. I would prefer we dock and stay two days at Coco Cay, but nobody left me in charge! Nassau had 6-7 ships in port, and we ventured out, but it was so crowded that we went back to the ship and enjoyed the day on board. We went to the Book, and like others have said, in the beginning minutes, we thought about leaving but boy, did it get good! I disliked the first 10 minutes but when it got underway, it was great. We went to the other usual events that are somewhat tired after all these years but probably really great for new cruisers, and they were enjoyable. The 270 venue is one of the coolest things ever, such a well-thought out and interactive, modern experience. Your cruise is what you make it! This was super relaxing and fun for us.

It's a nice ship

-The ship has a unique and in some places non-symmetrical/obvious layout. The contributes to it not getting old. Even by day 5 you are still noticing new things and feel that you haven't seen it all yet. -The elevators are a bit of an achilleas heal. There is a lot of waiting. I think it may be because it has touchless buttons. Instead of pushing them, you just have to wave your hand near them. Unfortunately, the result is a lot of accidental button "pushes" and the elevators stopping needlessly on many floors -The casino allows smoking, but their air purification system works great. You really don't notice it. -One major design flaw in my opinion was The Music Club (night club)'s proximity to the Schooner bar. At times the bass completely overpowered the piano player. -The staterooms had a lot of storage spaces and a decent # of of outlets and USB ports compared to older ships. -The tradeoff for innovative indoor venues such as Two70 is that there are no pubic bow or stern areas (on deck 4 or 5) like most ships have to watch the ocean from, do the "Titanic" shot etc. -Speaking of Two70. They spent a lot of time and money on it, and there is a lot of technology in it. My personal opinion though, especially with recent innovations like the Vegas Sphere...is that it may have been built a few years too early and it's technology, although cool, doesn't wow like I was expecting. I know it wows on paper, and in the producers heads...but it didn't quite live up to all the hype. I actually found the way they integrated technology (screens, drones, lasers) into the show in the traditional theater to be far more impressive. -The Windjammer food was pretty good. Not as good as in days past, but better than the last few RC cruises i've been on. They had great variety every night, however, I find there not to be enough go-to American staple foods aside from burgers, hotdogs etc. which they have in the same place every night. I wish they'd find a way to add just a few more non-ethnic/theme night options to that area. -The cabin's bathroom is nice an modern and has a different layout that may of the traditional cruise ships. It lacks a bit of cupboard space, but the shower felt slightly bigger, as did the amount of elbow room in the bathroom. Also, the mirror doesn't fog up the second you open the shower door like on other ships which I appreciated. -The staff were all super friendly and did their jobs well. -The kids club was good. Could be a little better but did the job.

A Relaxing At Your Own Pace Vacation

My wife and I are in our late sixties traveling without children. We have had many cruises with Royal Caribbean. Embarkation: Our reserved arrival time for check-in (not to be confused with boarding time) was 10:30am. Royal Caribbean (RC) sent us emails and text messages the day before informing us to not arrive earlier because the ship would be going through its annual SOLAS inspection from the U.S. Coast Guard. We arrived via personal vehicle and were waiting behind a group of maybe fifty vehicles on a two lane approach for baggage at 9:50am. We dropped off our large bag at about 10:05am and parked in the covered garage by 10:15am. We completed security and check-in by 10:45 and were seated until the inspection was completed. We were onboard with our Safety requirements completed by 11:40am. This is not typical because Odyssey was coming from a transatlantic and there were absolutely no cars from any other ship previous to us. Your experience could be completely different in the summer with multiple ships sailing every week which can often cause parking chaos. Onboard: We booked Giovanni's for lunch at 12pm so we could relax and wait for our cabin to be ready. We ordered the Assorted Meat & Cheese platter, Italian Stromboli, Meat Lovers Pizza, and Steak Muffuletta which we shared (pictures attached). We told the waiter, Agung, that we were in no hurry and he recommended a wine which we enjoyed. We were so stuffed afterwards that we did not eat for the rest of the day. Our balcony cabin was ready at 1:15pm. The Quantum class ships like Odyssey have cabins with plenty of storage space and a balcony large enough for two chairs with foot rests and a table without being cramped. The cabin was clean, in very good shape, with all systems working. Our attendant, Devonne, was fantastic. We always come prepared with a list of requests and she completed everything within two hours. We had excellent neighbors this trip. I did not even know they were there and we tried to return the favor. There were no issues with noise or smoking affecting our balcony at anytime during the trip. We had no issues or complaints about the cabin in any way during the entire week. While gratuities are automatically charged to your room daily, we included an additional tip for outstanding service regarding our requests. Bar service through out the ship was excellent. There were staff making multiple rounds removing empty drink glasses and taking orders onboard and at Coco Cay. We wanted an unscheduled vacation so we decided to not do the Main Dining Room (MDR). This is no reflection upon the MDR, we just wanted to do this cruise without any time obligations. If we were sitting at a bar with music and enjoying ourselves, we did not want to be forced to leave because of a reservation. If we were tired, we wanted to be able to sleep or rest whenever we felt like it. The Windjammer was our main meal place. All of the food pictures except for the Onion Rings from Playmaker, and Lunch in Giovanni's were from the Windjammer. The food this week was extremely good. The best overall salad ingredients, charcuterie, and carving stations I have seen in a while. All of the Windjammer food is included with the basic cruise price so one does not have to pay for anything pictured. Omer was the supervisor of the Windjammer and I saw him morning, noon, and night constantly about, checking everything. Key outstanding dishes: shoulder of lamb, beef tenderloin, carved turkey with crushed cranberry sauce (so good I thought my wife made it), carved linked sausage. We did not leave the ship except for Coco Cay. As I stated, we were very laid back this cruise and just enjoying down time. We have visited the other ports multiple times. I am including the entertainment schedule for the shows instead of describing them all. I enjoyed "The Book" show but the volume during the second half of the show started to give me a headache. If you have reserved seats, I would go to the balcony level where you have a better overall view and might be further away from the main speakers. Overall, the crew was very friendly and tried to go out of their way to honor any request. The ship itself was very clean and well maintained. All of the public bathrooms I used well very clean. The passengers were a mix of all ages. Everyone I interacted with were polite, fun, and personable. The "touchless" elevator buttons were a pain-in-the-neck but everyone handled them with humor when they decided to stop at floors where no-one was there or no one got-off. One of the main pools had to be closed for the day due to a passenger vomiting in the pool. Five of the days were very calm with the last two being a bit windy on the upper decks. I thought the ship rode well in rough weather. My biggest negative of the trip was lack of ice from ice machines that were empty or not working (pictures included). Especially on the pool deck near "El Loco Fresh". The beverage machine did not work at anytime during the week with the ice machine being empty by lunch on most days when the pool could be used. One of three beverage machines in the Windjammer was out of order. The ice machine from Cafe Promenade was also out of order for a few days. Certainly not going to be a deal breaker on such a great cruise but ice seems to be a common issue on most of my warm weather voyages on RC. Debarkation: All passengers were expected to be off the ship by 9:00am. We handled our own luggage but waited until 8am to leave. As to be expected, the elevators were very busy. I think the total time from waiting on the elevator until we were in our car at the parking garage as about 80 minutes. Hope this helps a reader thinking about a cruise on this ship.