Preamble
Back in February of this year my wife and I did the typical Canadian vacation thing and took an 8 day cruise vacation to the Carribean. I say typical because the majority of the people I talk to in Canada generally go to a beach resort in the winter or take a cruise, generally to some warm island in the Carribean.
My wife and I tend to get a little bored at resorts so we generally go with the cruise option for our vacations.
We have tried several different cruise lines over the years and have found Royal Carribean to be our favorite, with maybe Celebrity Cruise Lines coming in a close second.
Royal tends cater to our demographic and generally tends to rank fairly high on all of the categories that are important to us (i.e. food, entertainment/activities, and demographics...etc).
We did a Princess cruise once and the food was incredible but the age group was geriatric. The average age appeared to be around 75+ from what I could tell. The Norwegian ship that we did had great night life and bars and the drink package was included, which was a major plus, but the food was absolutely terrible in our opinion. Celebrity had great food and decent shows but the ship was a little less fun for us. Royal has always had the best shows and entertainment in our opinion, and the boats are generally quite fun overall. The food hasn't been as good as Celebrity and Princess but is generally still quite good overall (only marginally worse really).
Like most cruisers we have also gotten stuck in the loyalty program loop in our attempt to build up points to gain the new perks that each new tier brings. But enough preamble, let's get into our cruise with:
Royal Carribean Odyssey of the Seas!
Port of Call: Ft Lauderdale
The Odyssey of the Seas sails out of Fort Lauderdale Florida so we took a flight from Toronto the night before and stayed in a hotel before heading to the port the next morning.
Getting onto the ship was a breeze that day. There were virtually no line ups at all for some reason. Before we knew it we were standing on our balcony heading past Fort Lauderdale looking out at the other ships.
And just a short time after that we were saying goodbye to the city...
and heading out to sea.
Our Cabin
As I mentioned, my wife and I have done quite a few cruises in the past.
This picture outside our door helped us find our room
We only ever got an inside state room in the past. They are located in the middle of ship and are very small with no window looking out.
For this cruise we decided to upgrade to a balcony for the first time though. Man, what a difference that makes!
The room was a lot bigger than we were used to and the balcony was really awesome for letting natural light in.
It was nice being able to look out at the water and for having a place to sit and read when there weren't any chairs outside on the deck.
That happened to us on one windy day when they decided to close the top deck for safety reasons. There wasn't a single free chair outside that day.
The bathroom in the room seemed to be about the same size as I remember it to be. No big difference there. They are tight but very well laid out. I found it to be more than enough space for me to be comfortable in.
Ship Deck
This ship was decorated with in a tropical theme that had a very vintage look about it.
The colors and the murals reminded me of a throw back to a previous decade, maybe the 80s or 90s or something. It reminded me of a tiki bar I think.
I took a lot of these photos on our last day right before leaving when no one was outside. Normally there would be people everywhere.
The upper deck here is what was closed the one day due to the winds. When it was open there were quite a bit of chairs to sit on but not a lot of shade so you definitely needed sunscreen up there. Of course the day that I took the photo it was overcast, but most days were full sun and quite hot.
There was a novelty look out pod (I forget it's actual name) that brings you way up over the ship. I'm sure that it would be a pretty cool birds eye view of the everything. You can book time slots to go up but we didn't care to do it this time around. I just can't be bothered to do such things.
There is also a rock wall, and a lot of the usual games like shuffleboard, oversize chess and a soccer/football billiards game.
The Solarium is a covered deck that's for adults only. It's a lot quieter with a lot less going on than the main decks and pool areas, and is a good place to be if it's a little chilly outside or if the weather is rainy or windy.
There are smaller pools and several hot tubs but no blasting music or pool activities. We spent a lot of our time in there reading on the sun chairs.
The ship lights outside are always pretty impressive at night.
Everything is lit up with neon lights and sometimes my wife and I take walks outside after dinner.
Ooooo glow-ee.
Interior Finishes
Cruise ships always have some impressive features inside and generally have one or two major art installations that are centrally located and meant to be a sort of show piece.
The Odyssey of the Seas ship had this molten metal waterfall located between the elevators.
Across from that was this glass "see through" floor on one of the staircases. you can see it at the top of the photo of the molten waterfall as well. It wouldn't be great for those suffering from vertigo so they made sure that there are alternate routes that bypass that section.
Food
The food was pretty decent on the ship. We ate in the dining room each night and at the buffet for breakfast and lunch. The dinner meals were always much more fancy than lunch but I didn't take any photos of them, just of my buffet plates..sorry.
The dining room was two floors with with two main seating times at 5:30pm and 8:00pm.
There was also the option of doing the flex seating, but the line up for that was quite long each night so we stuck with our 8:00pm time slot.
My wife looked extra pretty dressed up for dinner each night.
Breakfast was typically the same at the buffet each morning (image below) but lunch was always a little different. There were a few other locations around the boat serving meals as well that we began eating at later during our stay.
The late night snack after the buffet closed was pizza, panini style sandwiches and a few options for dessert (cookies and cakes).
Bars and Drinks
Bars are a big part of any cruise. This ship had several scattered throughout the ship in various locations.
The first one above was an English style pub.
There was also a wine bar and the Havanna club that specialized in rum based drinks.
That location usually had live music each night before our dinner time and the band and singer were quite good.
We often went there for a pre-dinner cocktail.
My drink of choice for before dinner was an old fashion on this cruise.
We also tried espresso martinis one night. To me they looked better than they taste.
I found them to be too sweet and artificial tasting.
I preferred a standard martini, sometimes dirty.
One interesting location that was sort of a novelty was the Bionic bar. Two robotic arms made drinks from a set menu that you could order from a tablet station.
They even shook or stirred the drinks which was neat to watch. We didn't order any drinks from it but stopped to watch it in action a few times.
We also went to the music hall each night for some pre-dinner trivia.
My wife and I love doing trivia on cruises. we actually won one night too and got a cheap key chain as a prize.
Random
The esplanade on Royal Carribean ships is generally located on one of the lower floors. It's sort of a central plaza with shops, restaurants and bars.
This ship also had a large arcade and a "fun zone" that had bumper cars at certain times for kids and pickle ball tournaments for adults.
There was a sports bar in that area that served burgers and wings and things but it was one of the restaurants that you had to pay extra for so we skipped it. We never go to the "specialty restaurants" on our trips. The food is quite good at the main dining room so why pay extra for food?
This large room at the back of the ship hosted a few of the main shows. There was also a full size theater located elsewhere that hosted some of the other live entertainment. We watched the Show Girls musical this time around, two other dance and singing performance and a comedian juggler who was actually quite funny.
So that's about the "just" of what I can say about the Odyssey of the Seas ship. I'm sure I could go on more but I've probably bored you to death already. In my next posts I'll discuss the specific stops that we made during the trip.