We had been on the Qantum before so we kinda knew what to expect from the Ovation, both the good and the bad. The inlaws wanted to go on this particular trip so we figured a shot cruise to Tasmania will be alright on this vessel. First the positive: The ship is just a year old and even though it was close to sold out, the ship mostly does a good job controlling the crowds- with the exception of crunch times around dinner/shows and the elevators which were pretty much always overcrowded unless during port days. But we were generally amazed how much space was available at most times in bars and restaurants etc. Check in and boarding also was a breeze in Sydney as per usual so really no complaints in this respect. Likewise, the general areas and décor is pretty amazing throughout the ship and even our Balcony cabin appeared significantly more modern than on many other ships (albeit the same smallish size). We particularly loved the various artwork throughout the ship and the look and feel of the four different mini-main dining rooms. All pretty impressive!

The super fancy entertainment options like the Ifly and Surf simulator are all geared at teens and twens who thankfully were mostly absent on this trip to the old peoples’ paradise of Tasmania. Unfortunately, people somehow still managed to bring enough of their screaming toddlers on board so that the pool turned into a pee fest as soon as the sun came out. The layout of the ship doesn’t help in this respect as both the indoor and outdoor pools are full of babies while the Adult only area consists of a couple of shallow, chlorine-smelling tubs only which simply doesn’t do it. RCCL’s very own Celebrity Cruises does this much better with their proper adult pool in the Solarium so we’ll stick to them from now on for that reason alone.

We didn’t watch any of the shows (meh) or went on the fancy looking “North Star” Observation thingy either as we had already queued up for it once during that previous cruise on the Qantum and found that there’s nothing more boring than a show ride that, well, doesn’t really do a show ride but rather moves up and down at a glacial pace. La-hame! What we DID utilize though were the bars and restaurants where our feedback would be so so: First off, many of the bar menus you find online won’t apply to Australian cruises as they get massively “amended” to please the more simple crowds here. Think Crownies instead of Beck’s and VB instead of Grolsch. Arg. While we kind of expected this for the beers, we were quite disappointed to also see many of the usual nice American and European wines not to be available by the glass and being replaced by the cheapest of the cheap Aussie selections you can find: Think commercial brands like Wolf Bass Yellow label- pretty much the stuff that goes on special on the lower shelves of your local Liquor Land. I felt sad for the many Asian passengers on board- if THAT is the first Aussie wine you ever try, then you’ll go back to French Bordeaux or Italian Chianti straight away and never turn back. Which is a shame as Australia produces some of the most amazing wines on this planet, albeit that selection doesn’t go by the glass on RCCL. Back to the bars and restaurants- the robot bar is a nice gimmick but you realize very quickly why there’s still work for “traditional” bar tenders out of flesh and blood. These you get at other bars like Boleros (that one actually had the worst of the entire ship- drinks happened to be either entirely tasteless or overly strong), the English pub (our favorite place prior to when the annoying live music starts and the whole place turns into a rowdy puke-place) that did amazing decent “beer cockt-ales” or the Casino-bar which as on many ships, turned out the be the best place on the ship to grab a decent drink (and be thankfully left alone by those ever-present families with their noisy babies). Unfortunately, as on most cruise ships, the options for nightlife and music taste on board was geared at an older generation and the awful oversized rock music hall on the Qantum-class ships only make it worse. The only decent electronic sounds on the entire ship could be heard at the robot bar which unfortunately otherwise is not a very inviting place to sit down for a drink. Otherwise, it’s oldies’ music like rock, country and really awful chart kinda pop- all nothing for our ears. In terms of restaurants, we were strangely positively surprised by the main dining room (which is a quarter of a Main Dining room times four, actually, but with fixed dining you end up in only one of them and get randomly assigned by the crew so you can’t chose). Service was not to mention as always on RCCL but the food was surprisingly good quality for the most of it. We also went for two of the specialty restaurants and were a bit disappointed by both of them: Chop’s Grille, our favorite on other Royal Caribbean vessels, seemed strangely sterile in atmosphere while the steaks were indeed excellent. The biggest disappointment, however, must have been “Wonderland” which is totally oversold by the cruise line. The hard product (like everywhere on this ship) looks great at first but the space is cramped with tables and doesn’t feel very atmospheric at all. Worst was the Indian waiter who not only had a bad command of the English language (so we couldn’t understand half of what he was saying) but also wasn’t the most engaged staff member in his role. Unfortunately I cannot eat fish or seafood due to allergy which didn’t fit the restaurant well so while my partner had a huge bowl full of delicious looking deep-fried Kiamichi that was, to my chagrin, dusted in prawn, I was given a tiny little ball of duck liver parfait which was delicious but, well, not enough and some ultra boring vegetarian choices. When I asked the waiter what he recommends as a main, he told me to get the beef over the pork or chicken only to then later be totally surprised and outraged that I couldn’t eat the squid which comes with it (but isn’t mentioned in the oh so ‘magical’ menu). All in all, a disappointing waste of money for which in theory, sounded like such a cool idea. Read more