Ovation of the Seas Review

Beautiful ship with excellent service

Review for Australia & New Zealand Cruise on Ovation of the Seas
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DerekB
6-10 Cruises • Age 40s

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Additional details

Sail Date: Feb 2019
Cabin: Ocean View with Large Balcony

In a shift from shorter Caribbean cruises my family has been venturing out on longer less conventional cruises. We booked this on a previous transatlantic and after waiting almost 2 years to board I could not be happier with how this turned out.

Check-In and Boarding: We arrived at the port in Sydney by train taking the short walk from Circular Quay station, arriving at the pier at 1030am. Almost immediately we were able drop our luggage and enter the building for check-in. We were the first in line for emerald and above Crown and Anchor members. We had already submitted our photos online and the entire check-in process took less than 2 minutes. We were then directed to a seated waiting area while final preperations were being made on the ship. We sat here for no more than 5-10 minutes before passing through immigration/customs and security. From our arrival at the port till we were on board the ship was approximately 20 minutes. I am not sure the process could go any faster if we had tried. Once on board our rooms were available at 1pm with one room key being outside the door to the room and the other being in the room. I was surprised that there was no mention of WoW bands anywhere - but after some inquiry we were able to get them from guest services. I was told there would be a $5 charge, however that never appeared on our account.

Ship: I have been on many ships, but Ovation stood out to me as being quite stunning. The decor is amazing and the entire ship looks as if it was brand new. Although she is 2 years old, I could have been convinced I was on the maiden sailing as everything is in absolutely perfect condition. Coming from Voyager class and the successors, the layout was quite new to me and it took nearly all 12 nights to get a good grasp of where everything is. I was somewhat surprised by the amount of movement we felt. We were in 3 meter seas for the crossing from Australia to New Zealand and it was felt at all times. We experienced 6+ meter seas on the return and I felt the ship weathered this quite well. The motion was very evident, but not enough to send things flying. I never felt crowded, except sometimes the Windjammer was to capacity - however this was the result of other passengers not leaving when finished and even begged by the crew.

Cabin Review

Ocean View with Large Balcony

Cabin 2C

Cabin was very spacious with a large balcony. We were able to open up the balcony dividers to 3 other adjacent cabins creating a very large balcony. The bathroom was roomy and you could turn around with no problems both in the shower and out. The coffee table has been removed, in its place the desk can now be moved from its position as a desk or has a table by the couch. The TV is quite large with a nice picture. By far the nicest cruise ship cabin I have stayed in.

Port Reviews

Bay of Islands

The glow worm caves were very neat to see - however it was very crowded inside. The ride there was also quite beautiful.

Auckland

This was pretty much a run-of-the-mill aquarium experience. The large penquin facility is fun to watch, but other than that it was nothing special

Auckland

The sky tower provides for an amazing view of the city. It was not very crowded so it was easy to snag some nice photos.

Wellington

This is simply a short ride up a hill in a cable car. The view from the top is nice, but there is nothing too exciting to talk about and certainly nothing to go out of your way to do.

Wellington

I felt like being in Jurrasic Park on this excursion. The park is beautiful and there were numerous birds and reptiles spotted. Really worth taking this tour!

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