Cruised on the voyager of the seas on a 14 night South Pacific cruise. Was notified when we all boarded on sail out day that there would be a Major itinerary change and that the ports of Port Villa, Mystery Island, Lifou and Mare were now canceled due to the coronavirus scare. The cruise would now be re-directed from the warm South Pacific and Travel south to Cold Tauranga NZ and Eden south coast. A lot of disgruntled passengers due to the fact that RC didn’t choose a suitable port in a warmer climate such as North Queensland? Or no offers of reimbursement.

That been said if anyone is reading this please take into consideration the RC ‘unlimited drinks’ package also is consumed by a lot of irresponsible cruisers. At Ike’s we felt that we were on a P&O party ship rather than a family cruise. Smoking area was situated right next to kids pool and spa with literally hundreds of smokers at any given time sucking down their cheap duty free smokes. Cruise had no atmosphere right from the get go with no band playing at sail out party or any sail out parties for that matter, which was a first from the 10+ cruises we have done sailing out of Sydney. Found the majority of the staff were quite jaded given that after talking with a lot of them the majority of staff were nearing the end of their 7 month work contract. We cruised on the Radiance of the seas 12 months ago and found the difference between the 2 ships was like cruising with a different cruise line, the 2 ships are similar size, however the voyager has around 1000 more passengers which made it near impossible finding a table for breakfast or lunch in the windjammer eatery. Disembarkment was a similar issue, also found all the deck chairs around the pool were taken early with people claiming them with their towels but not necessarily using them and the pool staff certainly didn’t police people reserving deck chairs. Also similar issue with the Pig and Whistle Tavern and the Cafe Promenade were always busy with a lot of elderly doing jigsaw puzzles etc in these areas and taking up tables for large extended periods of time and not being able to get a seat most of the time.

The Gym on this ship is a joke and given what the Gym looked like before the recent renovations is somewhat of an insult. I found that this cruise was terribly pushy with a feeling of it being very overcrowded, the entertainment was below average, the food repetitive and found that this cruise had no atmosphere compared to the many cruises we have done beforehand. The Voyager has now made me reconsider how I Holiday now as I have done a cruise every 12 months since 2005 and this was the first cruise that We haven’t enjoyed. If you are considering doing a RC cruise just remember that the bigger the ship doesn’t mean better. If you have children then Carnival Cruises are the way to go they are more family friendly the food is better and they practice responsible service of alcohol with capping their drinks package at 15 per day.