Cruise Review Embarkation in Stockholm was a breeze so we had a very temporary sense of happiness entering the ship. But once we got on, understand I am an interior decorator and my husband and I own a furniture store and interior design business, I was appalled. For lack of a better word, I will just call it ugly. The design is so dated, it is a crime, as my husband put it. But worse than the design or lack thereof, it was how dirty everything was. I never once saw anybody polishing the worn out wood railings. And the Windjammer Cafe marble floor was absolutely atrocious. Every time I walked on it, my shoes stuck to it. The carpeting the marble connects to is dirty. The sides of the ship I noticed in one of our ports are full of rust. The Vision of the Seas was scheduled to go in to dry dock last November. That was what I was told when we booked the cruise last July, but now it is going in November of this year. It sorely needs help. We originally had a junior suite directly below the pool deck and our embarkation date coincided with the last day of the World Cup. There were a lot of people from Spain on the cruise and when their team won, they proceeded to stomp and holler and celebrate until 4am, at least that is what the front desk manager told us the next morning. Right on top of our heads, we heard them all night long. We had never cruised with Royal Caribbean before but we love both Celebrity and especially Holland America and we always get a junior suite. Never before have we had a problem with our room in approximately 15 cruises, but my husband was at the front desk at 6am trying to get a different room. Jim from the front desk and Lulinda, the head of housekeeping, went out of their way to try to find us a different room and they did eventually. Ironically enough, a couple won an upgrade to the Royal Suite in bingo and they vacated their junior suite and we were able to take their much quieter suite. The first one, 8540, should be avoided. Jim, the front desk manager, thought our problems would stop once the Word Cup was over, but we listened to children running across the deck for 3 days and 2 nights until we changed rooms. The original solution before the new room opened up was for us to call the front desk every time somebody ran across the deck as running is not permitted. Then the security guard would be dispatched to tell the children to stop running. We were calling every ten minutes and the running never stopped. I am sure the front desk staff was happy when they could move us. I concur with other reviewers that this itinerary, the Baltic from Stockholm, has the rudest crowd of guests I have ever seen. Many of the guests had no idea of hygiene as mentioned and they rushed in to elevators before we could get out. But part of the problem is the layout of the ship itself. The Vision of the Seas is extremely narrow and with such a large atrium area (wasted space due to the limited space per guest) it leaves no place to walk. On the 5th floor, where the guest services is, they set up photos one night and we literally had to trip over people waiting to get their pictures taken to get to the guest services desk. The main dining room food was hit or miss but was a far cry better than the Windjammer Cafe. Windjammer breakfasts included eggs poured from a carton into the pan for made to order omelets. When I asked for my omelet made with real eggs, the cook took the eggs and threw them in a pan without stirring them and then threw the ingredients in on top. He broke the yolk at one point, but trust me, it was no omelet. I resorted to eating hard-boiled eggs, which they keep so hot, that I had to carry them in my purse on our excursions and eat them hours later. And I had oatmeal. One morning we questioned a manager in the Windjammer about the sticky floor and the gum I found attached to a table announcement for bar drinks. He walked off with a stack of dirty dishes and told us he needed to do something but he would be right back. He never returned to discuss our problems with the restaurant. But the worst eating area by far was the Solarium. I actually took photos which I will have to locate as I plan to send them to Royal Caribbean of 2 hot dogs they served my husband. The hot dogs were gray in color and I stopped him from eating them as he had one at his lips. I am certain he would have gotten really sick. I took them down to the main dining room on 4 and one of the managers thanked me for bringing it to his attention. Will it do any good? Who knows?

I read a comment from another guest on this ship who said they starved on the Vision of the Seas and as the time I thought it was laughable. Not finding enough food on a cruise ship? But now I understand exactly where he was coming from. If you go on excursions, and we did one every port using the cruise ship excursions, we always arrived back in the afternoon after the lunch in the Windjammer was closed. Dinner in the Windjammer buffet did not start until 6:30pm and ended at 9pm. Who ever heard of that? The main dining room opened at 6pm. I questioned a lot of the staff and they asked me to report it to Royal Caribbean and they agreed. We ate more hamburgers and soggy cold fries than I want to eat in a lifetime. Our dinner reservation in the main dining room was at 8:45pm, which is late but I thought 6 would be too early. We only made it to the main dining room 3 nights but I tipped the servers for the 7 nights. It was not their fault we did not eat there. The service staff was accommodating. Rosemarie and Jenet could not have been nicer. The huge ugly carts they roll around the main dining room really took away from it feeling like fine dining. And the food was okay, way better than room service. We ordered room service the first night. Tasteless prime rib, a tough steak, baked potatoes with no butter or sour cream and salad with no dressing. We never ordered room service again for the entire week. To get a decent cup of coffee, we had to go buy it at the shop where they had the Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Ditto for the ice cream. I thought the free soft ice cream tasted like water.

Obviously we would never cruise with Royal Caribbean again. Too many announcements, too many children and a ship that was just below acceptable standards. I stood in line the last day in front of a woman who identified herself as someone who used to live in the Soviet Union. She told me, "This ship is from the United States, but they run it just like the Soviet Union. So many lines, so many rules, etc." I had to laugh at that one. I knew we were not getting Holland America or Celebrity when I booked this cruise, but I never thought it would be this bad. On the flip side, we enjoyed our excursion in St. Petersburg and loved Riga, Latvia. We had a gourmet lunch at a wonderful restaurant called La Crabe in Riga. Helsinki was green and seemed to have really nice people and Visby was beautiful. Too bad it rained so hard that day, but our tour guide made the most of it and we had a nice day there.In conclusion, we found many of the staff of the Vision of the Seas to be top-notch, especially Paula our cabin steward. She was amazing.