Ovation of the Seas Review
Big ship, plenty of food and entertainment options
Rating by category
Additional details
The Ovation of the Seas is the largest ship to sail out of Australia. Our cruise took us to New Zealand. All the ports of call were fantastic and able to cater to a ship of this size, and a wide variety of shore activities were available. Picton's population doubled for the day when the ship visited.
The ship catered for a more international crowd than we have previously experienced on other Royal Caribbean ships out of Sydney. The strength of the ship was that it was able to cater for both the Australian and Chinese cruise market, with both English and Chinese signage throughout.
This cruise we chose to try Traditional seating in the main dining room (5:45pm). The food was satisfactory but we have had better on other Royal Carribean ships e.g. Radiance of the Seas. Perhaps on larger ships quantity comes first before quality? We tried speciality dining at Izumi and Wonderland. Izumi was a nice change to the main dining room, and seemed matched by many Japanese restaurants from home (Brisbane). Wonderland was fantastic, a real treat of weirdness and spontaneity. The Windjammer had a distinct variety of foods and was a reliable option for breakfast and lunch. However, finding a table often proved to be problematic, even for just two people.
Cabin Review
Superior Ocean View Stateroom with Balcony
On the Ovation we had a stateroom with all the latest fittings as the ship is only a few years old. The layout was much more logical and well-designed compared to other Superior Ocean View stateroom cabins on RCCL ships. The bathroom was surprisingly large for our cabin class. I appreciate not having a shower curtain. We also had two cupboards with drawers on either side of the couch for his and hers clothes storage.
One frustration of this new cabin style was that a stateroom card had to be inserted in the slot by the door for the cabin lights and power points to work. I understand that this was an energy saving mechanism, but it meant that you could only charge your devices e.g. phone/tablet if you were in the room. We overcame this by sometimes putting an Opal card into the slot while we were out to allow our device to charge. This will work with any regular sized card.
Port Reviews
Sydney (Australia)
Long embarkation lines on Day 1 with significant delays.
Picton
Hired a car from Thrifty at the port and drove around the Picton area. Beautiful natural scenery.