In today's video, I'll highlight four great things about Odyssey Of The Seas.
For Caribbean cruises, you've got a lot of cruise ships to choose from.
This is one, sailing from Ft Lauderdale, Florida that I want to strongly recommend.
It features a brilliant design that so many other cruise lines could learn from...
And is great for families because it's not only got...
All the standard cruise ship stuff that parents and grandparents will like...
But also so many things to delight kids from three to thirty years old.
I know cruise ships, and Odyssey Of The Seas is a great one!
I'm sure I could do an hour long video about all the great things about Odyssey Of The Seas, but...
To keep this thing brief today, I want to highlight four specific things in this video:
The first is a fantastic place that you could relax in for hours at a time...
A little oasis called the Solarium, where it's always a delightful 70 degrees...
No matter how hot or how cold it is outside, or whether it's windy or rainy outside...
It's always perfect in the Solarium on Odyssey Of The Seas.
A lot of cruise lines have an area up at the front of the ship where you can sit outside and relax...
But it can get so windy up there when the ship is underway that it can be miserable.
And if it's raining outside, or cold, or too hot...
It's just not fun to be on an outside deck.
So, by enclosing the Solarium in glass and using air conditioning or heating as needed...
The Solarium on Odyssey Of The Seas is a little slice of Paradise no matter when you visit.
The second point I want to make about Odyssey Of The Seas has to do with the food.
I've been on a lot of cruise ships...
They all know how to put on a fancy sit down dinner that adults will love.
But a lot of them have no clue how to do the kind of casual dining that young Americans like.
I think it has to do with the fact that you rarely find Americans in charge of the restaurants on cruise ships.
The international staff running a cruise ship has very different food preferences than Americans do.
But with Odyssey Of The Seas...
It seems to me that Royal Caribbean has done a better job on casual food options.
First off, there's El Loco Fresh...
A place you can get tacos, nachos, burritos, quesadillas...
And in the mornings, breakfast burritos.
Royal Caribbean was very smart to place El Loco Fresh right out on the pool deck on Odyssey Of The Seas.
It's the perfect place for casual Mexican food like this.
I also think that they were really smart in the design of this bar out on the main pool deck.
It's called the Lime & Coconut, and it spans three levels out in this area.
It's a really great place to hang out for drinks as a couple, or with friends.
Another brilliant restaurant placement on Odyssey Of The Seas was putting their Sports Bar in the SeaPlex area.
In case you don't know, SeaPlex is a multipurpose area best known as the place where you can ride the bumper cars...
But it can also be a soccer field, or a dance floor, or many other things.
And on the second floor of SeaPlex, overlooking the action down below...
There are all sorts of fun things to do... Enough to keep kids entertained for hours at a time.
Everything in SeaPlex is action oriented...
So, it's not the 60-year-olds hanging out around here...
And that makes it the perfect place for a sports bar, which they call Playmakers.
Which just happens to offer the kind of casual food that young people will really enjoy.
The final thing I want to mention related to food and beverages...
Is how great it is to have a real Starbucks onboard Odyssey Of The Seas.
When you're on vacation, you wake up in the morning... You don't want lousy coffee.
You want Starbucks.
You won't find that on most cruise ships, but... Odyssey Of The Seas has it.
The third thing I want to highlight about Odyssey Of The Seas is the fun factor.
Royal Caribbean has really done a great job over the years at innovating...
Coming out with new features, things you won't find on other cruise lines...
Things that just make you say WOW!
Things that are fun, and keep people entertained at all hours of the day and night.
Like an observation pod on the end of long robotic arm...
Giving you views from up above the ship.
That is brilliant!
There's a surfing simulator...
A great way for people who have never surfed before to learn the technique.
Behind the Flowrider, a skydiving simulator... on a cruise ship!
No cruise line other than Royal Caribbean has things like this on their ships.
There's also the bungee trampoline experience called Sky Pad.
It's fun for kids of all ages.
And when you do it with these VR headsets, it takes it to an entirely new level!
All these innovations on one cruise ship makes Odyssey Of The Seas so much fun!
The fourth thing I want to highlight is...
The most fantastic entertainment venue I've ever seen on a cruise ship.
This is a place called Two70, that during the day is a quiet lounge with big picture windows...
Offering a 270 degree view out the back of the ship...
But at night, that big wall of windows transforms in to a gigantic video wall...
That makes an awesome backdrop for some incredible shows.
Now this is not to be confused with the main theater on Odyssey Of The Seas.
Up at the front of the ship you'll find a regular theater with a traditional stage.
But at the back of the ship, Two70 is an entirely different kind of theater experience...
Where actors don't appear from stage left or stage right...
They drop down from the ceiling... Or pop up on little elevators built in to the floor.
The combination of the lighting, the sound...
The use of video on the big screens in the background...
And more video on screens attached to robotic arms...
It's just so creative, and so innovative...
You have to experience it in person.
I absolutely loved it!
Now, before we go any further I just want to mention that...
If you're interested in booking a cruise with Royal Caribbean, or any cruise line...
Feel free to use the services of my travel agent, Caitlin Gallagher.
It's not about price...
Your cruise will cost about the same whether you book with Caitlin or direct with the cruise line.
But she is so great at answering all your questions before you book the cruise...
And making sure that when you show up to the ship on embarkation day...
You have all the right documentation so that you don't get turned away.
It happens.
And it's so much easier to deal with Caitlin than getting stuck on hold trying to reach someone at the cruise line.
Now I want to make you understand where Odyssey Of The Seas fits in to the Royal Caribbean fleet.
I'm going to overly simplify this, but here's an overview of the fleet.
Royal Caribbean's got about a dozen ships that they built before 2005...
What they call the Vision Class, the Voyager Class, and the Radiance Class.
These are the oldest ships in the fleet...
But Royal Caribbean has done a good job of updating them in recent years with new features.
Then there's the Freedom Class of ships, which came out between 2006 and 2008.
This is when Royal Caribbean really started to catch my eye because at the time...
These were the largest cruise ships in the world, and had some pretty cool features...
Like an ice skating rink where they could put on shows using former Olympic skaters.
This was also the first class of ship with a Flowrider surfing simulator.
But things really got interesting starting in 2009 when Royal Caribbean debuted the Oasis class of ships...
Which to this day are still the largest cruise ships in the world.
They are easy to identify because they're the only ones with a Boardwalk area at the back of the ship.
They also have a very relaxing green area, Central Park... That runs down the middle of the ship.
I think that anybody that's in to cruise ships needs to sail on an Oasis-class ship at least once in their life...
Because they're incredibly unique.
No other cruise line has anything like this.
But the truth is...
That at certain times of the year there may be as many as 6,000 passengers aboard an Oasis-class ship.
That's a lot of people to share a cruise ship with!
So, in spite of all the unique features... I think there are better cruise ships out there.
Which leads me to Royal Caribbean's Quantum-class of ships...
Which first came out in 2014.
Odyssey Of The Seas is the newest of the five existing Quantum-class ships.
And as far as I know, they're not planning on making any more of them.
They do have two more Oasis-class ships in the works...
As well as a whole new class of ships which we'll see beginning in 2023.
But as far as I'm concerned...
Odyssey Of The Seas is the best ship in Royal Caribbean's fleet right now.
Give my travel agent, Caitlin Gallagher, a call... or send her an email...
If you're interested in doing a cruise out of Fort Lauderdale on Odyssey Of The Seas.
It could be as short as six days, or as long as eight days.
There are western Caribbean itineraries,
Eastern Caribbean...
Or Southern Caribbean...
And most of them spend a day at Royal Caribbean's fantastic private island in the Bahamas known as Coco Cay.
Or, if you'd be interested in flying to Italy for a cruise in the Mediterranean...
Odyssey Of The Seas will be based in Italy for a few months, too.
I'm Jim Zim. Thanks for watching.