Voyager of the Seas

Four dates are enough to understand Voyager of the Seas.

1999. She takes her first guests on November 21. She is then the largest passenger ship in the world and the first of her class. She brings two things no ship had before: an indoor street, the Royal Promenade, and an ice rink. Her godmother, fittingly, is a skater, Katarina Witt.

Around 2014. The nightclub on deck 3 disappears. In its place, nineteen interior cabins, numbered 3001 to 3039. The Italian restaurant, Giovanni's Table, settles on deck 4, where people once walked in to dance.

2019. Forty-one days in the yard, under the name Royal Amplified. The gym leaves the front of the ship and makes way for cabins. The spa and fitness centre move to the aft end of deck 12. The lookout from which you could watch the navigation bridge disappears. Johnny Rockets is removed. Seventy-two cabins are added, and with them the water slides and laser tag. Navigator of the Seas went through a comparable transformation that same year: cabins at the front of deck 11, the fitness centre at the aft end of deck 12.

November 2024. A maintenance dry dock. The original cabins come out of it just as they went in.

Everything that follows flows from that line. Unlike Adventure of the Seas and Explorer of the Seas, Voyager did receive the Royal Amplified programme. She did not come out of it rebuilt, all the same. Twice, cabins have taken the place of public spaces: a nightclub, a gym at the bow, a lookout. What she gained in return was mostly deck attractions.

What the 2019 refit did not bring

Guests arriving from one of her amplified sisters look for things that are not there. No Playmakers sports bar. No Mexican counter. No more Johnny Rockets, and nothing in its place. The 2019 refit was designed for Asia, where she was sailing at the time: more shops, a casino with a lounge for high-stakes players, fewer bars and counters. That lounge still exists. It is closed off behind partitions and no longer used.

The consequence shows at mealtimes. She has three included places to eat, and not one more: the main dining room, the Windjammer buffet and Café Promenade. The Windjammer closes in mid-afternoon and again after dinner. In those gaps, all that is left is the pizza and sandwiches at Café Promenade, and the queue that goes with them. Anyone boarding late on the first day finds this out straight away.

Up top, deck 11 carries the pools and, towards the bow, the solarium. It is reserved for adults, aged 18 and over since 2023. It is open to the sky, which makes it of little use in cold or wet weather; only its two large whirlpools are covered. On sea days, its loungers go early.

On Mariner of the Seas, you can still walk through the solarium to go and watch the officers at work. Here, since 2019, that is no longer possible. The far end of the solarium is not empty for all that.

The upper decks, and how to reach them

The sports deck is on deck 13, aft: the Perfect Storm water slides, the FlowRider surf simulator, the sports court, a nine-hole mini golf course. It has one feature that throws people. You do not reach it by walking along the pool deck: you have to go through an interior corridor, from the aft lifts. Many guests forget it exists, which is why it stays usable when the pool deck is full.

At the other end, the front of decks 12 and 13 is a vast stretch of loungers, with almost no shade and almost nobody on it, even when she is sailing full. One reservation: it was found closed for entire cruises in 2025, then open again. Do not build your week around it before you have seen it.

At the very top, on deck 14, the Viking Crown Lounge offers a 360-degree view from behind glass. In the evening, it houses the High Notes nightclub. In the morning, it is all but deserted, with armchairs at the windows. It is also a good place to watch sailaway when it is too hot or too windy outside. To get up there, take the aft lifts: the forward ones do not go that high, and only one of the two aft banks serves deck 14.

The helipad at the bow is open to guests, as on Adventure, where we described it. It fills up at sailaway and closes in bad weather.

A word on smoke. The smoking areas sit on through-routes: one side of the outdoor promenade on deck 4 and one side of the pool deck. Note which side on the first day and use the other for your laps of the deck and your lounger.

The stern, for its part, keeps a place that appears on no programme.

The cabins

This is where 1999 shows. Suites aside, the original cabins have not been redone: furniture and colours from another decade, a narrow bathroom, a tight squeeze between the bed and the furniture in several interiors. The shower, on the other hand, has rigid doors instead of a curtain. The small fridge keeps things cool more than it chills them.

In the original cabins, there is no outlet near the bed. The desk holds two American outlets and a single European one. One detail changes the nights, though: the bedside telephone has a USB port on its side. Charging is slow, but it gets you through to morning. For the rest, Royal Caribbean's rule is strict: power strips and extension cords are banned on board. Only a simple plug adapter or a charger with USB outputs gets through; we cover the rule in detail in our article on Mariner.

Another night-time detail. A motion-sensor night light comes on when you get up to go to the bathroom. It saves you hunting for the switch. It also wakes, regularly, the person still in bed. Both are true.

The balconies are cut into the ship's side, with metal partitions. You do not see your neighbours and you hear little of them. In return, they sometimes show rust.

Not all the cabins are the same age. Those on deck 3 born from the old nightclub, and those the 2019 refit created at the front of decks 11 and 12, are more recent than the rest. According to one account, the latter have outlets on each side of the bed; that is too little to promise, and enough to ask about.

At the front of deck 11, a few of these cabins have a very large balcony, facing the bow and enclosed by a tall glass screen. Cabin 1108 is sold in the balcony category, not as a suite. A single witness reports that the picture windows of the deck 12 cabins, directly above, look down onto this balcony: if privacy matters to you, ask the question before you book. This type of cabin is not unique to Voyager.

On suites, two things to know. There is no suites-only restaurant on board: from the Grand Suite category up, breakfast is taken at Chops Grille. And the junior suite gives you space and a bathtub, but not access to the suite lounge.

At the table

The main dining room spans three levels around a grand staircase and a chandelier. A pianist plays there during dinner. The cooking is steady and arrives hot. On sea days it also opens at midday, and many guests do not know it: you lunch there in peace while the buffet overflows.

The Windjammer is vast, with two identical lines and tables at the back that look out over the wake. Its Indian dishes come up in guests' accounts as its most consistent strength. At peak times, seats run short.

Four speciality restaurants: Chops Grille, the steakhouse; Giovanni's Table, the Italian on deck 4; Izumi, the Japanese restaurant, set on deck 14 behind picture windows, with no teppanyaki grills; and the Chef's Table. That leaves one question the menus do not settle: where to order your meat.

Evenings

Two venues, two findings, and they stand together. At the Royal Theater, the in-house productions are judged dated. One of the revues was already on the bill in 1999. At Studio B, the ice show is what guests remember of the ship, cruise after cruise. The room is small and no reservation is required: you need to arrive early.

The rink is also used for open skating and, once covered with a floor, for laser tag; both are booked in the app from the first day. Lastly, on the final morning, it serves as a waiting room for guests leaving on an organised transfer. It is as cold as an ice rink is: keep something warm in your hand luggage.

Elsewhere, the Schooner Bar has its pianist, the Pig & Whistle pub its singer, and the Star Lounge its games.

A moment on board

It is a little before five and you are heading down towards the stern, card in hand: your table number is printed on it. On the first evening, the queue ran a long way back up the corridor. Tonight it moves, and you walk in almost without stopping.

The room opens over three levels around a grand staircase. Above, the chandelier drops through two storeys. You look up out of habit: she is rolling a little, and the chandelier does not move. Underfoot, a thick carpet, red and blue, scattered with leaves, which has little to do with the rest of the décor and swallows every sound. People talk here without raising their voices.

On the staircase landing, a pianist is playing. Nobody has gone quiet to listen, and yet the room has taken up the tempo. The tables by the windows went first, as always; yours is nearer the centre, and from it you see everything. Bread and water arrive before the menu. The basket is not yesterday's: it changes with the evening's theme.

At the next table, a family compares days. Further off, a couple reads the menu, unhurried. The plates arrive hot, one after another, with no wait. In an hour you will be at the show. Until then, nothing is pressing.

"On Voyager, cabins have gained ground on public rooms, and what is new has mostly gone up on deck. The best of her lies in the margins those refits left behind."

Selvague

When to go

Voyager changes region almost every year, and she is chosen first of all by her itinerary. Since October 2026, she has sailed from Los Angeles to the Mexican Riviera, on cruises of three to eight nights: Ensenada, Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlán, Puerto Vallarta. That season runs until spring 2027. She is then announced in Alaska from Seattle for summer 2027, and in Asia-Pacific from October 2027 to April 2028, sailing from Brisbane, Sydney, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Two practical consequences. In Alaska, the open-air solarium is of almost no use; the balconies cut into the hull and the Viking Crown Lounge take its place. And none of these deployments is guaranteed: check your own before you book.