Odyssey of the Seas

Odyssey of the Seas is the second Quantum Ultra ship, which makes her a design that arrived in the West by an odd route. The Quantum Ultra variant was drawn for Spectrum of the Seas and the Chinese market, a gated suite enclave, a heavier emphasis on private space, an interior-first plan for a clientele that sails in the winter and in the rain. Odyssey is the same idea handed back to American and European passengers, and that inheritance explains most of what she is: enormous indoor volume, an adults-only glass-roofed solarium that is genuinely one of the best rooms afloat, and comparatively little of the open teak that a Caribbean ship of her size would normally carry.

She was also unlucky. Meyer Werft floated her out at Papenburg on November 28, 2020, into an industry that had stopped sailing. She was delivered on March 31, 2021 by video link because nobody could attend a handover. Her inaugural sailing was set for July 3, 2021, then pushed to July 31 after crew members tested positive, and she finally went to sea on an eight-night Southern Caribbean run. The Bahamian Paralympian Erin Brown christened her at Port Everglades that November, four months after she had already started carrying passengers.

What is aboard

The Quantum inventory, which is still the most distinctive set of hardware in the Royal Caribbean fleet. North Star is a glass capsule on a jointed arm that lifts a small group three hundred feet above the sea and swings out over the side. RipCord by iFLY is a vertical wind tunnel you skydive in. SeaPlex is a covered sports hall with bumper cars and a circus school in it, and Two70 is an aft lounge whose entire back wall is glass by day and a hundred-foot projection surface by night, with robot arms moving screens around the room. There is a FlowRider surf simulator, a rock wall and a Bionic Bar where two mechanical arms mix the drinks.

The engineering is worth a line. She runs six main engines through two ABB Azipod thrusters, carries selective catalytic reduction to strip out the great majority of her exhaust sulphur, and has an air-lubrication system that blows a carpet of bubbles under the hull to cut drag. None of that changes a passenger’s week, but it is why a 2021 ship of this size is cheaper to run than a 2011 one.

What she does not have is the Oasis-class trick of splitting the hull open. There is no Central Park, no Boardwalk, no open-air theater. The Quantum plan stacks its public rooms vertically instead of stretching them along two promenade decks, which is the quiet reason she handles a full sailing better than a Voyager- or Freedom-class ship of similar capacity, but it is a ship that faces inward, and on a hot Caribbean afternoon that is a real trade.

Where she actually sails

Two itineraries account for sixty-five of her seventy-eight scheduled sailings, which is unusually concentrated even by this fleet’s standards.

Northern summers are Rome. Thirty-four seven-night round trips from Civitavecchia under the name Greek Isles Cruise, calling Santorini, Mykonos, Ephesus at Kuşadası and Naples, running May through October in both years on the schedule. It is the same week, thirty-four times, and the ports do not vary.

Winters she crosses to Cape Liberty in Bayonne and becomes a Bahamas ship. The staple there is the Perfect Day Bahamas Cruise, seven nights out of New Jersey calling Port Canaveral, Nassau and Perfect Day at CocoCay, thirty-three of them on this schedule. Around that sit a handful of eleven- and twelve-night Southern and Eastern Caribbean sailings in January, which are the only time all year she reaches Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua or St. Kitts.

Three transatlantic crossings of fourteen nights each connect the two seasons and are sold as one-way voyages, calling Ponta Delgada, Málaga, Cartagena and Lisbon on the way.

If you are looking at her page and wondering why the port list is so short, that is why. She runs two programs, each repeated until the season ends.

Who she suits

Families and anyone who wants a lot to do on a sea day. The Bayonne Bahamas week is where she makes the most sense; it is a seven-night sailing with three real sea days on it, and a skydiving tube, a bumper-car arena and an observation capsule are precisely what those days are for. Sailing from New Jersey without an airport in the trip is worth real money to a large number of people.

The Greek Isles weeks are the better vacation and the worse use of the ship. Four strong ports in seven nights means you are ashore for most of the good hours, paying for hardware you will not touch. If the Aegean is what you want, book it and enjoy the solarium on the two days you are aboard, but be honest that a smaller ship would put you closer to the same islands.

She does not suit anyone who wants quiet, and she does not suit anyone who wants a sun-deck ship. The Quantum plan is an indoor plan, deliberately, and the open deck space per passenger is modest for a vessel carrying 4,198 guests. Nor does she suit anyone who wants variety: whichever season you book, you are booking one itinerary, and it is the same one everybody else that month is on.