Odyssey Cruises

Growing up, I wasn't the type of girl who had planned out the perfect dream wedding. My event was planned out withing three months... from picking out my gown, bridesmaid dresses, flower girl dress, the works. The wedding coordinator made it so easy to get everything just in time! It helped to have everything done on the Odyssey, such as wedding venue and reception. Everything turned out beautiful, and breath taking. It absolutly turned out to be one of the best days to of my life. Most of my friends and family still talk about how wonderful it was, and how delicious the food was. The staff on the odyssey was extremely professional, and made my day unforgettable. I wish I could hit my rewind button and relive my experience!

The Odyssey was a fantastic venue for the ceremony and reception. Guests loved how different it was from most weddings, and the food and service were fantastic.

We had a relatively small wedding about 50 people and we chose the Capital Elite which is one of the boats of Odyssey Cruises company for our reception. In my review, I am just copying the feedback e-mail I sent to our sales rep.

".... Overall it was great and primarily due to the magic decoration and flower arrangements. The flowers were just what I had dreamed of.

The kindness and smiles of the ladies serving also contributed positively to the experience.

The experience of working with you was also positive. If, I ever have to work with entertainment cruises, I would certainly love to work with you!

However, there were indeed things I did not like:

1) I was expecting the boat to be there the latest by 6:30 we rushed from the wedding ceremony just to stand waiting in the harbor for about 40 minutes. Those were one of the worse 40 minutes of my life!

2) Another, item I believe could have been improved were the plates. First, we had to pay extra to have white plates in a wedding party (in my view should have been standard) and then you did not have enough plates for all servings.

3) To make things worse you mix meat and fish in the same plate to serve European guests (fish goes with type of wine and meat with another) you cannot mix meat and fish in the same plate. I wish I had been consulted before that decision was made!

4) The cake was not decorated the way I had discussed with the catering company that was also disappointing, although I am not sure entertainment cruises has anything to do with it!"

This was a great way to show off DC and the monuments. However, on our day the river was too high so the boat couldn't fit under the bridge. That is our biggest dissapointment but the weather is not their fault. The planning process was long and somewhat difficult due to the response time. However, that person is no longer there. It is pricey but the meal, music, cake, a champagne toast, strawberries, and an anniversary cruise are all included in the price.
I wouldn't say the food was excellent but it was good. The cake comes from one of their two bakeries.

First of all, I just want to say that I had my ceremony AND reception on the Odyssey. My hubby and I loved it very much!!!

Now, here's the catch. You need to be very careful with this venue. I had signed my contract before I found the other reviews here on wedding wire. I freaked out because I thought my whole wedding would be a disaster.

Here are the pros:
-The service provided by the crew and servers is beyond excellent. I haven't been anywhere where servers were this gracious, caring, and professional.
-The boat is beautiful, and so is the view
-The food is really good (compared to it being cruise food which is prepared beforehand)

Here are the cons:
-They only give you one hour to decorate the boat before the guests board. I have also heard from some people that if they have a lunch cruise, they sometimes arrive later so you actually have LESS than an hour to decorate.
-The event manage is very professional and nice, but is VERY hard to get in contact with. I've had times where I would have to send her a email and leave her two messages for her to get back to me.
-It is pretty expensive. I did, however, calculate how much it would cost me to have the same type of wedding at a hotel, and the Odyssey came out just a little bit less expensive. Remember, the band comes with your package on the Odyssey, and the band we chose (Chane Link) is GREAT!

I was VERY VERY self-conscious when I booked this venue. Here is what I did, and some tips for anyone interested in this venue:

-I booked my wedding on a Sunday. It's cheaper than the friday and saturday nights, and it ends earlier.
-I booked it on the last day of the winter special. (March 29) I got 15% off the ticket price for each guest, and I also figured that it would be right at the start of the Cherry Blossoms! (Pretty smart, huh??) Btw, the cherry blossoms were in full bloom and it was beautiful!!!
-You HAVE to hire your own wedding coordinator. I would recommend Lisa Nelson from Elegant Event Planning & Design. She and her three assistants ran around for an hour decorating our half of the boat.
-I didn't want that many decorations, but I definitely wanted one flower arrangement per table, and candles and petals on the windowsills. You need to have candles, it was so beautiful when it got dark. Everyone thought it looked beautiful. I also had paper lanterns above the dance floor. My husband made clips out of pieces of wire hangers! haha
-As for decorations: if you definitely want to have MORE than the three assistants that I had. If I were to do it again, I would definitely have hired two more assistants. It's worth the money! (Lisa's assistants are very reasonably priced)
-Cancel their wedding cake & champagne package. It is $10/person!!! I ordered the premium bar, and I just ordered my cake from Victoria's Cakery in Fairfax. I just picked it up on Saturday and had my friend bring it to the wedding. I ended up paying $270 for a 150 person cake. Can you guest how much I saved?!? Hundreds!!!
-Make sure you tell them what you would like to keep after the wedding. I had them wrap my top cake, and give me back all of the decorations. Lisa actually asked me this in a questionaire she makes her brides fill out before the wedding. She made sure that the Odyssey crew do all of the things I asked.

All in all, it was beautiful and I loved every minute of it. It was raining days on end before the wedding day, then the sun came out four hours before our ceremony, and all the cherry blossoms were in bloom. I couldn't ask for more!
I would definitely recommend this venue just because it is so romantic and different to get married on a boat, but you definitely have to be smart and MAKE SURE that you have a wedding planner!!!

If any of you future brides have any other questions, feel free to send me an email!
tomichelle.brady@gmail.com

The sales person Christy is phenomenal. Tina, the wedding coordinator, single handedly made it a disaster. I knew there were problems from the start and tried to back out of the contract, but they wouldn't let us out. So we stayed in the contract with the promise that Tina would be working with another associate to put the details together. Tina has not yet responded to an email that I have written her. I took two hours to go to the boat and outline what we wanted, as well as, hired someone to make sure that things went according to plan on the boat on the big day. Nothing that I asked to have done from the champagne toast, to the serving of the cake, to the greeting of the guests was done as requested. The worst was when they wouldn't let us on the boat with out a ticket... I asked if they thought that I wore a wedding dress to every wedding I went to. We went home after the wedding and were organizing to find the top layer of the cake in a bag upside down (the entire cake was supposed to be served).

I gave them the feedback after the event and they didn't have the professionalism to say, we're sorry.

There are many reasons to have your wedding on the boat, because it is gorgeous in the evening. However, there are too many details that can and will go wrong to risk it with this crew.

We had our wedding reception on board the Odyssey dinner cruise. The actual wedding reception was amazing! The service and on-board supervisors were fantastic and took care of our every request. The only part that was not as good was working with the Odyssey's event coordinator in the months leading up to the wedding. They were not particularly helpful, nor did they go out of their way to handle special requests.

A recently photographed a wedding reception on Odyssey Cruises. The food, activities and views made for a great backdrop for photos. I would highly recommend Odyssey cruises for any venue. The views and sights along the cruise route are just breathtaking of Washington DC