7/14 Enchantment 4-day Trip n Ship from a Royal Newbie

thought I'd try to make this trip n ship short, to go along with the length of the cruise. As usual, I'll start at the beginning and do my best to take you along with me as we leave from Orlando and travel to Cocoa Cay and Nassau.

Since I'm starting at the beginning - a bit about me. If you have signatures turned on, you may notice I'm not new to cruising, but this was my first cruise on a Royal Caribbean Ship. A year and a half before we would sail, my BFFs from college and I decided to take a cruise together to celebrate life! and our friendship that has spanned a little more than 3 decades (we're unsure exactly when we met - it was college after all).

While I admit I was bummed we didn't select a Carnival cruise, over the years in planning our vacations, we've learned compromise. I've never been opposed to sailing other ships, the opportunity simply had not presented it self in a neat little package, soon to be wrapped up with a pink bow.

I may make some comparisons between this sailing and my previous which will be simply my own observations your experiences may certainly vary, but I'll start us off by saying ...

we had a wonderful time!

among us we have 30+ sailings (across several cruise lines) under out belts, but we also had 5 first time cruisers. Included in the mix is one very claustrophobic, acrophobic and a couple prone to sea sickness. Oh and the one that was unsure about this whole vacationing thing. (he's new to the group via marriage - we'll convert him).

For this trip we'll be coming from three states; North Carolina (1), Texas (3) and Southern California (8). In our planning we decided to converge on Disney World. Why? Heck if I know, you'd think a bunch of people who grew up within 30 miles of Disneyland would be kind of over the Disney thing. Oh wait, that apparently was just me.

I drove down from North Carolina (uneventful for the most part), the Texans flew in, and the Californians flew in on Southwest Air - most of them out of LAX (ugh!) and a couple of the Californians did what I shall dub the Great Margaritaville Road Trip of 2014. (I lost count after 5 Margaritavilles).

I'm going to cover the Disney part quickly (I promise) since this is about cruising not WDW. Skip the next post if you could give a mouse's you-know- what, about WDW.

Most of us stayed at Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort. An adequate moderately priced hotel among the Disney group. Another in the group stayed t Animal Kingdom, and the last to arrive stayed at a hotel at the Airport. Like right in the airport. Though fortunately not on the tarmac.

Disney properties were a good choice since we could enjoy cocktails at the parks and not worry about driving back to the hotels. Probably a good thing since only two of us had cars, and the others .. well I'd hate to see my friends wandering the parking lot looking for their cars. (it could happen). On second thought, I'd probably find great entertainment in that.

We're all about the shuttle buses - getting from Airport to Hotel and hotel to parks was a breeze.

We all explored the Magic Kingdom on our own, and had agreed to meet up at Epcot Sunday to see it together. That may have happened ... sort of. Most of us made it.

One Disney Pic - Cause I'm a Give-er

bwaaaahahahahaha! You know you're humming it now!

I am so so excited you are doing this review! My husband and I are doing the 4 night Enchantment soon and I am starting to get that wonderful "the cruise is coming, the cruise is coming" feeling!! Hopefully reading your review will hold me over till it gets here!!!

ok OK. a couple hotel pics ...

The border around our room ... no amount of cocktails could make this right for me.

Our Beach "Barbados"

And the most important picture ... it's all about hydration in Florida

At Epcot too ...

I am so so excited you are doing this review! My husband and I are doing the 4 night Enchantment soon and I am starting to get that wonderful "the cruise is coming, the cruise is coming" feeling!! Hopefully reading your review will hold me over till it gets here!!!

Hope I don't disappoint! I went back n forth on whether to do a write up, but decided there's usually not a lot on the forums about these hotter cruises, so why not. :)

Thanks for the report!

sigh. this next post is one of those lessons to be learned and knowledge to be gathered from this very seasoned traveler's rookie mistake.

Normally, I have a picture of the important information about my passport on my camera, in my e-mail which I can usually access from my phone or any land based computer. I took a different camera for this trip and had deleted most of my e-mail. At work I receive an inordinate amount of e-mail, this tends to make me go overboard in deleting my personal e-mail at home.

Two fatal errors because yup, I'm sure you see where this is going.

My passport was stolen from my hotel room. Our room did not have a safe. :eek:

My certified birth certificate was locked up in a vault - me being the only key holder. Soldier on ...

several phone calls later, which sent me in a big giant circle ... twice, and a rather humorous conversation with a Customs Officer, I decided to just head to the port and sees what happens.

What I liked about this experience with Royal was that every single person at the port had the same exact answer - unlike the people on the phone.

So through security I go, and up to see Sylvia in Documents. They tell me they can accept a faxed copy of my certified birth certificate - So I call ol Mom up, who I am fairly certain has a copy of such document because isn't that what mom's do?

Apparently not my Mom.

As I'm starting to think "ok, time to put some flights on my AmEx card" chit chatting with Sylvia she tells me, "if you had your hospital birth certificate - that would work." Seriously? A quick call back to Mom, and a few minutes later Sylvia in Documents was in possession of this (cause yeah, my mom does keep that stuff after all), and a few minutes later we were all being escorted onto the ship.

FWIW, Customs and Boarder Protection had no issue with me only having my NC DL. The only issue was getting on the ship, and that was all in the hands of RCI ... though on the phone they insisted it was CBP.

I would deal with reporting it stolen when I got back. What's done is done.

Passport SNAFU aside, we had all planned to meet at the port at 11am, so we could take a welcome aboard photo together.

We arrived at 11:02 - two of our first time cruisers were already on board. We'll just blame jet lag OK?

There was a short line (3 cars) to pay for parking - $75, no line for Security, short line to check in, no line for the photo, and although we were escorted on to the ship by a concierge, no line to get on board.

Fortunately our wayward two photo skippers were right there having a drink when we entered. Hugs for everyone!! YAY! A year in the half in the planning and we are all here!!!!

My tip when you travel in a group. We've long since learned not to do everything together, we're pros at this group traveling gig. We planned certain meet up points, and share our plans for the day saying if you're there, you're there. If not we'll see you at dinner.

These aren't from embarkation day, but come on, I needed a cocktail after the morning I had!

First things first before the cocktail. We locate a copy of the deck plans. Assuming all cruise lines are similar, my planning partner n crime and I decide Guest Services is where to locate these.

Off I go in search of deck plans for everyone. I find these as well as a brief run down of the days activities. The deck plan is printed on a full sized sheet of paper.

Do I need this much detail in my pocket? Not so much. I really missed the pocket sized deck plan I was use to on my Carnival sailings. Later that night on a wall somewhere, possibly by the Casino I found a one page sheet that had a profile of the ship with key places on the ship highlighted. what's with the full size sheets of paper?

I promptly took the sheet, folded it and tore off the deck plan picture, and put that in my pocket. All is good.

After a little walking around, we make our way over to the buffet to grab a little lunch and enjoy the fact that we are ALL here!!!!

Embarkation - RCI

Deck Plans - CCL

What an enjoyable review.

We went to Disney before our Enchantment cruise in March. Great cruise.

Thanks for the review and photos! We sail in December!

What an enjoyable review.

 

We went to Disney before our Enchantment cruise in March. Great cruise.

Thanks!

Thanks for the review and photos! We sail in December!

You're welcome. More to come tomorrow. we haven't even sailed way yet. :)

Eager to see the rest. Have a martini for me! :D

Tell me more! We leave from NC for a 4-day on the Enchantment in 22 days.

Eager to see the rest. Have a martini for me! :D

Oh Girl, you know that was done!

Tell me more! We leave from NC for a 4-day on the Enchantment in 22 days.

If you click on my Sunshine review linked in my signature, I also have some info about driving to Orlando and where I stayed during that trip (not Disney)

Now we're starting to get to the part of the review where I don't really have a lot of pictures. Very unlike me, but really, after 18 months cameras weren't out all the time because we were all too excited to ALL be here!

We booked Large Ocean View Staterooms on deck 3. The famed deck 3, which apparently has shippy spells. We were in #3076, 3074, 3060 and 3064 as well as the Royal Suite. Everyone's reservation was linked to mine for dining purposes. This was a simple process, and we had no glitches with the linking.

Don't get excited, I wasn't the occupant of the Royal Suite, so I can't tell you a whole lot about it, but do have some pictures I'll share in a bit. This was also why I had mentioned we were escorted onto the ship.

My planning partner in crime and I had ordered a few bon voyage surprises for everyone. For the first time cruisers the Bon Voyage Decorations, and for the Anniversary Couple we had gotten those stateroom decorations as well - but the picture was blurry and for some reason I never took a picture inside the Bon Voyage stateroom. We'd also bought as gifts the fruit and cheese basket (it really needs some crackers in it), and chocolate covered strawberries, as well as putting some $ on everyone's sail pass accounts to buy the first drink.

The only thing I thought was odd with our bon voyage purchases is when I called to purchase the OBC for everyone, the gal who assisted me was very very very confused about the whole thing. Do people not normally do this? The suck part is the card they left for everyone didn't really indicate to the recipients that they had received a gift. siiigh.

If you were on this sailing, yeah, we were these people ...

My door told the story of our friendship. My bestie made the Sr. Frogs banner, I heard many people comment that there must be a story there. Yes, there is. But what happens in Cancun, stays in Cancun. :)

Our Family Tree

Continuing on with our staterooms. Wow, they were small I also felt they were laid out a bit awkwardly. Here's where I need to remind you that I was traveling with someone who is claustrophobic. Our shower was a cylinder with hard doors that slid shut. Two of our cabins these showers doors, and two of our cabins had shower curtains.

Mister Claustrophobic no likey our shower. The little gap at the top so he knew he wasn't completely closed in, was the only thing that saved him.

we didn't really notice any bad snippy smells. The location of our rooms was nice, and other than being small we thought they were adequate. Not like we spent a whole lot of time in them anyway.

Our steward, all I can remember of his name is it started with a D, was most excellent and took great care of us and kept all our rooms in order.

There were no towel animals on the first night. Just throwing it out there as one of my friends was beyond crushed that she didn't get a towel animal. She said, and truly this is a direct quote, "that was the part I was looking forward to the most." (shaking head - get the girl a cocktail).

If you are still keeping score:

Embarkation - RCI

Deck Plans - CCL

Staterooms - CCL

Ship Decor - RCI

Great review. Happy that you cabin did not have any odors. I had that happen on RCCL once. They gave me a another cabin right away.

embarkation lunch was from the buffet area. Because there were so many of us, it was difficult to find a table where we could all sit. However, you may recall this isn't our first time at the traveling together rodeo. We sat and ate in shifts out by the pool. The buffet, to be, always seemed to have a lot of hot food options, but not too many cold food options. I know this sounds weird, so it might just be a me observation. I didn't care for the circular layout because it seemed to create a lot of chaos and congestion.

I had purchased the soda package - boy, that is a big cup. Maybe I'm not miss observant (quite possible) but the soda machines were few and far between. I may have noticed two on the ship. By the second day, one was broken. I usually just ordered a soda from a bar.

It's Florida. It's July. It's 99% humidity. The Californians are melting.

We parted ways to explore the ship. I ended up at the port shopping talk. In all of my cruises I have been to exactly one of these. I am a career corporate offices retailer, and I am traveling with a career front lines retailer. How shopping expert was very enthusiastic and shared with us how long she's been doing this, and that she even worked for 8 years on the "other side" with department stores! My friend and I looked at each other and whispered "rookie!" :D We were at the shopping talk for one reason, and one reason only ...

50% off the already discounted DOD, a bahama mama. Was it worth it? eh. But! Had we not gone, we would not have known to show up at a store in Nassau at 11am to receive a little sticker that would give us 25% off our drinks from two of the bars for the remainder of the cruise. Since the last day was a sea day ... this was 20 minutes well spent in Nassau. Though I am getting ahead of myself . We haven't even left Orlando yet!

Was quick, to the point and over!

Things I noticed: They collected any drink,except your soda cup or water prior to going out to the muster station. They asked for each person's cabin # and checked us off. They looked for the people staying int hex a bins that had not been checked off. A little humor goes a long way in keeping everyone's attention when it is 1 thousand degrees in Florida.

If you are still keeping score:

Muster Drill - RCI

Buffet - CCL

Buffet Service (busing tables) - CCL

We saw the welcome aboard show on the first night. It was SRO and very crowded. The room was hot and stuffy which made my claustrophobic, slightly motion sick sailing companion green around the gills. Shortly into the show he needed air, so I took him out on deck to watch the sunset and the Muppet Movie. (I figured he could relate to Kermit).

I don’t have copies of the cruise compass so the days these shows happened are a bit out of order. You’re getting them as I think of them.

We saw two production shows, both we enjoyed. As I sit here, I honestly can’t remember the names of the show, or anything about them other than it involved singing, dancing and music. One may have been about Broadway musicals. On other nights there was a comedian and a juggler. The juggler was good, and funny … though he kept apologizing for dropping stuff. I don’t remember the comedians name, but he was good. All these details I’m giving you, bet you’re glad you’re reading this review!

We also saw the Love & Marriage show – which regardless of the cruiseline, is always good entertainment. I had to translate occasionally for my CA friends. They couldn’t understand the man from Georgia. I understood him perfectly aiight!

Our cruise director was Marc “Bing Bong”. I did not have a chance to meet him, but also wasn’t really trying to. I thought he was good.

We attended the Captains welcome (I think that’s what it’s called, on formal night?), with free champagne in the atrium – or what ever fancy name it’s called. We just call it “where the big staircases are”

Towel animal demonstration … which may have had more adults than kids there. My friend was highly disappointed that there was no towel hippo. She was also disappointed that we didn’t get towel animals on the first night – she may have most been looking forward to the towel animals on this trip. (just nod, ok?).

The one show we went to, that I thought was just kind of “meh” was quest. They divided up the whole audience so the teams were pretty big and spread out. Probably didn’t help that our male team captain thought he was too cool for all this stuff and refused to participate. Why volunteer if you’re not going to participate? Fortunately our female captain took charge and replaced him. (You go girl!)

We also attended the battle of the Sexes one night. It was OK – but totally skipable. I’m not much into shippy stuff.

Food I thought was OK, though not as much lighter fare as I would have liked to have seen. A lot of hot foods in the buffet at lunch. Maybe I just didn’t know where to look. The ice cream machines were a losing battle. The lines were always too long, so I opted for cocktails that were similar to milk shakes. We could have gone to Ben & Jerry’s – not sure why I never did.

Late night snacks in the park Café were good, and I did like heading here in the morning to grab a light breakfast.

Coffee at the buffet was horrible. It was either weak and watery horrible or stong strong strong and horrible. I didn’t drink much coffee on this trip. Just as well, I couldn’t figure out if there was decaf, or if there was there was no familiar orange spigot. It didn’t bother me enough to go to Starbucks.

Overall service, regardless of the bar, was very slow. As in even when distracted in conversation with a group of people everyone starts to notice our drinks are taking a very long time – and we’re the only ones in the room. The only bar where we found good service was the small one with the baseballs in the Casino. I don’t even gamble, so how suck is that?

I thought the disappointment in the bar may have just been me since a couple months earlier I’d had one of my usual awesome Alchemy Bar experiences on a Carnival ship, with one of the best Mixologists I have met to date. I know this totally makes me sound lushy, and I’m OK with that. I’m on vacation, I enjoy good cocktails.

To compensate for the negative martini experience, I switched to jack n coke, or jack n ginger. Which brings me to the bar service in the Orpheum Theater.

These guys were awesome. Granted we were traveling in a pack, and always sat in the same seats at the back of the theater. The drinks we had were almost too strong. (I know what you’re thinking, and yes it is possible if you aren’t expecting straight jack). The second night, the bar waiter came over to our area, and simply asked if I was ready for a jack n ginger. Score! One night and I’m a regular. If I had had more than 3 drinks I would have hugged him! (long story).

Jack n Ginger ... ginger may not have been invited to the party.

Mostly Jack with a splash of coke

Cosmo from Dining Room

Pomegranate Martini

I forget

One to avoid - mango lava flow

Happy Hour

Happier Hour