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Christmas aboard the Serenade of the Seas


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A few years ago we started a tradition of cruising for Christmas. Just get on the boat and enjoy the holiday week without the stress of buying gifts, cooking, etc.

The one draw back of this tradition is that because we've been on several cruises during the same week every year (and because I have a thing about always going somewhere new, and not repeating ports) it has become increasingly difficult to find the right cruise.

 

This year we chose the Serenade of the Seas leaving out of New Orleans.

 

The itinerary:

New Orleans

Key West

Nassau, Bahamas

Coco Cay, Bahamas

New Orleans

 

New Orleans is a 6 hour drive from our house, so the minute I got off of work on Friday we hopped in the car. We stayed in the French Quarter, a few minutes from the port. (we are no strangers to the streets of Nola)

Saturday morning we drove to the port, paid the $100 for parking (sigh) and made it fairly quickly through the lines and onto the ship! The port of New Orleans was pretty efficient, I'd say we were there maybe 35 minutes.

 

So we make it on board at noon... but the ship isn't scheduled to set sail until 4:30. (sigh) The problem with getting on the ship that quick and easy is that it's almost like staying on board when the ship docks at a port... your sitting still near land with very little to do on the ship when you could be out exploring, and New Orleans has a lot to offer! It is what it is though; we explored the ship, mapping out all the places we'd be visiting during the week. We weren't allowed into the rooms until 1, so we hit up the Windjammer for some lunch.

 

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Once we were allowed in our rooms I took some time to unpack everything and hide the bags under the bed. We played a couple games of shuffleboard and walked all the decks of the ship from one end to the other! (We really aren't one to just sit around and relax)

We finally set sail just before 5 pm.

 

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Eventually we changed clothes and made our way to the dinning room for an 8pm dinner. Steak, baked potato, and peachberry crumble - yum! Perfect for the first night.

 

As of 10 pm we still hadn't made our way out of the Mississippi River and into the Gulf. Around 11 we went out to deck 5 for a smoke break (him, not me) and just happen to catch the pilot boat, and the pilot literally jumping ship.

 

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The fog was so thick it looked like a wall!

 

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The ship was doing some rocking during the night with 60+ mph winds! We slept right through it though. We had breakfast in the Windjammer (love that place) and then sat for the first Bingo session of the trip. After that it was up to the sports deck, I absorbed the sun in one of the lounge chairs while Jon joined a game of basketball. The basketballs were eventually put aside for a crew vs guest dodge-ball game.

 

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After that we played some shuffleboard and then had a long nap in the lounge chairs on deck 5. We ended up in the Pub for movie trivia and then the casino (dun dun dunnn) because we didn't spend enough $ on the tickets. lol Luckily we made it out of there only spending $20 on the ships lottery drawing. We played a quick game of putt putt before having dinner in the windjammer and then catching the end of the NFL game poolside.

 

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We were up early enough to see the sunrise; after a nice walk around the top deck we had breakfast and then enjoyed the scenery for a while.

 

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We were scheduled to dock at 11 in Key West - so we changed clothes and packed our backpack with the items we'd need for the day. (backpacks are a must for cruise ports!)

We watched the docking process from the helicopter pad before making our way down to join the hoards of people already lining the hallways, stairs and elevators.

 

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I've been to Key West many times (mostly when I was younger) so the first thing we did when getting off the ship was walk to Mel Fishers Museum and climb the tower!

 

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You can see a lot of the island from up there!

 

With only 5 hours to explore (boo) we ended up renting one of the little carts so we could get around quicker. (5 hours is not enough time in Key West! There are SO many awesome things to do there) One thing you'll see no matter what you do on the island... chickens!

 

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The sponge guy has been there 20+ years at least!

 

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We leave on this same itinerary in three weeks. Looking at your pictures, the weather looks awesome! Was it good all of the way?

 

No, it was rather windy for a lot of the trip. Key West was nice, Nassau started out nice but it ended up raining and after that we had very little sun. It was so rough that we had to skip Coco Cay and the last 3 days at sea were cloudy, cold and occasional rain. :/

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We spent part of the day at Fort Jefferson. I spent a lot of days here as a child during summers! I brought my husband here (before we were married) nearly 11 years ago. It was nice to come back and see the changes. Though, sadly, parts of the fort seem to be falling apart.

 

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We walked along the beach for a bit...

 

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and then it was the end of the road for us.... literally.

 

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One of the absolute MUST things to do in Key West is visit the pie shop. But not just ANY pie shop (because there are a lot of them now) but THE pie shop. The originator of the Key Lime Pie. OMG it is the best! No store bought or restaurant made version compares to the original. You can go in and buy it by the slice or a whole pie! YUMMY!

 

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After that we visited good ole Sloppy Joe's. It's been around forever!

 

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and of course the Southernmost point.

What's ridiculous about this is that we stood in line for 35 minutes just to get a picture with the statue. WHAT?! I've never, in the 20 years I've been coming to this island, seen that many people there. It was crazy. There was some kind of tour group there plus the cruise ship patrons... it was wild.

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We climbed to the top of the lighthouse too.

 

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This was our little cart.

 

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One other thing you have to do when visiting, is come sunset, make your way to Mallory Square. There are street vendors and performers. It's awesome. Cats jumping through flaming hoops, tight rope walkers, jugglers, etc. It's a magical place at night.

 

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The port times were so screwy on this trip... I mean 11-5 in Key West, 1 -midnight in Nassau.

There isn't a whole lot to do in Nassau after dark, and it doesn't strike me as a safe place to be at night. This is our second time in Nassau and both times I had an uneasy feeling while walking around. (and that's saying something considering I'll walk across the border into Mexico and stay past nightfall and feel safer than I did here)

 

We booked a fishing trip outside of the cruise line, so when we got off we hurried over to the sea wall to meet our boat. (we've booked with this group before - same boat, same crew) Chubasco Charters.

 

I soaked up the sun while the guys fished.

 

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They caught some wahoo, Barracuda, and Tuna. We always have a good time with this crew. They know where the fish are.

 

We booked a 5 hour trip, so when they dropped us off at the sea wall we walked around for a short time and looked in a few of the shops, but at 5 everything was shutting down. The shops were all closing and the streets were abandoned except for the growing group of drunks around the sea wall. They'd ask you for a cigarette or $, or offer you cuban cigars etc, and when you said no they would start cussing at you and talking crap. It really wasn't pleasant. We even watched a guard chase a guy down, shove him to the ground and hand cuff him. We didn't stick around to watch the aftermath, we made our way back to the boat and didn't get off again. (Until New Orleans... sigh. I'll get to that in a little bit)

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We woke up early, Jon had made an appointment in the salon for a shave (seems like straight razors and waves shouldn't mix, but whatever) I was in the room getting our stuff ready for the day, towels and sunscreen in the backpack, bathing suit on... I just put my hand on the door knob when the announcement came. "I'm sorry ladies and gentlemen, but unfortunately it seems the seas are too rough to tender here today. So we will be setting course for New Orleans." You can imagine the words (#!@%$!!!) that came to mind. This was the one port I was most looking forward to. It's the only place I hadn't been, and it was supposed to be our beach and snorkel day. I was so looking forward to laying in the sun and swimming...

because the pools are always so crowded on a smaller ship like this I had been surrounded by water for 5 days and not once so much as dipped my foot in anything except the shower. SO disappointing. I don't understand why they don't have backup plans for this situation, because I later found out that this port is skipped more times than it's visited! So why not have a backup island... we could have gone back to Key West on our way home, but that's where the Majesty of the Seas went after canceling Coco Cay at the same time. Again, I say BOO to poor planning and crappy weather.

 

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The crew had to rearrange schedules because of the change and it took until 11 or so to get a new itinerary of activities for the day. We walked around the ship, played some shuffleboard, eventually ended up in the Windjammer for lunch... except they weren't expecting so many people to be aboard for lunch and it was delayed 30 minutes or so.

 

We participated in the photo scavenger hunt; it was fun running all over the ship taking random pictures. We didn't win, but did get a random prize for best camera. lol

 

We went back to the room after that and took a nap! We tried Bingo, but it was packed full of people so we decided against it. We made dinner reservations for 8:30 (formal night) and then started a game of Putt Putt. Just as Jon landed a hole in one on #4 it started to rain so we put the stuff up and ran for cover.

We stood in line for a couple of the formal night photo stations before heading to the dining room. It was packed and they were having trouble finding seats for everyone because of it being Christmas.

 

After dinner we changed clothes and went out to deck 5 to play some shuffleboard and when I looked out into the water... I saw the Florida Keys. OMG that is so frustrating. We were so close to land that I was picking up FULL signal on my phone. (sigh) I know it must sound awful for me to complain about a cruise... but when you save $ all year for this one trip and you look forward to it for so long, it just sucks.

 

I figured it up, and in 7 days we spent 6 hours on land, and 5 hours in a fishing boat - the rest was on board the Serenade! That is not a big enough ship to have that many seas days, there isn't a whole lot to do as far as activities. I mean, you can only play putt putt and shuffleboard so many times...

 

Day 6

 

We played morning trivia in the schooner bar. Jon won a gold medal in the Killer Darts competition. They grilled food out on the pool deck (we were supposed to have a big bbq on the beach of Coco Cay) it was pretty good. Jon played in the Killer Pool competition but didn't win. We browsed the art auction. We played Bingo, stood a couple of times but never won. We spent some time ($) in the casino. We had dinner in the windjammer and when walking through the pool deck we noticed that it was almost empty! So we hurried the to room and changed into our swim suits. We spent over an hour in the indoor pool ALONE! We would switch from pool to jacuzzi and back again... no one else ever came. It was freaking awesome. We hit that time period when dinner and theater show were going on and apparently it was a good show because everyone was going (I don't care much for the shows) It was really nice and relaxing. We ended up having to get out because they were closing it for cleaning, and to film the morning show. So we sat in the chairs and watched the show live.

We had an outside room with a window, and just as we were laying down for we heard this loud knocking noise... it would get loader and then fade away and repeat. It was rather annoying. We eventually got dressed and went up to deck 5 to smoke and sure enough there was a whole group of kids running back and forth on the deck, racing or whatever.

 

Day 7

 

Room service came knocking on our door at 5am with coffee... only we didn't order it! After that we couldn't go back to sleep so we got dressed and went for a walk. It was peaceful, we were the only people out and about. So I took the opportunity to take pictures of the ship. We had breakfast in the windjammer and then went back to the room to start packing our stuff.

We watched a movie, had lunch, took a nap, Jon won the Killer Darts competition again. We watched the Aquatronics show in the centrum, and then watched another movie. We had dinner, sat on the deck and watched the oil platforms pass by. (that's when you know your getting close to home) After that we finished packing and put our stuff in the hallway.

 

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The last 2 days aboard the boat were windy, cloudy and occasionally rainy!

 

We came home to a cold and nasty rain! I was hoping to spend a few days in N.O. but we decided to just drive home.

Overall, it was an okay trip. I know now that I prefer the larger ships though. If I were to compare it to our other cruises, it was my least favorite, but it wasn't a bad time. I just prefer getting off the ship occasionally. ;) I'm used to having 4 ports of call and your off the ship from 8am -8 pm or something similar. You have time to do the things you want to do in the day light! Oh well, it's done, we're home and I had a decent time.

Edited by duncan449
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I was on the same Cruise.

 

Just to clarify, it wasn't that Majesty got into Key West after cancelling Coco Cay so we couldn't - they were already SCHEDULED for Key West the day AFTER Coco Cay - that's why we couldn't get into Key West the day after Christmas. Majesty floated the seas like we did on Christmas Day.

 

They can't make backup plans for things like this because they don't know what the chances of missing Coco Cay are on any given cruise. And no Port is going to allow them to use them as a backup and miss out on a sure thing in another ship. I'm not sure if you noticed or not, but there was a Princess ship, an NCL ship and at least one Carnival ship out floating around in the area that day as well - I'm guessing there were a lot of non-Porting happening that day as it seemed that Christmas Day was the day to be at the private islands -- most of which are unprotected like Coco Cay.

 

The minute we woke up we knew there was no way we were going to stop at Coco Cay - that was about 45 minutes before the Captain made the announcement. While it was disappointing because it would have been nice to walk on the beach despite the weather, there isn't much any of the cruise lines can do about something like that.

 

We had a good time on the ship and relaxed a ton - which was great!

 

Great pictures - thanks for sharing!

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I was on the same Cruise.

 

Just to clarify, it wasn't that Majesty got into Key West after cancelling Coco Cay so we couldn't - they were already SCHEDULED for Key West the day AFTER Coco Cay - that's why we couldn't get into Key West the day after Christmas. Majesty floated the seas like we did on Christmas Day.

 

They can't make backup plans for things like this because they don't know what the chances of missing Coco Cay are on any given cruise. And no Port is going to allow them to use them as a backup and miss out on a sure thing in another ship. I'm not sure if you noticed or not, but there was a Princess ship, an NCL ship and at least one Carnival ship out floating around in the area that day as well - I'm guessing there were a lot of non-Porting happening that day as it seemed that Christmas Day was the day to be at the private islands -- most of which are unprotected like Coco Cay.

 

The minute we woke up we knew there was no way we were going to stop at Coco Cay - that was about 45 minutes before the Captain made the announcement. While it was disappointing because it would have been nice to walk on the beach despite the weather, there isn't much any of the cruise lines can do about something like that.

 

We had a good time on the ship and relaxed a ton - which was great!

 

Great pictures - thanks for sharing!

 

Perhaps I didn't word that correctly, yes that was their SCHEDULED stop, and I did notice all the other ships. It's just frustrating that they'd continue to schedule an island that is hit or miss because of the weather. I've also seen many ports with more than one empty dock. Perhaps there weren't any in our immediate area... who knows.

I'm glad you had a good time. Thanks.

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Thanks for your review and the wonderful pictures. We're on Serenade in March, but the W. Caribbean itinerary. I love Key West, so seeing your pics was a walk down memory lane for me.

 

Thanks. I spent a lot of summers in Key West as a kid, spent 3 weeks there after I graduated high school, and this was our second stop there on a cruise! I always tell my husband we'll retire there. ;)

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One of the absolute MUST things to do in Key West is visit the pie shop. But not just ANY pie shop (because there are a lot of them now) but THE pie shop. The originator of the Key Lime Pie. OMG it is the best! No store bought or restaurant made version compares to the original. You can go in and buy it by the slice or a whole pie! YUMMY!

 

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I'm traveling with a group, and we all have different opinions about what we want to do, but this is my #1 stop in Key West!!!

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