whisler636

Embarkation Day – Sunday, Nov 18

We had scheduled to take the hotel transfer to the port.  It was $9/person.  Again, you could also call a taxi/Uber/Lyft, but honestly, while I focus on trying to watch our costs, as I have aged (John and I are in our late 40s) convenience sometimes trumps cost. We scheduled the 10 am shuttle and headed down to the lobby at 9:45 to wait. I knew it was going to be a madhouse since there were several (I believe 6) ships in port that day.  As luck would have it, as soon as we got to the lobby, we walked over to the sign for the Adventure and a shuttle driver asked us where we were headed.  We told him the 10 am shuttle to the Adventure and we knew we were early but he said he could take us now. Apparently he had three seats left to fill and off we went earlier than we thought.

After a quick 5ish minute drive to the port area we arrived at Terminal 29 where the Adventure was docked.  Our bags were unloaded, turned over to the porter to be delivered to our stateroom, and we headed into the terminal.  We proceeded to security where we had no wait and breezed right through. Off to the check-in counter where I pulled up our SetSail document on my IPhone through the Royal App.  If you are using the App, you will have a SetSail pass for each traveler.  The agent scanned each of our passes, took our security picture, and printed out our temporary hard copy SetSail Pass for entry onto the ship and charges prior to entry into the stateroom where you receive your SetSail card. I was a little hesitant about getting the cards at your room (they are hanging on the door in a sealed envelope) but honestly it was no big deal.  The only slow down was getting a drink before you had your physical card.  When I went to the bar to get a drink for me and my husband, the bartenders had to manually take down the information from the temporary card for what I assume was to run it through the system later.  This definitely was much slower than them just being able to swipe the card.  Was it a deal breaker…no, just a minor inconvenience.  After checking in, we were directed to the seating area but by the time we walked over to sit down, they started boarding.  This was the quickest we have ever gotten onto a ship in our history.  We left the hotel at about 9:50 a.m. and we were sitting at the pool deck contemplating on what to do first by 10:20.  

John and I hung out by the pool area while Zoe started to explore the ship until 12:30 when we could register her at Adventure Ocean.  At 1, the announcement was made that rooms were ready so we headed our room to drop our backpacks.

Our Room on the Adventure – 8392 Aft Facing Balcony (Starboard Side)

When I was looking to book this cruise and saw that an Aft Facing Balcony was available, I jumped on it.  When at sea, I love sitting on the balcony, reading, and just listening to the sounds of the waves.  I find it very relaxing.  We entered the room and while it was adequate for the three of us, the balcony was the headliner.  We had two full recliners and two chairs and a table, still with plenty of room to move around.  It was heaven!  Plus, we ended up having the most gorgeous weather the whole trip that I ended up using the balcony every single day.  I was slightly concerned about the room, as on all of our other trips, we have had cabins where Zoe slept on the sofa.  While this room had a two-seater loveseat, there was no way she would fit (although she just turned 11 she is over 5 feet tall already).  She needed to use the Pullman that came down from the ceiling.  She was very concerned about falling out but I convinced her she would be fine.  Of course on the second night my husband felt something brushing his legs during the middle of the night and sure enough, somehow she got her legs over the bed and they were dangling over him.  He got her back into the bed and luckily we had no problems the rest of the trip.  

When unpacking, I was concerned where everything would go but I was impressed with the storage. Since we were effectively doing a back-to-back, we packed for two weeks and surprisingly, everything fit into the drawers and closet.  Our two duffle bags fit under the bed and the one hard-side luggage fit into the closet.  If all three of us were in the room together, we needed to be strategic as to how we were going to move around, but having that large balcony helped tremendously.  Our luggage arrived quickly (I think around 2 – 2:30) and I took the time to unpack while John and Zoe explored the ship.  

My Time Dining

We signed up for My Time Dining.  Our family tends to eat dinner early so we had a standing reservation for 5:30 each night except for the day we were in Costa Maya.  We did not eat in any of the specialty dining venues this trip and honestly did not miss it.  Our My Time Dining experience on this trip was fantastic.  The first two nights we checked in with the hostess at the “With Reservation” line and after that they just waved us in and told us to head to our normal table.  We never had to wait at all.  Once seated, our server and assistant waiter were great.  The service was brisk (which was fine with me) and we were normally out of there most nights by 6:30.  

With regard to the food, I almost hate to review since again, it is so subjective depending on the person.  And honestly, any time I get to eat dinner without having to shop for the ingredients, cook the meal, serve the meal, and then have to clean up, I’m a happy gal.   But since this is a hotly debated topic, I will comment on our experience.  We felt the food was great.  It was served at the correct temperature, nicely presented, and was tasty.  My only disappointment was one night I ordered the strip steak medium rare and it was more medium with no pink and a little dry.  I’m always hesitant to order steak out since I’m particular on how I like it.  Thursday was Thanksgiving and they did an outstanding job providing a “Traditional” Thanksgiving dinner.  We had the choice of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn and cranberry sauce or ham, sweet potatoes, green beans and something else that escapes me.  We al had the turkey dinner and it was yummy.  I had pumpkin pie for dessert and John had the pecan pie.   The day we were in Costa Maya we had a late day in port so we just ate at the Windjammer.  Again, we felt the food was good and could always find something we liked.

We ate breakfast in the Windjammer most mornings.  I felt like the flow was better on the Adventure versus some of the other Royal ships we have been on, especially the Majesty, which I will touch on during that part of my review.  We are so used to the Windjammer being so full and always having a tough time finding a table.  Not this trip.  We always were able to find a table without a problem even during what seemed like peak times.  The two days we ate lunch at the Windjammer we also had no problem finding a table and the food was good.

We had lunch in the dining room both sea days as we love the Tutti Salad.  I was surprised to find that not only did they have the salad bar set up, but there was also a buffet of hot food and a table of desserts to choose from along with the option of ordering from the menu.  John and I both had salads so I can’t comment on the hot food offerings but my daughter had some of the made to order pasta the first sea day and she seemed to be happy with the lunch.

Remainder of Day 1

After dinner, my daughter spent her evening at Adventure Ocean while John and I attended the Welcome Aboard Show.  It featured a comedian that was pretty good.  After the show we headed back to the room to relax on our balcony after a long day.

That's it for me this evening.  Will try to post more as soon as I can.  Thanks for reading so far!

Adventure - Set Sail Temp Pass.pdf

Adventure - Adv Ocean Compass.pdf

Adventure Day 1 Compass.pdf

We’re Off….

Finally, the day was here and we loaded up the car for the ride to BWI.  Two days prior, we had 8 inches of snow.  We live close to Harrisburg, PA and while we are used to snow, this storm caught everyone a little off-guard.  Everyone was only predicting 1-3 inches and the storm overachieved and at the worse time right after everyone got into work/school.  The main interstate was a total nightmare and people got stuck for hours.  I had co-workers that normally commute 30 minutes that were stuck on the highway for over 3-4 hours.  Luckily, I had schedule a work from home day and my daughter’s school made the right decision early that morning to close.  While I watched the snow come down my thought was getting the heck out of dodge to some sun and warmth.

Our drive to BWI was super smooth.  No line to check in and there was hardly a line for security.  In fact, the security office stopped us and asked us if we could hear the music playing.  We said yes and he said that’s how you know the airport is pretty dead.  No complaints from us.  Our flight to FLL was smooth and I was impressed with Jet Blue.  Loved the in-headrest TV monitors with lots of options to pass the time and of all things having an assigned seat.  After flying Southwest for so long, I kind of liked not having the first come first serve seating.

We arrived in FLL around 4 and easily caught a cab to our hotel, Embassy Suites on 17th Street.  I know there is the debate on taxi vs. Uber/Lyft.  We tried Uber last year and it was ok.  Personally, I prefer a taxi, as I don’t have to wait.  Plus honestly, I am not Uber/Lyft savvy.  I live in the county and I don’t even know if an Uber would come to my house.  I believe the cost of the Taxi with tip was $15.    

We love the Embassy Suites and it is our preferred hotel in FLL.  It is a reasonable distance from the airport and is super close to the Port.  There is the Harbor Shops right behind the hotel that has great restaurants, a grocery store (Publix), a TJ Maxx, and other little shops in case you may have forgotten something.  In fact, my daughter forgot her goggles.  So I thought we could pop over to TJ Maxx and pick up a pair.  On the walk there, I realized we did not pack a pair of nicer shoes to wear with her dresses so we found a reasonably priced pair.  However, goggles were nowhere to be found as the store was all decked out of Christmas shopping.  While I stood in line to pay for the shoes, I sent my husband and Zoe to the supermarket as a last ditch effort.  What do you know, as soon as they walked in there was the aisle for pool supplies.  I guess when you live in a state where you can swim all year that is a permanent aisle, unlike in PA where you can only really swim between June and Sept.  

We had dinner at a lovely Mexican restaurant, La Bamba, located right in the Harbor Shops.  We ate there last year and liked it so much we decided to go there again this year.  Food is so subjective and truly I hate to even review it but I will give you my perspective.  My family enjoyed our dinner there.  I felt it was prepared well, served at the correct temperature (I hate lukewarm food) and the staff was friendly.   After dinner, we walked back to the hotel and my daughter swam for a while.  One of the best features of the hotel is the pool area.  It is beautiful.  The hotel is a little dated, but clean which is what counts for me.  The hotel offers a Happy Hour from what I believe is from 5 – 8 pm.  There is light snack and free drinks.  In the morning, there is a hot breakfast that is quite good to get you started on embarkation day.  Because goodness knows when you may get food on the ship, LOL!!

A Majestic Adventure:  A Tale of Two Ships 

Background: Hi, my name is Patti and I have used Cruise Critic extensively for over the past 10 years in planning my family’s cruise vacations.  I love to read other people’s trip reviews but have never put pen to paper to create my own.  So here I am writing my first trip review to hopefully help another Cruise Critic member in their planning.  

I travel with my husband, John, and our daughter Zoe, who turned 11 during the trip.  For the last five years we have scheduled our cruise vacation over the Thanksgiving holiday to celebrate her birthday and to be able to take a two-week escape without having to pull our daughter out of school for an extended time.  (Her school district has the whole Thanksgiving week and the following Monday off of school.)  

Normally we are able to find a longer cruise (11 – 12 day) over that time period but this year we were only going to go over the Thanksgiving week.  I booked the 6-day Adventure of the Seas that left Ft. Lauderdale on Nov 18.  I had everything booked and was just waiting until Southwest (our airline of choice since we can get a direct flight out of BWI to FLL) released their schedule that included that time period.  The day the flight schedule came out in August I almost passed out when I saw the pricing.  In past years, I could always get airfare for under $300 round trip per person.  This year it was over $550 per person round trip.  The killer was the return flight on Sat, Nov 24 (the Sat after Thanksgiving,) that was over $350 per person.  I thought about staying over and leaving Sunday or Monday but the airfare was not substantially cheaper, plus now we would have additional hotel fees. I searched different airlines and I found that the cheapest direct flight out of BWI on the 17th was Jet Blue.  I pulled the trigger and booked and pulled a Scarlett O’Hara and decided “After all, tomorrow is another day!” to deal with the return flight.

Flash forward to late September when I started to realize that I needed to deal with the trip home issue.  Even though we already had the Adventure trip booked, I was still hitting the Royal website to “just look around”.  I stumbled across the 5 day Majesty of the Seas cruise that happened to leave on the same day as we came back into Ft. Lauderdale.  Not only was the logistics working in our favor, the cruise was a steal in an ocean view room. So I sat and crunched the number (I’m a Tax Director during the 50 weeks a year I’m not on a cruise ship…crunching numbers is my super-power.) The cost of the cruise for the three of us in an outside room and airfare on Southwest leaving now on Thursday, Nov 29 was equivalent to what the airfare alone would cost us to come back on Sat, Nov 24.  It seemed like a no-brainer so after a very brief discussion with the hubby (“Whatever dear…you know I leave this type of stuff to you) we were back on track for another roughly two week Thanksgiving/Birthday vacation. Now the long wait until November!

2 hours ago, mringenoldus said:

Whisler636

That's just awesome! We will be on the same sailing (and the two following) but haven't received any sort of upgrade offer. We are in the same cabin for all three so we are probably low on the list to move up up.

Enjoy that Royal Suite!

Maureen

We are also on the Adventure cruise prior that is departing on Nov. 18.  So we will be getting of her on the 24th and then finding our way down the pier to get on the Majesty.  I have a feeling we will not be able to walk between the two terminals and will have to hop a cab for the 2 minute ride between the ships. 

Just so excited to start our vacation.  We live in Central PA and we had our first snowstorm yesterday that crippled the roads around us.  My poor daughter was so concerned that we were not going to get out on Saturday but the sun is up and the clean up is on-going. 

2 hours ago, Merion_Mom said:

 

Is it just the two of you, or are you a threesome?

We are a threesome..me, my husband, and our soon to be 11 year old daughter.

I am so excited to report that I was offered a true upgrade, not an upsell, last evening for my upcoming Majesty trip leaving Ft. Lauderdale on Nov 24th.

My family was booked in a Grand Suite and we received the call last evening offering us the Royal Suite at no additional cost!!  Um, yeah...I'll take it.  My daughter thinks we are sailing in an outside room and I was going to surprise her with the original Grand Suite as a birthday present. (She is turning 11 on the 25th).  This will be her 12th cruise. For being so young she is a pretty seasoned cruiser, but we normally do not spring for a suite.   Can't wait to see her reaction to the room...hopefully that qualifies me for Best Mom of the Year award, LOL.  I know I am excited.

Not sure how we were picked, but wanted to let you know that Royal apparently is still offering upgrades...not just upsells.

Just off the Pearl yesterday. Pizza was still on the La Cuccina menu.

Patti