Blue Collar Diamond's Road trip/ hurricane shortened Majesty cruise

My wife and I normally cruise in late April/Early May around our anniversary. 2017 was a busy year for us, once again, our only child (along with her husband, and now 2 grand children) dominated our year. We didn’t getaway all summer so Gina and I decided to do a combo road trip/cruise last fall hoping to extend our warm weather a few weeks. Well we decided to do it again, booking Majesty in early September this time.

We decided to do the Majesty Road trip again. Last year I tried to book about 40 days ahead seeing low prices and ended up booking 75 days ahead. This year we booked earlier and the storm season hadn’t really started yet as well as Royal seems to be playing weird games with pricing. We ended up paying about $100 more for an inside than our 2016 Ocean view and now final payment has come and gone. But I have 7 days in a row off work and we won’t spend much more money that if we did any other type of getaway. I guess that makes going on the same ship for the 5th time worthwhile.

This year I picked an inside cabin in a good location and stuck with it, not seeing any worthwhile upgrades or Fairy calls. Sept 2017 will be remembered by many for an active Hurricane Season highlighted, if you will by Harvey and Irma. With a week to go, it looked like our Majesty cruise would be the first one after Hurricane Irma for Majesty. After a month or so tracking every tropical depression in the Atlantic, we saw that the hurricanes were going to affect our cruise. Irma went through a week before our cruise and in paying attention to the Port Canaveral area in particular we knew we had to decide by Friday Sept 15th what we were going to do. For the 3rd time we booked the Radisson. About Wednesday they came online and their correspondence regarding our reservation was outstanding. Once it was determined that our cruise would be shortened by a day, the Radisson moved our reservation to a Monday arrival.

We spend Saturday packing and visiting family instead of driving to Florida as planned. Sunday morning we started out early and I elected to take the Western route I75through KY, TN, GA instead of I77 through WV, VA, NC, SC, GA. because of fog. Our plan was to make it as close to Florida as possible on Monday. The ride down was a good one, every gas station open and the roads in good condition. One of the highlights in Tennessee was seeing a tower with what looked like a helicopter model attached to it. As we got closer, it turned out the helicopter was actually placing a large tower on its base about 100 yards from I-75. Quite a site. In Georgia we passed 4 large trucks headed south carrying the Budweiser Clydesdale team.

Traffic was unusually heavy in Atlanta for a Sunday. It was here we saw a lot of caravan sof Electric Utility vehicles headed south, from as far away as Texas. Once we hit Florida, we would see similarcaravans heading north. I assume they had done a weeks’ work and were headed home. Each on flew an American flag on the back and no overpaid morons stopped to take a knee. Once I knew how far I wanted to drive, I used the hotels.com app to pick out a Country Inn and Suites in Valdosta, GA. It was a nice place at a reasonable price and it left us about 250 miles to Port Canaveral

MORE AND PHOTOS AT LUNCH TIME (EASTERN)

FYI, this new forum software seems to have problems of removing spaces between words when I try to copy and paste from WORD. Anyone figure out how to stop that? If you see words run together, its not my fault.

FYI, this new forum software seems to have problems of removing spaces between words when I try to copy and paste from WORD. Anyone figure out how to stop that? If you see words run together, its not my fault.

I have seen others complain about this as well - maybe try notepad?

I have seen others complain about this as well - maybe try notepad?

I will give that a try.

Reminder for those who weren't following cruises last week, Majesty canceled several cruises and delayed our cruise one day making it a 3 day instead of a 4 day because of their humanitarian missions to St Martin and St Thomas. I figured most of you were aware of this as I know I was glued to cruise critic, NOAA's hurricane site, and Royals site all week. The actual notice that our cruise was delayed and shortened came via email on Wednesday the 13th. I heard it here first, as my email came about 4 hours after everyone else got theirs. (seems like it was held by my ISP for a short time)

Anyway I left myself about 260 miles to drive on Monday from the FL line to Port Canaveral. I promise to get to the actual cruise soon, but though this detail may interest some. I entered Florida with a full tank of gas and wasn't going to let it get under a half tank. Many stations were close or had no gas just 3 days before. We however ran into no problem. When we reached the Florida Turnpike we saw signs that all tolls were suspended by the Governor. This was probably a good thing for people trying to get out and others trying to get in. There were plenty of signs telling everyone to use the PREPASS lanes and continue on your way. One or two people must have missed those signs as I did see people with money in hand reach out to empty toll booths. ;p

We made it to one of the Travel Plaza's in the middle of Orlando and found everything to be in good condition and operating. We filled up with gas here. It was about 30 cents higher than Georgia, but not unreasonable. In the area we did see some standing water and a few wrecked bill boards. Crossing over the bridges to the Port Area we did see some signs of private or small dock damage. We arrived at the Radisson and it appeared to be in good condition. Check in was quick and easy. The guy behind the counter was the same one who I had worked with online and through their app to get my reservation changed. By 1pm we were checked in and beside the pool.

(I intended to start pictures here, but I think my work may have blocked my storage site, so i am going to press on. The hotel was in great shape and the pool that I love was clean and working. I had intended on going to Grills or Fishlips to watch the ships sailaway, but due to schedule changes, there were none! I did get a call from a former roll call member PEACEBEAUTYTRUTH who lived in the area. They had evacuated the area and had just gotten back. They invited us over to their place for a drink and then they drove us to Coconuts On the Beach for dinner. Coco Beach was in good shape with only one traffic light on A1A not working. But at 5pm people were taking their turn and getting through it just fine.

Pausing till I can add photos tonight.

I did find this one photo from the Radisson Pool bar :)

The bartender related she had evacuated up into Georgia and had gotten back Friday.

I just logged into Royals site and even though its only 3 days since we disembarked, we were already credited with the full 4 days even though it end up being 3 days. Insignificant to some, but I thought others would like to know.

We went through the Titusville/Coco Beach area on 9/12 & had to stop at 3 different exits to find gas. We did find it at 95 & W King St at a BP, the Pilot J was taped off so no fuel.

We had intended to go to Fishlips or Grills to watch Oasis and Carnival Liberty sail away, but with their schedule changes there was no ships to watch sailaway that day. A former roll call member from my Freedom 2015 cruise who lives in the Port Canaveral area PEACEBEAUTYTRUTH invited us over to his place and then to a local establishment called Coconuts on the Beach in Coco Beach. . They had evacuated during Irma and had come back on Friday. He lept me updated with the local situations. By Monday night Coco Beach seemed back to normal. On the drive there I noted one traffic light was still out. It was marked on my GPS as the area's only RED LIGHT CAM light.

It was a quiet night at Coconuts, mostly locals and plenty of parking, but the 4 of us had a good time here. On both cruises Mike was real helpful with local information. 2015 was my first cruise from Port Canaveral. While sitting at the bar, I noted 6 ft seas and many surfers. I wondered if we were in for a rough cruise.

After leaving Mike and Doris and returning to the Radisson, it was dark and I blew through that intersection that had no light. They didn't have it marked in anyway. Fortunately we made it ok and rested to embarkation day which was now Tuesday 9/19

The Radisson runs a pretty good shuttle for about $6 each. We parked our car in the lot and were on the shuttle at 10:15.

It's a short ride to the terminal, we had to wait a couple of minutes to get off the shuttle, but before you knew it we were onboard! We checked our bags and had minimal carry on, but one of the crew members told us that rooms were ready, so we dropped off our bags. This time Royal got our Welcome back gift's correct!

We had been on a Majesty inside before and knew what we were getting, but it was still a bit of a shock, especially since the wife overpacked. :)

After a good lunch in the WJ, I wanted to go up to deck 12 and fill my Coke Freestyle cup. On this ship, there are only 2 machines and 1 was broke all week!

It wasn't a huge problem, I had to wait behind 3 or 4 people several times. One of the ships crew seem to be there telling you that you could get refills at any bar. I just smiled and said, "Coke Zero"

I also wanted to visit the Compass Deli again as we forgot to last year. One of the rumors is that that area will go away and be replaced with a CHOPS. Another Diamond member said he heard the front part of the Crown and Anchor Lounge would be used instead.

Our next stop was the EXPLORATIONS desk to book an excursion for Nassau. I had intentionally not booked one for Nassau because of the tentative nature of our cruise and I was leaving it open as a back up for scuba diving. I had booked Scuba in Coco Cay for the 3rd time, it had been canceled twice before. However on this shortened cruise we were going to Nassau first and Coco Cay second. We also had a note in our room that $177 was refunded to our account for the shortened cruise. I was prepared for this and had looked at a Blue Lagoon/Segway tour. I decided to book that anticipating a long line at this desk later that night. I was correct. We only had to wait about 5 minutes. While waiting in line I noticed this.

This was my 5th time on Majesty for a total of 14 days, I never noticed this thing. I usually like to look at the art, but I guess I try to avoid guest Services on cruises and had forgotten about this one.

We spent some time at the pool, then got ready for dinner, but first we had to visit the Diamond Happy hour in the Viking Crown Lounge. There had been inconsistent reports about servers taking your Sea Pass card when drinks were ordered. I saw an official document somewhere that Royal said this was a test of their customer's drinking habits. This comes after Harmony's "test" of making everyone in a cabin order a drink package is one passenger did. Well I can report, they were asking for your card with every drink. At least 90% of the time. I saw a few servers not do this. It caused us two problems. The first was the server brought the drink, but forgot to bring my wife's card back. We didn't notice this until we were seated at dinner. The other problem was we were charged for the very last drink on night 3 and I didn't notice it till we got off the ship. I'll let you know what they say about that when I call. (Unless I forget, it was $8.95 and they had refunded us nearly $200.

We had late seating at a large table for 10.

That is Gina standing just beyond the oval table that was ours. Occupancy at dinner looked to be about 75%, but only one other person showed up for our table. A guy named Paul, a Diamond member from Smyrna Beach told us 2nd seating was listed as unavaible for months and we was only allowed to book MTD. Once on board he switched to 2nd seating.

Gina and I book had the Prime Rib and it was excellent! Paul had a Ceasar salad he was happy with. Our Dining team did a great job all week, and we had a great time. This made up for the lack luster experience we last had on Adventure. There was no welcome back show scheduled as they were cramming everything into 3 days. I haven't done a Majesty 3 day in 10 years.

I did know Ricky Mathews was back as CD on Majesty this time. We had him in 2007, 2010, and 2013. Last year it was Mark Walker. I ran into Ricky at Lattitudes and had a nice conversation with him.

Next up is Nassau day 2 with the Segway Blue Lagoon excursion.

Love your reviews Bill!

I had brought a new toy with me on this cruise and wanted to get off the ship to use it. I had intended on using it when the ships sailed away when I was at Grills, but that didn't happen. A lens company called Tamron released a new lens for my Canon camera. I usually bring two lenses on a cruise . My 12-185mm and a 100-300mm. Tamron released this 18-400mm lens

A few of the photos I am about to share are motivated by the use of this lens. Everyone has seen everything there is to see in Nassau right? Actually we didn't get to Nassau till around noon. The Upper Tier event was held at 10:45 in the spectrum. Francois, the Hotel Director spoke after the usual recognition of the top sailers on board. He mentioned there were 2000 passengers on board out of 2600 capacity. Yet there were signs everywhere saying no upgrades available.

Francois said, " I could give you news of the company, but most of you know more than me anyway, so I'll talk about our last 2 weeks. " He did go into detail about what they did in their runs between San Juan, St Thomas, and St Martin. It did include delivery of generators, Water, and non-persihable food stuffs. He did also mention how the crew managed to enjoy themselves in this effort and break from the routine. A few members who have had several contracts on this ship had only been to the same ports over and over, and they had never been to the other ports.

While we pulled into Nassau I went up on the pool deck and watched as we entered the turn around basin. I spotted something I had never seen before and I always like to post at least one picture nobody else would think to publish. I was walking by the pool and I noticed that a portion of the pool screen was dead. As I walked around back, I saw this technician successfully repairing the screen.

On Oasis in 2016 there were similar problems with the Aqua theater screen that couldn't be fixed quite that easily. After docking, we waited in the theater until our excursion group was called and then we walked outside and stood in the heat for another 15 minutes, but we were dressed for the beach, so I just kept thinking, it will be April before I feel heat again! (I didn't know I would be coming back to 90F in Ohio this week)

On the boat ride to Blue Lagoon, I took these two photos of Atlantis as we were passing by. One at about 400,mm and the other at about 50mm0mm and the other at 400mm.

Our boat to the Blue Lagoon stopped at Jimmy Buffet's place to pick up more passengers as there were several different types of excursions going to the island. I took this photo looking back at Majesty at 18mm.

Then I zoomed in.

Yes, I did have to steady myself to get a good picture at 400mm. Overall, I like this lens for outdoor use. Indoors its not sensitive enough for low light photos at long zoom lengths.

I've become a bit disjointed in this review. I totally skipped over sailaway. I was planning on Periscoping the ships leaving before my cruise, but the change in schedule destroyed that. I tried to scope our departure, but I had no cell service from the dock of deck 12 near the bow at the time of sailaway, so I just watched.

One thing at sailaway did interest me. I've never owned a boat and I have no knowledge of water "right of way". I've seen the smaller ships generally avoid the cruise ships in the channel, but occasionally a slow moving sailboat may go along side. But on this departure, I saw a private boat coming directly at us at high speed. I was confident he would go along side us, but I worried if our wake my push him into the side of the channel.

Before he could get too close, he was interecepted by a an armed coast guard boat and stopped. That must have been intimidating. I wouldn't buy a car and drive it without knowing the rules of the road. How do you spend at least 6 figures and not know the rules?

FYI, this new forum software seems to have problems of removing spaces between words when I try to copy and paste from WORD. Anyone figure out how to stop that? If you see words run together, its not my fault.

I had the same problem last time I posted a review. I could not figure how to address it other than typing directly into the forum. Also tried from wordpad. That did not help.

I am at break at work, the rest of my photos are at home, so I should take a break, but to keep this going, even if it does break up the timeline of this review (I'm not going for award winning) I'll post a few random pics that are on my phone. On most cruises the phone gets put away in the safe and doesn't come out till the trip home. But I took some photos on embarkation day, and some one my free Diamond internet day, which in this case was Coco Cay day since we didn't have a final sea day.

I followed several threads here and on other sites wondering about the Port Canaveral area. This is our 3rd stay at the Radisson and I love their pool!

I mentioned going to Coconuts on the Beach in Coco Beach. I also mentioned the high surf that night.

I'll have better pictures from my camera when I start talking about Coco Cay, but this ship below is dredging for the new pier!

After about a 20 minute boat ride, we arrived at the Blue Lagoon Island. About 60 people were on the boat and they split up into about 4 different excursions. Majesty was the only ship in port that day, so the island was definitely not crowded.

We were quickly pointed to the Segway tour starting location.

We were greeted and told to fill out a waiver form and accept or not to wear knee and elbow pads, but helmets were required. There was about the right number of equipment laid out for the number of people present, but it wasn't labeled in any manner for size, so with people ranging from 4'10 to 6'3 90 lbs to 270, it was quite a struggle to find stuff that fit and the staff was no help.

After the long struggle to get the proper equipment, our two guides demonstrated the equipment. They then asked it anyone had ridden a segway before. My wife and I had and were very comfortable on them. They had each of us hop on, perform a 360 degree turn, and then told us to go over to the practice area, which I did.

The instruction to go to the practice area and practice was the first of their vague and micromanaging statements. I complied and was zooming around the practice area about 10 feet from the rest of the group and the guide, "Yelled not so far, don't go that far!" I guess I didn't see the invisible box in which I was supposed to stay. His PO'd looked was enough to get me to stay right there and not move. I didn't need the practice after a few seconds of getting re-acquainted with the machine. As 3 or 4 of us got into the practive area it got crowded. As person number five wheeled toward me, I didn't think they had full control so I backed up about 6 inches which drew another rebuke my way, "Don't back up!" I avoided giving him my best, "Are you daft? look." i guess I should have let him crash into me. The whole excursion was full of vague instruction and quick to chastize verbal abuse. (Ok, that's just a little dramatic.)

We rode single file with lots of correction, "Your too close, Keep up, tighten up the line" None of us could figure out their invisible boundries. We made one stop to see where they put a bait bucket in the water to attract stingrays and heard about their future Kiss a Nurse shark attraction. Then we stopped at a watch tower, climbed to the top, looked around and continued our tour.

Walking the entire island would take maybe 30 minutes, so it could be done on Segway in about 15 minutes. The tour was described as" an hour long tour of the island by Segway concluding with a skills competition. " After about 30 minutes we were back at the start and the group all went through a slalom course once and were then basically told, "That's all, don't let the door hit you in the @ss on the way out."

Segway's are fun, but we didn't get was advertised and paid a premium price for. I've done two much better Segway tours in Nassau at a better price. Part of the short changing, if you will, may be because the island was almost empty with only Majesty in port. We were told, the boat back to the port boards at 4:15 and leaves at 4:30. We got a drink at the bar and were just walking around the island at 3:55 when they sent employees all over the island to get people back to the ferry. By 4pm we were on the boat back and another boat was carrying all the employees off the island. Clearly they wanted to go home early. The whole experience was rushed and in my opinion, not worth the premium price.

We visited Blue Lagoon Island in 2015 and did the swimming with the dolphins. It was a beautiful area and a lot of fun!

We visited Blue Lagoon Island in 2015 and did the swimming with the dolphins. It was a beautiful area and a lot of fun!

Since you mentioned it, we were walking through that area when we were basically shanghai'd back to the boat to get off the island. The dolphins in their pens were performing for us and I got lots of photos. Since I didn't do this excursion, I wasn't going to post the pics, but I think I will. We had about 10 minutes of free entertainment. I'll post those photos tonight.

The disjointed review continues. After a nice nice in the Diamond Happy hour and dinner we went to bed on day 1, an had a hard time sleeping. The mattress was hard as a rock. I heard this same complaint the year before and on other ships, but since the reports of hard mattresses began in 2015, we have had pillow top or other foam products on our beds without asking till this one. If you see in my signature it now says the number of great night sleeps is actually 1 less than my total sailing nights. I did go to Guest Services and pulled the disability card mentioning my spinal fusion surgery and finding the bed unusable. They did provide a padding that was just good enough. The other two nights we slept great.