Ecstasy Review

[CapitalGal]

This was our first cruise! 2/12 on the Ecstasy -- it was great! We were celebrating my DH's birthday, Valentine's Day and our honeymoon. We plan to book another cruise in the near future. The information on these boards helped me to plan and prepare -- I am grateful for everything I learned prior to cruising. Here is a recap of our experience:

 

Galveston Parking: Arrived at EZ Cruise parking lot around 11:45am and they were efficient and friendly. We'd made our reservation on the internet ($30 for 5 days) and everything went smoothly. We will use them again.

 

Embarkation: I had a carry-on bag (22" rolling suitcase) which actually exceeded the size limit posted, but there were no issues going through security... no one even blinked. We had "Skipper's Club" check-in since we were in a Cat 11 cabin, but the process was very slow since there were only 2 employees working in that area... I think we would have been on board sooner with regular check-in. We were on the ship by 12:45pm and our cabin was ready.

 

Cabin: We were in V26 with a balcony and the room was nice and clean. We immediately noticed a sewage-like odor in the bathroom and our refrigerator was not cool inside. These were the only issues we had with our cabin -- everything else was great. However, neither of those issues were ever really resolved after talking to our steward as well as the pursor's desk. We were told "that's as cold as the fridge gets" and they said they would try to take care of the sewage odor but never did (as far as we could tell). We were startled by the sound of the flush of the toilet at first -- I was not prepared for the extremely LOUD noise. Otherwise, the cabin was quiet -- we could not hear our neighbors on either side (and I hope they could not hear us, either!). The balcony was nice but we didn't use it much, only when we left Galveston and to look at the beautiful stars at night. We enjoyed the big window -- it was wonderful to have all the natural light streaming in our cabin during the day. We often kept our balcony door open while we were in the cabin to get some fresh air and a breeze.

 

Dining/Food: As soon as we dropped off our carry-on bags after boarding, we went to the main dining room to see the Maitre d' about changing our dining time. We had requested the main dining (early) through our TA, however, when we received our Sail & Sign card, we had been assigned late dining. He accommodated our request with no problem and we enjoyed our dining time of 6:15pm in the WindStar dining room. We were at a table of 10 (with 4 other couples). We ate dinner in the dining room each night (except when we were in Cozumel). We got along great with the others at our table. We found the food and service to be very good. Our only little gripe would be that the food was a bit bland at times (hey -- we're Texans -- we like spicy food). We ate breakfast and lunch on the Lido deck (mostly in the Panorama Grill) which we found to be just fine. We tried the buffet, pizza, and hamburgers and found it all satisfactory. The midnight buffet is absolutely beautiful and great for pictures/videos, but we found only the desserts to be really edible.

 

Cozumel: We did the Carnival excursion on the Atlantis Submarine (we booked it the prior day). We enjoyed the boat ride to/from the submarine and found the actual submarine experience to be very enjoyable. We went down 121 feet and were able to get some great pictures. Although we felt a little crowded and squished on the sub, it was still a wonderful experience. After the sub ride, we took a cab downtown and ate lunch at Carlos & Charlie's and did some shopping in that area. Then we took another cab to Paradise Beach and did some sunbathing/relaxing. It was not crowded at all and the facilities were great. It was hard to leave, but we decided to go back to the port and have dinner at Pancho's Backyard as we gazed out at the Ecstasy. The food was good and the atmosphere was relaxing.

 

Calica/Playa del Carmen: We did the "Tulum Express", a Carnival Excursion (we booked it the first day we were on the ship). We were scheduled to leave for Tulum at 8:00am, but our bus did not pull away until 8:40am. On the way to Tulum, we stopped for about 35 minutes at a shopping area for a restroom break/shopping. Our tour guide was good and provided us with a lot of interesting information during the bus ride to Tulum. We enjoyed Tulum -- what wonderful pictures we got! Our guide started the tour and then let us go off on our own to explore, etc. The beach was gorgeous and the water looked great. We did not go swimming, but there were many people enjoying the water. We were only there 2 hrs, but it was warm and we were ready to go after 2 hrs in the sun. We are thinking about scheduling a separate trip back to that area to spend more time exploring, etc. (I was surprised to see a Subway sandwich shop in Tulum -- we had lunch there prior to boarding the bus for our return to the port). We then took a cab to Playa del Carmen and went to a big shopping area and beach. We relaxed on the beach for about an hour before heading back to the ship. There were several vendors right at the port and we got some pretty good buys on sterling silver before boarding the ship.

 

Ship activities: We spent a little time in the Casino playing slots, attended the art auctions (and purchased a few things we liked), attended the Trivia Game shows, went to the Hey Mambo show, and spent time on the Lido deck just relaxing in the sun. We purchased one Fountain Card (for sodas) and shared it -- but we found the service to be very slow at the various bars. We enjoyed "tea time" at 3pm and there were not very many people there (limited seating). We ended up purchasing about 5 of the 20 pictures taken of us on board (more than we had planned). The photographers at each photo station spent quite a bit of time putting us into different poses and taking several pictures and I was really impressed with the black & white portraits. The pictures taken in the dining room even came out great!

 

Disembarking: Just as we were finishing breakfast, they called our "color" to go through the Customs process. The line was quite long, but moved fairly quickly. We got off the ship at 9:00am and found our luggage easily. We arrived at our car in the EZ Cruise lot by 9:25am and were on our way back to Austin (already missing the ship).

 

This was our first cruise and we really enjoyed it so it will definitely not be our last. Please let me know if you have any questions and I will be happy to respond. Happy cruising'!

 

Kathy

[karenh1127]

Thanks for the review! Does the dining room offer steaks? Specifically filet mignon? I am not a seafood eater so I usually do chicken or steak. What about grilled chicken? We have a suite on the Upper deck and I hope there is no sewage smell! What about smoke smell? We are non smokers and even though I know there is smoking in public areas can you smell in the cabin or dining room? Thanks for the info!

[CapitalGal]

Yes, I think you can order a steak every night if you want to -- even if it's not on the menu. I did not have any seafood at dinner -- there was usually a chicken or beef selection on the menu each night. I had a yummy filet minon one night, a terrific pork chop another night, and prime rib also. We are non-smokers, too, and the smoke from other cabins did bother us at times. Our neighbors in the next cabin smoked inside and on their balcony whenever they were there, and some folks across the hall (in an inside cabin) kept their door open when they smoked so it drifted into the hallway and into our room. I did not notice the smoke nearly as much in the public areas. Overall, it wasn't as smoky as I thought it might be.

[karenh1127]

One more question.........is there a chocolate buffet??:D

[CapitalGal]

I did not see a "chocolate buffet" on our cruise. There was only a "midnight buffet" on the 2nd night -- and it had several different types of desserts.