Enchantment 07/12/13 - A Mini Review

[poncho1973]

Just off of Enchantment for the second time. You can see my mini review of that trip - http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1837211 and see how things compared or understand things I may refer to.

 

The Good

 

Almost everything AGAIN. We had a really nice time. It was enjoyable, relaxing, and an excellent weekend trip.

 

We had hoped that Monarch could be our go-to ship whenever we needed a weekend away (Orlando being so close to port), but it wasn't to be. That ship was a dump and we did not enjoy it. We enjoyed Enchantment back in April and decided that she would do for whenever we needed a short break from reality.

 

The Blairs are gone and Marc the Floridian Brit was on board. We aren't big CD fanclub members. They don't make or break our trip. Marc was perfectly good. He was lively, funny, and not annoying. The BING-BONG thing wasn't nearly as bad as some people made it out to be. I could see that being true on a longer cruise, though.

 

Capt. Gus was gone and Capt. Shawn the Canadian was at the helm. He was a little dull, but I don't want a CD captain, I want a capable one. He was great.

 

The solarium problems were fixed. The doors and roof were open when the weather permitted it. It was rainy and overcast a bit of our trip and they were closed, appropriately, then. Nice work on not making me feel like my face was going to melt off again RCI! Improved!

 

In spite of Chantal's worrisome appearance, I got to go to Coco Cay for the second time. TWO IN A ROW!

 

The seas were the calmest I have EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER been on. Dead flat 98% of the time. Seriously. This was the cruise for anyone with seasickness. They would have been in heaven. We don't suffer from that problem, but this was awesome for us, too! I think I felt the ship twice on the entire trip.

 

We decided really late to jump on, but picked a much more centrally located cabin this time. It made a huge difference. We were on deck 4, right between both banks of elevators. Very convenient on a ship this long.

 

The crew was great. I would HIGHLY recommend Teresa in MTD. She was excellent. Ask for her by name. She's witty and fun, while being good at her job.

 

Our inside stateroom was nice. We like the standard setup much better than our sideways room from Deck 7 last time. It was quiet (we were in one of the off hallways) and we had zero problems with our room.

 

One of the crew told us that they had upgraded the Boleros air filtration. I would still recommend sitting by the glass if you don't like the smell of smoke, but it was MUCH better than April. We actually sat in there several times this trip without being smoked out like last time. I don't know if the filtration was responsible or fewer smokers in the casino was (there were WAY MORE kids on this trip than last time and WAY FEWER adults) the reason. Whatever, we benefited.

 

The interactive menus were CORRECT! Excellent work.

 

The food. It was still good! We had 2 repeat menus and 1 fresh one.

 

The solarium staff. They were all over the kids. The kids could come grab some food, but if they wandered over to the pool area... BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE! The staff ran them off quickly. I approached 3 of the crew and personally thanked them.

 

The bad

 

A few times we smelled the sewer stench on Deck 4. It wasn't horrible, but it was a little gross. Friday (day 1) it was overpowering on our walk to our room, but had cleared up when we left a half hour later. It wasn't good.

 

There were a couple hundred South American 15 year olds on the ship celebrating their Quinceañera (15th birthday super party... think American Sweet 16) and they were absolutely OBNOXIOUS. The only word you can use is OBNOXIOUS. They were everywhere (EXCEPT THE SOLARIUM!) and they were horrible.

 

Long sidebar: I understand that American dress codes and "prudish" values on modesty aren't global, but these very young girls also dressed like petite prostitutes most of the time. They were wearing 5"-6" heels, bras as shirts, see-through clothes, mini skirts with their bottoms hanging out, out at the pool a large portion of them wore rio cut super tiny bikinis and some of them were went all-out and wore a thong. It's one thing for grown women to wear what they want, but this was just weird. They were definitely girls, not women. However, they were dressed like women. They were behaving like little girls: singing, dancing arm-in-arm, teasing each other, making annoying sounds, blah, blah, blah... all normal teen girl annoying stuff... then you'd see one walk by and you'd see parts of her that you shouldn't be seeing from a kid. I'm an easy-going "do you own thing, I'll do mine" kind of guy, but this was awkward. I suppose it wouldn't have been as weird if I was in THEIR country going on a cruise, but they were HERE going on a cruise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDITED TO ADD:

The shows were much better scheduled this time, as well. The magician was cheesy, but his last illusion was insane! The comedian was really, really funny. The Quest was... in a word... EPIC. That is all. EPIC.

[DonnaK]

Very nice review! Thanks for sharing your cruise with us!

[Jaco5NC]

So glad you had a great trip other then the big tour group. We have seen that in Disney on numerous occasions, we try to avoid as much as possible but I guess that would be tough on a cruise ship.

Thank you for the review, we are going in October and looking forward to it!:)

 

 

Sent using the Cruise Critic forums app

[poncho1973]

Thanks. I don't do the multi-page picture reviews, but I try to get the vital stuff in.

 

If anyone has any questions, I can try to see if I can answer them. I know she has received a lot of review-love these past few months since she changed home ports, so many of them might be answered.

[holden0301]

Great review! We were on her 7/8. Solarium roof/windows were NEVER open. It got very hot in there. Glad they were open for you. Staff was wonderful.

 

There was an issue with children in the Solarium pool (two guys almost had a knock-down, drag out fight). The crew wasn't very good about clearing them out of the pool. It took at least 4 different crew members to clear them out. Finally, the stripes on the shoulder cleared them out. Believe me, we love kids and have two little ones of our own, but we would never bring them into the Solarium. I just don't understand why parents would do that. If the main pool is too crowded (as it often was on our Disney cruise), you find something else to do with the kids. It's as simple as that.

 

Anyway, sorry for rambling. Glad you had a great cruise! Enchantment is a wonderful ship!

[superduper123]

Thanks for sharing. I wish the Enchantment was still here in Baltimore. :)

[cybergidget]

Did you or did you hear about any cabins with bed bug problems? Our one and only sail on the DisEnchantment had numerous cabins with bed bugs.

[poncho1973]

Did you or did you hear about any cabins with bed bug problems? Our one and only sail on the DisEnchantment had numerous cabins with bed bugs.

 

We did not and we did not hear of them.

 

We do a quick look when we first enter the room, but I'm going to confess that we aren't the magnifying glass, crawling under the bed, check every nook and cranny types.

 

We pull the sheets back and go along the edge of the bed. I'm sure that's more than 90% of folks do, but probably WAY LESS than the super concerned folks do.

[MrFunInTheSun]

Thanks for sharing you experience. Looking forward to board this ship in less than a week.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. Please excuse any typographical errors.

[poncho1973]

Interesting point I wanted to share. A couple of months ago, I was called a liar... or maybe it was just my friends...

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=38273711#post38273711

 

I met a couple of this trip who live "within 3 miles of the port" who told me that they only decided to go on this cruise on Friday morning (the sail date) and arrived at the port not knowing if they would be sailing or not.

 

I don't know these people from Adam and the story was theirs, not mine. The interesting part is that it was backed up by another person on the way home.

 

The man said he worked for the Radisson down the road and he/his wife often cruise last minute. Oddly, we always use Park Port Canaveral at the Radisson down the road from the port. I mentioned this and he told me to ask the shuttle driver about it. On the way back to our car, the shuttle driver told the EXACT same story saying very casually "Of course, we do it a few times a year. Why wouldn't you? It's dirt cheap and right here!"

 

The man said they waited until the day of sailing and arrived about lunch time. He said they called the cruise lines and asked about cancellations, openings, whatever. He said that he specifically preferred RCI, but that others used the other lines, as well. He said they told RCI that they were at the port, packed, and ready to go, he then requested a last minute booking. He said if they didn't immediately tell him it wasn't possible on this trip, that about 3pm he would call back and have his credit card ready. He said they usually paid $100-150 a person for a shortie cruise.

 

He insisted that about 75% of the time, he'd be on the ship having a drink by the pool soon after. I mentioned some of the problems people mentioned about this: manifests, documentation, etc. He said "those people are full of bunk and I'm proof of that."

 

I have not done this. This is not my story. I am merely telling you what I was told.

 

 

 

 

ETA:

The only real problem I see is printing your set sail pass and getting through security to get upstairs. I'm not sure how that works and he didn't say. I did think of that when I was typing this all out.

[poncho1973]

There were a half dozen or so others who said they were on this cruise.

 

Supposedly, there was some sort of large altercation on the dock in Nassau?? Did anyone see or hear about this? We heard someone talking about it that night in Boleros.

 

We did see the drunk guy/girl mooning people between our ship and the Carnival ship. They were still attempting to walk back to whichever ship after about 15 minutes and it took them so long we never saw if they got on ours or the Carnival one.

[palofmine]

did the solarioum on this ship, have a retractable roof? That would have helped with some breeze. It is like a green house effect in there. I loved it.

 

 

Just off of Enchantment for the second time. You can see my mini review of that trip - http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1837211 and see how things compared or understand things I may refer to.

 

The Good

 

Almost everything AGAIN. We had a really nice time. It was enjoyable, relaxing, and an excellent weekend trip.

 

We had hoped that Monarch could be our go-to ship whenever we needed a weekend away (Orlando being so close to port), but it wasn't to be. That ship was a dump and we did not enjoy it. We enjoyed Enchantment back in April and decided that she would do for whenever we needed a short break from reality.

 

The Blairs are gone and Marc the Floridian Brit was on board. We aren't big CD fanclub members. They don't make or break our trip. Marc was perfectly good. He was lively, funny, and not annoying. The BING-BONG thing wasn't nearly as bad as some people made it out to be. I could see that being true on a longer cruise, though.

 

Capt. Gus was gone and Capt. Shawn the Canadian was at the helm. He was a little dull, but I don't want a CD captain, I want a capable one. He was great.

 

The solarium problems were fixed. The doors and roof were open when the weather permitted it. It was rainy and overcast a bit of our trip and they were closed, appropriately, then. Nice work on not making me feel like my face was going to melt off again RCI! Improved!

 

In spite of Chantal's worrisome appearance, I got to go to Coco Cay for the second time. TWO IN A ROW!

 

The seas were the calmest I have EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER been on. Dead flat 98% of the time. Seriously. This was the cruise for anyone with seasickness. They would have been in heaven. We don't suffer from that problem, but this was awesome for us, too! I think I felt the ship twice on the entire trip.

 

We decided really late to jump on, but picked a much more centrally located cabin this time. It made a huge difference. We were on deck 4, right between both banks of elevators. Very convenient on a ship this long.

 

The crew was great. I would HIGHLY recommend Teresa in MTD. She was excellent. Ask for her by name. She's witty and fun, while being good at her job.

 

Our inside stateroom was nice. We like the standard setup much better than our sideways room from Deck 7 last time. It was quiet (we were in one of the off hallways) and we had zero problems with our room.

 

One of the crew told us that they had upgraded the Boleros air filtration. I would still recommend sitting by the glass if you don't like the smell of smoke, but it was MUCH better than April. We actually sat in there several times this trip without being smoked out like last time. I don't know if the filtration was responsible or fewer smokers in the casino was (there were WAY MORE kids on this trip than last time and WAY FEWER adults) the reason. Whatever, we benefited.

 

The interactive menus were CORRECT! Excellent work.

 

The food. It was still good! We had 2 repeat menus and 1 fresh one.

 

The solarium staff. They were all over the kids. The kids could come grab some food, but if they wandered over to the pool area... BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE! The staff ran them off quickly. I approached 3 of the crew and personally thanked them.

 

The bad

 

A few times we smelled the sewer stench on Deck 4. It wasn't horrible, but it was a little gross. Friday (day 1) it was overpowering on our walk to our room, but had cleared up when we left a half hour later. It wasn't good.

 

There were a couple hundred South American 15 year olds on the ship celebrating their Quinceañera (15th birthday super party... think American Sweet 16) and they were absolutely OBNOXIOUS. The only word you can use is OBNOXIOUS. They were everywhere (EXCEPT THE SOLARIUM!) and they were horrible.

 

Long sidebar: I understand that American dress codes and "prudish" values on modesty aren't global, but these very young girls also dressed like petite prostitutes most of the time. They were wearing 5"-6" heels, bras as shirts, see-through clothes, mini skirts with their bottoms hanging out, out at the pool a large portion of them wore rio cut super tiny bikinis and some of them were went all-out and wore a thong. It's one thing for grown women to wear what they want, but this was just weird. They were definitely girls, not women. However, they were dressed like women. They were behaving like little girls: singing, dancing arm-in-arm, teasing each other, making annoying sounds, blah, blah, blah... all normal teen girl annoying stuff... then you'd see one walk by and you'd see parts of her that you shouldn't be seeing from a kid. I'm an easy-going "do you own thing, I'll do mine" kind of guy, but this was awkward. I suppose it wouldn't have been as weird if I was in THEIR country going on a cruise, but they were HERE going on a cruise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDITED TO ADD:

The shows were much better scheduled this time, as well. The magician was cheesy, but his last illusion was insane! The comedian was really, really funny. The Quest was... in a word... EPIC. That is all. EPIC.

[palofmine]

Believe me, if we are at sea, and its nice, i will find someone to open that roof.

 

 

Great review! We were on her 7/8. Solarium roof/windows were NEVER open. It got very hot in there. Glad they were open for you. Staff was wonderful.

 

There was an issue with children in the Solarium pool (two guys almost had a knock-down, drag out fight). The crew wasn't very good about clearing them out of the pool. It took at least 4 different crew members to clear them out. Finally, the stripes on the shoulder cleared them out. Believe me, we love kids and have two little ones of our own, but we would never bring them into the Solarium. I just don't understand why parents would do that. If the main pool is too crowded (as it often was on our Disney cruise), you find something else to do with the kids. It's as simple as that.

 

Anyway, sorry for rambling. Glad you had a great cruise! Enchantment is a wonderful ship!

[poncho1973]

Yes. It has one.

 

Yes. It was open this trip during nice weather.

 

No. On my April cruise, it was NOT open at any time.

 

No. We could not find anyone to open it. We asked several times and were told the decision was for it to remain closed.