Back from Enchantment July 19-24 Part 2

[OceanCruise]

We are experienced cruisers and my earlier post talked about embarkation, the stateroom, food and kids so I will discuss other issues here.

 

There was one formal night on this cruise and this was the least dressed up we have ever seen people although there were no t-shirts or jeans this night. We are used to people really being glamorous on Celebrity. There were only a handful of tuxes and long dresses. The majority of women had on "church attire" and most men had suits. It did not seem like a special formal atmosphere to us- just dinner at a nice restaurant. Other nights we noticed a lot of jeans in the dining room but the compass only said no shorts and tank tops and didn't mention jeans.

 

Activities:

There was a Catholic mass every day and Jewish Sabbath service on Friday. There was only one slot and blackjack tournment the first sea day, one cooking demonstration, 2-3 dancing lessons, one ice carving demonstration, approx. 7-8 trivia/name that tune games, 1-2 ping pong and shuffleboard tournements. There were a number of free demonstrations from the spa (to push their services/products), some free exercise classes and a number of exercise classes they charged for. Only 2 movies were shown - the Incredibles and Bridget Jones. We were a little disappointed that there were not more free activities and were a little bored some days. Nothing major, just an observation. On Celebrity they had more variety- arts and crafts, lectures, movies every day, more casino tournements, darts, Q and A with staff, tours, more family games, etc.. Of course there was Bingo every day which adds up fast if you play throughout the week. Final jackpot was over $7000. The activities staff was OK but kind of seemed to be just going through the motions. They were not as enthusiastic as staff on our other cruises but they weren't bad. Casino was tight. We did not hear of any big winners on anything. Casino staff was OK but made a number of small errors which you wouldn't see in Atlantic City. Also, if you are an experienced gambler, be prepared for many novices at the tables who make quite a bit of stupid moves (i.e. splitting 20's, hitting against a dealer's 6). Be prepared to have some tolerance and kindness and try to help them out mad.

 

Entertainment:

 

The CD Matt Baker was hysterical and had the most energy of any CD we had seen. He really gave it his all. We skipped the production shows as they are all basically the same on all cruises and usually are cheezy. People really loved the headliner Bobby Avril (Happy Days singer). We enjoyed the usual Love and Marriage game and Quest (this is a must see). People are CRAZY!!!!!!! Karaoke was popular and I think was 3 nights. Most of the bands and singers were very good and there was always a venue for listening to live music. There was a comedian who was also very good.

 

Spa:

Beautiful. Stone massage was absolute bliss. I told the girl up front I didn't want a sales pitch and she was aloof from then on but her technique was excellent and she didn't try to sell anything.

 

Disembarkation:

 

This was an absolute nightmare-worst of any cruise and put a damper on an otherwise enjoyable cruise. We docked around 7:00 and had to leave our rooms by 8:00. As Crown and Anchor members we were invited to a special departure lounge. Well, the room could only accomodate about a third of the people so it spilled over into the dining room. Although there was coffee and danish, there were no plates or utensils or napkins but this was eventually rectified. Then the waiters eventually started setting our tables for the next cruise-we kind of all were in their way but they were nice about it. At about 9:30 they called the first few luggage colors and we exited the ship down the looong ramp. Then we came to a standstill. We had to STAND on this ramp for ONE HOUR!!! The elderly people were getting very tired. We saw trucks transporting luggage off the ship at 10:15- why wasn't this done earlier? There was no communication as to why we could not get off this ramp. There were people sitting in the buses beyond the ramp for this hour and not moving too. There was absolutely NO communication from any staff. Finally the Hotel manager made his way through the crowd but had no info. He was simply headed to the luggage area so we waited some more. Finally, we got on the shuttle buses after 10:30 and were dropped at the luggage area. We asked several staff if we could bring the car around but no one knew. Then we couldn't find one of our bags and figured the tag must have come off. I asked SIX different people if there was an area for bags without tags and no one knew. We were just told to look through all the luggage areas.Finally one worker pointed to a possible lost bag area (one bag) and it wasn't there. Finally we found our tagless bag in another color area. There did not seem to be enough porters so we lugged our bag to the parking lot. We had an elderly person with us and my husband wasn't allowed to bring the car to where we were standing in the parking lot and it was a bit of a walk. We were exhausted by this time. They need to do something to make embarkation better.

 

I forgot to mention that the first evening we returned to both our cabins at 11:00 PM and although the beds were turned down, the bathrooms were not cleaned, there were no fresh towels or ice and garbage was not emptied. We called housekeeping and the supervisor came and had someone else clean the rooms. Our steward evidently got in trouble as he apologized the next day and our rooms were always cleaned the rest of the cruise. The steward was adequate but nothing more - didn't always remove empty glasses, didn't hang up robes, etc. This is very minor but we have been spoiled on Celebrity where they even fold your night clothes and line up your shoes. In general staff always pleasantly greeted us and were accomodating and helpful.

 

Overall we had a great time. We were impressed with the food, teen program and the beauty of the public rooms. If RCCL can work out some of the glitches with the coffee, toilets and embarkation and not "nickle and dime" so much it would make a big difference.

[GeoSci64]

Hi,

AS you (on this July 19-24 cruise) went down the Delaware from Philly - I snatched a few pictures. You can view them at:

 

http://home.comcast.net/~ourcruise/

 

Enjoy!

 

GeoSci64

[ChiSquare8]

OceanCruise:

 

Thank you so much for your comprehesive review of the ship! Eventhough I was not on the ship, your review seemed to be quite objective and not judgmental even though there were definite flaws in the service.

 

I have sailed with Celebrity about 16 times and the Enchantment on 8/7 will be my second trip in RCL (Song of America). I am also booked on the Horizon for 9/3/05! I am not expecting too much and hopefully the conceirge lounge will make a difference in our trip. I am a Starbucks fanatic (if the coffee is not good I will not drink it/ I like the taste and am not addicted).

 

Do I have it correct that they made you stand on that long gangway for an hour???????????? Why did they even let you off the ship. Also, I assume form your text that there was a separate line for Diamond/Platium during embarkation.

 

I just hope some of these flaws are worked out before our sailing.

 

Thanks again for the info!

 

Melissa

[OceanCruise]

Yes they made us stand on the ramp for an entire hour so am not sure why they began embarkation. It appeared they had started letting some people off the ramp initially but then stopped as we could see people sitting in the shuttle buses the whole time we were standing. Everyone was getting very frustrated and tired and it was hot. We think the reason had to do with unloading luggage. Once we stopped seeing trucks go by with the luggage they let us off the ramp and the buses began to move.

[lojill]

How did the ship look ?

[OceanCruise]

The ship looked brand new and was gorgeous and sparkling clean. Our rooms in the older section appeared to have all new furnishings and a new bathroom but others have posted that they had older furnishings.

[sagiter]

I was on the 4th deck on the 7/11 sailing. I do not know if the furnishings were new but I am told that if my shower had a curtain then the bathroom wasn't redone and they do the rooms as one (furniture and bath) so I assume they weren't refurbished. that said we were very happy, the room didn't appear shabby at all.

[jysnc]

Maybe I was one of the lucky ones to get off the ship when I was supposed to (I had an 11:30 flight), but I had to leave Philly without my luggage. I filled out paperwork for "lost luggage" and haven't heard from RCL yet, who promised to FedEx it to me. I called Sunday night to follow up, the agent insisted I file another claim (which I did -- anything to move this along) and she told me they've had hundreds of people call. What a mess! Is anyone else still missing their luggage?