the_journeyman

I took a Sony waterproof p&s on my last cruise asking with my DSLR. W planned a beach day in St John and it was very handy. I also carried it all over the boat so if we were getting in the pool or hot tub I just kept it on my body and the water and all didn't matter. Make sure I'd your go the route you get one marked 30 meters instead of the ones marked 10 meters.

On Allure East, we did the MDR all but one night. Our day in St. Thomas we did Chops and it was awesome. The reason we chose this day, is we were early seating and didn't want to rush back since we ferried to St John. We enjoyed everything in the MDR. Food is very subjective though.

JM

The Nordic was my first cruise, 1996. It was a 4-night Bahamas cruise. Funny thing was, I thought it was HUGE since I had never seen a cruise ship before.

JM

Maho

Mullet

Jailed

Wipeout! (that was me)

JM

Whee!

Water

Chicago

Underwater

JM

Carnival (Fantasy I think), Disney Dream, and Allure of the Seas in Nassau. Taken from Junkanoo Beach.

Allure of the Seas in St Maarten

JM

A late Memorial Day shot on the way to work Tuesday morning.

JM

Following your review! Thanks for all the info and pictures! We'll be on Allure the last week of June.

JM

I'm more of a DIY person. I usually do all the stuff myself. I do a lot of research before-hand. Asking questions via e-mail about various things like guarantees, OBC, offered perks and the like lets you get things in writing that help considerably when someone else days "we can't that" "we don't do that" etc. throughout the booking process.

JM

On Adventure of the Seas, we had animals every night. On Majesty, only twice.

JM

Wow, some impressive stories!

Worst I've been on have been tropical storm related.

One night on the Nordic Empress, they had to close all decks & exterior access. We were seriously rocking and rolling. Walking was difficult. No damages (broken plates, toppled bottles etc were reported though)

The most recent was on the Majesty traveling from CocoCay to Key West. We sailed overnight from Nassau, and I was watching them bring a tenders to the boat. I knew two things then. The first - we weren't going to get to spend the day on CocoCay and second, we were going to have a rough day at sea.

We rocked and rolled all day. Wind was terrible too. We tried to enjoy the pool, but the wind kept whipping water out of the pool and it stung when it hit. We were also rolling to the point water was slopping out of the pool!

We went to the Schooner lounge with all of the windows to have a few drinks & watch the waves. We were sitting at the bar talking to the bartender since the bar was mostly deserted when the wind changed or the captain had to turn broadside to the wind or something. We felt the ship start to list, and the bartender's eyes got real big as we tilted to the point he closed the cage on the liquor storage. We turned to see out and we were listed over to the point you could only see water, you could no longer see the horizon line. We stayed listed over like that for a while too.

JM

EpcotBill - Thanks for sharing those pictures! Those will be great to show my wife!

JM

Thanks for all the awesome feedback! This IMO was a great ship despite it being small. Despite sailing on two Sovereign class ships and an Voyager class ship (honeymoon) and an upcoming booking on the Allure, I wouldn't hesitate to take a cruise on the Empress once again. I had wow moments that I never got from the Sovereign ships and ones that rivaled my wow moments on a Voyager class.

I'm glad this thread brought around some fond memories of a great little ship!

JM

You're not old, you're experienced!

Adventure of the Seas was our honeymoon boat!

JM

Thanks for the info, I've tried to keep tabs on this vessel. Even had a model on my desk that I need to finish.

JM

Thanks! I'll take a look around and see what I've got. I was 18 at the time, so there's not telling what I kept. Hopefully there's a picture of me somewhere on the boat that is 100% obvious it is the Nordic.

Am I the only one that felt the dining room design on the Sovereign class was a step backwards from the Nordic Empress?

JM

Wow! Glad to bring back some fond memories! I cruised on her in June of 1998. It was a high school graduation present from my parents to my sister and I. We pulled into Port Canaveral and the size of the ship was incredible to me then. Walking into the Centrum upon entering and being purely amazed. I was totally hooked. I've been on Sovereign class ships, Voyager Class ships (another WOW ship for me) and this summer it'll be the Allure of the Seas which I'm sure will be impressive.

CruzinLady - I didn't get credit for my Nordic Empress cruise either. What did they require? I likely have nothing but a few pictures of the boat as I wasn't a photography nerd like I am now.

Thanks for the pics added, if anybody finds anything I'd love to see a great shot of the dining room from above or of the Stairs. I'll also comb through Pullmantur's site as well.

JM

Thank's OnePutt! Yea, the views were amazing from it. That is part of what I remember being so amazing. The other was the stairs & upper balcony.

I tried Yahoo & Google images searches and found no pictures that included the stairs unfortunately.

JM

More Adventure of the Seas:

Barbados:

St Croix:

Antigua

JM

Adventure of the Seas

St Lucia

St Maarten:

JM

Does anybody have some good pictures of the dining room and the Centrum from the Nordic Empress or Empress of the seas you would be willing to post or link to? This was my first cruise ship and got me hooked on cruising. I was amazed by the dining room and Centrum and wanted to show my wife why I still compare boats to the Nordic Empress.

JM

Nordic Empress - Royal Caribbean.

4-night out of Port Canaveral, stopping a Coco Cay and Nassau.

The boat was beautiful (I still compare boats to it) with its 2-story dining room in the stern with HUGE windows and a fancy center staircase. The Centrum was amazing as well with a multi-story sculpture and waterfall.

Yes, I was hooked!

JM

I prefer the "unplugged" feel of NOT having internet to completely disconnect. If it was available, I would likely just throw a "picture of the day" once a day on Facebook for family to see or something like that. Certainly won't be carrying the Galaxy all over the ship!

JM

Eng - You're right, not sure why I called it the Dream...

Here's the Majesty in Key West. Taken from a nifty waterside bar called the Sunset Bar past the end of Duval St.

JM

Taken from the Adventure of the Seas on our honeymoon. This is down near Barbados as we were heading there from San Juan and were almost to our port.

JM