My first cruise - Enchantment of the Seas

[JosieCat-MN]

I took my first cruise this past weekend. It was free through my Platinum membership with M Life player’s club. I liked it so much, I’ve already booked my second cruise.

 

 

First off, my cruise didn’t end up being free – through no fault of M Life’s. I made the mistake of mentioning that I was taking the cruise to my sister and brother, and before I knew it, my sister had invited herself along. I really need to learn to keep my mouth shut :).

 

Don’t get me wrong, I love my sister. But we have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN COMMON. We don’t like to do the same things, are completely different people, and run out of things to talk about after 5 minutes. She has no vices - doesn’t drink, gamble or smoke. Plus she is going through menopause and to be blunt, can be rather cranky and snarky. The thought of having to share a 150 Sq. Ft. cabin with her for 4 days was making it so this trip wasn’t something I was looking forward to anymore – but just something to get through. So I ended up purchasing her a stateroom of her own – so I didn’t spend the rest of my life in jail for murder :). So my free cruise wasn’t free anymore, but it was the best $800 I’ve ever spent.

 

The cruise was on Enchantment of the Seas and was a short 3 night cruise from Friday to Monday. I did that not only to save on vacation days, but I really just wanted to give cruising a try – but didn’t want to be stuck on a 4/5 night cruise in case I hated it.

 

We flew in on Thursday, as everyone told me not to fly in the same day of the cruise. I guess I would do that again if I were taking a cruise in the winter, but if I do a summer cruise again, I probably wouldn’t bother and would just fly in that morning.

 

I booked a room in Cocoa Beach at Comfort Suites, and got a cruise and stay package. They provided transportation from the Orlando Airport to the hotel, to Port Canaveral in the morning for the cruise, and transportation back to the airport after the cruise. It’s about a 45 minute drive from Orlando to Port Canaveral, and there were plenty of shuttles available last minute – if you didn’t do the stay and cruise package.

 

Unfortunately, it rained quite a bit on this trip, so with the exception of a walk on the beach, we ended up sitting in our room for most of the time we were in Cocoa Beach. Thank God for free wi-fi. We walked down to Walgreens to pick up some sun block and it started pouring out on the way back, so we spent the rest of the day rather damp :). I had listened to the advice of “bring less clothes, bring more money”, and had brought 4 shorts outfits with me – that’s it. I didn’t have one to spare.

 

Boarding the ship was no problem and we were soon checked in. Our rooms were scheduled to be ready by 1:30 – which they were. It’s amazing how they can get the ship turned around that fast.

I won’t give you a blow-by-blow account of what we did, but I will categorize it.

 

Paradise Island - We were only on the ship for 2 full days – the first day at Nassau, and the second at CocoCay. I had booked a room at the Comfort Suites on Paradise Island for $270 (booked through Easy Click Travel – no problems there) – which gave us 2 passes to all of Atlantis, which was cheaper than booking the water park excursion through the ship – which was $160 each. We got to the hotel, couldn’t get checked in right away, so dropped our stuff off, and we had to go through the casino to get our arm-bands to give us access to Atlantis. Of course by then it was raining again, so we just decided to do the casino portion of our stay until we could get into our room, hoping the rain would quit. After going back to our hotel, the thought of going to the water park in the rain just didn’t appeal to us – so we both agreed to just head back to the ship. I knew my sister hadn’t been too thrilled with the water park idea anyway – so it seemed easier to just skip it as I could tell she didn’t want to do it. So Pretty much a waste of $270. Learning experience 1 :). Next time, I’d probably just visit the casino.

 

CocoCay Island - A beautiful island. This is Royal Caribbean’s private island. The ship was tendered so we took boats to the Island. We just hung around the beach for the morning. If you waded out a little ways, schools of fish would swim around you. It was pretty cool. It was fairly cloudy and cool, so we couldn’t get motivated to actually swim. We went on one of the first boats at 8:30 a.m. - next time I wouldn’t go until the afternoon. Learning experience 2. Plenty of things to do though. Kayaking, snorkeling, a water slide, a small water park, etc. All of these things did cost extra though.

 

Gambling - There was a note in my cabin from my host asking me to stop by after the emergency drill the first day. At this time, she gave me my 10 free drink coupons and explained how we could very easily have access to more money simply by showing our sea pass card at the cashier. They charged it to your credit card, but not as a cash advance – just as a miscellaneous charge. We also were exempt from paying the 3% fee. The free drinks were only available in the casino bar. Not a big deal, you could certainly walk out with them. But if you wanted a drink when the casino wasn’t open – you were paying for it.

 

The casino was pretty small and not very generous (neither was much of a surprise ;)). Of course, that didn’t stop me from playing. The first day, the casino didn’t open until 5:30. The second day that we were at Nassau, it was open from 9-11:30 a.m., and then re-opened at 7:00 at night. The day we were at CocoCay it was open all day. By the second day, my host brought me a shirt out, and a letter telling me I was now a member of Club Royale, their invite only players club.

 

My host was very nice, and almost always stopped by for a visit whenever I stopped in to the casino.

 

Food - Not being foodies at all, we most of the time just ate at the Windjammer Café – which was a buffet that was open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The day we were at CocoCay, it wasn’t open for lunch so we ate at the Park Café which is a deli style take-out place.

 

 

 

We weren't terribly impressed with the Park Cafe. Being our first cruise - we walked up and starting looking at the menu they had posted - and tried to order off that - none of which they had. I guess I didn't really understand why they had a menu - when nothing on the menu was available and you just chose by what was in the display cases. The staff wasn't terribly friendly or helpful to the newbies.

 

My stateroom - very small but efficient. And the bed was amazingly very comfortable. The first night I was still getting use to the movement and vibration of the ship, but the next 2 nights I slept great. The bathroom was tiny, but the room had a makeup table to get ready at. I can’t imagine having 2 people in the room, but that’s probably just me. I do like my own space, and like to keep my own hours.

 

I certainly didn’t spend any time looking out my window, and if I was paying for the cruise myself, I would probably just get a cheaper inside stateroom, but the M Life cruise entitles you to an outside stateroom.

 

What I learned:

 

As I said, there are things I would do differently on my next cruise.

 

Go solo – or try to talk my BF into coming with me. He just isn’t interested, but I will work on him. If not, going solo is just fine. Everyone is so friendly on the cruises, and you tend to run into the same people all the time and always have someone to talk to.

 

Take advantage of more of the activities on the cruise. It was just difficult with my sister along, as I said, we don’t like the same things at all, and it was too much work to try to find something we both would like. She didn’t seem to want to go off on her own – but just wanted to stay with me all the time. I guess my solo Vegas trips have kind of spoiled me a bit, and gotten me used to doing what I want to do, when I want to do it – without have to check with someone else to see if they want to do it too.

 

I’d eat at the My Time dining at least a few times. The day the Windjammer wasn’t open they told us we would have to do this. They seated us at a table with like 8 other people, and my sister wasn’t happy about eating with strangers and she didn’t feel dressed appropriately and was very uncomfortable – so we left, and went to the take-out deli.

 

Random thoughts:

 

Beverage package. They have different beverage packages available, and we considered the pop one, but decided against it – figuring we could just grab a pop at meals. Then we found out that you couldn’t get pop at meals unless you had the beverage package. So we did end up purchasing it. It is $6.50 a day. You are given a cup that you put in a beverage machine and can choose from any Coke product. But we did routinely encounter the machines when darn near everything was empty. Luckily you could have them filled up at the bar too.

 

 

I just loved being on the ship. I especially liked it when everyone else was off the ship and the pools and stuff were mostly empty (OK, I hate crowds – I admit it). Although because the ship was mostly empty – many things were closed – like the shops and the casino. But it’s easy to work around if you know it and are prepared for it – which I will be next time.

 

As I am stuck in the 80’s musically, I loved the music on the pool deck, which had a large video screen and played music videos from the 80’s constantly :).

 

People watching was my favorite activity. And for all you guys, there was definitely some eye-candy to look at. I'm a straight female and I couldn't help goggling at them.

 

We had one unnerving experience, when the power went out on the ship when we were docked at CocoCay. We were on the pool deck so we just stayed there, but it was a little freaky. No air-conditioning, no elevators (and probably fairly frightening for the people stuck on the elevators when the power went out), they even shut the pools down. Luckily it came back in stages after a few hours.

 

Smokers - you can buy cartons of smokes at the duty free shops, but for someone like me who only smokes on vacations and casino trips, I only wanted a pack at a time. Those could only be purchased at the casino - and they had a very limited selection - so BYOS (bring your own smokes).

 

Me and my BF have an October trip to do Disney World scheduled for October 6-10, so I just booked the same cruise for October 11-14. I did end up just booking a large inside stateroom, but was lucky to get one of the 7th floor. As I found I spend most of my time on decks 5, 6 and 9 – deck 7 will be perfect.

[Familygoboston]

Well, Josie, I'd say you are hooked now! After reading your review, I thought "oh how awful!";) So if you enjoyed this cruise enough to book again, you've really got it bad! :D

 

Welcome to cruising and thanks for your review...I'm particularly interested in how they are handling the M life stuff. DH and I don't gamble but are thinking of using our RCI points to our advantage in Vegas to get accommodations for a dessert biking trip at low cost:cool:

[JosieCat-MN]

Well, Josie, I'd say you are hooked now! After reading your review, I thought "oh how awful!";) So if you enjoyed this cruise enough to book again, you've really got it bad! :D

 

Welcome to cruising and thanks for your review...I'm particularly interested in how they are handling the M life stuff. DH and I don't gamble but are thinking of using our RCI points to our advantage in Vegas to get accommodations for a dessert biking trip at low cost:cool:

 

Gosh I didn't mean to make it sound so negative. But I still did love it - and I learned a lot, which will make my October cruise much better.

[MrFunInTheSun]

Welcome to your new addiction! Looks like I exited the ship as you were getting on. Your next cruise this fall will be even better. When you go be sure to go to the silent party on the first night in the Viking Crown Lounge. You and you BF will have a blast. Talk about some funny people watching.

 

 

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

[04cruises]

Josiecat,

Well, you do now have a new way to spend your money.(as you see by my screen name) I also got hooked on a first "free cruise". Thanks for your honest review as we will be on the Enchantment next month for cruise #27.Welcome aboard!!!

[TPKeller]

We flew in on Thursday, as everyone told me not to fly in the same day of the cruise. I guess I would do that again if I were taking a cruise in the winter, but if I do a summer cruise again, I probably wouldn’t bother and would just fly in that morning.

Before you make this your final decision, I urge you to read through this thread:

 

Delayed Flight Missed Ship

 

It's one of the all-time classic threads of Cruise Critic, and it gave birth to the phrase, "Pullin' a Jamie", defined as the attempt to fly in on your cruise date. It's a live, minute-by-minute account of a cruiser, through no fault of their own, trying to make it to Miami in time to catch the ship, after her initial flight was unexpectedly cancelled. This thread kept many hundreds of Cruise Critic members glued to their computer screens all day. Ironically, she was flying in from Denver, roughly the same distance to Florida as Minnesota. This account should cure you of any such crazy ideas you may have. ;)

 

Theron

[sanditoes4]

Great state, and great vacation choice......glad you had a great time and that you'll be coming back, beware it's very addicting!!!

 

p/s I too am from MN.

[TwinPrincessMermaids]

You can still have major storm delays flying to FL in the summer. You should be thrilled you had a relaxing flight in the night before, but that is definitely no basis to assume flying the next day would have been as relaxing! Mechanical delays, too many variables. Also read where cruise ships leave port early to avoid storm weather. I would have hated to be flying in that day.

 

I know some times you shouldn't say never but in this case, it's definitely never say never for my family and I. We always come in before or leave 1-2 hrs max to drive day of.

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Forums mobile app

[LittleMissMagic]

Thanks for sharing! I'm glad you enjoyed your cruise.

 

Have fun at Walt Disney World Food & Wine - we had a great time last year, and I'm really itching to go back, especially since Disney just released the free dining and room only discounts for fall!

[Colorado Babe]

Welcome to cruising and the Enchantment of the Seas! She's a beautiful ship and I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[TwinPrincessMermaids]

I'd totally recommend adding a 3/4 day Disney Cruise to your WDW trip (if you could give up a ship casino but there is bingo) Its an incredible cruising experience even for adults (we don't have kids. Actually no one in our group does.) If you love the parks and epcot, dining and technology, high quality entertainment, a DCL is a no brainer. It brings the magic and service quality to you (as opposed to running around the parks with exhaustion but still fun) and their island is like a 5th park in the ocean. Awesome pirate night n fireworks too.

 

(BTW you can bring any drinks in any quantity on board with you as long as it fits thru a TSA style conveyor and is carried on, not checked. Yay for no smuggling! Soda drinks are included in cruise fare for the machines too.)

 

That's what I'd do.... Well its what we are doing for our anniversary!

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Forums mobile app

[JosieCat-MN]

OK, you've all convinced me. I will always fly in the day before :).

[Philly Steve]

Loved your review and your solution to a cranky cabin mate. ;) Enchantment is a great ship, isn't it?