Enchantment of the Seas Review- 10/25/13

[Lilystar]

Hello everyone! This is my review of my time on Enchantment of the Seas in segments as I have time over the next couple days. Luckily, the cruise was only 3 nights so I don't have a zillion nights to review!

Here's the first installment!

 

My mom (age 60) and me (age 40) and my mascot "Socky" who is a sock monkey that travels with me ;) sailed on Enchantment of the Seas on the 3 night itinerary which left on Fri. Oct 25 out of Port Canaveral. I live in Orlando and my mom lives in upstate NY. I've sailed on Royal before, but my mom had not.

 

We parked at "Park Port Canaveral" for about $35 or so. Booked this from a tip here on this board. Saved us like 50% from parking at the port so thanks for that! We arrived around 11am and were on the shuttle to the port in 10 minutes. Once being dropped off at the terminal, embarkation took maybe 15 minutes total. Easy. I love Port Canaveral, it's nothing like the mess you get at the busy Port of Miami. We each brought a bottle of wine with us and a few bottles of water in our carry-ons. Posed for the embarkation picture (which later costs about $15 if you want to keep it) and headed up to Deck 9 to get some sun. The ship was still relatively empty at 12 noon. We went into the Windjammer for lunch around 1pm and by that time it was starting to be very busy. We still got a nice seat at the hightop facing outside. We have a beautiful panoramic view of the NASA launch pads and Vehicle Assembly Building.

 

There are 2 bars on the family pool deck (one in front of the entrance to Windjammer) and the other a little more out in the open. It actually was quite beautiful. We got some tropical drinks out there. One forewarning though, they have a BLACK granite floor and bartop out there and in the sun, it heats up enough to seriously burn yourself on. Everyone that walked up would set their arm there (including us) and pull it off quick. POOR POOR design and planning. The Floor, if you are barefoot, is just as bad! I cannot believe they haven't done something to remedy this. Put down a mat on the floor during the day and some kind of bar cover, maybe some rubber placemats. The bartenders were well aware of the issue.

 

Although we could get into our rooms around 1:30 or so, we stayed at the pool until the muster drill. We meant to run down to the room to drop off our stuff, but poor planning on our part made it too late! So we carted our carryons to the muster drill. We had Kaitlyn as our muster station leader, pretty sure she was a dancer and she had this squeaky little voice that didn't carry in ANY way. The guy standing next to her up there had to keep saying things again so that everyone could hear her. Why on earth they have these people help with that I have no idea.

 

We finally got down to our room to drop off our stuff after the drill, we were on Deck 3, cabin 2602. It was centrally located, worked out fine for us with location. More on the cabin later.

 

Next up, part 2!

[Lilystar]

Installment 2

 

We found our stateroom to be fine, if not a little small compared to others I've been in. It was considered a "large oceanview". I can't imagine one smaller than this one. The room itself was ok, but the bathroom, UGH. My mom and I are both relatively normal sized people. We're both 5.5, about 140 lbs and I found it very difficult to take a shower in there. This is the 6th cruise I've been on and I don't know why this bathroom was just so impossible for me to get around in. Basically, if you take a shower, just be prepared that the entire bathroom is soaking wet when you're done. Also, there was no soap dish on the sink. Nothing to keep soap in at all. We were always trying to figure out what to do with that bar of soap, most of the time we left it in the sink!

 

The beds were squeaky and relatively uncomfortable compared to Carnival and to Disney. The pillows were the WORST I've ever had on any cruise ship and ANY land resort I've stayed in, including the Motel 6! Seriously, there was one completely flat as a pancake on each bed and a foam one that once you put your head on, it sank to the bottom. VERY uncomfortable. So far I wasn't crazy about our stateroom, but it was only a 3 night cruise so I'll survive.

 

We decided to go up to the deck for sail out and take some pictures. It was a picture perfect day outside. Clear skies and sunshine with little humidity. It was fairly windy though and the movement of the ship made it much worse. But at least during the daylight hours, it was still pretty warm. We took some pictures, had another drink at the bar and posted pictures to facebook while we still had signal, then the phones went off and got locked up in the safe in the room. (which we had to search for as it wasn't in the closet where I'm used to it being!)

 

We decided to dress for dinner at that point. We had My Time Dining and I had made reservations for all 3 nights at different times. Reservation the first night was at 8:45 so that we could catch the opening night show. Well, we never made it to the show until 15 minutes after it started. Seriously it wasn't good at all. There was a comedian and he was not funny. Even though we got there late, we left early and went over to the dining room and checked in early...which there was no problem with at all. We got there around 8:15 or so. Our servers were Eduardo and Michael, both from the Phillipines. Eduardo was very soft spoken, but very nice and accommodating. I had Prime rib that night, mom had Salmon. Both were delicious. No complaints! As a matter of fact, it took much less time eating in the dining room than I remember on other ships. We were in and out of there in an hour or so.

 

After dinner we went for a walk around the ship. We went up to the bar on the top deck, I forget what the heck its called now. It's an adult bar. There was NOBODY in there. LIke maybe 10 people at most and the place was huge. I assume people must have gathered there later maybe? It was about 10:00 pm when we were there. We weren't in the drinking mood, so we left and continued our self guided tour of the ship. We took some pictures and got tired from all the excitement of the day so headed down to the cabin to go to bed around 11:30 or so. Honestly, there wasn't much going on anyway....the ship seemed to be quite dead. I always wonder where the heck everyone is!

 

Will continue on with Day 2 later today! Thanks for reading!

[LBumb]

great start

[loeytalldog]

I second that, great start! Thanks for writing it!

[sonvoltken6]

I love it. My wife and I took our sock monkey (a Pittsburgh Penguins giveaway) on our 25th anniversary cruise this past May. We have pix from Bermuda, St. Maarten, the Bacardi rum factory and NYC of the sock monkey

 

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Forums mobile app

[Lilystar]

I love it. My wife and I took our sock monkey (a Pittsburgh Penguins giveaway) on our 25th anniversary cruise this past May. We have pix from Bermuda, St. Maarten, the Bacardi rum factory and NYC of the sock monkey

 

Yay!! I love it! I have been trying to post pictures here to cruise critic and I'm not having any luck. I was going to post a few pics of Socky!

[Lilystar]

Installment #3

 

Day 2- Nassau

 

We arrived in Nassau around 11:30am and it took a long time to get the ship situated and cleared through the shore. The first batch of people didn't get off the ship until about 12:30. I was irritated about this because for some reason I thought we got into Nassau early in the morning. My fault, I guess I should read things more closely!

 

We were really worried about the weather as the forecast before we left Florida didn't look great for the Bahamas. It was a little overcast when we got there, but there were peeks of sunshine too, it didn't look like it was going to rain or anything, thank God. We went up on Deck 9 to take some pictures as we pulled into port. It was extremely windy in Nassau so the pictures are a bit windblown. The rest of the day it stayed windy.

 

You depart the ship just about smack in the middle on Deck 1. Since out stateroom is on Deck 2, we didn't really have far to go, but there were HOARDS of people standing on the staircases and in the hallways. Luckily it moved quickly, otherwise I would have gotten a little stir crazy. We made it off the ship in about 10 minutes all said and done. One thing I will mention is that Royal Caribbean doesn't push the photos as much as Carnival does and they're also not very good at it! It was like an afterthought and the pictures looked the same when we saw them later.

 

All we knew we wanted to do in Nassau was go to "a" beach and shopping a bit. I personally wanted to hop on the #10 bus and head down to the Sheraton, but my mother didn't because she didn't want to waste time on the bus. HOWEVER, she absolutely insisted she eat fresh conch salad so we went out on a mad run to find a restaurant serving it in town. We found one restaurant and actually sat down at a table, ordered a beer and then they told us they didn't have any fresh conch. Oye. So we started walking toward the public beach (Junkanoo Beach) and found another restaurant on the way that did have it. I don't like conch, but my mother said it was delicious, I had a greek salad and it was actually quite good as well. I don't remember the name of this place for the life of me! So finally, we got down to the beach. I had never been to Junkanoo beach in all the times I've been to Nassau. It is public so there are lots of individual vendors where you can rent chairs, umbrellas etc. We rented 2 chairs for a total of $20.We brought our pool towels with us. (which we had to sign out up on the pool deck prior to leaving the ship). The sand had a TON of glass in it from people who didn't clean up their beer bottles. It was quite scary hoping that we didn't cut our feet. The place isn't kept up much at all. One good thing is they had public restrooms....they weren't the best, but they were tolerable. There was a little hut setup on the beach that made fresh fruity adult beverages and put them in coconuts. We got a pina colada and it was delish, only cost $8 each. He made the drinks in the blender right there in front of us. It was a nice authentic bahamian beach experience. I'm not sure I would go back to this beach though, the glass in the sand alone was enough to keep me from going back there again.

 

My mother realized that her camera disk was filled up while we were at the beach, so then we went on a mad hunt for an SD card. I would have thought they'd sell them in the stores there, but nope, we had to go to some department store that is there on Main Street. I also can't remember the name of that place either, but 2 store owners referred us there. And besides the Rolex's that they sold, they also sold cameras and batteries/disks. Horray! It was only $15 for 4 gig. Splendid. Disaster averted.

 

After that we went shopping in some of the stores, hit up the Straw Market for a little bit and then started heading back to the ship. I usually like the Straw Market, but I think I was just tired and didn't feel like being haggled. We didn't spend much time in there. We also didn't buy much of anything in Nassau really, the stores start to close up shop around 4-5pm so stuff was starting to close by the time we got over there. There were still plenty of stores open, but I felt a little rushed and very tired by that time. We still had to shower and get into our semi-formal dinner dresses so we went back to the ship.

 

When coming through the port gate, we got to see the pet kitty. I read about him here on the message boards before, he/she is really cute. I took a picture of him and we showed our picture IDs and sea pass cards and got back onto the ship with no wait.

 

All in all, a good day, we got SOME sun, although it was on and off, but no rain and lots of wind. I felt rushed in Nassau though, I wished we had gotten in earlier.

 

Stay tuned for the next installment. I was trying to post pictures earlier today, but I keep getting a message saying it was unsuccessful. I took lots of great pics. If any of you are interested in seeing them, LMK and I'll send you a link. :)

[Merion_Mom]

Lilystar:

 

To add pictures to your posts:

 

First, upload your pictures to an online photo-sharing site such as photobucket.com

 

After you have uploaded your photos to the site, it will give you simply instructions on how to put photos in your posts.

 

:)

[Hobbsey]

FYI, that "bar" at the top of the ship is the VIKING CROWN LOUNGE. I agree, when I was on her early in OCT it was very under used for such a great space.

[Lilystar]

Ok, finally figured out how to post pictures....I think! We'll give this a shot!

 

First up, the outside pool bar that has the black granite on it that everyone was burning themselves on. The floor is also made of black granite although you can't see it. Make sure to wear shoes over there!

 

My sock monkey, Socky up on deck before we left Port Canaveral

 

And sailing out of Port Canaveral.

Edited November 4, 2013 by Lilystar

[Lilystar]

Ok, so the pictures appeared as little thumbnails. Oh my goodness, I didn't think this would be so difficult! Oh well, anyone know how to make these appear as full size pictures in the posts?:confused:

[evelyn51]

Ok, so the pictures appeared as little thumbnails. Oh my goodness, I didn't think this would be so difficult! Oh well, anyone know how to make these appear as full size pictures in the posts?:confused:

 

Just wanted to say you two look like sisters! Your a lucky gal as you obviously have her skirts, I mean Genes! ;)

 

We also found our Inside Statrm small but, cozy for two!

Edited November 4, 2013 by evelyn51

[Lilystar]

Just wanted to say you two look like sisters! Your a lucky gal as you obviously have her skirts, I mean Genes! ;)

 

We also found our Inside Statrm small but, cozy for two!

 

Thank you! I wish my younger sister could have joined us for this one. When we're all together, we all look like sisters!

[Lilystar]

Adding a few more pics of Day 1....

 

A view of the inside atrium decorated for Halloween

 

Sunset was very pretty that night!

 

Ready for dinner. Just an FYI, with a flash, the staircase was a beautiful place to take pictures. We took pictures here every night when we were dressed for dinner.

[Lilystar]

A few pictures of our time in Nassau....

 

Still sailing into port.

 

The ship from the dock.

 

Socky at Junkanoo Beach. You can see our ship in the background.

[Lilystar]

Installment #4- Formal Night on the ship

 

I really don't like that formal night on the ship is the only day we are in port at night. We were in Nassau from noon to midnight and it would have been nice to be able to go over to Atlantis in the evening to the casino and to walk around (since you can't do that during the day). But by the time you get back to the ship, shower, dress for formal night and go to dinner, it's far too late to venture off the ship and risk you don't get back by 11:30pm.

 

But anyway, moving on! We got back on the ship around 5pm and immediately started getting ready for dinner. We are both semi-high maintenance women, so there's at least an hour and a half of prepping before we're ready. I put on my strapless dress only to realize I got a hell of a lot more sun than I thought I did! I had terrible tan lines! (I know first world problems!) We decided to get some professional pictures taken that night and just about all of them were crap for one reason or another. We did meet one photographer named Christian who quickly started to remember us because of Socky (my sock monkey). He even did a photoshoot of Socky which made both my mom and I laugh our butts off! He told us he would be in Coco Cay when we get off the ship the next day and he really wants to see Socky again. (more on that later!)

 

Here is a pic of Socky's first professional photoshoot

 

This is Christian, the photographer holding Socky

 

Socky all dressed up in his formal outfit

 

And finally, my mom and I dressed for dinner on the pretty red velvet couches on Deck 5

 

We had My Time Dinner reservations, but we ended up getting there a little early again which never seemed to be a problem. They sat us again in Eduardo and Michael's area at our own table again which I did request. I don't mind meeting others and eating with them each night, but knowing that we were doing "My Time" dining at different times each night, we wouldn't be sat with the same people anyway, so I figured we may as well sit alone. My mom ordered some kind of mushroom ravioli and ended up having to send it back because she didn't like it at all. I told her there wouldn't be a problem asking for something else instead....so she did and they were happy to accommodate. I had some kind of roast with potatoes and it was good, mom ended up getting the same thing. We finished up dinner again in record time, I remember it taking much longer on other ships...we were done in about an hour every night.

 

We wandered the ship for awhile after dinner and went to watch the entertainment in the main theatre. Tonight it was a magician and while the show was mildly entertaining, I would have rathered watch ANYTHING on Carnival which is so much more enjoyable. The caliber of entertainment throughout the entire 3 days was mediocre at best. I wished I was sailing on Disney again so I could at least watch quality entertainment.

 

In the next installment, the awesome deck party later that night!!

[Book Goddess]

Great review so far, loving Socky!

[GatorGirl]

I leave on Friday so I can't wait to read about the rest of your vacation.

[sailingawaysoon]

loving your review and pictures. We are going on this ship for Christmas. Looking forward to seeing the Christmas decorations and starting a new tradition. Can't wait to read more! Did you try out the park cafe? If so, how was it? Thanks and happy future cruising!

[LBumb]

great job

[Lilystar]

loving your review and pictures. We are going on this ship for Christmas. Looking forward to seeing the Christmas decorations and starting a new tradition. Can't wait to read more! Did you try out the park cafe? If so, how was it? Thanks and happy future cruising!

 

Yes, actually, we did hit up the park cafe a couple times for snacks here and there. The great thing about the cafe is that anytime I was there, it was never busy. A nice relaxing place that had plenty of tables available. My mom had a slice of pizza there and I had some flavored pound cake as a snack one night. I can't remember which night it was now! On morning 2, I went up there to get some OJ for my mother to make mimosas with in our room. There was like nobody up there....and the Windjammer was packed.

[sailingawaysoon]

Yes, actually, we did hit up the park cafe a couple times for snacks here and there. The great thing about the cafe is that anytime I was there, it was never busy. A nice relaxing place that had plenty of tables available. My mom had a slice of pizza there and I had some flavored pound cake as a snack one night. I can't remember which night it was now! On morning 2, I went up there to get some OJ for my mother to make mimosas with in our room. There was like nobody up there....and the Windjammer was packed.

Well that's a great tip! We definitely will be frequenting the Park Cafe a lot. I take it this is where you would get late night pizza also? Do you know how late it's open in the evenings? Thanks again!

[Lilystar]

Installment #5 (geeze I hope I didn't lose count!)

 

Later in the evening on Day 2 (Formal Night), after the mediocre magic show, we decided to head up to the Deck Party on Deck 9 (pool deck). We got there a bit early but noticed a roped off area where employees were setting something up. We went over to check it out. It was an AMAZING presentation of food!! I was blown away with the detail and presentation. There were statues made of food, watermelons carved into animals, towers of cream puffs and pastries. Over on one side was a display of Baked Alaska & bananas foster and the wait staff was there to give you a scoop of ice cream. There was finger foods also like cold cuts, cheese, veggies, chicken wings, quiche etc. I attached some pictures below of the amazing spread!

 

 

 

 

 

It was hands down one of the best things we experienced on the Enchantment. Not to be missed! My one piece of advice is to be there when they open the rope up for people to go in, otherwise it gets REALLY busy just 5 minutes into it. We got our food and sat down on the side of the pool to eat. We weren't even all that hungry, but there was no way we could turn that down! There was also a drink special that night being served in pineapples. We didn't have room for them, but they sure looked good!

 

All during this feast, there was a DJ playing tunes for dancing. There were a whole bunch of people dancing, everyone was having a great time. They did a really great job of keeping the place cleaned up too constantly.

 

Overall this deck food/dance party gets 5 stars! (just get there early!)

 

After giving great marks to the deck party, I unfortunately need to report that our stateroom had a really loud clanking sound while we were sailing, making it really difficult to sleep. It was like something was banging against the outside of the ship. EVERY DAY! And of course it seems especially bad at night when things are quiet. I have no idea where it was coming from, but it was loud enough that my mother, who is slightly hard of hearing, could hear it loud and clear.

 

Ok, next installment will be Coco Cay Day 3!

[Lilystar]

Installment #6

 

Day 3- Coco Cay

 

We woke up around 7:30am and we were anchored off of Coco Cay. We watched some of the crew get off the ship and head over on the tender (from our stateroom window). We got ready and headed to breakfast at the Windjammer. It was mobbed of course, but we did get a table....barely. I haven't mentioned this prior, but both days we went to breakfast in the Windjammer were busy but the food was good. We really enjoyed having fresh grits each morning. That is something that I don't eat unless I'm out somewhere so it was something to look forward to. The service in the Windjammer was good too, they even replenished water/OJ if we wanted them to. I finally figured out that morning that the red liquid that was next to the water was actually berry flavored water. It was good, I drink that at home a lot. It's not sweetened, just flavored. Neither of us really drink soda so we didn't buy the cups or order it at all during the trip.

 

The weather was a tan overcast in the morning and we were worried it was going to stay cloudy (mom and I LOVE the sun). We didn't book any excursions, with the plan that we were going to just spend the day walking around and laying in the chairs on the beach. I cannot remember what time we actually headed down to Deck 1 (which BTW, smelled like sewer! Some kind of backup smell both that morning and the morning before...yuck!) I'm going to guess we got to Coco Cay around 10:30-11:00 am. The first thing we did was run into Christian our photographer from the night before...who told us he wanted to see Socky again. I got Socky out and we all got our picture taken with him and he wanted a picture alone too.

 

 

 

The next thing we did was was take a walk around the island to get acquainted with it. Wow, that island is far bigger than I thought it was! We walked and walked along the water all teh way down to the Cabanettes then turned around. We saw lots of colorful fish and a Stingray! We kept our distance, but he was swimming around us for a bit. I felt like I was at the real seaworld. :)

 

Seems like the beach went on forever!

 

One thing I want to mention is that YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT NOT GETTING A CHAIR ON COCO CAY!!! Seems like there are thousands of them. I know this is just in case of more than 1 ship there at the same time, but even with multiple ships, I can't imagine there being a problem. So no worries about that, it's nothing like being on the ship.

 

We spent the rest of the day either walking around or laying in the sun, going in the water, taking pictures etc. The weather cleared up and we got plenty of sun. Thank goodness! There are roaming servers with Coco Locos...which were yummy for sure. Mom got one, but I didn't because I didn't want to drink in the sun that day. There are also plenty of bars all around the island as well. Lunch is served BBQ style from 12-2 and I noticed there were a TON of people over there from 12-12:30 or a little later. So we avoided the area until around 1:15. By that time, they had unfortunately cut it down from 2 serving lines to 1 so it took a little longer than I wanted it to, but still nothing major. The food was not good. I realize it's a pain in the butt to cook for all of those people, but the food was cold even while it was still sitting in the warmers (hot dogs, ribs, burgers). Dessert was sad...cookies and some stale pound cake. Thank God there was a great spread of food the night before on the ship during the deck party! Oh well, it was edible and it served it's purpose.

 

On our way back to the chairs, we saw an iguana running before us into the bouganvillea plants to have some lunch himself. He was really cute! Mom and I watched him for a good 10 minutes. He posed for me and let me take his picture!

 

 

 

Ok, I'm going to end this installment here and continue on with the rest of our day in Coco Cay and last evening on the ship soon! Thanks for reading! :)

[sailingawaysoon]

I never cared for the BBQ at any of the private islands either. Thanks for your review (so far). I'm enjoying reading it and seeing your pics. Can't wait to read more!