Enchantment review with pics 10/9/15--10/12/15

[Mrs.C05]

Well we've returned from our cruise on Enchantment of the Seas. This review is onboard the Enchantment of the Seas, out of Port Canaveral, Thursday October 9, 2015 through Monday October 12, 2015. With me is my DH and DS who is 3.5yr old.

 

This review may be considered "plane jane" to some of you, but with a toddler in tow, that's what you get sometimes.

 

Just waiting for my photos to upload to Photobucket which is apparently taking a long time.

 

Forewarning, we did not attend any shows or hang out in any bars. It was either the casino, the room, the splash pad, or in port. I do have the compasses and the daily sheet for the Adventure Ocean Aquanatics class.

[billandsue]

We are on the Enchantment next month, so I look forward to your review.

[FLCruisin'Mom]

Looking forward to your Aquanauts review, as I am planning on mine spending a LOT of time there!0:D

[FLCruisin'Mom]

I'm also curious about how dining was? Did you eat in the MDR with DS? We take the kids out to eat often, but not sure if the tempo in the MDR would work for them (we have MTD).

[Mrs.C05]

Day 1: Embarkation

We pick up Ethan from Hugh at 9am and are on the road at 9:30am. We only have an hour drive over to the port. We decided to park off sight this time, at Park Port Canaveral that’s about 2 miles from the port. It is $6.95/day, security and gated, and provides a shuttle bus to and from the ship. This saved us half of what the terminal/port would have charged. We pulled in to the Park Port Canaveral, showed our reservation and he gave us a parking pass to put on our mirror or dash. We found a spot, unloaded and checked in to get a pass for the shuttle Monday morning. We waited on the shuttle about 10min before it was full and we were off to the ship! Yay!!!

 

 

Here is their website. http://www.parkportcanaveral.com/

RCCL was not docked at Terminal 10. They were docked a tiny bit west of Jetty Park.

 

Edited October 14, 2015 by Mrs.C05

[Mrs.C05]

Looking forward to your Aquanauts review' date=' as I am planning on mine spending a LOT of time there!0:D[/quote']

 

Yes I was really pleased with the leaders/instructors/teachers/whatever-you-call-them, haha!! Ethan really liked the camp.

 

I'm also curious about how dining was? Did you eat in the MDR with DS? We take the kids out to eat often' date=' but not sure if the tempo in the MDR would work for them (we have MTD).[/quote']

 

Yes we did take Ethan the first night and he enjoyed it. (The other 2 nights he went to camp to have dinner with his friends.) The servers always interacted with him to keep him busy, and the food was coming out pretty quickly. We had My Time Dining.

[ande90]

Subscribed :) My fiance and I are on the sailing this weekend. It will be his first cruise :D

[Mrs.C05]

 

The new terminal is very nice inside, and the new parking garage looked nice too. We went through security, check-in and was on the boat by 11:45am. Sorry, no pictures were taken of the inside of the new terminal. I really should have though!

 

I kept hearing so much about Park Café that we went there first, but they weren’t open til 12noon, so we headed to the Windjammer instead. I grabbed a burger, Ethan wanted a hot dog, and Tommy got white rice and oriental beef stir fry. The stir fry was really good. I had to get a small bowl once I tasted Tommy’s. The windjammer was packed. People were grabbing tables as people were getting up to leave. I had heard that when they did the extension, they didn’t accommodate for the extra people, but I could be wrong. Seeing people standing at tables waiting for people to move/leave though, I’d say it’s true.

 

[Mrs.C05]

Once done eating, we headed over to the gym to see where it was at, and then find Adventure Ocean for Ethan. We signed him in, but we weren’t sure he’d actually attend. Just as we were getting the elevator at 1pm, to try to go to the room, they announced the rooms were ready. Yay!

 

While walking around I snapped several pics from around the ship....

 

Solarium:

 

Create your own salad (which is right by Park Cafe):

 

Park Cafe Menu (they never changed out what they had, this menu remained the same throughout the cruise):

 

 

[Mrs.C05]

More pics throughout the ship:

 

 

 

 

[Mrs.C05]

Our stateroom 2039, interior is one of the older style rooms. It has two twins that push to a king, a large curtain to block off the beds and the other half of the room (which came in handy for nap time), 2 pullman beds, a large desk, small closet, and small bathroom. This room was parallel with the hallway instead of walking in the door and you have the bathroom and closet on either side of you.

 

 

 

 

One thing Tommy noticed was how the showerhead was positioned. It’s aimed at the corner/edge of the curtain (pointed more at the door) and if you aim it at the other corner, it sprays the cubby-hole for your soaps, shampoos, etc. Nothing you can really do about this. Side note: I would highly suggest bringing a shoe organizer for the bathroom!!!

 

 

 

FYI: The Pullmans cannot be used by children under 6 for liability reasons. So, as we’ve done in the past, we make Ethan his own bed on the floor with a duvet, pillows, and his own pillow, blanket and “friends” aka stuffed animals. Also, we had debated on bringing Ethan’s stroller, but didn’t and I’m glad we didn’t as there wouldn’t be anywhere to store it in the room.

 

We had heard the room service menu was changed a little bit. Here is the room service menu:

 

We never did find the pizza bar, which we assume was taken out, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong. You can order pizza from this menu and in the dining room for the kids.

[Mrs.C05]

We got our checked back shortly after getting into our room, so we unpacked and then Tommy and Ethan lay down to relax. I left to get a drink while they chilled out. The “Island Bar” on deck 9 is always packed. I went there to order a bud light and water. The bartender brought back a Mai Tai and bottled water…..ummmm, no. I told him the correction, and he gave me the mai tai anyways at no charge, and then my bud light and water. I figured Tommy would drink the Mai Tai. Once back to the room, Ethan thankfully was asleep. It was a very short nap, like 30 minutes, because at 3pm they announced information about the muster drill. And Muster drill was at 3:30 sharp. Muster drill wasn’t bad at all, took all of 10 minutes and we were done.

 

Now it's time to head up to deck 10, grab a drink and watch us leave port! Yay!!

 

 

 

 

This police officer was one cool dude! He was waving, fist pumping, sounding his siren, etc.

 

 

After sailaway, which was uneventful, besides ordering some yummy drinks (Bahama Mama & Rum Punch), we went to the room for Ethan to change so he could play at the splash pad thing down on deck 9. For some reason it shut off and doesn’t have hours listed anywhere so we left to get ready for dinner, since it was about 5:30pm anyways.

[Mrs.C05]

Another pic from earlier......Thought this was humorous.....notice which boat this is?:

[Mrs.C05]

Splash pad:

 

 

Dark clouds rolling by:

 

 

[jimbri]

Looking forward to your review!

[Mrs.C05]

Dinner was My Time Dining on Deck 5 in My Fair Lady. Our waiter is Wayne from Jamaica, and the assistant is Marilyn. I had a Cesar salad and the marinated grilled chicken breast with a baked potato and grilled veggies, Ethan had veggies, and a pizza, Tommy had the fruit medley for an app and pork chop for the entrée.

 

Here is the menu for the first night:

 

Once done with dinner, we went to the shops to look around, and then see how Ethan would do in the Adventure Ocean. He wasn’t protesting so we signed him in. They gave be a beeper and we left. We headed to the craps table. About 30 minutes in, they paged me. I went up to see what was going on, but they paged the wrong parent. Oppps!!! From what she first asked me, makes me guess that the teachers/leaders/helpers (whatever you want to call them) are not allowed to wipe the children??? I told her that I had a son.......she realized her mistake and said Oh! Well Ethan is doing just fine. My apologies, I paged the wrong beeper.” So with that I went back to the casino for another 25 minutes and then we headed up to get Ethan together. They were dancing around, and he was having so much fun. We signed him out and headed up to the room to relax for bed. I ordered some cookies and water, and Ethan watched Wally Kazam, while Tommy headed to the gym for a bit before it closed at 10pm.

 

Tommy is on a weight loss challenge at work with a bunch of guys, so he’s playing it up like “Oh I’m gonna gain all my weight back with this cruise” but he’s been really good! Choosing fruit over a Caesar salad is a big decision for him, but I’m proud of him!

 

And they had these interactive maps on every floor by the elevators. Pretty neat!

 

Atrium:

 

The infamous "R" Bar I believe (someone please correct me if I'm wrong):

 

I have to say I really like how “elegant” or up to date the ship is compared to Carnival Sensation. The solarium is so nice and peaceful. The dining room, shops, atrium, and carpeting is very nicely done.

 

The “downfall” I have seen is the bathroom in our stateroom. There is rust on the door where the shower water has probably been hitting it, rust on the light in the shower, stains on the floor (we just kept a towel down) and just the whole design of it. But we live with it and don’t make it a big fuss about it. I would love to do this cruise again so next time we’ll know to try and book one of the “newer” rooms, or a higher category room (oceanview, balcony, etc.)

[Mrs.C05]

I will work on day 2 tonight! If anyone has questions, please let me know. I'll scan in the compass' and Adventure Ocean today at work.

Edited October 14, 2015 by Mrs.C05

[Clarea]

... We never did find the pizza bar, which we assume was taken out, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong. You can order pizza from this menu and in the dining room for the kids.

You are correct, the pizza bar was replaced with Park Cafe during the last dry dock.

 

Enjoying the review.:)

[FLCruisin'Mom]

Love your review! Great pics-you have a lovely family.

 

So relieved to see AO has beepers for the parents. I've seen conflicting reports about if they had pagers or not.

[MNfamilycruiser]

Enjoying the report -we will be on Friday, October 30th :D

 

Reading these reports helps me wait!

Was the craps table busy? My husband likes to play, but on some cruises it has been empty and that was no fun :-(

Edited October 14, 2015 by MNfamilycruiser

[georgemoe]

Thank you for the review. My wife and I will be cruising on Enchantment Dec 4th with a few friends celebrating a Double 30th Birthday. Our first RCI cruise. Looking forward to it and more of your review.

[nivek82]

Great review. Reminds us of our DD at that age though she had more separation anxiety going into adventure ocean. What they said is correct they can't help the kids in there go potty at all. We actually had that issue around 3yo when she wouldn't fully clean up so we asked to be pages if #2 happened so we could stop any type of yucky from happening. Good to see they still give pagers to that age group.

[Firefighterhoop]

Our stateroom 2039, interior is one of the older style rooms. It has two twins that push to a king, a large curtain to block off the beds and the other half of the room (which came in handy for nap time), 2 pullman beds, a large desk, small closet, and small bathroom. This room was parallel with the hallway instead of walking in the door and you have the bathroom and closet on either side of you.

 

 

 

 

One thing Tommy noticed was how the showerhead was positioned. It’s aimed at the corner/edge of the curtain (pointed more at the door) and if you aim it at the other corner, it sprays the cubby-hole for your soaps, shampoos, etc. Nothing you can really do about this. Side note: I would highly suggest bringing a shoe organizer for the bathroom!!!

 

 

 

FYI: The Pullmans cannot be used by children under 6 for liability reasons. So, as we’ve done in the past, we make Ethan his own bed on the floor with a duvet, pillows, and his own pillow, blanket and “friends” aka stuffed animals. Also, we had debated on bringing Ethan’s stroller, but didn’t and I’m glad we didn’t as there wouldn’t be anywhere to store it in the room.

 

We had heard the room service menu was changed a little bit. Here is the room service menu:

 

We never did find the pizza bar, which we assume was taken out, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong. You can order pizza from this menu and in the dining room for the kids.

 

Since they added the Park Cafe offerings they don't serve pizza during the day in the Solarium anymore, but you can get it after 9pm in the Solarium at the Park Cafe.

[Mrs.C05]

Great review. Reminds us of our DD at that age though she had more separation anxiety going into adventure ocean. What they said is correct they can't help the kids in there go potty at all. We actually had that issue around 3yo when she wouldn't fully clean up so we asked to be pages if #2 happened so we could stop any type of yucky from happening. Good to see they still give pagers to that age group.

 

This is very interesting but I can understand the reason. They didn't tell us *that* part, which would've been nice to know.

 

Since they added the Park Cafe offerings they don't serve pizza during the day in the Solarium anymore, but you can get it after 9pm in the Solarium at the Park Cafe.

I wish I knew this....but given that they want the Solarium to be 16years and up, did they maybe try and detour the kids from the pizza bar by taking it out?

[Mrs.C05]

Love your review! Great pics-you have a lovely family.

 

So relieved to see AO has beepers for the parents. I've seen conflicting reports about if they had pagers or not.

 

Thank you! Yes the youth staff said they give out pagers to parents with kids that are 3 and under. I thought it was humorous with the pagers. Tommy joked that all the old extinct pagers were now in the hands of RCCL to be reused (which is a good idea' date=' lol). Carnival had small old Nokia phones.

 

Enjoying the report -we will be on Friday, October 30th :D

 

Reading these reports helps me wait!

Was the craps table busy? My husband likes to play, but on some cruises it has been empty and that was no fun :-(

 

Thank you!

The craps table was up and down on being busy. The last night my husband said was crazy busy. I even looked in the casino after a situation arose (more on this later).