Blue Collar Diamond becomes Enchanted! (4 days - 9/17)

[BillOh]

Here are a couple of snorkeling videos from Pearl Island.

[wendyam76]

The walk is about 200 yards from the cruise ship to their boat. On the way back, they drop you off outside security, so its at least 400 yards to walk back.

Thank you so much - that is a huge help!

[BillOh]

Thank you so much - that is a huge help!

 

 

One other small thing, on our way out the tide was low and it was high on our way back. At low tide getting off and on their boat might be challenging for some, but they had plenty of people there to help.

[BillOh]

After returning from Pearl Island, we had another nice evening in the DL. I forgot to mention, this was my first time having the Drink package after becoming Diamond. My wife has me hooked on Captain Morgan and Coke, and touring their factory in St Croix last year helped. The server in the DL told me that Captain wasn't included, but since I had the drink package he would bring up a bottle and leave it up there for me. Nice touch, he kept our group happy all week. Not sure how much damage I did to that bottle over 4 evenings.

 

We skipped the production show, checked out the casino, just a little, and then went to dinner. Tonight was the worst night of the four. That was meant to be some what sarcastic as I mentioned the food was good and the service great for the whole cruise. The bad part was my two favorite dishes were on the same night, the Lasagna and the Chicken Cordon Bleu. When i had the CCB on Adventure it was terrible, so I went with the lasagna. Gina went with the CCB and it was so good, we shared both between us, so problem solved.

 

Speaking of food, back in 2012 I had Jalepeno Potato soup on Jewel. On this cruise in the WJ, they had a creamy version (not potato chunks), that was a nice surprise and change of pace. They also had some small Parmesan crusted turkey bites that were good.

[wendyam76]

One other small thing, on our way out the tide was low and it was high on our way back. At low tide getting off and on their boat might be challenging for some, but they had plenty of people there to help.

How incredibly kind of you to think of that - it’s things like that which worry my mum as she hates to hold people up.

[BillOh]

How incredibly kind of you to think of that - it’s things like that which worry my mum as she hates to hold people up.

 

 

As for holding people up, I would tell her not to worry, you get 5-6 hours there, what's a couple of minutes each way?

[lmp29]

BillOh, thank you for the review, I love to read about other cruisers' experiences!

 

Question regarding Coco Cay beach beds - we are sailing in May in a group of 12-14. I am interested in getting a beach bed to use for the day, partially to help with my 2 year-old granddaughter's mid-day nap, but I only want to rent one if the rest of our group can get loungers near or close to that area. Is that possible?

 

thanks for any information that you can provide.

[LXA350]

Here is the photo I was referring to earlier.

 

 

 

I have never seen this on a Royal ship

 

 

I have a feeling that the pizza as advertised is not the one that is served on board, at least not for the past years as it tastes anything else but delicious and fresh with "real" ingredients

[BillOh]

This was specific to what was served that day on Enchantment.

 

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[BillOh]

BillOh, thank you for the review, I love to read about other cruisers' experiences!

 

Question regarding Coco Cay beach beds - we are sailing in May in a group of 12-14. I am interested in getting a beach bed to use for the day, partially to help with my 2 year-old granddaughter's mid-day nap, but I only want to rent one if the rest of our group can get loungers near or close to that area. Is that possible?

 

thanks for any information that you can provide.

 

 

Probably not, they give you 2 loungers with your bed, if by chance other beds were not occupied you could borrow one. But I don't think you could count on that.

[BillOh]

Thursday was our sea day as the ship made its way back to Port Canaveral. We had breakfast in the WJ and were out by the pool by 9am. I was surprised to actually find plenty of pool chairs near the pool! They would fill up by 10am as the weather was perfect, but clearly the professional chair hogs were not on this cruise! Knowing this would be my last pool weather I would experience until late April, we set up to enjoy the day.

 

We did get a few drinks at the pool and found the bar service around the pool to be quite good this day. I didn't take a lot of pictures, but it was a good day at the pool with more pizza from the Solarium. I didn't thin to get any more pictures, I'm sorry for that, we really liked Enchantment and found her to be a pretty good ship.

 

I vacated the pool deck during the belly flop competition as it got a little crowded and loud. I'm sure it was fun for those present, but I chose to relax on my balcony and work on my book. Gina joined me shortly afternoon and we decided to go ahead and go to the Love and Marriage show even though it was 3pm.

 

The crowd for the game show was about 1/2 to 2/3rds of the auditorium. They did have some trouble getting enough people to volunteer to try out. Now, in full disclosure, we have done L&M twice as contestants. We didn't plan on it this day, but decided to go for it. We didn't prepare for it, but figured it would be a good time. We do have an audition we had used before and it generallyl blows the others away, and it did again this time, so we were the middle contestants. It's fun.

 

While Cruisin Susan and Mo did a decent job of running the event, there wasn't a single question we hadn't heard before, so we didn't miss any. We were the winners! Each couple won a pack of RC stuff and the ladies got a necklace that was reported to be a Levian Chocolate Diamond! As winners we got a bottle of Chinese Champagne.

 

Dinner the last night was as good as the other nights and we continued to enjoy the service of Henry and Li. We also had another great night with our table mates. In that light, it was good to have late seating as we were not rushed out. We did hang out a while, but I don't think we delayed any clean up work by the staff. Henry was the perfect waiter, totally efficient and professional. Li also was perfect, but she had time to be a little more personable and friendly. Our last two assistant waiters had left something to be desired, but this pair was indeed perfect.

 

We decided to skip Quest an just relax. We intended to self disembark, so we didn't have to pack, we put on our swim suits and had one more relaxing soak in the solarium hottub with a couple of slices of Park Cafe pizza.

 

Once back in our room for the night, we relaxed and turned on the tv expecting to see the final morning show along with instructions for leaving the ship. They were still showing the morning show from day 3 with instructions for Nassau. While ok personality wise, this CD team, just seemed lacking to me.

 

I turned on the TV when I got the 7am wake up call, and again, no info! I did pull up the Royal app on my phone and saw this.

 

 

What departure video? I guess we would just wing it! I looked down in the centrum and saw people exiting the ship on deck 4. We took the elevator to deck 4 and saw people coming out of the dining room and walking off the ship. They had ropes preventing us from joining them even though there was no line. It looked like they were wrapping the line through the dining room, so we followed others out that way, confusing the dining room staff who tried to seat us.

 

Again, the self disembarkation was easy, but totally disoraganized. From here we walked off the ship easily and our 17th cruise was over and quite enjoyable.

 

On the final night, we were told that our survey's would be waiting in our email box the next morning. I thought I'd mention this because at this time last year Royal wasn't sending out email surveys for less than 5 day cruises. Apparently now they are and they are the 1-10 point surveys. We did fill them out with lots of positive comments. This was a very nice get away and a nice ship. I can see why Enchantment is a frequent cruise for people fortunate enough to live nearby. Next year we will do this cruise again, but it will be on Mariner. I'll review that is one more year! I'm sorry I didn't get more pictures of Enchantment, we had done this itinerary many times, but the ship was new to us

 

I'll end this by saying, we got back to the Radisson parking lot and were on the road by 8:15am. That process is flawless and efficient and makes for an easy morning. On the road by 8:30, we pulled into our Columbus Driveway 1am Saturday. I'll be reporting to you guys next in Early May after Symphony out of Miami!

[joand452]

Thank you for taking us along[emoji28]!

 

 

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[wendyam76]

Bill, just wanted to say thank you - I’ve gone ahead and booked Pearl Island for my mum and I.

Wendy

[superduper123]

Bill,

 

Thanks for sharing, and thanks for the great photos. :) I love the Enchantment, and was on this itinerary on the 24th.

Some experiences that I had in agreement with you:

 

The pizza was much better than I recall previously on other ships,

 

While okay, I did not love the cruise director, and activities manager,

 

Lining up for disembarkation was a bit confusing, but relatively quick once we got moving.

[mooseman52b]

Nice review BillOH (y)

 

Enchantment is a very nice ship and we will be doing a B2B on her out of PC in February. Hopefully the pier in CoCo Cay is completed by then as we have missed a day on the private island in the past.

[Mikew0805]

To finish up the Pearl Island Day, I moved up to the snorkeling area. It was right next to where they set up the lunch. Gina decided snorkeling may be too much for her foot, so she opted to skip it. At the snorkeling gathering, they handed out life jackets. I look at these and thought, :"are we taking a boat somewhere" Once I found out we weren't, I asked, "Do we have to wear these?" Being that I don't like canned answers that supervisors tell their minions to quiet down customers, " I was put off when the guy said, "Yes, for insurance reasons. " I didn't have my BS flag with me to throw at him, so I largely kept quiet. I say largely, because I asked, "How can you put your face in the water with a life jacket on?" The reply was, once in the water you slide them down to your waste and turn them around. Here I was thinking, you don't have any insurance, if they saw you having people put on life jackets backwards and going face down in the water, they would cancel any insurance.

 

Dying laughing here.

[Mikew0805]

Thanks for the review. It was nice to see it from your perspective.

 

The Enchantment was MUCH better than last time. Must of been a crew issue before.

[BillOh]

Thanks for the review. It was nice to see it from your perspective.

 

The Enchantment was MUCH better than last time. Must of been a crew issue before.

 

 

Thanks Mike, hope to sail with you again, enjoy Brilliance and Majesty.

[maryjaden]

Thank you for taking the time for this revue. We haven't been on the EN in years and are looking at her as an option.

[BillOh]

Thank you for taking the time for this revue. We haven't been on the EN in years and are looking at her as an option.

 

 

I was overall very pleased with the ship, ports and food.

[BillOh]

Thanks for the review. It was nice to see it from your perspective.

 

The Enchantment was MUCH better than last time. Must of been a crew issue before.

 

 

Did you get to the production show? We skipped that and then were annoyed that the comedian/Quest/love and Marriage/ and battle of the sexes was all the same night! I'm still laughing at the comedian on the welcome aboard show. "We had to eat Tide directly from the box"

[Mikew0805]

Did you get to the production show? We skipped that and then were annoyed that the comedian/Quest/love and Marriage/ and battle of the sexes was all the same night! I'm still laughing at the comedian on the welcome aboard show. "We had to eat Tide directly from the box"

 

I went that night to the production show, and I have to say that I usually like all productions shows but I left this one after about 15 minutes. Maybe it was an off night, or maybe I was just tired.

 

I too was annoyed about the shows all being on the same day. Quest and late night adult comedy, are not a good ones to have the night before debarkation. I like to be up early, and off the ship quick so getting to bed after midnight, and getting up at 5 am is no good on vacay.

 

LOL yep.. the tide one was funny. I saw it again on the TV after you mentioned it. However, I never did get to see the love and marriage shown on tv.

[kftw]

Thank you for the review & photos.

[perfect match]

Thanks for the Enchantment review, Bill. Hope we can manage to sail on her while she is here in PC. :D:cool: