Just off Majesty 4 Night Havana and Key West - Quick Report

[sharktums]

Just off Majesty this morning and wanted to write a few things about the cruise.

 

Four of us travelled, all 37 - 48 years old, in two outside staterooms on Deck 8. My husband and I are Diamond Plus and our friends are Emerald. Not big drinkers and kind of forgot to take advantage of the free drinks/foods most nights. We did head up to Viking Crown the first night and there was quite a nice spread of food for the cocktail hour(s)! We liked the location of our cabin a lot as we could people watch and see the sea from our room above the outside promenade.

 

Embarkation was some of the easiest ever! Even with the extra hoops to jump through with Cuba paperwork the employees were super friendly, helpful, and efficient. Maybe I just haven't cruised out of Tampa in a while but they all seemed much less surly then some of the FLL shoreside crew!

 

Weather was stupidly great. We had been very nervous about cruising during hurricane season and the gulf was like glass. Sure it was hot and humid in Cuba and Key West but we never even got rained on!

 

Ship - We had actually just been on Majesty earlier this year for a friends birthday. We were on her a few weeks before the dry dock and some things clearly did show. New carpet in spots, very clean, a few new chairs/tables, nothing major but the ship felt good. Staff all seemed pretty friendly and happy.

 

Food - So full disclosure, we are not main dining room people and that's tough on this ship. We love the Oasis and Quantum class ships and doing Ultimate Dining Package. That being said we had some pretty good experiences with food. There appears to be a new Freestyle Machine next to Latte-tudes on Deck 6 which is a great convenience to avoid always having to head up to Deck 12 to fill your cup. Also, when did RCCL fix the French Onion Soup!?!?! It's awesome now!!! Like a proper french onion soup in a crock with melted cheese and super hot, it's just great! Never made it to breakfast (not big breakfast people), sea day dining room lunch has the awesome salad bar, and Windjammer usually has one of the 'action' stations like Stir Fry, Pasta, Crepes, etc which I LOVE and miss as a lot of the big ships don't offer that. One of the real downsides to the dining room on this ship was that every night they did some sort of song and dance and our waiter and assistant waiter talked about the survey EVERY day.

 

Key West - We parked at the Navy Dock so we had to take the shuttle to the main town square. It was actually kind of nice! I mean the guys running them were doing corny jokes and stuff, but it was nice to be in the shade and have a breeze instead of walking from a pier to downtown. Super hot and humid, but just walked around and had some fun as we had all been to Key West before.

 

Cuba - Ok, so obviously this was the reason for this particular cruise. Our friends were super obsessed and really wanted to go. We were kind of more relaxed and didn't super care so we made them do all of the arrangements! I had done India cruises and stuff before so the Visa stuff and warnings about immigration in Cuba didn't really worry me but it certainly freaked out some people (including our friends!). There was information about how everything would work in the compass, somewhat conflicting information in the live session with the cruise director, and then a third version once we actually arrived!

 

Here's how it worked for us:

 

We had a private excursion booked for the four of us. Our ashore time was listed at 7:30am and we were supposed to meet the guide at 9am. We were advised by RCCL that it would take a long time, we wouldn't be allowed off the ship till 9am, all of this stuff...what actually happened was at 7:15am they made an announcement saying anyone on an independent excursion should get off right now and before 7:45am as there was no line, RCCL excursions weren't totally busy, and Empress just showed up so that was another 1500+ people.

 

We stepped off of the ship at 7:35am, went through immigration, through security, and converted our money, and were at the meeting point by 8am!

 

I travel for a living and if there's one piece of advice I can give you it's to GET UP EARLY!!!! The early bird truly gets the worm (or in this case, no lines and extra Havana time!)

 

Our tour was booked through Blexie and we had Isbel as our guide. He was fine, I've had guides around the world and I wouldn't say he was the best ever, but he was far from the bottom! He did everything we asked and showed us everything we wanted to see. One bummer was he took us to an obviously very touristy place for lunch that was overpriced and not great food. Cuba was very interesting. An interesting mix of old Spanish, 50's US, and Soviet block. I would definitely recommend visiting and don't let other people worry or intimidate you to going, it was really very easy and felt safe and fine.

 

One sea day, then back to Tampa.

 

Happy to answer any questions I can, thanks for reading!

[sr5242]

How much money would you recommend exchanging into cuc?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[JaniceB]

Can you give me anymore details about your tour? The cost, how long the tour was and anything else you can think of. The ships tours seem very expensive and thinking we might want a private tour.

[EatonDoolittle]

Touring with Blexie in a month or so, but we have a different guide.

Please advise the lunch place you went to, so we can avoid it.

 

Thanks in advance.

[sharktums]

We exchanged US$350. Our share of the tour with our friends was $100 total, we tipped the guide $30, driver $15, paid for their and our lunches (split with our friends) $80, $10 to a lady to help a puppy she found abandoned, bought 3 $5 cigars, one bottle of cheap $5 rum, a $5 hat (that was $15 at the port so do your shopping away from the central area!), an $8 Coco Taxi figurine and a few sodas/bottle waters. We ended with about $20 leftover that I kept instead of changing back as I assume we'll go back.

 

Our tour was a bit different than a normal persons as our friends are into GeoCaching and we wanted to see some of their 'amusement parks'. We had a 9am - 3pm tour and did two parks, Fusterlandia, lunch, and walking through Old Havana. On the drives to/from the port we went through some interesting areas and looked at stuff from the air conditioned van. I personally don't need to go into every museum, cathedral, church, capitol building, etc. so I thought this was a perfect length and we got a really good taste for the city.

 

The restaurant was called: Legendarios del Guajirito Buena Vista Social Club

 

If you google it you'll see a number of reviews that mention the bad food and pushy waitresses and how it looks like it was designed for tourists. They also do a night show that we did not do. People seem to tolerate the show more than the food.

[Bookish Angel]

Nice review! Just enough without being numbingly detailed.

 

Your van - did it have working seat belts?

[sharktums]

Three out of four of us had working seat belts.

[DISFANS3]

Cool trip report...

[travelwide]

We all leaving on the Empress of the Seas out of Miami on Saturday. What box did you check on the form that needs to be completed upon entering Cuba. The one that Royal Caribbean gives you. We are also doing an independent tour. Appreciate hearing from you before Friday.

[JaniceB]

Thank you for the information about your tour.

[sharktums]

We all leaving on the Empress of the Seas out of Miami on Saturday. What box did you check on the form that needs to be completed upon entering Cuba. The one that Royal Caribbean gives you. We are also doing an independent tour. Appreciate hearing from you before Friday.

 

We checked the full day third party box.