Review of Enchanted Princess, March 9, 2023 Transatlantic Cruise

[flannbarr]

My wife and I sailed on our first Transatlantic cruise on 3/9/23 on the Enchanted Princess from Fort Lauderdale to Barcelona. Overall, it has been a wonderful cruise which I would give a 9 out of 10.

 

The cruise was 20 nights which was effectively a 14 day TA cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Barcelona combined with a 6 day Mediterranean cruise from Barcelona. We are now on day 18 of 20 so I thought I would start my cruise review while I possibly have a little internet. More to come on that topic later.

 

Around 2,700 people embarked in Fort Lauderdale (double capacity is 3,660). In Barcelona on 3/23/23, 1,900 people disembarked after 14 days and around 2,200 embarked for the 6 day cruise. Around 800 people (including us) were on the sailing for the entire 20 days.

 

First, a little about us. I am 59 and wife is 64. We live in Lakewood Ranch, Florida which is basically the Sarasota/Bradenton area. We are both very active. My wife is retired and I am a consultant where I can control my schedule so taking off a month was not an issue.

 

We purchased the Princess Plus plan when the cost was $50 per day per person.

 

Prior to this cruise, we have sailed 16 times together: Royal Caribbean (9 cruises), Princess (3 cruises), Carnival (2 cruises) and Amawaterways (1 cruise). We have not been on an ocean cruise without our children since 2000.

 

Itinerary: Fort Lauderdale (embark). 7 days at sea, Madeira (Funchal), Seville (Cadiz), Malaga, Cartegena, Mallorca (Palma), Barcelona, Marseille, Corsica (Ajaccio), At Sea, Gibraltar, At Sea, Barcelona (disembark). We really enjoyed the ports. More to follow later.

 

The Night Before: We flew from Tampa to Fort Lauderdale the night of 3/8/23. Easy flight on Southwest Airlines. We flew to Fort Lauderdale because we wanted to fly home after the cruise to Tampa instead of Fort Lauderdale. We stayed at the Hyatt Centric Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale. It was fine for the 11 hours we were there.

 

Embarkation: We caught a Lyft to Port Everglades the morning of 3/9/23 arriving at the port at 10:15am. We checked our bags with the porter. We saw some people wheeling their large suitcases into the terminal. I don’t totally get that, but everyone has their reasons. We were placed into our waiting area in the terminal. The first thing we noticed was there were a lot of people who were much older than us. Passengers in their 70’s and 80’s and not many around our age. I came to realize that was normal for TA cruises. This was not the family crowd we are used to on Royal Caribbean. There were probably less than 10 kids under age 18 which was fine with us. This number went to 185 for the 6 day sailing from Barcelona.

We were released from the waiting area by around 10:50am and onboard the ship by 11am. We expected to wait until 1pm as usual to get into our cabin but it was ready when we embarked at 11am. That is very impressive considering the previous cruise had 3,800+ passengers.

 

Sailaway was scheduled for 3:30pm but didn’t occur until close to 5pm. Once we left Port Everglades, we weren’t going to see land for 8 more days until we reached Funchal, Portugal. Let’s hope for smooth sailing across the Atlantic.

 

Cabin: We had a mini-suite on the Aloha deck, mid forward. We loved the location. The cabin is 329 SF including the balcony. The bed was comfortable. We especially liked the large separate sitting area with a TV and curtain separating this area from the bedroom area. This was important to us because I am usually awake 1-2 hours before my wife in the morning. The sofa was comfortable. We never used the sofa bed. There was a lot of storage space in the cabin. A lot. We didn’t even use all of the drawers or shelves. The lamp by both sides of the bed had a USB charging port built in. There were lots of plugs at the desk in the sitting area with multiple varieties including 2 plugs with 3 prongs like used in the U.S. I was able to use a small USB hub with one of the plugs which is where we charged our portable phone batteries and Apple watches. The balcony was a decent size with 2 chairs and a small table.

We have a few suggestions for the cabin. First, add a motion-sensored night light in the bathroom so the bathroom light doesn’t have to be turned on when using the bathroom in the middle of the night. Second, add a small light in the clothes cabinet which would turn on when opened. Third, the light above the bed and outside the closet area are on the same switch. It would be nice to have the closet light on a separate switch especially when someone is sleeping in bed and the other person needs clothes from the closet. None of these are huge deals but I wanted to mention them.

 

The room steward did a good job. I guess the days of towel animals are over. Oh well.

 

Overall, the mini-suite was great and it didn’t cost much more money than a balcony cabin.

 

The First Day: After dropping off our carry-on bags in our cabin, we sat by the pool on deck 16. There was a band called The Static Band playing music on the pool deck. At first, I thought they were just another reggae band like we are used to on other cruises. More on this later.

 

I had lunch at Gigi’s which was good. My wife had lunch from The Salty Dog Grill on deck 16. Both of these places are good.

 

We walked around the ship to get acclimated and noticed the following. The ship is a good size for us. There were hand sanitizer stations everywhere. The walking track was on deck 18 aft. It was 7 laps around for 1 mile. We walked every morning on sea days and it gets windy up there on sea days so hold onto your hat. The 2 pickleball courts were used often. There were bars everywhere. I have never seen so many bars on one ship but maybe we noticed them more now that we are sailing without our kids.

 

Breakfast: Generally, we had breakfast in the World Fresh Marketplace (buffet) on sea days and had room service or ate in the International Café on port days since we were off the boat early in the morning. All of these options were good. The breads, pastries, croissants, etc. stood out as amazing in all of these places.

 

Lunch: On sea days, we usually ate lunch at the buffet or The Salty Dog Grill. The buffet was well maintained, always clean and filled with many food options.

 

Dinner: We usually ate dinner in the Santorini dining room. We never ate in the specialty restaurants. We didn’t need to spend $35-$39 per person when the main dining food was good. We talked to some people who dined in the Crown Grill and said the steak in the main dining room was better than the one they paid the up charge for in the Crown Grill, We had a couple dinners at the buffet when we didn’t want a fancy sit down dinner. The buffets had many selections for dinner and was good.

 

More to follow….

[Perky1]

We were on the Enchanted before you got on and we just left the bathroom light on to act as a night light.  The space at the bottom of the door lets enough light out!  We really enjoyed the ship too!

[Grego]

2 hours ago, flannbarr said:

My wife and I sailed on our first Transatlantic cruise on 3/9/23 on the Enchanted Princess from Fort Lauderdale to Barcelona. Overall, it has been a wonderful cruise which I would give a 9 out of 10.

 

The cruise was 20 nights which was effectively a 14 day TA cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Barcelona combined with a 6 day Mediterranean cruise from Barcelona. We are now on day 18 of 20 so I thought I would start my cruise review while I possibly have a little internet. More to come on that topic later.

 

Around 2,700 people embarked in Fort Lauderdale (double capacity is 3,660). In Barcelona on 3/23/23, 1,900 people disembarked after 14 days and around 2,200 embarked for the 6 day cruise. Around 800 people (including us) were on the sailing for the entire 20 days.

 

First, a little about us. I am 59 and wife is 64. We live in Lakewood Ranch, Florida which is basically the Sarasota/Bradenton area. We are both very active. My wife is retired and I am a consultant where I can control my schedule so taking off a month was not an issue.

 

We purchased the Princess Plus plan when the cost was $50 per day per person.

 

Prior to this cruise, we have sailed 16 times together: Royal Caribbean (9 cruises), Princess (3 cruises), Carnival (2 cruises) and Amawaterways (1 cruise). We have not been on an ocean cruise without our children since 2000.

 

Itinerary: Fort Lauderdale (embark). 7 days at sea, Madeira (Funchal), Seville (Cadiz), Malaga, Cartegena, Mallorca (Palma), Barcelona, Marseille, Corsica (Ajaccio), At Sea, Gibraltar, At Sea, Barcelona (disembark). We really enjoyed the ports. More to follow later.

 

The Night Before: We flew from Tampa to Fort Lauderdale the night of 3/8/23. Easy flight on Southwest Airlines. We flew to Fort Lauderdale because we wanted to fly home after the cruise to Tampa instead of Fort Lauderdale. We stayed at the Hyatt Centric Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale. It was fine for the 11 hours we were there.

 

Embarkation: We caught a Lyft to Port Everglades the morning of 3/9/23 arriving at the port at 10:15am. We checked our bags with the porter. We saw some people wheeling their large suitcases into the terminal. I don’t totally get that, but everyone has their reasons. We were placed into our waiting area in the terminal. The first thing we noticed was there were a lot of people who were much older than us. Passengers in their 70’s and 80’s and not many around our age. I came to realize that was normal for TA cruises. This was not the family crowd we are used to on Royal Caribbean. There were probably less than 10 kids under age 18 which was fine with us. This number went to 185 for the 6 day sailing from Barcelona.

We were released from the waiting area by around 10:50am and onboard the ship by 11am. We expected to wait until 1pm as usual to get into our cabin but it was ready when we embarked at 11am. That is very impressive considering the previous cruise had 3,800+ passengers.

 

Sailaway was scheduled for 3:30pm but didn’t occur until close to 5pm. Once we left Port Everglades, we weren’t going to see land for 8 more days until we reached Funchal, Portugal. Let’s hope for smooth sailing across the Atlantic.

 

Cabin: We had a mini-suite on the Aloha deck, mid forward. We loved the location. The cabin is 329 SF including the balcony. The bed was comfortable. We especially liked the large separate sitting area with a TV and curtain separating this area from the bedroom area. This was important to us because I am usually awake 1-2 hours before my wife in the morning. The sofa was comfortable. We never used the sofa bed. There was a lot of storage space in the cabin. A lot. We didn’t even use all of the drawers or shelves. The lamp by both sides of the bed had a USB charging port built in. There were lots of plugs at the desk in the sitting area with multiple varieties including 2 plugs with 3 prongs like used in the U.S. I was able to use a small USB hub with one of the plugs which is where we charged our portable phone batteries and Apple watches. The balcony was a decent size with 2 chairs and a small table.

We have a few suggestions for the cabin. First, add a motion-sensored night light in the bathroom so the bathroom light doesn’t have to be turned on when using the bathroom in the middle of the night. Second, add a small light in the clothes cabinet which would turn on when opened. Third, the light above the bed and outside the closet area are on the same switch. It would be nice to have the closet light on a separate switch especially when someone is sleeping in bed and the other person needs clothes from the closet. None of these are huge deals but I wanted to mention them.

 

The room steward did a good job. I guess the days of towel animals are over. Oh well.

 

Overall, the mini-suite was great and it didn’t cost much more money than a balcony cabin.

 

The First Day: After dropping off our carry-on bags in our cabin, we sat by the pool on deck 16. There was a band called The Static Band playing music on the pool deck. At first, I thought they were just another reggae band like we are used to on other cruises. More on this later.

 

I had lunch at Gigi’s which was good. My wife had lunch from The Salty Dog Grill on deck 16. Both of these places are good.

 

We walked around the ship to get acclimated and noticed the following. The ship is a good size for us. There were hand sanitizer stations everywhere. The walking track was on deck 18 aft. It was 7 laps around for 1 mile. We walked every morning on sea days and it gets windy up there on sea days so hold onto your hat. The 2 pickleball courts were used often. There were bars everywhere. I have never seen so many bars on one ship but maybe we noticed them more now that we are sailing without our kids.

 

Breakfast: Generally, we had breakfast in the World Fresh Marketplace (buffet) on sea days and had room service or ate in the International Café on port days since we were off the boat early in the morning. All of these options were good. The breads, pastries, croissants, etc. stood out as amazing in all of these places.

 

Lunch: On sea days, we usually ate lunch at the buffet or The Salty Dog Grill. The buffet was well maintained, always clean and filled with many food options.

 

Dinner: We usually ate dinner in the Santorini dining room. We never ate in the specialty restaurants. We didn’t need to spend $35-$39 per person when the main dining food was good. We talked to some people who dined in the Crown Grill and said the steak in the main dining room was better than the one they paid the up charge for in the Crown Grill, We had a couple dinners at the buffet when we didn’t want a fancy sit down dinner. The buffets had many selections for dinner and was good.

 

More to follow….

Thanks for doing this.  We have been on the Enchanted twice since the pandemic and loved the experience both times.  Our upcoming 21-day voyage in June on her is a R/T Barcelona to the Greek Isles and back and we know we will be having a great time.

I look forward to more of our experience.

[LACruiser88]

Thank you for taking the time to post.  We will be on the Enchanted in Nov for the 26 day TA going the other way.

 

Btw, we are currently on the Sapphire in South America and the towel animals are alive and well here!

 

 

 

 

[1965]

Thank you for your report. Can't wait to read more. We have a 26 day TA Barcelona to Ft. Lauderdale in Nov. SO looking forward to it. 😊

[flannbarr]

Bars: We spent a majority of our drinking time at the Good Spirits at Sea on Deck 5 Midship at the Piazza. They have a cocktail experience usually everyday at 5:30pm and 8:30pm where they make unique drinks based on various cities. Jhomel runs this experience and he does a great job, The drinks are then given to passengers sitting at the bar. We got hooked on this and attended almost every day. We often told Jhomel to just make us a drink and surprise us and he never disappointed. The final he made us on around day 8 was a major hit and we have it almost every day. He promised he would give me the recipe on our last day. All the bartenders at Good Spirits are very personable and great. You can ask for a special drink from a specific bar to be delivered anywhere that you are on the ship. We also spent a lot of time playing cards and backgammon in Crooners (Deck 6 Midship) during the day and sometimes at night listening to Brian Johnson on the piano who was very good.

[Texastravelers75007]

Thank you for this info.  We are on the TA in Nov…our first on the Enchanted but number 23 with Princess. Looking forward to some relaxing sea days

. 

[pompeii]

DH and I were also on this cruise but disembarked after 14 days. We’re currently enjoying some post-cruise days in Barcelona.   
 

Overall it was a great cruise and I’ll be curious to hear what you have to say about the internet 😆

Edited March 26, 2023 by pompeii

[PacnGoNow]

52 minutes ago, pompeii said:

DH and I were also on this cruise but disembarked after 14 days. We’re currently enjoying some post-cruise days in Barcelona.   
 

Overall it was a great cruise and I’ll be curious to hear what you have to say about the internet 😆

We’re on here too!  @pompeii…

what internet?  Almost non existent first 14 days and intermittent day 15-18 so far.

 

[1965]

2 hours ago, Texastravelers75007 said:

Thank you for this info.  We are on the TA in Nov…our first on the Enchanted but number 23 with Princess. Looking forward to some relaxing sea days

. 

Are you boarding in Barcelona on the 12th or Rome on the 23rd? 

[Texastravelers75007]

Boarding in Rome. Flying in three days early to sightsee.  Not our first time in Rome but we never tire of this city.  So happy to have a longer cruise again. See you are in Nemo…not quite sure where that is in relationship to McKinney area.

 

[pompeii]

7 hours ago, PacnGoNow said:

We’re on here too!  @pompeii…

what internet?  Almost non existent first 14 days and intermittent day 15-18 so far.

 

My point exactly, which is why I laughed at the subject of the internet. The op indicated they’d have more to say about it so I’m looking forward to hearing their comments. 

[1965]

1 hour ago, Texastravelers75007 said:

Boarding in Rome. Flying in three days early to sightsee.  Not our first time in Rome but we never tire of this city.  So happy to have a longer cruise again. See you are in Nemo…not quite sure where that is in relationship to McKinney area.

 

We are about an hour south of Ft. Worth, midway between Cleburne & Glen Rose, right off of Hwy. 67. 

[Buckeye10640]

Following your review and sounds like a great trip.  Love Enchanted and have sailed her twice in the Carribean. I hope to do a TA someday! I have to chuckle about your comment about motion sensor night lights. They have been installing these retroactively on some ships, and many (including myself) dislike them. You will find discussion threads about how to outsmart them (tape over them, put pillows in front of the ones at the bottom of the nightstands, etc). I do agree that they should have a separate light switch just for the closet area

[Dudleydog73]

Our group of 5 were part of the 1900 that debarked on the 23rd.  Overall this was a fantastic cruise and arguably one of the best due to things that transpired due to relationships we had with some higher level crew that we did not know would be on Enchanted until a day or two before we boarded.  360 anyone?  That experience alone was super memorable.

 

As for the internet, yes, that was a huge cluster and it appeared that those that made the trek to guest services was awarded $60 OBC as a good will gesture for those with the plus or premiere packages.  I was a little annoyed that they seemed to only be adding this OBC for those that complained, as they surely knew who had the packages. 

 

This was not our first TA, but was our first eastbound.  It will most probably be our last eastbound as well.  There were way too many 23 hour days that screwed with your internal clocks.  I would much rather have the westbound 25 hour days as they are much more pleasant, and the fact that the end of the cruise on the westbound is all sea days to decompress makes it much more relaxing.  Having nonstop port days at the end of the eastbound was definitely not relaxing in any stretch of the definition. 

 

We were also in mini suites on the Caribe deck center of ship.  Was a fantastic location that I would not hesitate to do again.  

[LACruiser88]

13 minutes ago, Dudleydog73 said:

This was not our first TA, but was our first eastbound.  It will most probably be our last eastbound as well.  There were way too many 23 hour days that screwed with your internal clocks.  I would much rather have the westbound 25 hour days as they are much more pleasant, and the fact that the end of the cruise on the westbound is all sea days to decompress makes it much more relaxing.

We have been on 14 TA's and have another scheduled for November.  We always go westbound, best way to catch up on sleep!

[DougH]

Looking forward to the rest of your review. I was supposed to be on this cruise but had to cancel about 30 days out for medical issues and was disappointed I missed it.

[SoFla_KJ]

Thanks for the review! Do you have some Patters you can upload? We are going on the Regal TA for our honeymoon in 3 weeks and would love to see what the activities look like! First time for us on Princess.

[memoak]

1 hour ago, LACruiser88 said:

We have been on 14 TA's and have another scheduled for November.  We always go westbound, best way to catch up on sleep!

Always and you get the long flight over with early. Same thing for Panama transits

[Dudleydog73]

15 minutes ago, memoak said:

Always and you get the long flight over with early. Same thing for Panama transits

Lol, we tried the eastbound as our dates lined up, but never again unless the cruise is super cheap.

[Dudleydog73]

58 minutes ago, SoFla_KJ said:

Thanks for the review! Do you have some Patters you can upload? We are going on the Regal TA for our honeymoon in 3 weeks and would love to see what the activities look like! First time for us on Princess.

They dont call them Patters anynore, and the new name escapes me currently.  If my wife saved any of them I will scan them in and post.  They were not super substantial on this cruise... maybe one page front and back.

[memoak]

15 minutes ago, Dudleydog73 said:

They dont call them Patters anynore, and the new name escapes me currently.  If my wife saved any of them I will scan them in and post.  They were not super substantial on this cruise... maybe one page front and back.

The say Princess Events but to us they will always be called Platters instead of Patters

[flannbarr]

15 hours ago, LACruiser88 said:

Thank you for taking the time to post.  We will be on the Enchanted in Nov for the 26 day TA going the other way.

 

Btw, we are currently on the Sapphire in South America and the towel animals are alive and well here!

 

 

 

 

They are always nice to come back to at night. Oh well….c’est la vie.

Edited March 27, 2023 by flannbarr

[flannbarr]

5 hours ago, SoFla_KJ said:

Thanks for the review! Do you have some Patters you can upload? We are going on the Regal TA for our honeymoon in 3 weeks and would love to see what the activities look like! First time for us on Princess.

We did not keep the Pattwrs now known as the Princess Event Listings. On the stateroom tv, they are called the Princess Patters.

 

Trust be that there are more enough activities to pick from especially on sea days. Typically multiple trivia games everyday in Princess Live along with one game show every day or every other day. Music is a plenty on the ship.

[flannbarr]

The Crossing: I am a little out of order here. The 7 1/2 sailing across the Atlantic could not have been smoother. The seas were so calm. 
 

We had a few hours a couple nights and days where the ship swayed a bit but nothing major at all. My wife stopped taking Dramamine after about 10 days because the seas were so smooth.