Jump to content
Cruise Critic Community

Won a RCI Cruise...

tractortom

By tractortom,
in Royal Caribbean International

Recommended Posts

tractortom

tractortom

Posted
Posted

Hi there campers!

 

It's been a long time since I roamed these boards, as I thought that my cruising days were pretty well over for a while. Then, out of the clear blue, I won a cruise from the nice folks at Branson Tractor Company, by selling a tractor a few months ago, and the boss lady and I will be going on a 4 night cruise from Ft. Lauderdale to the Western Carib. Who knew?

 

So, I have been reading up a bit on the cruise and the ship (Enchantment). As we live in South Florida, we won't need a hotel or flight and the cruiseship pier is a two hour drive from our home. I have to admit that I'm really looking forward to getting away for a few days. Since the boss lady and I have opened the tractor store here in Okeechobee 18 months ago, the best we have managed is a three day weekend away for our 30th anniversary.

 

We'll be on Enchantment leaving January 25th going to Key West, Coz and back to Ft. Lauderdale. I've already booked a two tank dive for the stop in Coz and look forward to spending some time relaxing in the sun. Look forward to reading some of your reviews...

 

Tractor Tom in Okeechobee

Link to comment
Share on other sites
dougp26364

dougp26364

Posted
Posted

Must be nice to have an employeer that will give away cruises. The best mine does is the rare at-a-boy and that's really rare.........and cheap. Concratulations on winning the cruise and having an employer that will go the extra step to encourage the employee's to do a good job rather than just expecting it of showing you the ax.

 

As far as reviews, we did this same cruise last yeat on Enchantment. Pictures of the new, stretched version of Enchantment can be found at the link in my signature below.

 

We enjoyed our cruise. We had an aft JS but, we found that we didn't like the walk, those cabins are narrower than the port/starboard JS cabins and the ship deposited smoke stack suit on our balcony daily. We won't be going back for an aft cabin anymore.

 

Fitness centers on the Vision class are small and feel cramped to me. Not a great selection of fitness equipement either if you're used to a regular gym.

 

The stretching has added a couple of dramatic sky bridges which are really very nice looking at night. There are a couple of floor port holes that allow you to look straight down to the water but, most of the time they're dirty enough from foot traffic you can't see a thing. Of course there is the obligatory rock climbing wall at the back of the ship.

 

The also added a conceirge lounge and a Chops specialty restaurant. Since we were only in a JS we and were only Platinum members of C&A, we did not have access to the conceirge lounge. We did make use of Chops one evening and enjoyed the meal throughly. It is an extra $20 per person but is a very nice steak house and is a good step above the food served in the main dining room, which isn't bad in and of itself.

 

I still don't like the traffic patterns of the Windjammer but it's functional and a good place to grab breakfast or lunch. It just gets crowded at the busy hours. I don't recall whether or not they ever served lunch in the main dining room. Typically, with RCI now lunch is only served in the main dining room on sea days and it's closed on port days. A real bummer in my book as I sometimes don't mind wandering back to the ship for a good......and free..... lunch.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
ozzie63

ozzie63

Posted
Posted

Tractor Tom, I work for Walpole Inc. out of Okeechobee, I am shop manager at the Birmingham, Al. terminal, that is really neat that you won a cruise, congrats. I know that you will really enjoy it. I have not been on Enchantment yet but we have sailed with RCCL several times as you can see from my post. I am sure you may know the owners of Walpole or people that work there, if you do tell them Jim from B'ham. says Hi.

Have a great cruise and KEEP GETTING OUT THERE!!!!! Ozzie63:D :D :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites
flcruiser99

flcruiser99

Posted
Posted
........ Since the boss lady and I have opened the tractor store here in Okeechobee 18 months ago, the best we have managed is a three day weekend away for our 30th anniversary.

Tractor Tom in Okeechobee

 

Wife / employer reward you with this cruise?! :confused: If you really won it for selling a tractor can I come sell tractors with you?! I've never won or even known anyone to win anything worth talking about!

 

Have a blast and congrats!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
sha88

sha88

Posted
Posted

Congratulations, TractorTom! Have a great cruise. We are distributors of Branson tractors in western PA. I will have to let our sales staff know that they could go on a cruise, too! Get out there and sell more tractors! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites
tractortom

tractortom

Posted
  • Author
Posted

For those that commented, Branson Tractor is not my employer, it is one of the lines that we carry. They had a special deal in July that if you sold a tractor, your name went in the hat for a free cruise. Well, mine was the name that came out of the hat! We been on a couple of cruises before, our first one was on RCCL out of LA, and paid for by John Deere, a lot of years ago and since then we have been on Holland America and Celebrity, but the last cruise was about four years ago. We are very happy to get a few days off and get out of town.

 

Thanks again for the warm welcome....

 

Tractor Tom

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing
  • Forum Jump
    • Categories
      • Welcome to Cruise Critic
      • New Cruisers
      • Cruise Lines “A – O”
      • Cruise Lines “P – Z”
      • River Cruising
      • ROLL CALLS
      • Cruise Critic News & Features
      • Digital Photography & Cruise Technology
      • Special Interest Cruising
      • Cruise Discussion Topics
      • UK Cruising
      • Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
      • Canadian Cruisers
      • North American Homeports
      • Ports of Call
      • Cruise Conversations
×
×
  • Create New...