Majesty of the Seas Post Dry Dock Trip Report May 2016

We just returned today from our 4 day Nassau/Coco Cay cruise aboard Majesty of the Seas. This was her first sailing after dry dock from her new home at Port Canaveral. We had a fantastic time; Majesty exceeded our expectations and has convinced us to keep an open mind about Royal Caribbean for future cruises.

A little bit about us and why we choose this cruise:

Passengers in our group: Me and my husband, Stu. Together for 16 years and, while still new to cruising, have been on 8 cruises in the last two years. (We're hooked!) My daughters Bri (23) Val (21) and Zoe (19) and my son Matty (18) joined us as well. Bri flew in from grad school in NY and Val drove the 8 hours from Pensacola, where she lives and attends UWF. It was our first family vacation since 2009, before we moved to Florida. Zoe and Matty cruised with us last November, but, due to school schedules, Bri and Val could not attend. This was their first cruise and they were so excited.

This cruise was a Christmas gift to the kids. Our oldest, Nick, is serving in the Navy and could not attend, but we will crusing with him and his girlfriend sometime in early 2017.

Royal had a fantastic Cyber Monday sale and we booked this cruise without much research since the price was right and the date fit perfectly into our crazy schedules. At the time of booking, we had only done one other Royal cruise, Enchantment, and, while we were not impressed with the ship, the crew or the line, we decided to give them another try. After booking and payment, we took a last minute 4 day on Independence in March and were again disappointed.

Since Majesty was already booked and flights were planned for my oldest daughter, we lowered our expectations, kept the booking and tried not to think of the worst case senerios with cruising a ship coming straight out of dry dock. All that worring was for nothing; Majesty of the Seas is an great ship and we had a fantastic time. Tiny, yes. Old, definitely. But, she's clean, well-maintained and full of nearly 800 happy and talented staff and crew. We had two minor disappointments, one that was quickly recovered by the amazing Guest Serivces staff. Otherwise we drank and danced and ate and sang and enjoyed our 4 days.

Next up: Pre-Cruise fun, embarkation and sail away.

Glad you had a great time we are going in july. Looking forward to the rest of your review.

One of the best parts of this trip was that my two oldest daughters were coming home! I had not seen either of them since Christmas. Also, while this was only a 4 day, I was able to get nearly 2 weeks of much needed time off work. Bri flew in a few days before and met me for a quick Starbucks break at my "office" on my last day of work. It was so good to have her home.

Val came home on Saturday and on Sunday, the girls and I spent the day relaxing at Disney's Typhoon Lagoon and working on our pre-cruise tans.

We finished up packing that night and talked about what we were all looking foward to on the cruise. I kept checking on Majesty's status to make sure she was headed to Port Canaveral and by the time I fell into bed, I was satisfied to know she was well on her way to her new home.

We are lucky to live only an hour from the port and my best friend and Zoe's boyfriend drove us so that we did not have to pay for parking for 2 cars - a big savings. We arrived at the port just after 12:00 and were told our rooms were ready and we could expect our luggage by 15:00! :eek: All that worring about post dry dock drama and I hadn't realized there could be some serious perks to boarding a ship that has not had any passengers for weeks!

We headed straight to our rooms to drop of our carry ons and were shocked at the size of the cabins. We have stayed in every type of room except a grand suite and we have never seen a room this small. The 4 kids were booked in one cabin, and while I knew it would be cramped, I had no idea how bad it would be. Also, my youngest three kids favor their father in height; both Zoe and Val are 5'11" and Matty is 6"4'. Thankfully they are good sports and toughed it out and it became a joke by the end of the cruise.

A Snapchat screen shot of my son on the top bunk:

Gotta love Snapchat filters...this one perfectly expressed how he was feeling! His sisters took pity and let him have the bottom bunk:D

Up Next: Pictures of our Cabin, Sail Away and Dinner

Looking forward to the rest!

Glad you had a great time we are going in july. Looking forward to the rest of your review.

Thanks!

Hopefully Marc Walker will still be the Cruise Director when you sail. He said his current plans were to be on Majesty until July. He's a fantastic CD, second only to Carnival's Jaime Dee.

Thanks for the review. Were these inside cabins? What deck?

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Thanks for the review. Were these inside cabins? What deck?

 

 

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Yes. Cabins 3003 and 3041. Terrible location on the deck, but it turned out to be a great deck for the ship. The only time we used the very busy elevators were to go to the pool deck. Otherwise is was just a floor or two to everything else. I'll be posting photos of our cabin, 3003, next.

Our cabin seemed to be right above one of the anchors. I found this out when we arrived at Coco Cay and was scared to death but the sound and vibration of the dropping anchor. It it wasn't the anchor, then I don't want to know what that was :eek:

The inside cabins on our last two RCI ships were identical. Small, but well laid out with plenty of storage and a nice lounger for having a light breakfast in morning. Majesty's cabins are nothing like Enchantment or Independence!

One small closet: (Yes, I always bring extra hangers)

Tiny vanity. When we got to the cabin, the vanity was covered in mini bar options that I quickly stored in the mirrored cabinet for the duration of the cruise. (sorry for the dark photo)

Bed layout. It was too low to the ground to store my luggage underneath - A first for us

Small TV in the corner

Our bathroom. I did enjoy the space for storage here:

I also did a quick 1 minute video of the cabin which you can see here:

Looking forward to the rest of the review! We sail on her in 24 days. I'm nervous about how small the inside rooms are, but I think we can make it work. What were the menus they were using?

So yes, the cabin was tiny, but our attendant, Aris, kept it clean and tidy. We just didn't spend a lot of time in it.

We had a quick lunch in the Windjammer and the food was good, but not the best we've had. This is also the first time we encountered a problem with the Coke Freestyle machines on this ship, similar to our experience last August on Enchantment.

Me, everytime I used these machines:

I had the premium package and the kids had the Royal Refreshment package and we all had the unlimited Coke refills. More on that on day 2...

Our luggage was delivered as promised and we were unpacked and had a drink in our hands before muster.

After the drill, Stu and I hung back to let the deck clear and I noticed that the Starboard side of deck 7 was a full smoking area. Please don't hate me, but I'm a smoker and I tend to smoke more when I drink and I drink much more on a cruise. Other ships we have been on, the smoking areas are small and over crowded. Majesty has plenty of room for smoking on deck 7, deck 11 and the casino. The casino was a bit much, though. There weren't many people smoking inside (likey due to the amount of areas elsewhere) but I could smell the stale smoke as you approched the entrance even though it wasn't smoky inside. Ok, that's all I say about smoking :D

We headed up to the pool deck to wobble and shuffle and watch the dolphins chase the ship as they often do at Port Canaveral.

View from Deck 12 as we left:

Bri, Zoe, Stu and Matty

After we were underway, we all headed to our cabins to get ready for our early seating dinner in the Starlight dining room.

Looking forward to the rest of the review! We sail on her in 24 days. I'm nervous about how small the inside rooms are, but I think we can make it work. What were the menus they were using?

You'll be fine. It was just a shock to me. I know Royal's inside cabins are smaller than Carnival's, I was just not aware that Majesty's were smaller still. And honestly, they may not even be smaller, just not layed out as well. It suited us fine, really.

As for the menus, I'm not sure what they are called or if they are new (I know Carnival just swiched over to American Table on some of their ships) and on our previous RCI cruises we stayed away from the MDR on most nights because we were not happy with the food so I don't have much to compare it on. I will say that we were very happy with the options and the food was very good every night.

You'll be fine. It was just a shock to me. I know Royal's inside cabins are smaller than Carnival's, I was just not aware that Majesty's were smaller still. And honestly, they may not even be smaller, just not layed out as well. It suited us fine, really.

 

As for the menus, I'm sure what they are called or if they are new (I know Carnival just swiched over to American Table on some of their ships) and on our previous RCI cruises we stayed away from the MDR on most nights because we were not happy with the food so I don't have much to compare it on. I will say that we were very happy with the options and the food was very good every night.

No matter how small the room is, still very excited =). This is only our second cruise. First was on Carnival Fantasy in 2013. We loved it. I just graduated college, so this is pretty much a cruise celebrating that. My husband and I were going to cruise one of the larger ships, but his family planned a cruise and invited us along. After hearing the good things about Majesty, I am more excited to cruise on her rather than one of the larger ships.

Enjoying the review as we will be on Majesty in a few weeks.:)

On the way to the dining room, we stopped to enjoy One4One in the Centrum. They were very good all cruise.

We had a table for 6 in the Starlight dining room with the best Royal Caribbean server, Ashton. He was just the right mix of fun and professional, knowledable and friendly and very accomodating. His section consisted of many large tables and his assistant, Carla was brand spanking new, but that did not affect his service at all.

Like I mentioned before, prior to this sailing, we have not had good experiences in the MDR on Royal's ships. We would often skip our seating and have dinner at the Windjammer, even on formal night.

Side note: If you've never tried the Windjammer on formal night, I suggest you give it a go, especially if you're on a cruise with 2 formal nights. The food is amazing and it's completly empty!

Since my kiddos love fine dining, we decided to give the MDR another try on the first night and came back the next 3.

I had an artichoke tart for an appetizer and I had the NY strip as my main course. When it was time for dessert, I was so excited to see this on the menu:

CREME BRULEE!!! My favorite cruise dessert!

After dinner, we explored the ship a little bit before turning in early, as I often due on the first night of any cruise. I try to fight it, but between the preparation, the lack of sleep the night before due to excitment and the traveling, I'm always wiped out by 9pm. Stu and I headed to the cabin while the kids went on to explore the rest of the ship.

No matter how small the room is, still very excited =). This is only our second cruise. First was on Carnival Fantasy in 2013. We loved it. I just graduated college, so this is pretty much a cruise celebrating that. My husband and I were going to cruise one of the larger ships, but his family planned a cruise and invited us along. After hearing the good things about Majesty, I am more excited to cruise on her rather than one of the larger ships.

You should be, you'll have so much fun!

This was our 8th cruise. We have done 3 large ships with Carnival and Royal but have decided we like the smaller ships better. We're booked on the Carnival Fantasy in Septemeber and I'm really excited. They added a few of the Fun 2.0 upgrades to her in February and I hoping she's the best of both worlds; large ship upgrades and with small ship feel.

Enjoying the review as we will be on Majesty in a few weeks.:)

Thank you! You'll have a blast!

I completely forgot about VOOM! It was one of the few upgrades they stuck with on Majesty's dry dock. (I'll talk about the Kids Splashdown area and the Pool deck mega tron a little later)

Voom was indeed free for this sailing. It wasn't working when we boarded and went out a few times during the sailing. It's not exactly high speed, but it's fast for high seas. In order to get the free Voom for this cruise, you had to sign up each 24 hour period and create a new log in each time.

It was great to have on this sailing, but I'm not sure I would pay for it in the future. I prefer Carnival's Social Internet package for $5 a day, since I really just use it to make the people back home jealous :). The kids really enjoyed it and, some of the time, it was even strong enough to watch Netflix on our iPads, which came in handy when I woke up, wide awake at 2am the first night.

I'm going to take a break here and grab some dinner with Stu. He cooked, I'm still on vacation.

Coming up, our first full day at sea and:

All by myself

Why can't I just have a soda?

What's in these eggs?

Does the sun ever come out in Nassau?

Please don't feed the birds. I SAID PLEASE!

And, one of my favorite moments of the cruise:

The guy on the Norweigen Gem who didn't realize we can see him on his balcony...

Enjoying the review as we will be on Majesty in a few weeks.:)

Will we run into you?

Loving your review so far! Even though you were on the Majesty, I am living vicariously through your posts and looking forward to the Empress. Similar only because they were parked next to each other in dry dock.:)

Will we run into you?

Looks like my husband, family and I will be on the same week as you.

Thanks for posting so quickly. We are boarding on Monday. Booked it last minute and we really were anxious to read a review. So glad you were pleased. I look forward to reading the rest of your comments.

I ususally work nights, sometimes not getting home until 4am, so I'm a bit of a night owl. While most times I can adjust my sleep schedule easily on long weekends and vacations, this was not the case the first night of the cruise.

Since I went to bed early, at 02:00, I sat right up in bed and was wide awake. With the cabin being so small, I didn't want to wake up Stu, so I grabed my refillable mug and my iPad and headphones, and headed to find a quiet spot on the ship.

I went first to the Windjammer to see if the Coke Freestyle machines were working. They were not. I spoke with one of the attendants cleaning the area and he said that someone was on the way to fix them. Since all the bars were closed at this point, I settled for some iced tea, sans ice, because both ice machines were not working. I found a spot on the empty pool deck and settled in to watch an episode of Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix.

After a few minutes, and with my headphones on, I was startled by sudden loud music. It was coming from the new pool deck large screen. It was so loud, even with my headphones on, I could barely hear the show. Instead of fighting it, I played a few games of Candy Crush until I was asked to clear the deck so it could be power washed. I get it, there's always work to be done, but I wasn't having any luck that night. I was alone, wandering the ship, wanting only a soda and a place to watch some TV and every where I went, it was either blocked off, all chairs stacked or major cleaning going on.

By 03:30, I gave up and headed back to the cabin and finally fell back asleep until 06:30.

I was showerd and dressed a ready for sea day relaxation as the sun was coming up. I headed back to the Windjammer to get some much needed caffeine, and to my dismay, the machines were still not working.

Ok, I'm not a coffee drinker. But understand me when I say my morning Coke Zero is every bit as essential as one's moring cup of Joe. I looked around for some form of sugarless caffeine and found nothing but juice and coffee.

:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

I asked one of the attendants when the first bar opened to get some soda and was told it wasn't until 09:00, which meant two more hours without caffeine. I was begining to think all the good we experienced on embarkation day was a fluke and we were back to being disappointed with another RCI ship.

I headed to Guest Services where Mauricio took pity, had the room service team bring me some Diet Coke (close enough) right to the desk and refunded me one days worth of the cost of the Premium Package. My jaw almost hit the floor. This was the first time any member of Guest Services staff on RCI assisted me with an issue on 3 cruises. He went above and beyond to recover this situation with the soda and, to go even further, turned the loss into a win for me with the credit to my account. Better believe I sent an email to the cruise line recognizing Mauricio's kindness before I sat down with the kids for breakfast.

Really enjoying your review - but wishing she were still here in Miami! :)

I think she has the best crew in the fleet.

Thanks for posting so quickly. We are boarding on Monday. Booked it last minute and we really were anxious to read a review. So glad you were pleased. I look forward to reading the rest of your comments.

Don't be anxious, you'll have a great time. As long as you're not counting on having any soda between midnight and 9 am :)