TinyPinkBug

I was wondering the same thing. I called with questions about their advertised programs for children with autism and they told me to email the special needs dept. I emailed almost two weeks ago and still have not heard back. They did send me the standard email confirming they received my email, but then it said any follow up emails would delay the process of them getting back to me.

Anyone know of any other complimentary lunch place for embarkation day, besides windjammers and Park Cafe?? Everyone suggest Park Cafe, so I am sure it is pretty packed when it opens. Like maybe one of the main dining rooms like they do on disney??

Just yesterday, we booked the April 24 sailing on the Allure out of Port Everglades. So excited, but so much to do. I am sure I could find all the answers to my questions in various threads, but if some super, kind, knowledgeable cruise could spare a few moments it would save me a lot of time. We normally sail on Disney out of Port Canaveral so this is different for us.

Can anyone recommend a good hotel for the night in Fort Lauderdale that has an airport and cruise shuttle, AND a Walgreens or other store within walking distance to grab a few things and maybe a bottle of wine pre-cruise?

Which rental car agencies in the area have port shuttles and a rental car drop off in the airport? We have a super early flight a few days after our cruise.

Tell me about the Kid's club areas. It says they have drop off camp as well as family times. How does that generally work and how do kids like it? My daughter loves drop off kids clubs, but my son is autistic and needs more support so we usually do just the family times on the Disney ships.

Where is the best place for quick lunch on embarkation day? As in, quick and easy for both kids and adults.

Do RCI cruisers do door magnets? I assume not, but if they do, I want to bring a few since my kids like them.

What time are rooms available on embarkation day?

We sailed RCI once before (on Enchantment and did not like it) so I guess we are Crown and Anchor members now. Any benefits to that? I know Disney gives a nice bag stuffed with goodies, Princess gives bags and some other perks.

Are there formal nights in the MDR?

I am sure I have more I am not thinking right now. And any other helpful tips would be appreciated. I could tell you a million tips about Disney, so I am feeling a bit unprepared here.

And THANKS!

TinyPinkBug, You're comparing a ship that was built in 1997 (Enchantment) to ships built in 2011 and 2012 (Dream and Fantasy, respectively). A fairer comparison would be between RCCL Allure, which was built in 2011.

 

I've only been on one RCCL, which was Monarch of the Seas. It's not even in their fleet anymore. Even though I sailed on it just a few years ago, I've refrained from comparing it to DCL since it isn't really an apples to apples comparison.

 

FWIW, I didn't like the food. I'm hoping my next RCCL will be better and from what I've heard, it is much better on the newer ships.

This is true. But things like staff, service, amenities, food quantities and quality are representative of the cruise line regardless of the ship.

I have heard the Disney Magic has its own plumbing problems and that is about the ship itself so that could have been left out.

Just got off last Friday. No issues at all with smells, no issues with plumbing. Barely felt the ship even move unless we really thought about it and even then it was very gentle. It was my first cruise so I can't really compare entertainment but it wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination. Don't worry about the reviews, people are much more likely to report a negative experience then a positive one.

 

Edit: we were in the newer stretched portion on deck 8

 

 

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We were on the same sailing, got off Friday and also on deck 8 in the Royal Family Suite. My husband noticed the sewage smell right away and kept mentioning it. I barely noticed it myself but it was there. The morning we disembarked neither of the toilets in our suite would flush, room steward said this was common on the ship. Just before dinner on our at sea day there was no hot water for showers, I was at customer service about an unrelated issue when the phone was ringing non-stop about no hot water. When my husband took a shower later than evening, he was orange. And so was the towel we put on the floor to absorb the water that traveled along the back of the tub and on to the floor every time we showered (problem noted in other people's review of same cabin).

Most of the public areas like dining room and lounges were in fine condition, but if you walk off the beaten path or even just look closer around, you do see rust and wear. There were a couple areas on the pool deck with caution tape most of the cruise. The soft serve ice cream was completely broken the first day of the cruise, I don't know about the second day because we never tried. The third day, they had removed one of the machines and the other only had one side that worked so only one flavor was available for the rest of the cruise. They ran out of apple juice some time on day 2 and of course was out the for the rest of the cruise, not a big deal unless you have a kid who only drinks apple juice and water. I don't know if they ran out of anything else, but there was no coffee available at Windjammers at 7am on two mornings. Room service card was put out the night before with coffee and basic food for 7-7:30 but wasn't delivered until after 8am, and without the coffee! We didn't order breakfast again after that.

Splash pool was not open when it was supposed to be on the at sea day, and no one working on the pool deck could tell me why or when it would be open. The pool attendant told me to ask the towel attendant who told me to ask the pool attendant. The concierge couldn't get anyone to answer the phone about it either. This was a couple hours after it was supposed to be open.

Entertainment was fine. Nothing spectacular, but not bad either. If you have young kids, don't expect it to be family friendly like RCI makes it out to be. I certainly could have done without song and dance from the movie Chicago while sitting with my 4 and 6 year olds.

There was definitely rocking from rough seas on the last night of the cruise as we headed through storms to Cape Canaveral. Even our room steward mentioned it. But it wasn't anything I haven't experienced on other ships, bigger ships. Certainly nothing to worry about any more than any other cruise ship.

Cococay was great. Definitely take a walk down the nature trail to the beach where the clamshells are, Barefoot Beach. It was probably the best part of our entire cruise.

We did have a great time on our trip. Definitely nothing to ruin a vacation, but there was a laundry list of other small issues on board that I wont mention. I am glad we went, but have no plans of returning to the Enchantment. There are just many other ships out there that are so much better and live up to their advertisements and promises from customer service.

Oh, and our bed in the Royal Family Suite was the hardest mattress ever! The pillows are also hard and flat. It was probably the most uncomfortable bedding I have ever experienced, may as well have been sleeping on the floor. Maybe they forgot the mattress and we were just sleeping on the box spring, yes it was that bad.

It depends. We took about 4-5 unopened bottles of water and 2 cans of Coke for the 5 of use with no problem. But the person in front of us had a duffle back with 2-12 pack cans of soda and they took them.

I just got off the Enchantment this week, never been on the Majesty. I wasn't impressed at all and wouldn't put any extra anything into sailing on it. I would take the Majesty just because you get the extra stop at Key West.

The Enchantment had everything you said about the Majesty. Sewage smells, toilets not flushing, running out of hot water, orange tinge to the water, amenities not functioning, plenty of places where it was rusty and tired looking, cation tape where things are out of order. We even stayed in a suite and found the overall comfort to be significantly lacking.

That isn't to say we didn't enjoy our cruise, but the ship was nothing special at all.

we were also on the fantasy on Halloween - there was really very little for the kids - the deck party was pretty lame...stewards delivered candy first thing in the AM...no parade....the kids were rather let down ... a lot of folks went through a TON of trouble with costumes which was quite cool - but again, there wasn't a whole lot - even in the kids programs. I expressed my disappointment with disney and my response was pretty much an oh well...

Yup, that was the response I got as well from Disney when I expressed my disappointment after our cruise. The thing that really got me though was that I wouldn't not have booked on the actually day of Halloween if the representative hadn't assured me there would indeed be trick-or-treating and activities on the Fantasy. I even asked her to double check for me and she did. Then after they just said all they promised was candy which they did deliver which was not what I was told before booking. It isn't like we could just do-over Halloween when we got home. It was heart breaking when my kids cried themselves to sleep because they missed their favorite holiday. Lesson learned, NEVER sail Disney on a holiday again no matter what the promise in advance.

I have sailed on both the Disney Dream and Fantasy. Last week we sailed on RCI's Enchantment of the Seas in their Royal Family Suite. The Enchantment is the slums compared to the Dream and the Fantasy. Don't get me wrong, we had a good time on our cruise but it was in spite of the ship.

Dining - Disney does a great job from the moment you walk onto the ship offering both Cabanas and one of the dining rooms, RCI only had Windjammers which was an absolute mess. No seating, lots of chaos, my kids wanted to get off the ship less than 30 minutes after boarding. We found the dining room food to be about the same on both ships, but the buffet food on Disney was fresher, better quality and offered much healthier options. Also, the ice cream machines rarely worked on the Enchantment, if we were lucky enough that one was working it was only one side of one machine and there was a line for it. Disney has multiple machines, never an issue. The Enchantment also ran out of apple juice the second day of our 4 day cruise. No problems with room service on DCL, always fast and efficient. On the Enchantment, our morning breakfast we ordered on the door hanging menu arrived over a half hour past the requested time frame and without the coffee we ordered!

Rooms - Disney. Disney. Disney. The beds are so comfortable in all rooms on DCL, the bathrooms are clean and well maintained. There are on demand movies and shows for the kids on TV. The shampoo, conditioner and lotion were top of the line and replenished as needed. On the Enchantment, we had the Royal Family Suite. The beds were harder than any bed I have ever slept on, pillows were just flat and hard. The master bathroom in our room was poorly designed, when we turned on the shower the water either pushed the too short curtain out of the shower spraying water directly on the floor or ran along the back rim of the tub, around the side and onto the floor. Either way our bathroom floor was always flooded after a shower. As suite guests were were supposed to have upgraded amenities which included just one small tube of shampoo and conditioner that were never replenished. Fortunately we did bring our own just in case. No in-room movies or on demand on the Enchantment, the only kids channel was Cartoon Network which does not have shows that are appropriate for small children. I am not even going to get into the issues of sewer smell through-out the ship, the orange shower water, lack of hot water and toilets not flushing on the Enchantment.

Pools - This one isn't as straight forward. DCL pools were good because they are fresh water, the depth is perfect in the mickey pool for younger kids but they were so packed you really couldn't enjoy them. Even though they were well monitored by pool staff, there were several instances of them being closed for hours due to 'potty accidents' on both our cruises. The Enchantment had a lot more pool space per passenger, but it was either one foot deep or 5.5 ft deep. Another issue on the Enchantment was that the splash pad was rarely opened even when it was supposed to be and none of the pool attendants could tell me anything more than to ask someone else who referred me back to the last person I asked. Repeat. Also, no one was monitoring activities at the pools at all on the Enchantment. There were toddlers and babies in swim diapers in the pools, one family even set up camp in the splash pad with a dozen or so sand toys spread around.

Private island - I actually enjoyed Cococay more than Castaway Cay. We ventured along the nature trail of Cococay and found barefoot beach. It was great, we were almost the only ones there. It was really nice and relaxing. Castaway has a lot of bells and whistles though while RCI charges for everything on their island.

Kids activities - Disney is Disney, no need say more. :-) On the Enchantment, who ever said Royal Caribbean was family friendly obviously did not sail on the Enchantment. The kids area is NOT what you see in the advertised pictures supplied by RCI. It is a long room with three dividers and a few TVs. They split the kids into 3 groups and I don't think I ever saw more than 3 youth staff members. RCI charges if you want to leave the kids over lunch, where the kids just sit at tables outside of Windjammers for an hour. There was only one family activity scheduled the entire cruise which was a 10 minute event where they made flubber. The only other family activities were shuffle board, the rock climbing wall and the bungee trampoline which requires participants to be over the age of 6.

We sailed the Fantasy on Halloween 2013 and there were no kids activities other than a really bad deck party. No trick-or-treating, no kids costume contest or activities. Just a pile of candy at the restaurants. There was a family dance party but it was way past my kids bedtime, 10:30pm maybe. It was a huge disappointment because the DCL representative I spoke with before I booked assured me that there would certainly be trick-or-treating on board and there absolutely was not. My son cried going to bed that night because he realized we missed Halloween.

I talked with customer service about this last week. When they put the promo into thier computers they put a certain number of promos in each sailing and category. While the promotion actually ended, the promotion didn't actually expire on the rooms. Also as people cancel, some of the promotion os actually opening on rooms/sailings that had previously been sold out.

Amother awesome find, if you find a suite that jolds more passengers, all fares past the first 2 are free. We just booked the royale family suite for 5 people but only paid the price for2 fares. :D

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I just booked a cruise on Enchantment of the Seas that sails in less than 2 weeks! Eke, not much time to plan. We are frequent cruisers on Disney but I know there are lots of difference. So, here is my long list of questions I don't have time to sift through the boards for...

Does RCL allow guests to bring bottled soda on board? What drinks are available without purchasing a soda card? We will be staying in the Royal Family Suite if that makes a difference.

Kids activities, are they any good? Any tips? How about the shows, kids friendly? Any must see shows for the kids (ages 4 and 6) Any scheduled kids activities on the private island?

Are the doors magnetic like on the Disney ships? Do people ever put magnets on their doors? I just want to put one or 2 on so the kids can easily find the room.

What else do I need to know?