Jump to content

Famous Last Words - A 3-night Enchantment Review


Recommended Posts

It all started early on a humid Friday morning in May. The alarm went off at 3 am and by 3:30 we had loaded the car and hit the road for a one hour drive to the airport.

 

"We're not in a hurry," I casually said to my husband who was driving while I snapped a shaky picture of the moon in the dark morning sky.

 

a>

IMG_20180511_040819567_zpsynhjwiv2.jpg

 

 

Our "mom and dad only" 4-night getaway was just beginning.

 

Little did I know that the words "we're not in a hurry" couldn't have been further from the truth.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We are on Enchantment this Friday for 3 nights. Cant wait to see your review. Strangely enough will also be going to our airport at 4am on Friday morning...

 

Sent from my SM-G935V using Forums mobile app

 

Oh dear! 😉 I'm sure you won't make my mistake! I hope you like Enchantment. She's not the newest or the shiniest, but her crew is solid and we had a fantastic time!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First, a little background: We’ve been married 21 years and have nine kids. Yes, nine. Yes, we know how that happens and, no we’ve never heard that one before *wink, wink!

 

We finally took our first cruise together five years ago and, thanks to our Cruise Critic research, snagged a coveted aft corner balcony on Navigator. I figured we might as well go big (as big as we could afford) because it would most likely be our “one and done” chance at cruising. But, we loved it so much we took the kids two years later - check out those cruise reviews in my signature. Spoiler - they loved it too!

 

So how this trip came about in the first place - we took a family vacation last year on unnamed airline who coerced us into getting unnamed airline credit cards for the “free” miles. Because we didn’t want to lose our “free” miles, we started looking at flights. What they don’t tell you is that those free miles aren’t worth anything unless you fly on certain days/times. So in order to get the most out of those “free” miles, we had very limited choices as to destination and dates/times.

 

After exhausting lots of different choices, we settled on a flight to Miami that just happened to coincide with a quick 3-night sailing of the Enchantment of the Seas to CocoCay and Nassau. Our other two cruises were Western Caribbean to the same ports of Cozumel, Falmouth, and Grand Cayman. So we were looking forward to some new ports and really, with nine kids at home, four nights away was going to be amazing.

 

In summary, we booked “free” flights on a 5:30 am plane to Miami on the same day the ship sailed. Incidentally, after juggling school schedules and work schedules, prime dates for the “free” flights, and someone to watch the kids, the stars aligned for our trip and we were gone over Mother’s Day weekend. For some reason, when I realized this a day or two after we booked everything, I couldn’t stop laughing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First, a little background: We’ve been married 21 years and have nine kids. Yes, nine. Yes, we know how that happens and, no we’ve never heard that one before *wink, wink!

 

We finally took our first cruise together five years ago and, thanks to our Cruise Critic research, snagged a coveted aft corner balcony on Navigator. I figured we might as well go big (as big as we could afford) because it would most likely be our “one and done” chance at cruising. But, we loved it so much we took the kids two years later - check out those cruise reviews in my signature. Spoiler - they loved it too!

 

So how this trip came about in the first place - we took a family vacation last year on unnamed airline who coerced us into getting unnamed airline credit cards for the “free” miles. Because we didn’t want to lose our “free” miles, we started looking at flights. What they don’t tell you is that those free miles aren’t worth anything unless you fly on certain days/times. So in order to get the most out of those “free” miles, we had very limited choices as to destination and dates/times.

 

After exhausting lots of different choices, we settled on a flight to Miami that just happened to coincide with a quick 3-night sailing of the Enchantment of the Seas to CocoCay and Nassau. Our other two cruises were Western Caribbean to the same ports of Cozumel, Falmouth, and Grand Cayman. So we were looking forward to some new ports and really, with nine kids at home, four nights away was going to be amazing.

 

In summary, we booked “free” flights on a 5:30 am plane to Miami on the same day the ship sailed. Incidentally, after juggling school schedules and work schedules, prime dates for the “free” flights, and someone to watch the kids, the stars aligned for our trip and we were gone over Mother’s Day weekend. For some reason, when I realized this a day or two after we booked everything, I couldn’t stop laughing.

Your writing style is MARVELOUS.

 

Keep going! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Correction: We flew into Ft. Lauderdale not Miami. Pretty much the same thing, but totally not :)

 

We left home two hours before the flight left and had a one hour drive to the airport. You can probably do the math better than I did that day. I’m not exactly sure how this escaped me, but apparently the airline has a door that closes on checked bags a certain number of minutes before the flight leaves. I know many of you seasoned travelers are rolling your eyes at me right about now and I’m okay with that. I can own it. We barely left home in time to make the drive and get to the counter in time. Plus the fact that we missed our turn into the long-term parking garage, which was surprisingly lacking in empty spaces that day, we didn’t really stand a chance.

 

Those famous last words “We’re not in a hurry” were coming back to bite me just about then.

 

We were still blissfully unaware of this deadline (and that we had missed it by 11 minutes) when we approached the counter and tried to weigh our bag ourselves. We were a few pounds over so we dutifully removed the heaviest things - our shoes (his dress shoes and two pairs of heels for me) and stuffed them into my purse and our backpack.

 

When the not-so-friendly counter agent told us it was too late to check our bag and there was nothing she could do for us, I had an out of body experience. Things started getting dim and I could hear someone saying something about buying some duffles in the airport and carrying on everything we could, but I couldn’t really understand what was happening. All I could think of was our ship sailing off without us and I just kind of froze.

 

So many things were running through my mind.

 

How could this happen?

 

Did I know about this deadline?

 

How did I get 11 people and 6 bags successfully on an airplane in time last year?

 

Will our trip insurance cover us if we just go home at this point?

 

Thankfully my handsome husband steps in when I flounder around like a fish out of water. We do that kind of thing for each other. We’re a pretty good team like that.

 

He looked me square in the face and said

 

“Hurry up, woman! We’ve got to throw this bag back in the car and make it to the gate in time for our flight!”

 

Or something to that effect. :D :)

 

We were about 30 min out from our plane leaving at this point. Thankfully we don’t have a ginormous airport. We literally ran back out to the long-term parking garage, found our car and threw our bag into the trunk, grabbing our toiletries (by toiletries I mean my makeup - you know, the important stuff) and stuffing them into our backpack.

 

And then we ran all the way back through the garage and to the airport. I’m sure I mumbled something about wetting my pants and not having anything to change into (I’ve had nine kids - give me a break) to which he replied, “if you wet your pants AND we miss our flight you can just change at home”.

 

He knows exactly what to say to make me run faster!

 

We made it to the security line. Amazingly the line wasn’t long, I even had time to "opt out" of the body scanner and request a pat down. They weren't letting anyone through the old-fashioned metal detectors. My husband got scanned and I waited a couple of minutes for the female TSA agent to arrive. I asked her if she could hurry because our flight was about to leave. She was very kind but couldn't skip through her spiel about what was going to go down because the 'cameras were rolling'. She was very quick and I didn't feel in the least bit molested. Thankfully, it all worked out for her too because I did NOT wet my pants during the run through the garage. :D

After passing the pat down and putting on our shoes we had just enough time to run to the gate, get our boarding passes checked and run down the jetway to the airplane.

 

The plane was full and we were the last ones on board. We plunked down into our seats - me by the window, him in the middle, and tried to let the shock wear off a little bit. A few minutes later we backed away from the terminal.

 

We had made it. I was so relieved and excited about the rest of the weekend. So far it had been like most of our life - no dull moments!

 

It was sure to be a great trip!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The suspense builds...

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

:) Thanks for reading along!!

 

9 kids? Bless you, we "only" have 5 (boys. ) I bow my head to you.

 

It is amusing that somehow you could get away on Mother's Day! Kudos!

 

Can't wait to hear the rest of your review.

 

Five boys is no joke - you have my respect (sympathy? :) ) as well. Actually, boys are easier than girls IMHO, but still no joke :) And, yes - I couldn't decide if it made me a bad mom or not to go on vacation without them for Mother's Day. I decided not in the end, ha!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share

  • Forum Jump
    • Categories
      • Welcome to Cruise Critic
      • New Cruisers
      • Cruise Lines “A – O”
      • Cruise Lines “P – Z”
      • River Cruising
      • ROLL CALLS
      • 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...