ECSTACY - Review!!!

I did start writing a detailed review but I think it got deleted somehow. So Ill just write an overview one, and if anyone has questions Ill try to answer.

7.21-7.26 on the Ecstacy - we flew into Orlando on the 20 and stayed one night at the Four Points By Sheraton Cocoa Beach.

Our Travel Party

Me - 29 (I have a DH and DS3 who were on a camping trip while I cruised:rolleyes:)

My 5 employees/friends (I own a dance studio we all teach dance together) - they are 20, 20, 21, 21, 23 - we are all females

We had 2 rooms, oceanview R139, R127 - midship Riviera Deck

Rooms - we thought the rooms were a good size, they each had a large window and an upper bunk, and 2 twins. We set up our room with one bed directly under the upper during the day to create more room and then just pulled it out for sleeping. The room had 3 closets and plenty of shelves and drawers for all our stuff. The room never felt cramped, but we didnt spend much time in there. We never me our room steward but the room was kept immaculate the whole trip. No complaints about our room a all, it was in great shape, everything worked perfectly for us, and was in great shape. Beds were comfortable. The rooms were pretty quiet too, though the 3 girls in R127 said the one night their next door neighbors were pretty loud for a bit, but had nothing to do with the location of the room, could have happened in any room. There is no hairdryer in the room, luckily one person from each room packed one so we shared.

Ship - was in great shape we thought. I thought it was nicely decorated, very clean and well kept. Didnt notice any signs of wear and tear like Ive read in other posts, but we were on this cruise to have a blast and werent out specifically looking for faults :D. The ship layout is a tad confusing to the new cruiser, but we got the hang of where everything is. It was confusing at first because not every elevator will take you to every floor, etc so we had to know whether where we were going was forward, midship, or aft and find the proper staircase or elevator.

Pool/Pool Deck/Waterslides- The pool is small and there is only 1. It was never overcrowded though. There were always people in it, and we only got in it for a few minutes at a time when we got hot sunbathing, and it served its purpose to cool us off. We did not use the hot tubs, which usually had people in, but werent always crowded. A few of us tried the waterslide, because we felt we should try it, it may be a big thrill for kids, but it was slow and each of us stopped moving part of the way down and were rowing to get all the way down. Once was enough. LOL.

Lounge Chairs - Despite reading reports on chair-hoggers and never being able to get chairs, we ALWAYS were able to get chairs (and even 6 together). We did not want to lay RIGHT by the pool though, we preferred to be on the deck above the pool or up on the top deck near the mini-golf. We got 6 chairs up there on sea day and most of the other chairs around us remained empty all day.

MDR - we had late dining. It was a truly awesome experience. We had Ronald as a waiter and he was truly amazing! He was fun, did magic tricks for us, sang, danced with us, laughed with us and brought us everything we asked for with enthusiasm. The food was excellent also, every night we ordered a bunch of appetizers and entrees and shared food around the table and everything was great! You can order as many appetizers/entrees as you want so really feel free to try new stuff! At our table we tried the alligator fritters and the frog legs and just shared so everyone could taste it. Most of us are seafood lovers so we were in our glory eating seafood every day!! Oh, and we had a table for just us 6. We were a tad disappointed at first that we didnt get a 10 to meet others but we met others anyhow. The couple at the table behind us became friends and they surprised us with a round of shots the 2nd to last night (which we turned around and did the same for them the next night). The MDR was an awesome experience and we would definitely do late dining again next time!

Lido Food - was decent. I never felt like eating much breakfast because of the drinks the night before :rolleyes: but I never really eat much anyhow, so I usually had cereal and fruit but the other girls enjoyed the breakfast buffet. For lunch the pizza was ok - the first day I got a burnt piece but after that it was ok, but not the best. We are from NY and used to good pizza. The Mongolian wok was awesome!! Loved that, but long lines. The salad bar was good, and the other girls enjoyed the grilled items also. We were always able to find a table.

Ports - Freeport - sucked for us, we got on the bus to Unexso for our Dolphin swim were checked in and waiting for our boat when a storm rolled in and it was cancelled :( We went back and were able to book Atlantis Deep Water for next day though (our Nassau Kayak excursion was already cancelled for some reason, so I guess i was fate). We went back to the ship, had lunch then went for some $1 shots at Sparkys (sp?) right by the port. I was keeping a close watch on time and we ran back on at 4:20PM. LOL I read the reports on pier runners beforehand and swore it wouldnt be me, but we were within 10 minutes in 2 ports. But I knew it. LOL.

Nassau - great day at Atlantis, did the dolphin swim, which was fun, visited casino and the beach. Went back and went to Senor Frogs, had the tall drinks and then ran back and reboarded about 4:20PM again!

Half Moon Cay - Me and 2 other girls did Horseback Riding by Land And Sea - it was fun! then layed on beach for rest of day - beautiful beach, beautiful water loved swimming in it. The BBQ lunch was decent. Had to get the drink of the day in the coconut.

Ship Activities - my 5 girls entered the talent show with a dance they had performed before - got the most applause and complements from everyone for the rest of the trip, even the dancers on the ship! (well they are amazing pro-dancers!) and they won champagne and ship trophies. It was a great night!

Quest - was a fun time

Ship Entertainment - the dance shows kinda sucked. This coming from pro-dancers/dance teachers. The dancers themselves were ok (though definitely not the best Ive seen) but the choreography sucked badly. It was random, no structure, themes were not well carried out, themes were all over the place, staging was bad, etc. Definitely disappointed here. But oh well, it didnt make or break our cruise and to the untrained eye the shows were probably fine, but we were very disappointed.

Comedy - we watched one comedy show and it was really funny, we enjoyed it.

Stripes Dance Club - was a good time, but we had already all had a few drinks and would have enjoyed it regardless.

Spa - 2 of us got the head-to-toe special on the first day the massage/facial. It was great very relaxing and well worth it. The spa staff is great, very accommodating and they pamper you. I normally dont splurge on spa treatments but it was a special offer for the 1st day and it was worth it.

Embarkation- was an absolute breeze. My sister sailed on the Ecstacy in OCt (though out of Louisiana) and told me to get there early because they arrive at port at noon for 2 hours in lines. We got there at 11AM and 10 minutes later were on the ship. No lines anywhere just did our stuff and got on. Each of the 4 of us over 21 brought a bottle of wine on and each of us had bottled water and thermoses of water and juice. THe 2 girls who were still 20 (though both are turning 21 within a month)could have easily brought a bottle of wine also, and we could have easily brought other alcohol. Nothing was taken out, shook, looked at, and no one asked which bag belonged to who and no one was id'd for age.

My ONLY main complaint - the pictures. The photographer takes pictures of you throughout the trip and instead of putting all of them together or something they are all over Deck 9 on racks and you have to go around and round up yours to look at, AND they do not offer packages, or discounts if you order a lot, and they do not offer the option of getting all your pics on a disc. 2 of the girls went on a RCL cruise in March and they said they were able to purchase a disc with all the pictures or $250. I would have done that we would have split it. We had over 50 pictures of all of us and they wanted $20 each with no discount to buy several. Seriously unbelievable. Oh well, I bought 3 favs and the rest one of the girls took a pic of each with her iphone and put them online and they look the same anyhow, so we got them all somehow:D

DRINKS - were awesome, we totally enjoyed the "drink of the day" every day. We must have drink 70 or more drinks of the day over the 6 of us and the course of 5 days. LOL. We looked forward to looking to see what the drink of the day was each day. They were expensive, but very well enjoyed. Oh, and in Nassau we also bought a couple bottles of liquor poured them into water bottles and carried them back on - no one at security batted an eye.

Debarkation - ok, this was a little unclear. We got a paper in our room that said our zone had to be out between 9:45-10AM so thats what we planned. We were taking our own luggage. Nope, they were kicking us out of our room at 8:30AM. Well the sheet should have said that then! 3 girls went up to grab something to eat so the rest had to move all the luggage down the hall to where the elevators were. Im not complaining about the time we had to be out by, but it was unclearly communicated to us. And they start making announcements at 6AM on debarkation day so plan to wake up then, they need the non-US citizens to meet with immigration and they keep announcing the names over and over of those who arent there.

Other passengers - were all awesome! We met some awesome people, one couple where the guy is a former pro-dancer and his wife who owns a dance studio(like me!) we became friends, and just several other wonderful people. Another lady who did the dolphin swim with us was great also and we are keeping in touch. We did not encounter ANY rudeness. Maybe we werent looking for it, but we really didnt! We also did not encounter wild,misbehaving children as Ive read about. There were children there of course, and occasionally one overtired crying child, but never any running out of control or misbehaving. Again, we probably werent paying attention, but everyone we saw was well-behaved.

All in all, we had an amazing time. It was beautiful, no one got seasick (or too hungover!:rolleyes:) but we could all still feel the rocking for a day after the cruise. It was a beautiful ship and we had a great time together - but we are out to have fun, and we would have had fun anywhere - we werent out looking for what was wrong with the ship, etc we just put it to each other that we were gonna have an awesome cruise and we did! BTW, it was my first cruise and I cant wait to take another!!

thanks for the review, i remember seeing your first review it may have just got shuffeled many pages down, it happens did you save any of your daily booklets if so can you scan and post them if not thats ok my cruise on Ecstasy is in February and i can't wait

thanks for the review, i remember seeing your first review it may have just got shuffeled many pages down, it happens did you save any of your daily booklets if so can you scan and post them if not thats ok my cruise on Ecstasy is in February and i can't wait

I did save a few of them! I am a brochure-saver lol. I will try and scan and post tomorrow!

I know there was a lot more activities in the fun times than we expected to see! I will round them up tomorrow!

Thank you for taking time to write your review.

Glad you had an awesome cruise.

Great review! Sailing in August!!

Nice review! Thanks for taking the time to share your experiences with us!:)

Thanks for posting! I have R127 and the connecting R123 in a few weeks. I was wondering if you felt alot of movement? My first cruise I was seasick so I'm hoping it won't be that bad midship. Do you have any pics if the room?? Thanks!

Great review, thanks for sharing. I'm sailing on the Ecstasy in November so its great to read a positive review.

Hi thanks for the review. I was wondering which terminal you boarded from? Was it one of the small ones at the end of the po with the little buildings? We are sailing in August and I wantto be prepared.

Thanks!

Thanks for posting! I have R127 and the connecting R123 in a few weeks. I was wondering if you felt alot of movement? My first cruise I was seasick so I'm hoping it won't be that bad midship. Do you have any pics if the room?? Thanks!

We were originally booked R123-R127 when we were 2/3, then one more person ended up coming, so we had to move R123 down the hall to R139.

I posted a few pics taken IN the room below, but we didnt I guess actually take any pictures specifically OF the room. The pic where they are in the black dresses after winning the talent show you can see R123 on the wall and they are in front of R127. We didnt feel much movement in the cabins, the only time we felt rocking was when we were up at dinner and on higher floors sometimes. It was a great location.

Ecstasy sails from the isolated area near the gambling boat and Jetty Park. Easy to maneuver over there though.

It was Terminal 3. I dont know what any of the other terminals look like though. Getting on the ship was such a breeze we didnt even have time to pay attention to what the terminal looked like lol.

We were originally booked R123-R127 when we were 2/3, then one more person ended up coming, so we had to move R123 down the hall to R139.

 

I posted a few pics taken IN the room below, but we didnt I guess actually take any pictures specifically OF the room. The pic where they are in the black dresses after winning the talent show you can see R123 on the wall and they are in front of R127. We didnt feel much movement in the cabins, the only time we felt rocking was when we were up at dinner and on higher floors sometimes. It was a great location.

Thank you so much!

Ecstasy sails from the isolated area near the gambling boat and Jetty Park. Easy to maneuver over there though.

i guess i was just hoping to sail from the new terminal, but i suppose the terminal isnt what i am going there to see anyway,

thanks for the info

Thank you so much!

No problem! Id pick that location again in a second!

FWIW - I was able to purchase pictures on CD on the Legend in April. I was only able to get the pictures I purchased prints of and not all our pictures, but I was able to at least get those.