Review of our 1st Royal Cruise- 8/16 Enchantment of the Seas

[rdevine10]

Well, we got back this morning from our 1st RCL cruise! We had a great time. We booked this cruise soley based upon the dates of cruise that fit in our timeline- nothing else. I will attempt to review the cruise by category:

 

Embarkation:

 

Was really easy and great! Got to Port Canaveral around 11:15 ish. Parked the car right in front of the terminal. We saw a line for the C & A members (it was not too long, but had a good 15 to 20 guests in it). We went to the "other line" since it was our 1st Royal Cruise. Well, we round the corner and guess what NO LINE AT ALL! We walked right through, no stopping at all. They didnt even look at our 2 bottles of wine in our carryon luggage! We were on the ship in less than 10 min from parking the car! Wow!

 

We got on board and explored a tad. Ship looks pretty good for its age. A few things were not perfect (but lets face it, Im not perfect either!). We were happy with what we saw and headed on down to the Windjammer for lunch (which brings us to dining!)

 

Dining:

 

Well, heres the scoop- Im gluten free, my DH is not. Eating in the Windjammer did not offer me a huge selection, but enough for me to get by with. We have tended in the past to enjoy our breakfasts and lunches in buffets for convience purposes.(I am aware the MDR migh of had better offernings for me) Lunch- the salad was pretty good, a few other choices all decent. What really lacked for the gluten free folks were the desserts. The 1st day they had rice pudding (which I wish I sampled, but I was not hungry then!), the 2nd day they called roasted pineapple the gluten free desert. After that I stuck to fruit. Dont get me wrong, I LOVE fruit, but was sort of sad I didnt have a lot of choice in the matter. DH was pleased with all of his meals in the Windjammer (no dietary issues). Breakfasts I was at 1st excited to see they had hard boiled eggs- but then was greatly upset they were HOT!. (Gross, gross, gross!). So I then had a made to order omelet each morning with fruit and bacon (even though they did have toast placed at the bottom of each bacon tray- Im not super sensitive so I picked some away from the toast and ate it). Dinners: We had MTD and it was good. Each night we did have the same servers- not by request- I think they arranged it due my allergy). The gluten free choices were better in the dining room. I enjoyed the prime rib, shrimp coctail, some fish dish with the bay scallops appetizer and the last night I had the tiger shrimp and the antipasta. Desserts again were lacking. 1st night I had a mango mousse- not bad. 2nd night I really really wanted chocolate, so I had ice cream- which was not creamy at all, more icy, 3rd night they did let me order the sampler - which had flourless chocolate cake (AWESOME) and some other mouse thing (ok). I noticed they lumped the gluten free and sugar free together a couple times and I do NOT eat sugar free- fake sugar is a huge no no in my eyes. Overall we really enjoyed the dining room and liked everything there. Last notes about food: Park Cafe did not have a lot of gluten free choices- some again nice fruit and you could get a nice salad. The Ice Cream (free) was a sore spot of me. We went up to get some (and the machines were finally working- had not been open 3 other times on cruise) and all they offer are CONES- no bowls/spoons. I was very bummed. But we sucked it up and bought some Ben and Jerrys.

 

Pools/Etc:

 

Well, since it was a kidless trip we were excited to check out the Solarium. It was stunning! And at 1st it was nice, but then it got really really hot! It was enclosed for our entire cruise (which was a bummer, even opening the side windows would of offered a nice breeze). We swam in the pool a couple times. One of the hot tubs on day 3 was cold (like pool cold). We did see a few families try to settle in (not realizing) and security nicely asked them to relocate. No biggie. The main pool area was a little loud for my taste, but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. The movie screen was nice, but it did have a spot in the bottom left were it was just blue. I was surprised there was no mini golf (silly I know). We did not try the rock climbing or jumpy thing.

 

Room:

 

We had an ocean view on deck 3. Our 1st time with an ocean view and our last cruise we had an extended balcony, so I was curoius how we would like it, but figured for 3 days it would suffice. Well, turns out we LOVED being on a lower deck. It was so much quieter and away from the louder action above. Not to mention we loved the window and loved being able to see the sea so much closer. I think this might be our more favorite room type we have had. Room was smaller than the other cruises,. but it was fine for the 2 of us (since we usually cruise as 4). Our room attendent was nice, effecient, etc. He was friendly when we saw him, but did not greet us by name when he saw us.

 

Shows:

 

Not much to say here other than we enjoyed them. The last show was good, but a tad longer than I would of liked. We LOVED the comedy (and was sad it was only offered 1 night as opposed to nearly every night like Carnival). The Love and Marriage show was HILAROIUS! And a huge congrats to Ann and John for 61 years of marriage! I hope that we are that fun when we are in our late 80s!

 

Ports of Call:

 

Nassau - well we attempted the walking tour, but I will say the signage in Nassau left some to be desired. We did walk a bit, then decided it was just too darn HOT to keep at it, took in some shopping (mostly window), and headed to Junkanoo Beach. (Free beach just past the Hilton). For a free beach, I was pretty happy. No one bothered us at all., We enjoyed the BEUATIFUL water. There was some sea glass (nothing new) on the beach, a few small rocks, etc. Water shoes might of been a good idea. Overall a nice day!

 

Coco Cay- we loved it! We walked the Nature Trail- which by the way is not a loop, so when it says a mile, it also means you have to walk another "mile" back to everything! The trail itself was OK. Lots of coral stuff. Flip flops were not the best choice of shoes to wear (for me), DH had Tevas and they were much better. Post the actual trail was actually more interesting- we saw the wedding area, an observatory, a wishing well, some work out stuff, and then found some really seculded beach areas (beautiful). Midway back we finally found a remote bar and got some water (which btw, would of been VERY helpful prior to this point). We walked a short walk up the beach and took a break in the shade on some nice loungers. After a bit of a rest we did walk out into the water pretty far- it was SO shallow. So pretty. We then forged on as we wanted to snorkel before lunch. We finally rented our vests (we had our own equipment) and headed out. 2 notes: the water in the snorkel beach is VERY rocky and it hurt like heck to walk on (we had left our flippers at home this trip for space saving reasons). The 2nd- well, those darn blow up vests. All I will say is its a GOOD thing we are both very good swimmers. The release valve is on the left hand side and all you have to do is push down on it and it lets the air out. My vest defated 4 times in an hour. So I had to tread water 4 times and reblow it up in the middle of the ocean. Last comment- it was VERY wavy in the snorkel area on this day and it wasnt the best snorkeling. We had a hard time finding the sunken areas as the waves were pushiing is all over the place. We lasted about an hour and called it a day. I was glad we did not spend $30 pp, It wasnt the best snorkeling at all that day. A side note: the buffet here for lunch was simply just OK. I did not love it, I did not hate it. I ate as I was hungry and it filled the hole. My BBQ at home is much better- that is all ;)

 

Fellow Passengers:

 

We met several nice people. It seemed like there were a lot of locals on a weekend getway. We did notice there were a lot of Indians on the cruise (many not speaking English). Come to find out there was a group on this cruise - some muslim group- they were at least several hunderd. For the most part it was no bother at all. The only issues we had were culural differences- one Indian woman practially burped in my face with no regret (GROSS) and several were "cutting" in line in many places. Slightly annoying, but nothing that impacted our cruise. (And I I dont care about skin color, race, size, if you are straight, gay, etc- what I do dislike are rude people- and a few of these crusiers could of used a few lessons in what is OK in our culture).

 

Overall Summary:

 

We had a GREAT cruise. Great weather (so lucky), a fun boat,etc. I did not notice much of a difference between this cruise and our last one (carnival). In fact, I will say I liked the Carnival one better in terms of offerings (in food- espeically gluten free), and comedy shows. But, this is a smaller and older Royal ship, so I suppose it might not be a truly fair comparison! We had an amazing anniversary cruise and I would glady book another trip on her again tomorrow!

[rdevine10]

Forgot to add:

 

Debarkation:

 

We opted for self carry off. There was a bit of a linem, but it took maybe 25 min from start of getting to our car. No issues at all. Once we got to the car, it was another line to pay for parking. Next time I might try an offsite parking as it was expensive (although easy!!!).

[MrFunInTheSun]

Glad you had a good first cruise. Thanks for sharing and enjoy your new addiction. Time to get that second cruise booked. :-)

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. Please excuse any typographical errors.

[maureencruiser]

Next time, bring bowls and spoons from the WJ for your ice cream - no need to pay for Ben & Jerrys! I'm sure they do that to limit how much people take and how much mess they leave behind!!

[monkey_wants_banana]

I saw one of the offsite parking places as $8 a day (not sure if you walk or need a shuttle to get there), was the place you went to more?

[joey1]

Thank you for the review!! What was the earliest time you could do self assist debarkation?

Jodi

[rdevine10]

I saw one of the offsite parking places as $8 a day (not sure if you walk or need a shuttle to get there), was the place you went to more?

 

We parked at the port. It's was $15 per day with charging you for 4 days for a 3 night cruise- $60 total. I do not believe anything else was within walking distance. There were a couple of other choices but all would require a shuttle.

 

 

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[rdevine10]

Thank you for the review!! What was the earliest time you could do self assist debarkation?

Jodi

 

I believe the earliest was 7:30. There were people lining up prior to that time. We saw them starting around 7:10 am on our way to grab breakfast. We got in line around 7:40ish.

 

 

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[rdevine10]

Next time, bring bowls and spoons from the WJ for your ice cream - no need to pay for Ben & Jerrys! I'm sure they do that to limit how much people take and how much mess they leave behind!!

 

Great idea! I was just bummed as they did have bowls on the 2 other cruise lines we have been on.

 

 

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[Ralphinsc]

Great review! Sorry you had a rough time snorkeling in coco cay. We had a very light sea day so the waves were virtually non-existant. Disconcerting to hear about the life vest deflating :eek: . i'm not a very good swimmer or floater and the vest deflating would of probably freaked me out while I was snorkeling there.

 

Glad you had a good time! :)

[FireBadge1]

We also were on the enchantment in August. We have been on about 15 cruises.....this one was the cruise from hell. It was the worst cruise that you could imagine. My wife wrote a letter to RCCL....they never responded. DO NOT GO ON THIS SHIP.

 

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[Loyal2RCCL]

FYI.. If you wanted a chocolate GF dessert, you can always request this with your Head Waiter the night before. RCCL does go out of their way to handle special requests whenever they can.

[drarill]

Great review!! thanks for taking the time to share your cruise with us!:):)