4 days in Ecstasy: FlyingCruiserNJ's Solo Fun - December 8-12 from Miami

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Keep it coming, your right about the short time in Key West.

 

Hopefully I can get to Day 3 shortly. It's Christmas week and tons to do, I am looking forward to continuing the review. Typing out the daily summary and adding pics for Key West day took me like over 2 hours haha. But it is enjoyable and I am glad people are having a good time reading. I know why they leave Key West early but it still sucks. I guess the only way to truly experience the place at night is to go there on a land trip, which I have done.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Enjoying your review and pics. I love the Fantasy Class ships on the shorter cruises. Thanks for sharing!

 

Thanks for reading Jamman! I do like the fantasy class ships also. Not as much to do onboard as the newer and fancier ones but a cruise is still a cruise. The smaller ships sometimes have more character and a more comfortable feel as well. I know crew members have also mentioned that many of them bid contracts on the smaller ships because they are more comfortable there than the larger and newer ships, even though they have the chance to work on the bigger ones. I also love reading your reviews and I checked out the Splendor recap from a few months ago. Very cool.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Ah! I love the Ecstasy, it was my first ship. Loving your review, nice pictures! :-)

 

Thanks for checking out my vacation review. This was my third time on ecstasy in two years but I really have enjoyed it all three times. It's funny that until I began reading reviews and stuff about these ships on cruise critic, I never even realized what places like Mongolian wok were all about. Meaning that even though I had cruised this ship before, the last two times I have sailed it, I have still found new and exciting things to do. And keep up the good work with your review also. I am enjoying that very much. The Liberty is a nice ship.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Loved the ecstasy!! We sailed her twice and adored the small ship.

 

It definitely wasn't overcrowded either time I have cruised it this year and it is a fun and easy ship to navigate around. I can't say I've ever disliked a ship to the point I couldn't wait to debark at home port though lol. Thanks for reading!

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

I am enjoying your review as usual. Thanks

 

Thanks for checking out my adventures. Thanks for following along! I'm hoping to get the Cozumel day review done and posted shortly.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

I'm enjoying your review! Subbed to your breeze review and will start reading it tomorrow 3:12 am here now.

 

LOL, I have to say that I have stayed up late to read cruise reviews a few times myself also. Thanks for checking this one out and hopefully you enjoy the Breeze recap just as much. That cruise was surely the crown jewel of my 2014 vacations. I'm looking forward to seeing Alaska again this coming May as well, on the NCL Jewel. I will probably get about 500 pics from that one to share.

[SMSACE6]

Thanks for your review! I am enjoying very much, and love the photos!:)

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Good evening everybody, I am finally back with my adventures from DAY 3 of my Carnival Ecstasy 4-day cruise from December. I hope everybody enjoyed their holiday season, I surely did when I got the chance to do so even though it is always a very busy season for me. On this third day, I got to visit Cozumel for the second time this year. So, on this cold January night while I sit down with some chicken soup, we can re-live nicer tropical visits through words and pictures.

DAY 3: COZUMEL

Today was your average cruise day, sunny and in the mid 70s. Perfect weather. I have tons of pictures to share from this day and as usual, I will include them in their own posts so they don’t interrupt my storytelling. Lol. Anyway, on this itinerary Cozumel includes a late 1300 scheduled arrival so everybody gets a chance to sleep in if they want to without missing anything.

I got up around my usual time, late morning as I wanted to recover from Key West Day as much as possible. I actually put the SNOOZIN tag on my door today, haha because I didn’t feel like leaving the room during the times the stewards usually do their service and I didn’t want my steward to have to wait around for me to finally leave to clean. In recent years Carnival has adopted the CRUISIN/SNOOZIN door tags so it’s easier to let the staff know if you want service or not in your room. CRUISIN obviously means you are out of the cabin and want service while you are gone.

Sometime around late morning I got out of bed and cleaned up some so I wouldn’t have to again after lunch, before leaving to spend time in Puerta Maya. Here is where I figured out that I had some sort of drain problem in the bathroom of my cabin. For whatever reason, the drain was just not draining like it should. At first, it was a nuisance and slow but manageable, but by this point it was getting worse and I had huge puddles in both the shower and on the floor. I was able to dry everything up with the extra towels I had in the cabin designed for two people, but still. I am sure my steward didn’t appreciate having to deal with all those soaking wet towels on the floor come evening turndown time. Finally set at noon, I headed up to lido to get lunch and watch us approach Cozumel.

Up here I got a burger and fries, along with a hot dog and some chicken strips. Although not Guy’s good, these burgers are decent but if you don’t want cheese and the lettuce and tomato, you have to ask for it specifically and it can take a while for them to specially cook it that way. The dogs are always good, and the fries are your standard shoestring. I make better chicken nuggets at home with my special recipe, haha.

After lunch I went up to the top deck, along with tons of other geeks (LOL) to watch us do our docking in Cozumel. It appeared that there were quite a few ships in town this day. We sailed closer, and saw the MSC Divina in the downtown port, a few miles up the shoreline. We were the fourth and final ship to dock in Puerta Maya today, next to I believe the Glory. On the other dock next to ours were the Celebrity Equinox and I cannot remember the ship next to it. I got some great shots at sunset of those ships leaving however, stay tuned for that.

At about 1330, we slowed down and carefully pulled into the parking space and were secured for debarkation. If you are a seasoned cruiser, you already know that countries have strict regulations on bringing any type of agricultural products into the country from the ship. However, today they were really strict about it. They made announcements warning people to not try it and that there would be dogs on site to enforce this. They were not kidding. You could see the dog(s) waiting at the gangway to sniff out any contraband and I had never seen that before, at least not out in the open like that. Not that I would ever want to take anything off the boat into Mexico but still.

I played a few rounds of miniature golf and got a few ice cream cones before getting off the ship around 1500. Ice cream is 24/7 on Carnival but it is still good with lunch. I did not consume a lot of hot chocolate on this cruise but I did get some this time and included a little ice cream with it to make it a little creamier. Just don’t put too much in there or it will get too cold and then you won’t have hot chocolate anymore. Duh. And don’t try to fill the mug either. The auto setting is to fill the mugs about 2/3 with one shot and it is tempting to try a second push to fill it but it will overfill, every time. I know this by experience. Just get a second cup when the first one is done or fill up two cups instead.

Anyway, getting off the ship was not a hassle, as most people had gotten off already. I walked towards town as many people were walking back to the Glory, which was parked next to us. They had I believe a 1700 departure time. Our ship was dwarfed by the size of the Glory, a much larger and newer ship with more amenities.

As I walked, I heard some clowns heading back to the Glory talking amongst each other about how they would never, ever book a cruise on that crappy Ecstasy ship. Uhhhh, yeah. I felt like turning around and sarcastically telling them, yeah, who would, man, but I didn’t feel like getting into it. Any cruise ship is a good cruise ship, and there really ain’t that much difference between the Glory and the Ecstasy, knowhatimsayin? I passed through the Dufry duty free shop and although there were some good deals to be had on stuff such as liquor, I didn’t buy anything because I had a carryon bag only and would have nowhere to store the stuff on the trip home. No biggie there. I am sure I will be there again someday. Little did I know that friends who had cruised to Cozumel a week or so before I did would get me some Cholula hot sauce from that very shop as a Christmas gift!

So, I got downtown and what to do, what to do? I had done pretty much every touristy thing there is to do here in past visits, so I just walked around. I knew there are some really neat restaurants uptown, but I didn’t feel like taking a cab ride up there and surely did not want to walk it so I stayed close to port. Before even crossing the street outside the gates, people began trying to sell me stuff and get me to go to their shops and establishments. One dude told me there was a gentleman’s club (strip club) right nearby and to go there. Uh, thanks dude but no thanks. Not by myself in another country, maybe if I was with a group. So I kept walking, up the street to the north. The next dock up, where the Celebrity ships were, seemed to have a few restaurants and shops as seen from our ship but they did not allow anybody who did not have Celebrity s/s cards to enter the area. Bummer. I decided to just turn around and go back towards the ship at that point. It was really comfortable here, warm but not hot, bright sunshine, but it was getting later and with the early winter sunset here, I figured it best to just head back. I did get a few pics of the types of restaurants and businesses along this route, and will post them shortly. I couldn’t tell if it was open but there was a place that seemed to be a Chinese buffet located right off the main road. I just found that to be kind of funny.

I got back to the port area and since I had been to Pancho’s Backyard before and wasn’t too hungry, I wandered around the shopping district as sunset approached. Sunsets in Cozumel are fabulous. I had a bad experience at the Three Amigos in the past so I decided to give Fat Tuesday’s a try instead. It was OK, not too crowded as all the Glory pax were (or should have been, wink) back onboard and many of our fellow pax were done in port and headed back to dinner or whatever on the ship. I got a really good Long Island iced tea, along with a Modelo Especial beer. Total with tip was like $15 or so, not bad. Had great views of sunset from my table. They do advertise free wifi at this place but don’t waste your time trying to get it. I tried to log onto it, but whoever the local provider there is asked for some type of password that I didn’t have and didn’t really want to ask the staff there for, so I didn’t bother. Getting in touch with home will just have to wait a few days, lol.

After I was done drinking, I headed back to the end of the dock to watch the Celebrity ships, the MSC and the Glory all leave out with the beautiful sunset in the background. Around 1730 or 1800 I headed back to the ship after showing photo ID and ship card and got a few more pictures of our ship all lit up before re-boarding. I love those pics of the ship sitting in dock all lit up. Some of these pics could be postcards, honestly.

Anyway, around 1900 I donned my swim trunks and headed into the hot tub for some relaxation. I met a few interesting folks here, who had very similar jobs to mine (I always seem to also, interesting and cool but I digress) and we talked about stuff involving our companies and benefits, that would sound like a foreign language to anyone else, hehe. I got out of the hot tub around 2030, and I didn’t even bother showering or anything as this was casual, late 2100 dining time night due to the late port visit. Just threw a nice polo shirt and slacks on and headed to dinner. I was still the second-best dressed at my table, LOL.

For dinner tonight, I got some roasted tom turkey along with a medium-cooked flat iron steak from the everyday menu. Besides being a lower-quality cut of meat along with not being as well-seasoned as a steakhouse cut, the flat iron steaks are really pretty good. Definitely better than paying a 20 dollar upcharge. And we had to ask ourselves, seeing as there is no steakhouse onboard, how exactly are they going to get a steakhouse selection on the menu anyway? Whatever. I am still a little bit disappointed by my mediocre experience at the Breeze steakhouse I guess. Our new friends from Baltimore were back at dinner tonight, and they said they made it through the previous night although it wasn’t too comfortable due to the rough seas. I got wcmc for dessert and somehow they read my mind and brought mine out with two ice creams instead of one, mickey mouse style. Cool. I also got a fruit plate, which was awesome as always. We heard the ship shudder as we powered away from the dock and I noted that they probably burn more fuel doing those movements than they burn in an hour at sea.

No comedian tonight, we had the Mexican Fiesta deck party instead. At around 2300, that kicked off on the lido deck with music and food. I am always too full from dinner, so I just walked around with a few soft drinks and got some fruit from the buffet and hung out some. The dance floor honestly wasn’t that lively but the party was decently attended and it started winding down around 0030, at which time I headed back to the cabin to get ready for bed. Tomorrow was a sea day, on our way back to home port of Miami, the cruise was now ¾ of the way over. They really do go by much too quickly. Anyway, I will get to day 4 shortly hopefully, I do hope you are enjoying and pics from DAY 3 are coming right up. Happy New Year!

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Approaching Cozumel. You can generally begin to see land an hour or so before docking, it is pretty scenic and neat to watch.

 

My lunch. Standard grill fare today.

 

MSC Divina, uptown a few miles. Big ship that is.

 

Geeeetttttiiiinnngggggg closer. About a mile or so out. Two Celebrity ships to the left, the Glory to the right.

 

The local Manatee Pilot boat, that helps guide ships into and out of port.

 

Us slowing down and pulling into port.

 

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Soft serve ice cream. Vanilla, chocolate, and swirl. They also have frozen yogurt machines here. Located in lido dining room area.

 

 

Long Island Iced Tea, yum. Modelo Especial beer also. Fat Tuesday's. Much better service and atmosphere than Three Amigos.

 

 

 

Postcard shot, from Fat Tuesday's, of us and the Splendor, side to side. Apparently this ship next to us was the Splendor and not the Glory, I stand corrected.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

From my walking adventures. This was right out in front of the port area. Chakanaab beach is just 4 km down the street to the south, but I have never been there.

 

 

Hard Rock Cafe and mini mall on the next block north of the port.

 

Mexican gas station and 7-eleven. I couldn't figure out how much the gas was per liter, it was listed in pesos but if I recall, it is not cheap in Mexico. Busy place though. Lot of vehicular traffic on that street, taxis, tourists driving, and locals just passing through.

 

Sunset at the pier. The Splendor had just left. Nice photo of our ship.

 

 

Outside of Fat Tuesday's, just before leaving to go back to ship. The port area was beginning to empty out by this point, as it was nightfall and the port excursions and tours were pretty much all wrapped up.

 

Final stages of sunset, with the Equinox sailing away.

 

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Walking back to the ship, with the Celebrity ship leaving in the background. Night has fallen.

 

Dinner

 

 

Mexican Fiesta deck party, from above.

 

 

Evening turndown. I have a towel animal family and it is growing, but my steward forgot to put eyes on any of the animals throughout the week. Haha.

 

[May2894]

Thank you! We fly out to miami tomorrow, them board Monday. Any last minute advise? Mist dos or must sees??

[prad]

Thanks for coming back, Fun Times post for first night would be appreciated :)

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Thank you! We fly out to miami tomorrow, them board Monday. Any last minute advise? Mist dos or must sees??

 

Thank you for following along. I guess you guys are probably already on the cruise but on a short cruise like that one, if you haven't been to either place before, check out the city tours in Key West and walk down Duval Street to get an idea of the local bar and shop atmosphere in the area. Lots of really historically significant stuff to see in EYW. Also check out the southernmost point, and most of the tours stop there so you can get a picture taken by the huge rock. In Cozumel, there are adventure excursions and things like glass bottom boat tours and the like. I have done those types of things, I have also hired a cab to ride us all around the island for a few hours, to get a nice tour of the entire place. I have also just hung around the port area, as I did on this cruise. My tablemate did a ruins tour on this cruise and she barely made it back to the ship for the 10 PM departure due to the distance they had to travel on the excursion. Onboard, go to the comedy shows as they are usually good, I can't comment on the karaoke or stage shows though because I rarely or never go to them. It really is up to you but there is plenty to do and let me know what you ended up doing on your cruise and how you liked the overall experience.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Thanks for coming back, Fun Times post for first night would be appreciated :)

 

I am glad to be back. I am going to finally wrap the rest of the cruise up tonight, with pics. I tried to snap a photo of the first day funtimes and it just didn't show up too well but if you have any questions about activities from that day or whatever, I will look at the copy that I still have at home and will try to answer them best I can.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Well I am back with the final wrap-up of my Carnival Ecstasy cruise from last month. It's real cold and snowy here and I am one of the unfortunate ones who has been fighting the very nasty flu/cold that has been going around, so what better way to cheer up than to talk cruise? I am chronicling Day 4 of the voyage here, which was a sea day on our way back to Miami.

DAY 4: SEA DAY

Today was the last day of the cruise. Four days is really short but hey, it was nice to be away from the cold and work for a few days. As usual, I woke up around 1000 or so and began to organize a little bit so I could start to pack for debark the next day. Around 1100 I cleaned up some and got ready to head out on deck for a while. Like I had previously mentioned, the drains were backed up completely in the bathroom now. I showered and dried up as much water as I could off the floor and as soon as I left the cabin, I found my steward and told him about the issue. He said he would look into it and he did, it was fixed and running smoothly by the evening. However, a lot of water must have gotten under the floor as it was pretty spongy for the last day and night. Or it was possibly like that before I boarded and I just didn't notice, who really cares? I have to note that they have taken the amenity baskets out of the bathrooms now. I and a lot of other people had been mentioning lately how tacky it looks for there to be an empty basket sitting on the counter in the bathroom, not a problem anymore. Good move I guess.

Anyway, all Platinums get a free drink coupon, redeemable at seaday brunch and of course today was the only seaday brunch of the cruise, so I headed up to the MDR to cash it out and get some food. There was no wait at all to get in here, unlike on the Breeze a few months prior, and I was seated at a quiet little two-top table. I ordered a Margarita, frozen, and looking back, I should have gone with a long island but whatever. I also got a filet n' eggs with banana cream pie as dessert. I had to ask for toast to go with the fried eggs, but they did bring it pretty quickly. Very good as usual. Nice, medium cooked steak and the banana cream pie was nice as well - never had that before but decided to check it out this time.

A little after 1200, I headed out and about to check out what was going on around the ship. I stopped by the photo gallery for a minute as I had a few other times during this cruise but I did not buy anything. Honestly it was kinda hard to find a few pictures as they were buried behind others and I had to really search hard for them. I went around to some venues onboard and got pictures as well, places such as the comedy club and the nightclub, etc. They were all not in use during the day however. I also went by the gift shop but they had just the normal funshop stuff and of course I didn't get anything there either. They are always selling t-shirts at a discounted rate outside, right in front of the theater but the last thing I need is another t-shirt. I could have bought a few for Christmas presents but the idea never came to mind at the time....lol

Anyway, they had the ice carving demonstration and the hairy chest contest today. The hairy chest contest is funny but I am not really too much into it. It's one of those things that Carnival can use for their promo videos and cruise memories DVD's that they sell at the end of every cruise though. I forget what the ice sculpture was but the CD explained that the guy doing this demo was doing in an hour, what usually takes up to four hours. Not bad. I did get a nice pic of that, will post later.

As is usual with this route, we cruised something like 10 miles or so off the coast of Cuba and from this vantage point, you can easily see the mountaintops along the northern coast of the country. This was also around the time that the US embargo was being lifted against Cuba. Maybe sometime in the future Carnival will actually cruise to Cuba, hmm. On my May cruise, on seaday, we saw an empty homemade raft floating in the gulf and we assumed it was refugees from Cuba, trying to get to the US who either didn't make it or were picked up by somebody else. Nothing of the sort seen today.

For a late lunch I went to the rotisserie grill and got some carved roast beef and some lamb. The lamb was good but it was dry, the beef and fried chicken from the American theme day on the buffet were good. I also got one last Mongolian wok serving, the usual noodles with szechuan and some chicken and pork I believe. I tried to use the chopsticks that they provide but I was getting more frustrated than anything that my chopsticks handling skills aren't great, so I just ate the rest with a fork. lol Of course I got a few sodas with this as well. I would say I drank an average of 5 or so sodas a day, and I did get my money's worth with the program. Also, rarely did I have a problem with getting served either. I had to wait a few minutes at the pool bar a few times but nothing excessive. Good bar service all cruise long.

I will mention that it was cool and mostly cloudy today. A major cold front was cutting through the southeast, all the way to Florida and from watching the Miami news in my cabin, some temps were dipping down near 50 in the Dade/Broward area that week. Freezing for them. Not sunbathing weather either although I did get a few rounds of mini golf in on sports deck. I did not hit the waterworks on this cruise, as I am a wimp and don't want to go through the long, winding slide at 20 mph into a pool of salt water. But plenty of people were enjoying themselves there.

Around sunset I went to the casino to kill some time and lose some more money before it was hot tub time. I played another $20 and of course, lost it but I got at least an hour of playing time on the penny slots out of it. Also, since I finally set up a Player's club account, I can accumulate points toward credits, or maybe even free cruises, ahem.

I went back to the cabin to pack some more and took a very short nap before hot tub time. Around 1830 I hit the serenity tub and talked to a few folks there. They had said that some guy sat up on the side of the tub to cool off and literally fell backwards and hit his head on the deck a little before I got there. That would have been a sight to see. LOL. Anyway, about 1930 I went back to the cabin, cleaned up and made sure to stop back by the atrium to see the second round of Christmas caroling that was scheduled. It wasn't as good as the first night but still fun and the whole atrium was decorated for the season.

After that, I found my steward to thank him for his good service and handed him a nice tip and headed to dinner. Everybody showed up tonight and as usual, I got my navy bean soup as an appetizer and penne mariscos as a starter. Our tablemates commented that if the plate I got was a starter, how big was the entree version? haha. It wasn't bad. I also got mahi mahi and a honey glazed half chicken. Pretty tasty but the chicken was probably the better of the two. I also got a Williams Pear tonight, which is a pear cooked in red wine and served warm. Try one if you have never done so. Our waiters sang leaving on a fun ship, we all headed our own ways after thanking and tipping our waitstaff, and a few of us went up to the comedy club to watch Percy Crews and Jodi White for the last time. Neither one was particularly funny this time but Percy Crews' routine involved the audience this time and it was kind of funny.

After saying goodbye to my friends from dinner, I stopped by the promenade to see the status of our journey back to MIA and to gauge the estimated time we would be arriving back in MIA. The captain did give us a weather update earlier in the day but as we all know, things can change a lot in a few hours. I went back to the cabin, finished packing and filled out my USA CBP form that all pax have to fill out upon re-entering the US (mine was easy as I bought nothing at all outside of drinks in port). I had zone 1 bag tags and the usual paperwork describing the debark process was on my bed but I was doing self-assist all the way so I didn't really have to worry about any of that stuff. Just make sure I am in the right place in the morning when they call self assist pax for debarkation.

I headed upstairs one last time to get a hot dog from the late night grill buffet that they had out most nights and a soda and headed back to the room around midnight. Before getting back to the cabin, I stopped by guest services to get my unused cash deposit refunded. There is a platinum/diamond line, so I took care of that quickly and that was done as if you don't, it can take a couple weeks for Carnival to mail you a check for the balance that you didn't use. It can also supposedly be done on the sail and sign kiosk but I am not sure how that all works but whatever. Sleeping is always tough to do the last night, as you have to be up early to get off the ship on the last day but I set the alarm on my phone and kept the cabin TV on the moving map channel to check the status throughout the night. My steward left an awesome towel animal tonight. He put my two beach towels together as an alligator, and put it on the bed. I had never seen that before but it was cool. He also left my towel animal family intact all week, which was cool as well.

Anyway, all packed up and ready to go for the last morning I went to sleep the best I could for debark, which would be coming up very quickly. I hope you have enjoyed my adventures so far and debark day is upcoming very shortly.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Seaday brunch menu.

 

 

My free drink. A margarita of course. But you can get anything valued up to 10 dollars with this coupon. Just remember to bring it with you to the dining room.

 

 

Steak and eggs baby. Good. I have gotten the spicy chicken before but the filet is just too good to not get.

 

Banana cream pie dessert. Never had it before, but it was good and I will likely get it again in the future. I have to say my waiter was cool today also. I had mentioned I was from NJ and he said he had worked in NY city for a while before working for Carnival. Of course I live 2 hours from NYC, so I am not close but it's the thought that counts. Going off on a tangent, it's like the hotel folks in Williamsburg, VA who saw we were from NJ on vacation years ago and assigned us a room with a view of the trees and foliage because they thought we were from the NYC area and don't see trees that often, LOL! It was a nice gesture though. People don't get that north Jersey and South Jersey are like two totally different states.

 

 

Comedy club as seen in the daytime. Much less crowded than other ships. Not a bad atmosphere, classic Carnival.

 

 

Stripes nightclub, on promenade. Not too busy whenever I walked past here during the cruise.

 

Edited January 7, 2015 by FlyingCruiserNJ

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Cuba, to our right, land and the northern coastal mountain range was in sight most of the day.

 

 

Calm seas ahead, taken from the top deck looking forward.

 

 

Ice carving demo. This didn't melt as quickly as usual, as it wasn't too hot out today. The cruise director was taking guesses from the audience about what the sculpture was while it was being done. Wonder if the CD knows beforehand or he finds out when we do?

 

 

Lunch from lido carvery and buffet. Leg of lamb!

 

 

Main lido pool, taken from above deck. No swimmers today, kind of chilly.

 

 

Our dining room, Windsong. Had to check the menu when I passed by.

 

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Miniature golf course. It did get crowded at times but not today, partly due to the time of day I was there and also partly because of the chilly, windy weather. Fun and challenging course though.

 

 

The Atrium where they were Christmas caroling. Nice seasonal decorations also.

 

 

Penne mariscos, my appetizer in the dining room. Never had it before, but very good.

 

Dinner entrees, mahi mahi, honey half chicken and Williams pear for dessert. Pretty good last dinner.

 

 

 

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Live position map, taken from screen on promenade deck, near the casino. We are not far from home port now, sigh.

 

The main theater. I did not stop in here at all, except to take this pic. The stage shows are bad and I am not interested in any of the excursion discussions or hasbro-type shows they hold here. The love and marriage game they have here would be cool if I had somebody to go there with though, lol.

 

 

My towel animal family and beach towel alligator.

 

Bathroom pic. Have to take one on every cruise. Other than the messed up drains, it was ok. Notice the missing amenity baskets.

 

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

And, so yet another cruise has come to an end. Today was debark day, and it was time to go home. Today I will cover the experience I had debarking and my overall trip home. I will also include my comments and observations of the overall cruise itself at the end.

DAY 5: DEBARK DAY IN MIAMI AND TRAVEL HOME

Well, I did wake up a few times during the night and 0730 did come up fairly quickly. I have heard that there is often a traffic jam with multiple cruise ships and cargo ships trying to get up that narrow little channel to port at the same time in the morning, so sometimes there can be a wait to dock. I switched to the bridge cam channel and watched us approach the channel as the sun came up and eventually we did make our way up and to port sometime around 0745. We made pretty good time getting back.

I jumped in the shower quickly, packed my last few things, checked the final bill they put under my door overnight to make sure my charges were accurate and they were, and was off by 0800. I stopped on lido to get breakfast, the normal potatoes, juice, sausage and ham, etc and waited for them to call self assist debarkation. We were cleared by ICE/CBP sometime around 0830 and the self assist group was called. This being a short cruise, probably half or more of the pax did self assist and the line in the atrium got pretty long for a while. They kept it moving quickly though, and ran two lines to get people off. I was off by 0845, and called SAS to come pick me up at the curb.

I had a 1030 flight back to PHL and had to get a ride right away from the cruise terminal to catch it. Otherwise I was going to be stuck in FLL airport pretty much all day. I had never tried to get a flight that early coming back from a cruise but I figured today would be a good chance to see if I could actually make it. I was cleared quickly by the agent at customs and was on my way. The van picked me up about a minute after I got outside. Talk about service. We picked up a van full of people coming from other ships as well, so we didn't get on the road until 0915 but that was still enough time. I met a family who had just gotten off the Disney Dream and we were trading cruise stories. That was their first cruise but from what they said, I think they liked it and planned on doing more.

We got to the airport around 0940 (traffic was not bad going northbound on 95 today), I got dropped off, got my bags, paid the driver and was on my way to checkin, thru security in a flash and to my gate a good half hour early. Not bad. Our flight boarded and pushed a few minutes early, short taxi, we took off to the west (again unusual but remember those northwest winds that brought the chilly weather to south Florida overnight), had a smooth flight to PHL, landed early although it was fairly breezy at home today, and just like that, the cruise was over.

Few pics:

View from lido last morning - cool day here, but clear skies. Always melancholy though.

 

My bags. I travel light.

 

Flight home, at cruise somewhere over the ocean I think.

 

Landing

 

 

 

 

FINAL COMMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS

Now comes the editorial section of this FlyingCruiserNJ review.

I have to say this was a nice little 4-day cruise. This was my third time on this ship, second in just the last year, but it was still fun. Any day at sea is a good one. For what I paid and what I got, it was more than worth it.

The ship is old, but kept in good shape and clean. Other than the bad drain in my cabin and the fact I couldn't get cell service in my cabin even when docked (that happens sometimes), everything was good. Boarding and debarkation was smooth as could be and the staff onboard the ship was generally very friendly, helpful and competent. This is not the kind of ship that will just completely wow you but it does have enough to do to keep anyone busy.

The entertainment was fine. I don't go to the stage shows or the audience involvement shows anymore but the comedians and the deck parties were OK. The Christmas caroling along with the piano player they had during the cruise was a nice touch.

The food was pretty good. No major waits for food at any time and we were served promptly and out of the mdr pretty much every night by 2200 or about an hour and a half after being seated. Nothing to complain about here. The bar service was also pretty good if you ask me. I am going on a cruise with a few friends out of LA next week and they want to buy the drink package, which I think is too expensive and if they lowered the price on these sailings, maybe more people would buy it. I am probably going to get my own room on this upcoming cruise, with no single supplement, and I will still come out ahead not having to spend 60 bucks a day when I know I wouldn't be able to drink 15 drinks a day.

The ports visited were fine, although I have been to both of them multiple times so nothing really new and exciting there. The visiting times are kind of lousy in Key West though, and they should do something about that in the future. I know there is another ship, the Dream or Magic, that stays docked in the square until almost 1800 sometimes so it is possible. But overall the excursions were fun.

My tablemates were a fun bunch. The one couple, from Baltimore, were cruise newbies, but seemed to enjoy it although the girl did get seasick on formal night. The family we were seated with was a lot of fun also. So was the single girl from Miami who I sat next to. She was nice, although nothing really came of our sitting next to each other if you know what I mean, lol. Sometimes you get stuck with a lousy group at the dinnertable, but this cruise was pretty good in that department. That always makes it more fun.

Anyway, I would rate this cruise A- overall. I would definitely recommend this ship and probably this itinerary to anyone who asks me. Especially if they are cruise newbies and want a quick getaway to see if they actually like cruising or not.

Anyway, that wraps up another FlyingCruiserNJ review. I hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading. Happy cruising!

[SunshineCruiser24]

Thanks for sharing your adventure. It was a great read!!

[cruiseclues]

Always enjoy your Photo Reviews,,,Thank You. :):):):)