Enchantment of the Seas 6/27-7/1 review - Honeymoon Cruise!

[mrsdurham]

Hi everyone! My name is Kassie and I'm 21 years old. I'm a newbie here on cruise critic, but everyone's reviews and info helped me so much in planning my honeymoon cruise that I decide to write one of my own to give back. A little about me before I start.. This was only my second cruise, the first being with Carnival. My husband Andy is 22 and this was his very first cruise. We got married on June 18th. Our honeymoon was a road trip on the way to the port as we live in West Virginia and didn't want to drive to Miami in one day. So we took our time and stopped at several beaches on our way down the coast to Miami. On Sunday, we arrived in Miami at around 2 in the afternoon. We drove around and did a little sight seeing before going back to the hotel to get everything organized and ready for embarkation day.

 

We chose to stay at a cheaper hotel in Miami since we had been staying in hotels for the past three nights. We stayed at the Quality Inn Miami Airport. While we originally wanted to stay there to save money, I really wish we had just paid a little more and stayed somewhere else. I don't even know where to start with this place. First of all, I have to say the room was not too bad. It had a musty smell and there was a lot of water damage spots on the ceiling, but I've stayed worse places so no big deal. So we were told when we booked that cruise parking was free so that was a major factor in our decision to stay there. Once we got there, we were informed that it would be $10/day to park. Okay, not a big deal again, just annoying. So after we pay for parking and run to Walmart, we needed to do a load of laundry since we had been on the road for four days already and had already worn some of our cruise clothes. We went to the front desk to ask where the coin laundry was and were informed that it was on the third floor but basically told "good luck" because the dryer hasn't worked for several months. Okay, that would be fine if we hadn't called twice before we got there to make sure they had a working coin laundry. We did a small load anyway and just hung it to dry in the room. We also had to pay for the shuttle to the cruise port that we were originally told was free, but actually cost us $10/person. Not mention the shuttle was 30 minutes late. I'm usually not one to complain, but this place was really horrible. Overall, do not stay here. Even though we were aggravated about the hotel, by 1 we had made it to the port and were ready for a great cruise!

 

Once we made it to the port, the embarkation process was pretty quick. Through all of the steps, it was only about 30 minutes from start to finish. As soon as we stepped onto the ship, we were informed that our room was ready so we went down to deck 3 to check it out. We were in room 3624 (oceanview). It was a nice room, just big enough for the two of us. Our room steward came by to introduce himself within a few minutes, his name was Rocky. He was a great steward! We tipped him from at the beginning and he kept our ice bucket full throughout the cruise, plus always had towel animals waiting on us each evening. Around 6:30 we started to get hungry so we dressed for dinner and headed to the dining room. We had my time dining and forgot to make a reservation, so they weren't able to fit us in until 8:30. Since we were starving, we decided to just hit up the windjammer instead and made sure to remember to make reservations for the next night. The food at the windjammer was decent. Nothing amazing, but it was good enough. After dinner we went to the Solarium pool for a swim, which was really nice and quiet. I don't really remember what we did for the rest of the night. I think we just hung out at the Schooner bar for a while, then got nachos at the Park Cafe before bed.

 

For day 2, we would be in Nassau. I'll stop here for now. I'm going to post some pictures on here eventually, once I go through them all, but I wanted to go ahead and start writing before I forgot the minor details. If anyone has any questions, don't hesitate to ask. I may not be able to answer them, but I will definitely try my best. Thanks for reading!

[Texasopa]

GREAT start...

[ken85121]

Congratulations! Looking forward to hearing more :=)

[Clarea]

Nice start, following.

[rubiksgirl]

Great start, looking forward to reading more! Hubby and I will be on Enchantment in November for our anniversary :)

[sandebeach]

Congratulations on your wedding, and wishing you a wonderful honeymoon. I am enjoying reading your review!

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[mrsdurham]

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[iambumbo]

Congratulations on your wedding and enjoying the review. Always good to hear from beginner cruisers-- seems like so many posters have cruised a bunch of times that it's easy to forget the beginners' perspective!

[mrsdurham]

We woke up around 8:30 on Tuesday morning. I looked out the window and sure enough, we were in Nassau! I was really excited for this day for several reasons - 1) this was the first island with blue water & white sands that Andy had ever been to, 2) Nassau was one of the ports on my first cruise so I was anxious to see what had changed in eight years, and 3) Andy's cousin and his girlfriend were also going to be in Nassau on the Carnival Victory so we planned to meet up and spend the day with them. We quickly got ready and gathered our things & off the ship we went! It wasn't until we were off the ship and walking that we remembered that we completely forgot about going to eat breakfast. I guess you could say we were a little excited lol :D

 

Here are a few shots I snapped of us as we got off the ship

 

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After a few pics, we were on our way to spend the day at Junkanoo Beach! For those of you who haven't been to Junkanoo, it's a popular public beach that's about a 15 minute walk from the port. We decided to go there because we just wanted a relaxing beach day without having to pay a ton of money. We got to the beach at about 9 and were soon greeted by a woman from the Tiki Bikini Hut. She told us that we could purchase a package with two chairs, an umbrella, six drinks & six shots for $45. That sounded pretty good to us, so we bought it. Within five minutes, their staff had set up our chairs and umbrellas and we were ready to relax.

 

This was my view at 9:30 AM.. :)

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So we basically spent the rest of the day just hanging out, drinking & swimming. Around 11, we were both pretty hungry since had forgotten to eat breakfast so we decided to order some food. We both decided to order a plate of jerk chicken. It was really good, but kind of pricey. It was $10 each for basically a thigh and a leg, but it held us over so it was money well-spent. Our six drinks and shots were gone pretty quickly, we asked if we could buy the unlimited drink package. It's normally $30 a person (as much as you can drink!) but since we had already spent money, they gave it to us for only $20 which was awesome. Throughout the day they had different contests to keep everyone entertained. They did a hula hoop contest, a limbo contest, a singing contest, and a water balloon toss, each of which had a cash prize for winning. They were supposed to have a beer drinking contest, but they couldn't get enough people. My husband was very disappointed because I think that's one contest he could've won lol. Overall, it was a really great time and we've already decided to go back on our next trip to Nassau. Would definitely recommend to anyone just wanting a relaxing day without paying for a beach break. There for two other ships in port with us but it wasn't crowded.

 

Around 5, we decided to walk back to the ship and get ready for formal night since we made reservations for 6:30. I apologize ahead of time for not taking any food pics :( I told myself I would document all our foods because I love a review with some food porn, but I never took my phone to the dining room. We don't get on our phones during dinner at home, so I saw it no different when we were in a formal setting. We both agree that people are too obsessed with their phones plus we like to talk and enjoy each other, so that's why I didn't take my phone for food pics. But I am happy to say I can remember everything each of us had each night! For formal night, we kind of pigged out. For the starter, I ordered a lobster bisque and a shrimp cocktail. Andy ordered the escargot and the bay scallop gratin. Our servers were Socorro and Mirko, they were both excellent and went over the top to make our dinner special each night. Socorro always brought us something extra to try with each course. That night he brought an extra escargot and that's when I fell in love with them. We enjoyed the other starters as well. For the main, we both ordered the filet of beef tenderloin and it was absolute delicious. Socorro also brought us a shrimp ravioli to share it, which was also very good. For dessert, we both got the double strawberry cheesecake and he brought us a chocolate souffle to share. Loved the cheesecake, but we weren't crazy about the souffle. After dinner, we took some formal night pictures, which I ended up buying later on. Then we went to the show, Can't Stop the Rock. I liked it a lot, can't say the same for my husband lol. After that, we went to the Schooner Bar for a few drinks before we went back to the comedy show. My personal favorite drink from there was the John Collins. The comedy show was hilarious. Went back to Schooner bar afterwards and that's where we met our new friends from New Zealand. More on them later, but let's just say we all had a great time together for the duration of the week. We stayed until the Schooner Bar closed, then headed up to the Solarium for late night snacks. We had some more nachos, then headed back to the room. I'll stop here for tonight, tomorrow we will be in CocoCay! :cool:

[mrsdurham]

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[mrsdurham]

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[umlaut]

Eagerly awaiting the continuation. (:

[cathykb]

You two are a cute couple! Best wishes on your marriage!

 

Cathy

[breezy_carol]

Congratulations on your marriage.

 

Enjoying the review so far and waiting for more. I love positive reviews.

[fpcruiser]

Following to hear more!

[mrsdurham]

Hey guys! Sorry I've been gone for a few weeks. I've been very busy moving to Charlotte, North Carolina so I can start my first year of law school in a few weeks. Now that it's settled down a little bit, I wanted to finish up for everyone who has been following.

 

So here we go.. day 3!

 

We woke up a bit later than we had planned this morning, but we weren’t too disappointed as we had been exhausted the night before. After getting ready, we made sure to eat breakfast this day and went to the Windjammer. The breakfast was okay, nothing spectacular, but it filled us up. By then, it was about 11 so we decided to go wait on a tender. We only waited about 10 minutes for it to fill up, then we were off! Once we got to CocoCay, we got some drinks and grabbed a couple chairs. We sat for a few minutes, kind of clueless, because we didn’t really have anything planned. After a few minutes, Andy suggested snorkeling. I have to admit; I was a little bit nervous. He is scuba certified, so snorkeling is nothing for him. I’m not scared of fish or anything, I was more scared of seeing a shark or something, but I decided to go thinking it might be a great experience & I didn’t want my fears to hold me back. We went to the snorkel shack and rented the gear for $42/person. While I was nervous at first, I am so beyond great that I went because this was my favorite part of the entire honeymoon! We saw blue tangs, jellyfish, grouper, and a lot of other fish. They are two boats and plane sunken there and that’s where you see all of the fish. We were in the water snorkeling for over two hours, but it felt like 10 minutes. It was so awesome. I’m glad I overcame my fear because now I’ve decided to get scuba certified before our next cruise. Once we got out of the water, we realized that we’d missed the BBQ lunch on the island and basically everyone was heading back to the ship so we decided we would too. Once back on the ship, we went to the Windjammer for a late lunch since we were starving at that point. I think after that we just hung out and had a few drinks before dinner. For the starter this night I ordered shrimp cocktail and escargot again, Andy ordered a crab cake, a smoked duck, and an escargot. Socorro brought us an additional crab cake to share. Everything was really good. For the main, I got the chicken cordon bleu and Andy had the braised beef duo. Mine was alright, decent but nothing extravagant. Andy raved about how good his was. For dessert, I got the red berry tart and it was really good. Andy ordered the chocolate brownie from the kids menu. Socorro brought us the Rum Baba to share and I liked it so much I wished I had ordered it. After dinner, we went towards the back of the boat and took a few pictures before going back to the Schooner Bar for some more drinks.

 

Day 4 - Key West!

 

We woke up around 10 that morning, since we weren't in a huge hurry to get off the ship. Good thing we weren't because the immigration process took a while and we weren't able to get off the ship until 11:30. Once off the ship, we decide to take a short walk to the Florida Keys Eco Discovery Center since it was free and we had heard good things about it. It was a fun little thing to do, but it was about a 15 minute walk so I probably wouldn't do it again. It would definitely be fun for kids or really anyone interested in the ecosystem of the Keys. After that, we started to head back to the ship for two reasons. The first being it was blazing hot, nearly 100 degrees and the second being we wanted the ship to ourselves for a while. On the way back, we stopped and bought a $6 margarita flavored snowball and I swear that was the best $6 I've ever spent. We snapped a few pictures on the way back, then got back on the ship. We spent the next couple hours drinking alone in the Viking Crown Lounge. We had the place to ourselves and a wonderful view of the port, so it was really relaxing. For dinner that evening, the menu was pimento. For my appetizer I had shrimp cocktail and escargot again. I normally try to be more adventurous when it comes to food, but I just loved the escargot and couldn't seem to pass up the shrimp lol. Andy had the escargot and caprese salad, both of which he said were good. Socorro also brought us an arancini to try and we liked it. For the main I had the garlic tiger shrimp and they were pretty good. Andy had the salmon. We were also brought an extra lasagna to try. For dessert I had creme brulee, which surprisingly I wasn't a huge fan of. I did love the dessert sampler Andy got though. After dinner, we went to the gift shop to pick up some souvenirs. I ended up buying a purse that I had been talking about all week that was 60% off. Then we went to the Stage to Screen show. Loved it because it was about Broadway shows. We also went to the Quest and I definitely embarrassed myself lol but I'm not going to tell that story, told too many people already! After that we drank some more and just enjoyed the rest of the night. The next morning we arrived back in Miami and got off the ship :(

 

Overall, we had a wonderful cruise and are already planning the next one! If anyone has any questions, please let me know and I'll try my best to answer them. Thank you all for following and for all the nice comments. I'll definitely write another review after our next cruise!

[Bleueyes44]

Did I read that right, $42 per person to rent snorkel gear ? I better tell my grandson to bring his own gear when he cruises in Sept.

[maureencruiser]

Thanks for the review, you sure had a great time! I'm sorry about the hotel issues, but, I'm glad you didn't let them bring you down. You may be the first people in the history of cruising who forgot to eat! :D I agree about the escargot, I got them every night on my last RC cruise.

[baileymouse]

Great review! Best wishes for a long & happy life together!

[mooseman52b]

Glad to hear you had a nice honeymoons cruise.

 

I'm not sure where the Quality Inn that you stayed was located, but if you ever travel back to Miami stay on the east or south side of the Airport if you can't stay at the beach. Most of hotels west of the airport runway are not so nice.