JamieLogical's Live from the Enchanted Princess 8/10

[Wishing on a star]

Great post...  Welcome Aboard!!!

The flowers are beautiful!   Was your husband able to order the specific flowers that he wanted?  The yellow roses?

 

If your 14 day is a back-to-back, that means this also a 7-day.

Kids are back in school this week, here.   But maybe there are families who are wanting to take advantage of the end of Summer?

[Crusin Karen]

Enjoying this! I’ll be sailing on enchanted in September from Red Hook. I’ve only sailed CCL for the past 17 years or so so I’m feeling like a newbie! Roses are beautiful! What cabin is that? 

[JamieLogical]

5 hours ago, RNRcruisers said:

Interesting bundle idea, thanks for the excellent details. In the other hand, ONE pair of shoes? Haha that would not work for me.

 

Nice stateroom! I’ve wanted to take a Southern Carib cruise for ages. Following with interest. 

 

I had my Merrell hiking shoes/boots on my feet for going into port/excursions and a pair of sandals in my backpack that pull double-duty as both my pool deck shows and my "dressy" shoes for formal nights.

[JamieLogical]

4 hours ago, arizonaperson said:

@JamieLogical

I am enjoying the following along and your blog and your pictures are great.
I thought when I read your bundling technique earlier this week that you only took a carry-on suitcase and that’s it. But you mentioned that three out of four suitcases were in the hallway when you got off the elevator going to your cabin, so I guess you take more than just the bundled carry-on?

 

I also mentioned a few times that we were bringing a shared checked bag on this trip. In that bag, I had all my socks, underwear, bras, and swim tops, which is why my bundle was a little smaller than normal. The other two suitcases mentioned in my post about 'four suitcases' were my husband's carry-on sized roller bag and his backpack. He always drops his backpack with the porters on cruises so he doesn't have to lug it around. I am not that brave as all my most critical stuff (medications, electronics, cash, etc.) are in my backpack. So between the two of us on this cruise we had two backpacks, to carry-on roller bags, and one slightly larger shared rollerbag.

[JamieLogical]

1 hour ago, Wishing on a star said:

Great post...  Welcome Aboard!!!

The flowers are beautiful!   Was your husband able to order the specific flowers that he wanted?  The yellow roses?

 

If your 14 day is a back-to-back, that means this also a 7-day.

Kids are back in school this week, here.   But maybe there are families who are wanting to take advantage of the end of Summer?

 

This is not a B2B. This is a 14-day repositioning cruise from FLL to NYC.

[JamieLogical]

45 minutes ago, Crusin Karen said:

Enjoying this! I’ll be sailing on enchanted in September from Red Hook. I’ve only sailed CCL for the past 17 years or so so I’m feeling like a newbie! Roses are beautiful! What cabin is that? 

 

The cabin is a mini-suite.

[tcmagnum]

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

 

The cabin is a mini-suite.

That was my question also.

That cabin looks great!!
After the cruise, could you post locations, pros/cons, and maybe room number?

[JGmf]

28 minutes ago, tcmagnum said:

That was my question also.

That cabin looks great!!
After the cruise, could you post locations, pros/cons, and maybe room number?

 

@JamieLogical Does the sofa convert into a separate pull-out bed? 

 

I'm asking for a friend who is bringing his mom on a cruise and would rather have the curtain divider thingy set-up instead of two twin beds...

 

[Id rather be diving]

I’ve read elsewhere that the conversion of Take 5 is to a non smoking extension of the casino.  Is that correct?  If so, can you tell me what kind of machines and tables are in there?  I’m bummed Take 5 is gone.  I loved the quiet area to listen to jazz.

[reedprincess]

36 minutes ago, JGmf said:

 

@JamieLogical Does the sofa convert into a separate pull-out bed? 

 

I'm asking for a friend who is bringing his mom on a cruise and would rather have the curtain divider thingy set-up instead of two twin beds...

 

No, the sofa is not a pullout sofa bed..

It is a flip over single bed. 

You'd have the curtain divider, but it's still a single twin bed .

 

[Teechur]

50 minutes ago, reedprincess said:

No, the sofa is not a pullout sofa bed..

It is a flip over single bed. 

You'd have the curtain divider, but it's still a single twin bed .

 

reedprincess Thanks for including this picture. We will be on the Majestic next month and my grandsons will have this setup. I will show it to them.

[Wishing on a star]

Ohhhh,  this is the repo...  Yes, might be surprising to see any number of kids, then!

[JGmf]

3 hours ago, Id rather be diving said:

I’ve read elsewhere that the conversion of Take 5 is to a non smoking extension of the casino.  Is that correct?  If so, can you tell me what kind of machines and tables are in there?  I’m bummed Take 5 is gone.  I loved the quiet area to listen to jazz.

Only machines, including video poker, but no tables.  

[Thrak]

5 hours ago, Id rather be diving said:

I’ve read elsewhere that the conversion of Take 5 is to a non smoking extension of the casino.  Is that correct?  If so, can you tell me what kind of machines and tables are in there?  I’m bummed Take 5 is gone.  I loved the quiet area to listen to jazz.

 

Actually having a jazz venue was amazing. On our Eclipse cruise my wife and I were in Take 5 every night. It was wonderful. How incredibly sad that some complete bozo (JP?) decided to make it part of the casino instead of a wonderfully different music venue.

[Id rather be diving]

I totally agree with you.  We spent so much time in there on the Sky and the Discovery.  I’m so disappointed.  And then to just put one armed bandit machines in there adds insult to injury.

[suzyed]

17 hours ago, JGmf said:

 

I was on the Enchanted last month, and then April before that.  Same excellent, smooth, and efficient embarkation for me too.  I remain very impressed with both Princess and the port operations in FLL. 

 

As you know @JamieLogical, it's a far cry from the clunky NYC embarkation experience with NCL.

Ditto in June...easy peasy!

[JamieLogical]

Today was our first full sea day. Our room service breakfast arrived at exactly 6:30. We had selected 6:30-7:00. Since I am going to be working most mornings on this trip, we decided to just stick to the 6:30 wake-up time from my real life. I had my breakfast out on the balcony, but I was having trouble getting my laptop connected to wifi out there, so I ended up coming back inside. Once on the wifi, I worked on my blog and my husband played his Steam Deck for a long time. We were clearly going to miss MDR breakfast so we decided to lazily take our showers and get dressed for the day. By the time we were done with that, we realized that neither of us really wanted breakfast at all (besides my pizza muffin and his half a danish from room service), so we grabbed a board game and headed down to Good Spirits.

 

At Good Spirits, I went up to the bar to order our first round of drinks while my husband set up our game. At the bar, I ended up sitting right next to the same couple we had met there right when we boarded. The wife overheard me ordering a Champagne & Chambord and decided she really liked the sound of that, so she was going to order one next.

 

We played through our first round of Splendor Duel and then I was poking my phone and checking Cruise Critic. Someone posted to our roll call asking what date/ time the M&G was and I replied that it was in an hour at Take Five. I then decided to double-check and found the Google Sheet that the M&G signup was in and lo and behold, I was wrong. The M&G was right then! We quickly packed up our stuff, grabbed the second round of drinks that had just been delivered to our table, and headed over to Take Five, only a couple of minutes late.

 

The M&G was well attended. We got to make nametags for ourselves as we walked in and then we all just loitered and chatted. There were three officers there. I believe they were the Guest Services Manager, the Hotel Manager, and the Food & Beverage Manager, but don’t quote me on that. I didn’t get a chance to talk to any of them, because we were so busy chatting with our fellow Cruise Critics. We had a nice time and ended up staying way past the end time of 11:00, chatting with @Canuker and his wife.

 

At that point, it was time to decide what to do about lunch. They were doing Pub Lunch in the MDR, but we decided to do Pub Lunch in the actual pub. So we headed to O’Malley’s. This time I got the onion soup and the other burger option (the Blue Cheese one). My husband got the crab dip and decided to try the fish & chips. My Blue Cheese burger came without any blue cheese on it, but that was the only snafu and was quickly remedied. My husband said the fish & chips were okay, but still likes the stew better. I suspect that he will be ordering the stew for the remainder of this trip now that he has tied two other items and has been less impressed.

 

After lunch, we, of course, headed back to our room for a nap. I napped HARD and didn’t even notice when my husband got up and left the room. I woke up around 2:30 and tried to text him, but my phone didn’t seem to be working. The text wouldn’t go through and I couldn’t get on any websites.

 

I headed down to International Cafe for my afternoon coffee and then used the app to stalk my husband, who was at the Crown Grill bar. Once settled in there, I rebooted my phone and it was working fine, but my husband was having the same problem with his and rebooting didn’t help. We ignored that for the time being and played another round of Splendor Duel. I won that round, making us even for the trip so far. Also, while we were seated at the Crown Grill bar, my husband attempted to order us some drinks via the app and it worked! It took a long time, but we did actually receive our drinks. After that, I decided that I wanted to get my casino-ing done early in the day so that I could enjoy the evening activities. So, I headed off to the casino and left instructions for my husband to find me there later since his phone wasn’t working, so he couldn’t text me.

 

I then proceeded to rapidly lose my daily budget. On the bright side, I actually managed to acquire a drink from one of the roving servers, which I have never been able to do successfully in the casino on this ship. My husband managed to find me as I was cashing out my $.74 or whatever paltry amount I had left for the day.

 

I don’t remember the exact sequence of events after that, but I know we ended up in Crooners for some pre-dinner drinks and a quick chat with Bon. We then headed over to Ocean Terrace for dinner. I got the Octopus Nigiri and the Spice Salmon Roll. The Octopus Nigiri was AMAZING and I will order that every day for the rest of the cruise! The salmon roll was also good, but I had tried that on our May sailing, so that wasn’t a surprise.

 

After dinner, we decided it seemed like great hot tub weather, so we went back to the room and got changed into our swimsuits. We picked up some drinks from The Mix bar up on deck and then headed to the hot tubs overlooking The Retreat pool. There was one gentleman in the hot tub when we arrived, but he didn’t stay much longer after we arrived. We stayed for quite a long while. I found it interesting that the jets never timed out and there wasn’t a button we needed to press to restart them.

 

We went back to the room and changed. I decided I desperately needed a pizza muffin, so I stopped by the International Cafe while my husband headed to Princess Live where we planned to watch Karaoke, but it turned out we had the location wrong. Karaoke was being held in the Vista Lounge, so we moved over there. We ended up not staying long though, because my husband’s tolerance for bad singing is way lower than mine. We then headed to the theater, thinking the Adele tribute show started at 9:00, but we were wrong. It didn’t actually start until 9:30. So, we headed up to the buffet for some early late-night snack. We both got some fries from the Kids’ Corner and munched on those. My husband grabbed a brownie and some cookies to drop off back at the room.

 

The turnout for the Adele show was pretty nuts. There were people just standing in the aisles. The singer did a fantastic job. I was skeptical because Adele is Adele for a reason. It was going to be pretty hard to do her voice any justice, but this woman nailed it. The only thing I didn’t love was that she talked a lot between songs about stuff I really didn’t care about. I would have preferred less talking and more singing. During one of her long monologues, I lost my husband, as he got up to head off to bed.

 

After the show, I went up to Slice for my late-night pizza, then back to the room for bed.

 

Day's Drinks:

 

2x Champagne & Chambord from Good Spirits

Champagne & Chambord from Take Five

Golden Gorse from O’Malley's 

Coffee w/ Bailey's from International Cafe

Vodka & Ginger Ale from Ocean Now

Double Vodka & Ginger Ale from the Casino

French Martini from Crooners 

Mango & Strawberry Daiquiri from The Mix

 

Edited August 12 by JamieLogical

[JamieLogical]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 12 by JamieLogical

[WisCruiser2]

Interesting that you had your M&G in Take 5 - I would think they'd want all the revenue from the slot machines in there and not close it off to those wanting to gamble smoke-free!

P.S. I'm so glad we got to be on Enchanted before they made the change, loved the jazz trio that was on our sailing!

[Torfamm]

11 hours ago, Thrak said:

 

Actually having a jazz venue was amazing. On our Eclipse cruise my wife and I were in Take 5 every night. It was wonderful. How incredibly sad that some complete bozo (JP?) decided to make it part of the casino instead of a wonderfully different music venue.

It was also the only bar/lounge space that was enclosed. Spaces like the Crowne Grill Bar, Crooners, and Bellini on the Enchanted make me feel like I'm sitting in a train station or hotel lobby.  The Vista lounge is separate, but is also more of a theater feel than a bar space. 

[Wishing on a star]

Great blog!!!!   

You mentioned cashing out at the casino..  (too bad it was such a paltry amount!)

Sorry if I show my ignorance.  But, I am wondering exactly how that works to go in and play the Casino, and they give you any money when you cash out?

 

 

[Scottdalfonso]

I'm taking food notes. So far I know to try the cookies,  the stew,  the pizza bite thingies and possibly the blue cheese burger. 

[JamieLogical]

1 hour ago, WisCruiser2 said:

Interesting that you had your M&G in Take 5 - I would think they'd want all the revenue from the slot machines in there and not close it off to those wanting to gamble smoke-free!

P.S. I'm so glad we got to be on Enchanted before they made the change, loved the jazz trio that was on our sailing!

 

The slot machines were still operating. They had the bar/lounge area roped off for us.

[JamieLogical]

1 hour ago, Wishing on a star said:

Great blog!!!!   

You mentioned cashing out at the casino..  (too bad it was such a paltry amount!)

Sorry if I show my ignorance.  But, I am wondering exactly how that works to go in and play the Casino, and they give you any money when you cash out?

 

 

 

When using the slot machines, you can put cash in them or transfer money from your room to your "casino bank." When done at a machine, you press the "cash out" button and the remaining money goes back into your casino bank. I personally then like to go to the cashier each day and cash out my casino bank for actual cash, which I then put in my stateroom safe. I don't like to roll any balance over from one day to the next, because I like to stick to a daily budget.

[voljeep]

2 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

When using the slot machines, you can put cash in them or transfer money from your room to your "casino bank." When done at a machine, you press the "cash out" button and the remaining money goes back into your casino bank. I personally then like to go to the cashier each day and cash out my casino bank for actual cash, which I then put in my stateroom safe. I don't like to roll any balance over from one day to the next, because I like to stick to a daily budget.

seems like an easy IT fix - 2 step process at cash out time - first money transferred from room account goes back into room account - second - any remaining balance in the casino bank is eligible for withdrawal as cash.

 

nah - that would be too easy, huh?