Jennifer M

Age: 32
Occupation: Computer Support Tech
Number of Cruises: This was my 4th
Cruise Line: Royal Caribbean
Ship: Majesty of the Seas
Sailing Date: September 24th, 2004
Itinerary: Bahamas

Was a little nervous that I had not received cruise docs 1-week prior – called RCCL and learned that they do electronic documents now! Worked out wonderful! Printed everything out from my computer at home! Received an email 3 days before the trip modifying our itinerary. Coco Cay was no longer on the itinerary due to damage from Frances, but we were now having an overnight stay in Nassau. I sailed with my husband a 2 friends on the Majesty of the Seas out of Miami. We came in to Miami a day early, rented a car, and stayed at the Hotel Riu on Collins Drive – Hotel was beautiful, but had a very musty smell to it. Weather in Miami was beautiful, but Hurricane Jeanne was knocking at the door. Called RCCL around noon to see if there were any itinerary changes as Jeanne had made a U-turn and was heading back for the Bahamas. RCCL informed me that we were going to be heading to Key West rather than the Bahamas.

We parked at the port on Friday – Incredibly easy to find the port and to find parking. Parking was $12 a day – paid at the end of the trip. Some ports we have been to require a pre-pay for parking. Checked in around 1:30. Check in was extremely smooth. I did not see a duty free shop in the port as I have seen in other ports. We were at dock 5.

We got a super deal on our cruise on Deck 2 outside cabin. Cabin was smaller than the other ships we sailed on ( RCCL Sovereign of the Seas, RCCL Nordic Empress and Disney Wonder), but it was definitely large enough for 2 people to do what they need to do – sleep, change, shower. Bed was made of 2 smaller beds pushed together. Slept TERRIBLE the first night as I kept falling in the crack between the beds! I made my husband sleep there the next 2 nights and I slept great on the outside end! Shower was a little small for my husband. He is 6”3 and 225 and it was near to impossible for him to turn and navigate around the shower. Saw Harry Potter 3 in English, Spanish, Italian, French and Portugese on the in room TV. Not much else on other than cruise information.

We did not see our cabin steward a whole lot on this sailing. Don’t know if we just spent that much time up on Deck or if they were laying low. We did get a towel animal on night two. We are Gold Crown and Anchor Club members and received coupon books the first night for 2for1 drinks, casino match play, shop discounts and more. The second night we received a Crown and Anchor commemorative embroidered Majesty of the Seas cosmetic/shaving tote– very nice and unexpected!

Dinners were nice. Food was good – but I had better on other sailings. Chicken was a little dry and the steak came out VERY undercooked each time. We had Italian Night the first night, International Night the second night and French night on the third night. Windjammer was nice as usual. Pizza was not very good.

Pool was crowded, but fun. It was a sell out. A very diverse group of sailors this trip…. all ages! Nice to see. We met a lot of wonderful people from all over the world. I would have liked to seen the band play a little more. Seemed to have more recorded music playing than usual – especially at our day at sea. Bar service was a little overdone in the pool area. Waiters were really pushy in selling drinks around the pool. One must have walked by at least every 2 minutes, but not a lot of people cleaning the ship. Saw cans, cups, napkins and other trash blowing around the deck quite frequently. In the past, there were more people on top of cleaning the ship as they went rather than selling drinks.

We had to leave Key West 6 hours early due to the incoming winds set off by Jeanne and spent Sunday 5 miles off the coast of Cuba. I had never been to Key West so that was a pleasant port of call. Not what I expected. I was expecting a perfect little resort town. The port was BEAUTIFUL! But some of the shops and bars on Duvall Street were questionable. Did enjoy some beverages and a bite to eat at Sloppy Joes.

We did have a problem with our key/purchase card. 3 times on our day at sea we were told we had to go to the pursers desk to ‘activate’ our card. Each time we went down there we were told our card looked fine and should work. Really became a pain in the butt to leave the sun and pool and go wait in line as well as an embarrassment. We were in the Schooner bar after dinner watching football, and we were told it had to be activated – the line at the purser’s desk was at least 50 deep. Some wonderful man next to us overheard us and bought us our drinks.

Watching sports was a bit of a challenge. We are big football fans, and found many others on the ship that were as well. No sports were playing on Sunday in the “Sports” bar – we could only get updates from the CNN ticker. Finally in the Schooner Lounge we were able to watch Sunday Night Football on ESPN Espanol.

Came to a very crowded Miami Port. They shut down the port on Friday after we left and it did not reopen until Monday. We were at dock 5 and had to walk a while to get to the parking garage as 4 other ships were in port as well that morning. Due to the small size of the dock, they asked us to carry our own luggage off rather than have them deliver it to the dock.

Over the entire cruise was nice, but I have seen better service out of Royal Caribbean Staff. Captain was very informative with the conditions of “Jeanine” (Jeanne). He did announce on Sat night that due to the conditions and the itinerary changes we would be getting an onboard credit! Each cabin was given an onboard credit of $100. Nice gesture – covered lots of those Miami Vices! (Try one! YUMMY) and Coco Loco’s

I would DEFINITELY cruise with RCCL again….I just get more critical the more experienced I get!

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