Judy

Age: 46
Occupation: Librarian
Number of Cruises: 2
Cruise Line: Royal Caribbean
Ship: Majesty of the Seas
Sailing Date: May 30th, 2005
Itinerary: Bahamas

I had always wanted to take a Royal Caribbean cruise after hearing about others. Our first cruise was on Carnival's Fascination last year, this cruise was SO MUCH better, especially in terms of breakfast and lunch food. Dinners, surprisingly, were comparable. The crew enjoy their work much more and it shows!

We flew from Boston to Ft. Lauderdale since we flew Jet Blue. Whatever you do, fly into Miami. We had very smooth connections, but we wouldn't chance it again. I had filled out lots of Royal Caribbean info online, but still had a long check in because the people in front of us were having language problems. Think RC should have some international consultants so that everyone else doesn't have to wait. Our luggage didn't arrive until 6:30 that night, even though we got on the ship at 1:30. My husband was freaking! So know that it can happen. The first meal we had was an amazing buffet lunch with chilled peach soup, compared with the rubbery hamburger we had on Carnival.

Muster was normal, our station was way far from our room, but that is typical. Our room was good, get AT LEAST a porthole- It is well worth the extra money. It gives light to your room and it is cool to see the ports as the ship pulls in. We were on the 3rd deck, which gave us a great view.

Dinner was great, we ate in the Mikado dining room. Food was always good, not great. The service was wonderful. We had Melvin as waiter and Jacob as head waiter. Attentive, but not obnoxious. We sat with 2 other couples. We had a couple from our state (MA) and Scotland. They were great people and we looked forward each night to comparing stories on what we did that day.

I spent a while ironing as I knew that RC does not allow irons in the rooms (nor did Carnival). At least Carnival had a laundry room where you could press your stuff. RC charged you to press it and you had to get it out by 9 that morning to get it back by 5.It wasn't that high a price, but a hassle that shouldn't happen on a line like RC.Our stateroom attendant, Glenda was wonderful. She went the extra mile. Having your room made up twice a day and fresh towels is a luxury you get used to quick!!

Nassau was OK. I would NEVER want to stay there, but this gave me enough of a glimpse. Did the Historic harbor cruise( a joke, about 15 minutes) but included an excellent tour of the Atlantis resort, which has an excellent aquarium, let's not fool ourselves, I saw the resort on Oprah years ago and wanted to check it out. One warning, take pictures as soon as you see an opportunity, our weather was in and out and I missed some pictures as I had an impatient husband!! I also waited to take some pictures of the ship on Thursday, when we were totally rained out!! The straw markets were awful, I thought, but the shopping district FAR better than Cozumel! You can get a lot of the same stuff, save the fake designer purses on the ship!

Coco Cay was great, but the weather intervened. We were on the island for about 1 1/2 hours when it started pouring rain! They do have a great bbq lunch (ribs a must) and try the Cocoloco- basically an pina colada, powerful and yummy. Wish I had taken picture when I got there. There were plenty of seats to go around. We got a floating mat. We never got in the water, but they were a great pad for the chairs! The rest rooms were very clean. They had some free water further down by the Willie's place bar.

I would take another cruise just to get another shot at this island. Use 30 sunscreen, the sun is HOT and there is shade, but not much near the beautiful lagoons where most chairs were.

One reason we went on this cruise was to spend more time at Key West. The schedule says you get off there at 10, but doesn't tell you that there is a 2 hour long customs procedure that everyone (including staff) has to go through and no one can leave the ship until EVERYONE is cleared! This was not the first time we left before the ship schedule indicated. So we lost 1 1/2 hours and all hope of sunshine. It started pouring 10 minutes after we got off the boat. We went to the Truman White house, very interesting and the Mel Fisher museum (snore, skip that unless you are really into shipwrecks). Lots of people just drank all that day.

Entertainment on ship- we were looking to do a little slow romantic dancing, I watched Love Boat in the 80s. Alas, that was not to be. Lots of Latin, Karaoke (yecch_ and bad disco. During the Captain's reception, there was a bit, if you wanted to get on stage. We had trouble finding this on our last cruise too.

Getting off the ship was fine. We had tons of time to spare, so of course our color was called first. We went when we wanted to since our flight was hours later.

I would have liked a day at sea to relax, but all in all, loved the cruise and would go back on Royal Caribbean in a heartbeat. Enjoy!!

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