It was a hectic morning, even though, or probably because the port is only 45 minutes drive away from the house, my partner decided that important remodeling decisions need to happen this morning. Once that crisis was over, Richard, our neighbor and his daughter who are also going to be on the cruise drove to the port. For Saturday after Thanksgiving, the drive was uneventful – no traffic problem in sight. 45 easy minutes later we were at the port, parking the car. We did have luggage tags, but once we figured that out (courtesy of a nice parking attended who went to bring them to us) we started the check-in process. Being an elite on Celebrity cruises has its perks, and I am a Platinum of Royal Caribbean because of that. That means I had priority check-in and fast boarding. The waiting area in the terminal is nothing to write home about, and they very very sensitive about the use of cell-phones, for some reason. Be it as it may by 11:45 I was on board. By 12:15 all of our party was on board, and we went to have a lunch at the Lido. Enchantment of the Seas was lengthen some years ago (yes, they cut it in half and stuck a whole new middle section in). But as the number of cabins increased, there was no increase in the number of seats in the restaurants or the theater. On embarking day it showed as the Lido was packed to the gills. By 1:30 everyone was allowed to their rooms. Unfortunately, my luggage had not arrived yet. We went to the sail away; we went to the gym ruffle; we walked around a little – and my luggage is nowhere to be found. Going down to the confiscated luggage area did not discover the luggage (as expected). It was 6:00 already, and no one could tell me where the luggage is. The front desk was useless, so I resorted to the time-proven tactic of making a pest of oneself. I just plumped my ass on the stairs on floor one where the luggage is brought in and looked everyone in the eyes. It was very uncomfortable 45 minutes for me, but much more for senior staff that was around that started to make phone calls to discover where my luggage is. It has arrived around 7:00 in the evening. Now that is what I call totally unacceptable. My neighbor’s luggage had arrived before 3:00 and it was on the same cart. I completely do not understand how the system works. In order to save money I guess there is no bar-code system so no one actually knows where one luggage is.
We ate dinner every day at 8:00 as part of my-time-dining option. We had probably one of the best waiters on board Ehran from Turkey. The man is a ball of energy and fun. Unfortunately, the my-time-dining for two is very limited in its sitting area which are not that desirable at all. Very close and confined by the service station that leaves the whole section feeling crumped and uninviting. Food in general was good. Major disappointment were the desert. On the 11-day cruise, there was only one day that the deserts were extremely good. Other days they were barely passable or worse.
Now having getting back from all-gay cruise couple of weeks before, it was a strange cruise indeed. All my previous none charted cruises were on celebrity, which has quite different demographics. Maybe it was the port of call, maybe it was the ship, maybe it was the cruise line – but this cruise was not even comparable to celebrity cruises. In addition, the two days sail from Baltimore, and the two days sail back to Baltimore were too much. This is strange, because on the charted cruises they are my favorite days. Maybe it was the weather; maybe it was the rough seas, maybe because they were just boring.
One thing that did surprise me for the better was the quality of the singers and dancers on the ship. Usually, the level is just barely adequate – but this time most of the singers could really sing quite well; most of the dancer could really dance (and you could see the classical training they had). The troop put on two shows, which are the standard Royal Caribbean shows, but they were quite good and entertaining. The other acts on the boat were not technically good, but they know how to grab the attention of the crowd which made the show as a whole entertaining.
The ports of calls were the usual Caribbean variety – San Juan, St. Thomas, Samana and Labadee. The only problem with San Juan was that we arrived only in the afternoon. The ship was cleared around 4:00-4:30 which left a very short daylight time to enjoy the city. In St. Thomas we took an excursion directly to St. John and spend a couple of hours on the beach which was just what I needed. A perfect day and a nice beach to boot.
In Samana, we took a private excursion through Tour Samana with Terry. Despite being suspicious that this port is probably the worst one ever, it turned out to be one of the best excursions days ever. Terry was a pleasure to deal with through e-mails and the guys were waiting exactly where they said they will be. Terry was in the port as well greeting the guest on the different excursions. We chose to take the horse ride trip which was a blast. After about 45 minutes on the horse we stopped at a local hut/shop, where local food was presented for tasting plus information given on it as well as local merchandise. It was very low-key and no pressure to buy anything. Following the stop we continued for about another 60 minutes on the horse, alongside the river, crossing the river multiple times and even a short while in the river. The ride ended with galloping on the beach with the sea in front of us – perfect. Following the included lunch, we went to the waterfall for a quick swim. On the way back to the ship money was collected – up to this point no money exchanged hand and no deposit was required. All in all, a perfect day.
Labadee is just one big beach, after a couple of hours on the beach I opted just to get back to the ship. I could skip Labadee altogether.
There was a big mix-up with the gratuities. As my time dining it was supposed to be paid. Every time I checked with guest services they said it was not, and every time I’ve submitted the form they said it was. What they did in the end is to charge it to the credit card with which I originally paid for the cruise, and not the one that was given at check in (it never showed up on the bill). Which is not the way I wanted it to happen. No one there could seem to give me a straight answer of what is going on and what had happened.
All in all, it was OK, but just OK vacation. Will I do it again? Probably only on Celebrity.
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