This is a review of our family vacation cruise on May 22, 2006. We cruised on Royal Caribbeans Enchantment of the Seas. I am a nurse, my husband is an electrician, and we have 2 daughters, ages 10 and 13. We live in Florida and usually vacation in the NC Mountains but decided to try something different. This was our first cruise and it was fantastic! We chose Royal Caribbean over Carnival because of the party rep of Carnival. We like to party, but we also like to have family time and an appropriate atmosphere for our girls.
Embarkation was a breeze, we stayed at Amerisuites in Fort Lauderdale the night before and took their free shuttle bus to Port Everglades (we got the Valuetrips.com rate of $69, worked perfectly). We arrived at about 11:30 and were on the ship by noon. I was totally amazed at the sight of the ship. I have read and studied cruising extensively since booking this cruise and all of the boards say how this is a midsize or even small ship at 90,000 tons. WOW, did it sure look HUGE to me, and SO beautiful.
Day one, we had lunch in the Windjammer while waiting for the cabins to open. We found our cabin 8015 without trouble open at 1pm as promised. We had the Family Interior Stateroom, there is only one on the ship. It is 260 sq feet. It was very nice and situated in the midst of all the grand and royal suites. We had a fridge , robes and slippers. It had the one king bed, a little room off to side with 2 pullman beds that were bunkbed style, a full couch that folds out if you need it to, and 2 chairs with a small table. Everything looked very clean and new. The bathroom had a shower(no tub) with a door instead of a curtain and all designs appeared contemporary. We spent the day on the pool deck and exploring the ship. There were always plenty of chairs around the pool. It had one salt and one freshwater pool, four Jacuzzis and the splash deck. A great pool deck band played great music of the island variety and always seemed to be playing at the right times.