Cabin Review

I'm pretty sure 2508 is generally considered a "less desirable" cabin because it is all the way forward and has two portholes instead of a larger window. However, I booked it intentionally because I thought it would be nice and quiet (no screaming kids running past) and easy for my daughter to find her way back to (just keep going all the way down).

In that way I was right - this was a wonderful quiet room while we were in port and slightly larger than the other ocean view rooms - we had a loveseat instead of just a chair. The portholes were large enough that I didn't feel cheated out of a window and they are recessed outward a bit with something like a "bay window" - my daughter would jump up here to look out, but in general, there's a nice ledge of extra space there to store things.

Based on what I read about cruises, I was hoping for lots of towel animals and was a little disappointed when I didn't initially find any. But Natalia, our cabin steward, did end up making us a bunny and a puppy later on without us even having to ask, which was a really nice surprise.

The bathroom wasn't as tiny as I had prepared myself for, but the showering experience was as awful as others have described. By day 3, I did finally figure out how to position the adjustable shower so it didn't spray all over the room and so I didn't have to hold it, although there wasn't a good way to turn to shave my legs. The biggest problem was not the horrible shower (the hand-held kind) or the shower curtain, but the water temperature. The hottest it would go was barely above lukewarm and I really missed taking hot showers. If I had hot water, I would have given the shower experience a pass, but it was bad enough that I would need to think hard before booking the Enchantment again.

Otherwise, the beds were very comfortable. No refrigerator in the room, but I asked the cabin steward for ice just once - and she replenished it for us twice a day, every day, without us asking again. This was handy because as the water didn't get very hot, it also didn't get very cold either, and we found ourselves drinking a lot of water in the humid weather.

Speaking of humidity - the room became very humid and sticky when in port but was comfortable when we were at sea.

On a scale of 1-10, I'd give engine noise a 6-7. This was only an issue when we were arriving or leaving port. It was loud enough to wake us up (not fun when you're arriving on the last day before dawn) but it wasn't a problem otherwise - not deafeningly loud, and was sort of a nice alert that we were about to leave/arrive and we would look out the window to watch the ship sail away. For instance, on day 4, we were in Key West from 10 am to 6 pm - so we had engine noise at 9 am and at 6 pm, and it was no problem at these times of day. So you may want to consider your itinerary when deciding if the noise is an issue.

The porthole windows had condensation on them through a good portion of the cruise which meant the view wasn't crystal clear, but we would still see out okay. I would have rated the cabin a 4 if we had been able to take hot showers. To get a 5, it would have needed better temperature control (there is air conditioning but we had it turned all the way up and it was still sometimes sticky and warm), a refrigerator, a clear view, and slightly less engine noise... but the noise and no fridge were expected.