Dear wife and I have now completed eight cruises, mostly with Royal Caribbean, experiencing both their smaller and (at the time) largest vessels. Having lived abroad, we consider ourselves highly experienced (and frugal) travelers with the ability to adapt when challenges pop up.

This was our first cruise on Enchantment. We had sailed on her standard-size Vision-class sister, Grandeur of the Seas, twice. She does not carry the toys that Freedom and Oasis class megaships do, or even those of the between-class ships. She is due to freshen at the shipyard in December 2012. There is minor wear-and-tear apparent if one looks hard, but otherwise she presents a shipshape image. Crew was regularly engaged in maintenance work, painting and polishing.

Baltimore is a fifteen minute drive from home. (BWI airport is about a half-hour drive from the port.) It was easy embarkation, as usual. Happily, the Windjammer had open tables available at noon, which is a first in my experience. It was also an apparent indicator that this was going to be a light passenger load on a pre-holiday run. (I understood passenger load that cruise was about 2000, which was on the "low side" from the ship's usual number.) Read more