Enchantment of the Seas Review

4.0 / 5.0
1,956 reviews

Royal Carribean Enchantment of the Seas vs. Carnival Pride

Review for the Bahamas Cruise on Enchantment of the Seas
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Mother & Daughter
6-10 Cruises • Age 60s

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Additional details

Sail Date: Feb 2012
Cabin: Inside Stateroom
Traveled with children

First some background: I'm a relatively "seasoned cruiser". This was my 6th cruise, having previously cruised with Norwegian (1), Royal Caribbean (1), Disney (1), and Carnival (2 times). We are from Rochester, NY area and typically cruise during our school's February break, which is the week of President's Day. For our February, 2011 cruise, my daughter and I took the Carnival Pride for a 7-day cruise out of Baltimore. It is an easy 6-hour drive from Rochester to Baltimore, and we agreed that for future cruises we would prefer to drive to Baltimore rather than fly to other ports. The Carnival Pride cruise was fantastic, but we wanted to give Royal Caribbean a try this year (having heard that it was "much better"). We were excited to find that the 10-day Royal Caribbean Enchantment of the Seas cruise was approx the same cost as the 7-day Carnival Pride cruise. The itineraries were similar, but the RC cruise also included stops in Key West and Coco Cay.

We booked our hotel thru Stay123.com. If you are driving, be sure to check out their website. We drove down on Friday, stayed at the Holiday Inn Express (on Russell Street, near Stadium) on Friday night, enjoyed a very nice complimentary breakfast, shuttle to/from port, and 10 days of gated parking for under $100. You can't beat that, since 10 days of parking at the port would cost more than $100. The only downside is that there was a bit of a wait for the shuttle, but nothing we couldn't deal with. Overall, they seemed pretty organized -- better than our experience at the Comfort Inn in 2011. The driver took care of transferring our luggage to the ship, so all we had to lug on board was our carry-on with a few essentials.

Boarding the ship was quick and easy. Although the website tells you that you can't board before 1:00, you can actually board much sooner. Because I had cruised with RC once before, I was considered a "crown & anchor gold member", which meant expedited check-in. We were whizzed right through while others had to wait in line. Amazingly, the entire process took less than 15 minutes. If you have read other reviews for this cruise, you may already know that our itinerary was altered due to engine problems. We were late leaving Baltimore, and arrived a day late to Cape Canaveral. We were not able to go to Key West or Coco Cay, and our stay at Nassau was altered. Once we learned that we were getting a full refund, I was VERY HAPPY to have a "free vacation" and had no complaints. We simply decided to make the best of it, and come back again next year. The weather was cold/windy for most of the way to Cape Canaveral, but we had nice beach weather for Cocoa Beach and Nassau. Out of the 10 day cruise, we had 3-4 days of warm weather (sufficient to head back home with a bit of a sun burn). You could make the case that if we had stuck with our original itinerary, we may have had more time in warmer weather, but all in all, we couldn't complain.

Cabin Review

Inside Stateroom

Cabin Q

Adjacent to utility room, bumping against wall woke us up around 6 am every morning.

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