Royal Caribbean's Majesty of the Seas Cruise Ship

MAJESTY OF THE SEAS

Our very first cruise that we ever went on, was Royal Caribbean's beautiful Majesty of the Seas. Come along with me, as I discuss what it was like on our very first cruise.

EMBARKATION: We arrived around noon. Getting on the ship went very smoothly. Was on the ship in a matter of minutes.

SHIP INFO: Majesty was just as beautiful this time as she was the first time we sailed on her.

STATEROOM: We were already aware that the staterooms on Majesty are very small, and with us having 2 adults and 2 teenagers in the same room, it made it even smaller. But we adjusted and coped and everything worked out fine. Since my husband and I were up earlier than the kids, then we were able to shower and get out of the room, to allow them time to shower and get dressed. Then we just met in Windjammers from breakfast.

ACTIVITIES: We did not hear the numerous announcements of BINGO this time as we did the last. They had Bingo, but just didn't seem to push it in your face this time. The midnight buffet that they had by poolside the one night was nice. They had music playing, and dancing, and food. Not a large variety, but they at least had something out there for you to munch on.

SERVICE: Our stateroom attendant was nice, and made sure that we had ice, even though our family that was in another room indicated to me that they never had ice. We just asked him when we first arrived at the room if he would put ice in our collapsible cooler and he said that he would, and he did the entire cruise. We learned from being on Navigator of the Seas that it's best to bring a collapsible cooler when the room doesn't have refrigerators, or fridges that work, because sometimes the stateroom attendants seem to forget to fill up that ice bucket in your room. We had towel animals every night other than the first night. Us being Crown & Anchor members, we were given all sorts of extra goodies that were laying on our bed when we arrived back in our rooms during the late night. It was really nice.

"Front Desk" - Service there was always crowded, which is to be expected, especially the first day with people trying to upgrade their rooms at the last minute, expecting to get a larger room. Come on people.... this is a cruise ship, not a motel. Our ship was fully booked, in which most cases cruise ships are usually booked, so if you want a larger room, make sure you get it from the beginning. Royal Caribbean does have the smallest rooms out there. We went to the front desk because we wanted to put some cash on our kids room cards. When we were told that it was a $100.00 minimum and here the kids have $50.00 each on them, I about fell in the floor. That's a lot of money for each child. It's not like they can go to the casino or anything like that. Why in the world they needed that much was beyond me. The desk clerk ended up letting us put $100.00 on their cards to be divided between the both of them (which ended up being $50.00 per child). Before leaving, we ended up getting $38.00 per child back, because the only time they spent anything was at Johnny Rockets.

DINING: We only used Windjammers, because we're not the formal diningroom sort of people. The first time we cruised on Majesty, we found the food to be fine at Windjammers, but after cruising on Norwegian, we then realized that the food could have been better, and then when we took a Princess Cruise, we felt that the food on Windjammers was not so good. My niece and her husband went with us on this cruise, and this was their first cruise and they thought the food was great, but we thought the same when Majesty was our first cruise. Unless you have something to compare it to, it should be fine.

SHORE EXCURSIONS: Since we've been to Nassau, and Key West many times, we chose not to book any shore excursions and just do whatever when we got off the ship. This work to our advantage.

"Nassau" - We ended up paying only $3.00 a person to take a water taxi over to Atlantis. Then we paid $3.00 a person to bring us back. This was much better than paying the costly excursion, or a taxi. We didn't want to do a tour because we've done that before, therefore, the water taxi was the best way to go. When you go into the market place from the dock, there is a person holding up a sign that says "WATER TAXI $3.00"), so I asked my husband to find out where it goes. We had our teenagers with us that have never seen Atlantis, so we thought this would be the perfect opportunity for them to see it without it costing us an arm and a leg. We even had a tour guide along the way, in which we tipped him a few dollars for his information.

"Key West" - We missed being able to go to the private island (Coco Cay), due to Hurricane Hannah & Ike stirring around at the time, so our captain was nice enough to get us to Key West that late evening (around 6:00pm) so we could go to Key West during the night hours. This worked out good for us, because we got to take the Haunted Tour, which we've been wanting to do, but it was never available until late night. The next day at Key West, we ended up taking the Trolley Bus, which lets you get off and on at various points of interest during the entire day. (Don't take the Trolley Train if your plans are to get off and on, because it doesn't stop to let you off until the end of the tour) We got off at one of the stops to visit the museum that has "Robert the Doll" in it. Other than to see Robert, that was about the only interest at this museum. The museum is very run down and needs a lot of work. Plus, the walk from where the bus stop is to get to the museum is a very very long walk.

TEEN CENTER & ACTIVITIES: We were unable to post a review about the teen center when we sailed the first time on Majesty, however, we brought two teenagers with us this time. A 17 year old male, and a 15 year old female. The first 2 days on the ship, the teen center didn't appeal to them. Very few teenagers were there, so the the teen center combined the older teens with the younger teens. 13 - 17 years old is not a good combination when it comes to mingling with people. Below is a list of what they had me write down as far as their comments were concerned.

Fuel - Deck 11 - Don't enforce age rules, foosball table doesn't work properly, female employee was very impatient with the younger children, however the male employee was very nice. The video arcade is a $10.00 minimum on the child's room card. (which if you look above at SERVICES, you'll see that the front desk insisted at first that our children had to have at least a $100.00 minimum put on their card to open an account for them, so this makes a rather scary situation when told later that the video games are that expensive and by them having that sort of amount on their card, a large bill could run up without the parent even being aware of it until they go to check out). Not much at all to do for the girls. Video games are limited.

However, the last 2 days of the cruise, they seemed to have started to enjoy the teen center a little better. They made a few friends, and the 17 year old climbed up the rock climbing wall and won a bronze medal with a Royal Caribbean logo on it, that he seemed to have been pretty proud of.

ENTERTAINMENT: We did not see any of the entertainment the first time we sailed on Majesty. I sit back now and think "What in the world did we do, because we sure had a blast, yet never watched any of the shows". Well, I tell you what.... I don't think we missed much. The comedian was so funny and we enjoyed him, however, the production shows at night, I could have done without. If you're in to Motown and 50s to 70s music, then you'll probably enjoy the shows, but the two shows were very similar. The singing was loud and overshot the instrumentals. My father-in-law took this same cruise the week after us, and he said that he got a headache and had to leave the show before it ended. The shows that we seen on Princess and Norwegian was much much better. I could have watched their shows twice each and enjoyed them, but this wasn't the case with Majesty. My father-in-law said that they seen a juggling show that was good on their cruise, but we didn't see it, so I'm assuming that we missed it when we were at Key West the one night that we were there.

DISEMBARKATION: Since Majesty of the Seas runs one cruise behind the other, they're always determined to get you off the ship as soon as possible. You have to be out of the room early, eat, then off the ship. We usually use Cruise Connection to get us to and from the ports. They don't pick us up until 11:30am, so that usually leaves us sitting at the port for about 2 1/2 hours waiting for the bus. Makes for a miserable ending of what usually is a beautiful vacation, but we've grown to get use to it by now. Just bring a good book. lol

SUMMARY: This was the last cruise that we'll be taking on Majesty, but that's only because this was the 2nd time we've been on her and if I have to go to Nassau again, I'm going to go nuts. There is only but so much you can do there. I would definitely sail with Royal Caribbean again, but just not on this ship. We'll miss her though, but have tons of pictures that will always bring back wonderful memories. Maybe we'll move up to Liberty or Oasis some day.