Royal Caribbean Cruise

Welcome to the second round of our Florida trip: We drove down to Port Canaveral for a quick 3 night cruise on Royal Caribbean's Majesty of the Seas. Up to this point, we'd only been on Disney cruises, which are expensive, but worth every penny.  We thought it might be good to try a cheaper cruise, and if we liked it we could cruise more often. See the photos below...

We used our on board credits for lunch at Johnny Rocket's.

Love a good ice cream sundae!

This is the buffet, from the upstairs balcony, between meals.  The food was good. Lots of international foods, mostly Indian. There was a pizza counter, a small deli, and Johnny Rockets upstairs on the balcony. Our evening dining room was called Starlight. The other dining room was called Moonlight. They both looked exactly the same. I thought they'd be decorated in old Hollywood glamour style. Sadly, they reminded me of an upscale 90's restaurant that caters to senior citizens.

Here's DH in front of the pizza counter...

The theater was nice. We saw a good comedian, a mediocre juggler, and a horrible early 1970's music revue show.  As far as the rest of the ship...I wasn't impressed. The green indoor/outdoor carpet in the decks was bubbled, moldy, dirty, and ripped in places. There was paint peeling in a lot of outdoor spaces, and there was only one pool for everyone. I missed the adult only pool on the Disney ship.

Probably the worst part of the facilities was on our room's deck. When we got off the elevator to go down the hall to the room there was a...smell. I'm convinced it's the same smell Bilbo Baggins refers to as "...a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell".  There was a fan in that part of the hall drying out the carpet, which was the cause of the...smell.  I'm not sure what caused it, and I probably don't want to know, but it wasn't just water. We covered our noses and hurried further down the hall to our not smelly room, er, hobbit closet.

Here are some photos from our room. It was so fascinatingly small we seemed to have snapped the most photos of the entire cruise here.

In this next one, DH is touching the back wall, and DS fingers can touch the door. It doesn't look like it from this perspective.

Tiny bathroom.  Picture knees almost touching the shower curtain when you're a sittin' on the loo.

Let's compare...Royal Caribbean on the top...DH is standing right in front of the outer door, Disney cruise room on the bottom...DH is halfway into the entryway...

Conclusion on Royal Caribbean...We won't cruise with them again, unless we get a smokin' deal on a newer ship.  We'll try Norwegian next.

Lesson (re)learned: You get what you pay for.

While it seems like this post is mostly negative it's only because my review isn't lasting 3 whole days like the cruise! It certainly wasn't a wasted cruise. We made sure to try different foods and activities, spent quality time together, and made a silk purse out of a sow's ear. 

Helpful tips:
1. Cruise Disney. It really is a whole new world.
2. Park off site. We like Park Port Canaveral. There's plenty of fenced parking, the prices are the best in the area, the shuttles are clean, and on time, and the staff is very friendly and helpful.  Reserve parking online at least 24 hours before you arrive for a daily discount.
3. Take a bag of quarters with you for the road tolls. It costs us about $8 to get from Orlando to Port  Canaveral, and $8 or $9 to get back.  Stay to the right going into the toll plaza, then stay left to go through the coin only lane. MAKE SURE the meter shows you paid the full toll before going on. The machine appeared to be broken when we went through one of the toll plazas last year and we got a big fat ticket from the rental car company, even though we put the full amount in the machine.  Alternatively, you can stay right in the toll plaza to pay cash and get a receipt.