This cruise started our 1 month stay in Florida this year.

Monday, January 30
Sunny 70’s

Start of 4 Night Bahamas Cruise from Port Canaveral
Monarch of the Seas

We had a nice breakfast at the hotel and finished the last minute stuff we needed to do. At check-out we were given vouchers for transportation to and from the pier.

The van from the hotel to the pier was jam packed. The first stop was Carnival Ecstasy. Everyone but us got off. The Royal Caribbean piers are a pretty good distance from Carnival.

Check-in went off without a hitch. Even Paul’s artificial knee didn’t cause a problem.

We hadn’t been seated for more than 10 minutes when boarding for Crown and Anchor members started.

We went straight to the Windjammer for a bite of lunch. Then we wandered around a bit to find a place to sit until we could get into our cabin, again, only about a 15 minute wait.

We’d booked a large ocean view cabin in the middle of deck 9. Ordinarily we would book a balcony cabin, but decided this would work better for crossing the Atlantic in the winter.

We made reservations for the My Time Dining for 2 nights. Tomorrow night is the formal night so we will be skipping the main dining room.

When I got back to the cabin after making our reservations, we both wandered around while I took some photos.

Next up was the muster drill. We were surprised that we didn’t have to wear our life jackets. The muster crew gave a demo of how to put them on. The captain re-emphasized the importance of the drill, and then it was back to the cabin.

We were now underway.

Our cabin kept getting colder and colder. When the room attendant stopped by, we told him about it, and he called maintenance.

We had drinks in the Schooner Bar and then went to the Welcome Aboard Showtime before dinner.

The song and dance troop is very small, but did a nice presentation. The comedian Steve (I can’t remember his last name) was really funny.

When we reported to the desk to be seated for dinner, we were asked if we had okayed sharing a table. We said yes. Well, our table for 8 turned into a table for 2.

Dinner was Italian night, and the food was very good.

As usual, the wait staff serenaded the dining guests. The announcer said that they had wait staff from 64 countries not one of them Italian. He went on to say that they would sing O Sole Mio in 64 different dialects. We always find this both humorous and charming

When we got back to our cabin, we found a note that maintenance had been in our cabin while we were out with a phone number to call if there was anything else we needed.

Pretty soon after we got back, we heard the shower drain going blurb, blurb, blurb. We made another call to maintenance. They sent some one up very quickly. He spent some time working on the shower and told us it was draining properly. He also said that sometimes if the ship is really rolling you would hear the water in the trap moving around. We both questioned that explanation, so decided to wait and see. We only heard it again on Tuesday, and the sea was rough.

Our room attendant stopped to make sure everything was okay (he didn’t know about the plumbing call). We were able to tell him it was fine.

I’d read some really negative things about maintenance on this ship. The problems with the cabin were attended to and resolved very promptly.

Tuesday, January 31
Sunny, no clue as to the outside temperature

About 8 AM just as we were thinking about getting up, there was an announcement from the captain that we would not be going to Coco Cay today because there had been a change in the weather, and it was too dangerous. The wind gusts were 35-40 miles an hour and the waves were 4 meters (about 13 feet).

Today became an At Sea Day with our stop in Nassau tomorrow as planned. Thursday will be the day at Coco Cay.

We’d originally planned to eat breakfast in the main dining room, but there was a very long line waiting to get in. Instead, we went to the Windjammer for breakfast and stopped on our way back to the cabin to pick up a revised Cruise Compass (schedule of on-board activities for the day).

After breakfast, we went to the “Captain’s Corner” which was very informative. It was a question and answer session with the captain, the hotel manager and the chief engineer.

The captain elaborated on the situation for Coco Cay which is tendered. Apparently, the tenders must go through a very narrow cut to get to the island. Because of the winds and the size of the waves it was too dangerous for the tenders. It was also too dangerous to get passengers on and off the tenders and for his crew. He mentioned that “quite a few people might have problems with the stomach.”

He went on to say that his first concern was the safety of his passengers and crew. We then received lots of information about the ship in his answers to various questions.

Most questions were either for the captain or the hotel manager. In response to a comment praising the crew, the hotel manager said that about 25% of the passengers do not give any kind of a gratuity. He went on to say that in countries where it is customary to add a gratuity to the total bill, Royal Caribbean does so, but does not in the US.

No questions about the Costa Cruise Line ship that sank in Italy shortly before we left were asked, and the subject was not brought up.

When we went to our cabin before lunch, the maintenance guy was in the cabin vacuuming the filter to the heating/AC vent. Don’t even want to think about what was floating around in the air afterwards.

We had lunch in the main dining room and were seated with a very pleasant couple.

After lunch, I went to an origami class. Everyone in the origami class had problems. The same gal was teaching the next class which was jewelry making. We told her that we were all going to stay for that just to torture her. It was basically a bead stringing lesson from a kit that everyone was given.

Paul went to the casino and made his contribution.

We spent the afternoon reading and sleeping.

We once again had drinks in the Schooner Bar then headed for the Windjammer because tonight was the formal night. There was a nice selection, but we prefer the main dining room.

After dinner we went to the Captain’s Reception. Somehow we got in the line to have your photos taken with the Captain. We were going to leave to go to the other entrance, but the hostess said, “No, no, stay here.” We requested that our photo not be taken, and that was no problem. We felt very under dressed for the reception.

We did not pack formal clothes this trip since we would be spending 3 weeks in Florida following the cruise. As it turned out there was probably a 50/50 split between formal wear and casual at the reception.

We stayed after the reception to see the production show. It was very well done for a very small troupe on a very small stage.

The couple we sat with a lunch just happened to see us, so we sat together for the show.

Tomorrow—Nassau

Wednesday, February 1
Nassau
Cloudy with showers in the AM; Sunny about 75 in the PM

There were 3 ships in port. Two of them were Norwegian Cruise Lines large ships. They dwarfed the Monarch.

We didn’t book any excursions through the cruise line, so had a leisurely breakfast then headed out to Nassau.

The first thing we did was take a carriage ride. We would probably not do this again. The first problem was that neither of us could understand 85% of what the driver/guide said when he turned around to talk to us. When he was facing forward neither of us could understand him at all.

The carriage rides are nothing like you see in the publicity photos. All of the carriages went out at the same time and formed a caravan of 5. Sometimes the horse pulling our carriage had his nose on the carriage in front of us. Only one of the horses was wearing a hat like you see in publicity photos.

The horses did seem to be well cared for, but elderly. There are very definite hours that carriage rides are not available because the horses are resting.

We also found it interesting that cars gave the carriages the right-of-way.

After the carriage ride, we walked through Festival Place at the pier and then went on to the main Straw Market downtown.

We were looking for some birthday gifts. We found some things that were attractive at the first stand we saw when we went in. There was an elderly woman actually doing basket work, one of the few we saw actually working.

We showed her what we liked and discussed price. We told her that hers was the first place we’d seen, and we wanted to look around. After walking around, we realized that we had not seen anything close to the quality of her work.

When we returned to her stand, she’d set aside the things that we had looked at.

When we added a purse for our granddaughter, her price came down lower than our original bargaining agreement. While we waited she made a button and a loop to close the 2 larger totes that we purchased, “Because you Americans like to be able to close things.” Since I do lots of needlework, I had fun watching her.

We didn’t see any restaurants in the area where we were shopping so went back to the ship for lunch.

After lunch, we went to Ardastra Gardens. It was nice to get away from the frantic noise of the pier area. There was hardly anyone at the gardens. We walked through the gardens which is also the zoo. We were surprised to see that this tiny zoo was doing some exchanges with some major US zoos.

There were peacocks roaming around all over the place. The thing that surprised us most was that a most of the flamingos were free roaming.

While we were waiting to see the Marching Flamingos, one other person came. She had just arrived from London. We had an interesting conversation with her.

We did see the flamingos march. It was not exactly what we expected. Of course, animals being animals they are not 100% compliant which actually was pretty funny.

The English woman and I were invited into the ring with the flamingos (one at a time). The announcer kept saying, ”Watch out for the baby. He bites.”

Problem was we didn’t know which one was the baby. There was on that was lighter than the rest, so we assumed that was the youngster.

Apparently there was some kind of misunderstanding about the transportation the English woman was taking back to her hotel. So, we ended up taking her very luxurious taxi back to the pier for less than it cost us to get to the gardens.

Thursday, February 2
Sunny high 70’s

Coco Cay
After seeing the cut into the island, we were really glad that the itinerary was changed. The day was gorgeous, but a little too cool to go in the water. None-the-less it was a very relaxing, enjoyable day.

We thought the food set-up for lunch was better than that in Labadee the last time we were there. The only problem was the very aggressive seagulls. We had one land on a glass on our table and his buddies tried to follow suit. We yelled and waved our arms to get rid of them only to see someone at the next table feeding them. At least that kept them away from our table.

Actually we thought Coco Cay in general was nicer than Labadee; although, it has been about 5 years since we were there.

Friday, February 3
Sunny 65

We were off the ship by 8:15. Customs and immigration were a breeze. We were surprised that you went through both then picked up checked bags from the carousel.

We had to wait a short time for our transport back to the hotel.

We stayed at the same hotel Friday night and used Priority Club points so the stay was free.

Some General Observations: We probably will not do the My Time Dining again. We ended up eating at 8:30, with the same waiters and the same people. So, there was really no advantage for us since that is the seating that we would normally book.

We prefer longer cruises; however, this cruise certainly was enjoyable and had all the elements we like on a cruise—good food, good service, and comfortable accommodations.

It was very obvious that the captain really loved this small ship.

The Welcome Back Party for Crown and Anchor members was definitely the nicest we’ve ever attended. We were amazed at the number of points some passengers have. There were also people on-board that are on the Monarch every year.

At the end of our cruise we “got promoted” to the next tier of the Crown and Anchor Society.

We really liked doing “Park and Cruise,” and would definitely do that again.

Now it was time to head for our remaining 3 weeks in Florida. I will post a trip report under US and Canada for that part.

Sue <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Cool.gif" alt="" />