Sue F
21 Aug 07, 05:48 PM
And what a wonderful time we had. I will try to do a complete report later on when we get home but for now here are a few of the highlights:
Our servers, Egi & Englebert were fantastic, keeping us entertained with magic tricks and their 'nothing is too much trouble' attitude, made our cruise special. We couldn't believe that they remembered our names every time - even when we saw them unexpectedly at Beach Blanket Buffet during breakfast - 10/10 definately
Palo was wonderful and our server again was fantastic. The food was to die for and I would recommend anyone to eat here, even though it did mean missing the show at Animators Palette (still, gives us an excuse for another cruise ;) )
DD (11) spent most of her time in the Oceaneers Lab and had a blast, she loved every second of the cruise. DD (1) spent alot of time in Flounders and seemed to like it, although she struggled slightly on the cruise through being out of her normal routine. She was very tired and grouchy which isn't like her at all.
Ports of call: We got off at Nassau and had a look round the shops but then got straight back on the ship. The straw market was awful and SO hot and we got fed up with being hassled by traders. Still, at least we can say we've been.
Castaway Cay was a washout - literally! We couln't really go ashore until 1pm because of thunderstorms and DD/DH's parasailing was cancelled, much to their disappointment. They managed to get onto the Jetski tour later in the day though, which they thoroughly enjoyed. The beach was lovely, although the weather let us down with quite a few showers during the day. They moved everything back inside the ship and put on extra activities throughout the day to keep everyone entertained so we had a good day, just not doing the things we expected.
Stateroom: We had a Cat 6 with a verandah and I loved it, it was actually larger than I had expected and worked perfectly for us with the children in the bunks. I made good use of the verandah (once I figured out where the lights were!) at night, while the baby was sleeping and have made good inroads into the new Harry Potter.
Entertainment. Top notch, we only managed half of Hercules as Emily was playing up and kicking the man in front so we beat a hasty retreat - what I did see was good though. I also caught Disney Dreams and it was amazing, I really enjoyed it.
Rasul: Very good, more on that later
High School Musical 2: DD got to see that world premiere of HSM2 on the big screen on deck. It made her life!! She was so excited and can't wait to brag about it to her friends when she gets home.
The new debarkation procedures are great, 'Aliens' are treated exactly the same as everyone else and there's no need to get up early. We had breakfast at BBB and walked off the ship around 8.30, just showing our passports and handing in the customs form on the way out - easy!
Downsides:
None really. Online booking made a balls of our reservations / nursery arrangements which annoyed me. We had booked the Rasul spa treatment which ended at 2.50pm and the system automatically booked Emily into the nursery until 3pm. When we took her they said they closed at 2.30pm!! I was a tad annoyed to say the least and in the end they agreed to stay, but made a really big deal of it, meaning we felt we had to rush our spa treatment. It wasn't a big deal in the end but it could so easily have been avoided.
The queues for the characters were also very long, it didn't bother us as our chilren are to old / too young to be bothered with characters. I also didn't see as many characters around the ship as I thought I would. Although we had a lovely moment when Emily was toddling around in Shutters and Minnie Mouse was walking past - she stopped and sneaked up on Emily and gave her a big hug. It was so sweet!
Anyway, it's 95 degrees here so I am off back to the Poolside. I will post more and some pics when we get home.
Our servers, Egi & Englebert were fantastic, keeping us entertained with magic tricks and their 'nothing is too much trouble' attitude, made our cruise special. We couldn't believe that they remembered our names every time - even when we saw them unexpectedly at Beach Blanket Buffet during breakfast - 10/10 definately
Palo was wonderful and our server again was fantastic. The food was to die for and I would recommend anyone to eat here, even though it did mean missing the show at Animators Palette (still, gives us an excuse for another cruise ;) )
DD (11) spent most of her time in the Oceaneers Lab and had a blast, she loved every second of the cruise. DD (1) spent alot of time in Flounders and seemed to like it, although she struggled slightly on the cruise through being out of her normal routine. She was very tired and grouchy which isn't like her at all.
Ports of call: We got off at Nassau and had a look round the shops but then got straight back on the ship. The straw market was awful and SO hot and we got fed up with being hassled by traders. Still, at least we can say we've been.
Castaway Cay was a washout - literally! We couln't really go ashore until 1pm because of thunderstorms and DD/DH's parasailing was cancelled, much to their disappointment. They managed to get onto the Jetski tour later in the day though, which they thoroughly enjoyed. The beach was lovely, although the weather let us down with quite a few showers during the day. They moved everything back inside the ship and put on extra activities throughout the day to keep everyone entertained so we had a good day, just not doing the things we expected.
Stateroom: We had a Cat 6 with a verandah and I loved it, it was actually larger than I had expected and worked perfectly for us with the children in the bunks. I made good use of the verandah (once I figured out where the lights were!) at night, while the baby was sleeping and have made good inroads into the new Harry Potter.
Entertainment. Top notch, we only managed half of Hercules as Emily was playing up and kicking the man in front so we beat a hasty retreat - what I did see was good though. I also caught Disney Dreams and it was amazing, I really enjoyed it.
Rasul: Very good, more on that later
High School Musical 2: DD got to see that world premiere of HSM2 on the big screen on deck. It made her life!! She was so excited and can't wait to brag about it to her friends when she gets home.
The new debarkation procedures are great, 'Aliens' are treated exactly the same as everyone else and there's no need to get up early. We had breakfast at BBB and walked off the ship around 8.30, just showing our passports and handing in the customs form on the way out - easy!
Downsides:
None really. Online booking made a balls of our reservations / nursery arrangements which annoyed me. We had booked the Rasul spa treatment which ended at 2.50pm and the system automatically booked Emily into the nursery until 3pm. When we took her they said they closed at 2.30pm!! I was a tad annoyed to say the least and in the end they agreed to stay, but made a really big deal of it, meaning we felt we had to rush our spa treatment. It wasn't a big deal in the end but it could so easily have been avoided.
The queues for the characters were also very long, it didn't bother us as our chilren are to old / too young to be bothered with characters. I also didn't see as many characters around the ship as I thought I would. Although we had a lovely moment when Emily was toddling around in Shutters and Minnie Mouse was walking past - she stopped and sneaked up on Emily and gave her a big hug. It was so sweet!
Anyway, it's 95 degrees here so I am off back to the Poolside. I will post more and some pics when we get home.