2008 Bahamas Cruise

We took a 3-night cruise to the Bahamas on the Royal Caribbean Monarch of the Seas with our good friends Deanna and Rick, Deanna’s two sons Daniel and Cameron, and Cameron’s two friends Tom and Aaron.

This cruise is the typical 3-night itinerary for Bahamas cruises from Port Canaveral, making a stop in Nassau and then a private island near Nassau and then home to Port Canaveral.

The ship is basically a floating hotel and the activities and amenities are designed for pure entertainment and indulgence.  We had a pretty nice time and everything went well, except for the weather which turned out to be a bit chilly and rainy when we should have had a nice day out at the beach.  But this is what Florida is like in late November, early December.

After spending Thanksgiving with my parents in Vero Beach, we drove up to Port Canaveral to board the Ship on Friday 11/28.  I must have followed the wrong signs, because we took the grand tour of Port Canaveral before we actually found where we were supposed to go.  We could see the ship from every street we turned down, but we were actually on the wrong side of the channel.  We finally got over to the correct side, and pulled into the parking garage, for $45 to park the car… cha ching!  The terminal had minimal to no signage and we ended up going to the wrong set of doors and were sent to the complete opposite end of the building to check in… grrrrrrr…. then we went through security without incident and then stood in line to check in.  I had done an “online checkin” and printed out a “boarding pass” so I was thinking this would let us skip the line.  No… not so, it was really just a way to save the gate agent time.  Next time, I’ll just let them do it, since we have to stand in line anyway.

We boarded the ship in time to grab a bite to eat in the casual dining restaurant before the boat drill, and then went to the “Sailaway Party” on deck to watch the ship go out to sea.  Amy tried her hand (and feet) at the rock climbing wall and she did get all the way up to ring the bell.  No way would I try that, for sure.

The cruise is a great way to travel with teens, by the way, because you can basically let them go free and they find things to do that they want and they don’t have to hang around with the adults.  Amy had some company with Daniel there…but we think having a friend along for both of them would have been a good idea.

The rest of the cruise was basically spending time with our friends, walking around Nassau, chillin’ (literally) on the beach in the private island, and then home.  We watched a couple of comedians, enjoyed watching the boys win the belly-flop contest, and having fun with our wait staff at dinner.

The service was great, the food was so-so, and the ship was very nice, and I thought was kept very clean for one that serves so many people.  I did think there were too many people, the elevators were all very crowded and slow, so they could have used a few more of those.  I didn’t like the fact they had to use tenders to get on and off their private island, Disney is so much better because they have their dock that people can just walk right off.  I also liked the disembarkation process, it went very smoothly, better even than Disney and waaaay better than Carnival.  For baggage claim the bags came out on carousels so that made things pretty efficient.

Check the pictures in my photo album.