Cruise Stories

Quantum of the Seas Ocean View Cabin

Posted on March 15, 2024 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Quantum of the Seas in Sitka

Walking into our deck 3 ocean view cabin for the first time on Quantum of the Seas, the first thing we noticed was that there was no outline in the ceiling of a drop-down bunk. Normally when booking a room for 4 people you expect to see at least one, maybe two. There’s always the usual main bed that can either be kept as one or split into two, then often there’s two bunks that drop down from the ceiling unless it’s an older ship where they fold down from the wall. Sometimes there’s just one bunk and a couch that makes into the 4th bed, but this room just had the bed and the couch.

it’s sort of a trundle bed except both sides are the same height

It turned out that the way they made room for 4 people was that instead of turning into a single bed, the couch had a pull-out that turned it into a double bed. Not what we were expecting, but at least there was room enough for everyone to sleep. We had already decided to give mom and Linda the beds while Barbara and I took whatever alternate sleeping arrangements the ship provided. Initially the main bed was set up as one, but the steward split it into two with a little nightstand in between. The couch on the other hand only made one bed. They set it up sort of like a lot of the hotels in Europe with separate blankets for each person except that instead of the European style sleeping bag sort of thing these were a quilt and sheet folded over for each person providing at least a bit of separation.

even with the bed put away there’s not a lot of space

When the bed was pulled out there was only a very small aisle between it and the desk and drawers next to it. You couldn’t fully open the drawers and refrigerator or slide the chair out from under the desk. It also took up nearly all the space under the window. Which was fine at night when everyone was asleep, but not in the daytime if we were to have full use of our stateroom. After the first morning’s cleaning we came back to the room to find the bed still set up. We couldn’t find our steward, but came across the one at the next section of rooms down the hall. She put the bed away for us. Even though the room was a decent size, there’s not a lot of space for 4 people even with the bed folded back into the couch, and no space to do anything with it out.

couch

We thought the steward was just being lazy, but later on when we walked past the two stewards together she told him to “splain your guests.” It turned out he had not put the bed away because corporate in all their great wisdom decided that since they only have stewards on one daily cleaning now they are not supposed to enter the rooms a second time, which means if they put the bed up they won’t be able to put it back down. That’s a policy sure to cause a lot of stewards not to get any tips as well as a lot of unhappy guests. Luckily our steward put the bed away in the mornings after that and came in at night to put it back out for us. Maybe because he knew we’d have done it ourselves after we saw how it was done since we’d watched the other steward put it away, or maybe just to be nice. We tipped him well for it. Apparently nobody in corporate who makes that sort of stupid decision has ever stayed in one of those cabins with more than two people. If they had they would insist that the stewards put the beds away in the daytime.

cabin on Quantum of the Seas

With the bed out of the way it was a nice room. It had plenty of storage with lots of drawers, two closets, and 4 good-sized cubbies above the beds. Even though there was some spare bedding stored under the main beds we found space enough under there for all 4 of our suitcases. Between the drawers, closets, cubbies, and some shelves in the bathroom everyone found somewhere to put all of their things.

teapot in the cabin

There was a teapot in the cabin, something I’ve only seen once previously, on P&O, which is a British line. I’ve not seen them on any other Royal ship I’ve been on, but perhaps the Quantum had them because it originally sailed in China. Like the Brits, Chinese people do like their tea. That’s definitely a nice addition to the cabin. It did not have any tea with it like P&O did, but it’s easy enough to get some teabags from the buffet. It also only started out with only 2 cups, but they’re easy to snag from the buffet as well.

magnets have a lot of uses on cruise ships

All of the other Royal ships we’ve been on had a magnet for the door that said sleeping off the adventure on one side and something about being out enjoying the day or some such thing on the other. Their way of saying do not disturb and cleaning service please. I had wondered for years sailing on other lines why they just had a cardboard door tag instead of using a magnet since the doors are always magnetic so was happy at least one line was clever enough to realize that.

2 closets and cubbies above the beds

Instead of the usual 2-way magnet, Quantum’s was blank on one side and said sleeping off the adventure on the other. It had no way to indicate to the steward when everyone was out of the room. With 4 people coming and going it must have been nearly impossible for him to know when to clean ours. The first few days we’d go to breakfast and come back and it wouldn’t be done so we’d go somewhere else, but in the meantime people might individually go back for this or that so if he saw someone go in and didn’t see them come back out he’d think the room was occupied. One day it wasn’t even done by lunchtime. Finally I got smart and hung a little note on the door held up by one of my own magnets that said room available for cleaning. It was done when we got back from breakfast that day, and with the help of the note every day after. They are doing both the stewards and the guests a disservice by not having a way of letting the steward know when the room is open. The one magnet lets him know when not to go in, but absence of it doesn’t mean nobody is there. People often don’t put those out, leaving the steward to guess if the room is empty or not.

desk with teapot

Bad decisions at the corporate level seemed to be a thing with this ship. Like allowing smoking in a casino that is not only open on both ends, but also with an open stairway directly into the promenade when it is sailing out of American ports even though the app and their daily newsletter both said smoking was not allowed anywhere inside the ship. Nowhere did that specify it meant only in Australia. Said casino was not that far from our cabin and smoke did sometimes come down the hallway so a cabin on a different deck would be a better choice on this ship if you don’t like tobacco smoke and are not sailing out of Australia. Corporate to Quantum kind of reminded me of Voyager in the Star Trek series because if there was a bad decision to be made Captain Janeway always seemed to make it.

clothesline on the wall

I used to think all cruise ships had the sort of clothesline that you can pull across the shower until Symphony of the Seas didn’t have one. Quantum didn’t either, but Wonder did so it’s not like Royal Caribbean has dropped them altogether. Wonder is newer than Symphony and Quantum so maybe they dropped them for awhile, but got too many complaints and added them back in. Or else they just leave them off some ships for reasons unknown. After all even if you never wash a thing, that clothesline still comes in mighty handy when you need somewhere to hang wet swimming suits, which is a pretty common thing to have on a cruise ship. Luckily I had brought a line and some hook magnets to hang it up with.

bathroom shelves

Cruise ship shower walls are often even more magnetic than the regular walls because on many ships the magnets can hold more weight in the shower than they can out in the room. I thought it would be a secondary line because there might not be room enough for everyone’s wet swimsuit on the tiny shower line, but it ended up being our only line. It went in the shower when things were drippy wet, and zig-zagged out on the wall in the cabin if stuff was just a bit damp. We did need to use the shower for showering sometimes after all. Speaking of the shower, it was a good thing we’d all brought our own bath products because all that they provided was an all-in-one shampoo/body wash and nobody wanted to use that. There was no conditioner either.

electronics need somewhere to plug in

Quantum is a new enough ship to have more than just the one outlet some older ships have. It also had some USB ports. My plug that turns one outlet into 3 and clock with a couple USB ports still came in handy when lots of people wanted to charge something all at once though. Royal’s standard size staterooms are larger than what you find on some other cruiselines so that’s always a bonus. Overall our cabin worked out fine with 4 people in it. We did intentionally book near public restrooms just in case someone needed a bathroom while another person was using it, which came in handy sometimes.

towel animal

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2024

Posted in Quantum of the Seas, Royal Caribbean | Tagged cruise, cruise ship cabin, ocean view stateroom, photos, Quantum of the Seas, Royal Caribbean, travel | Leave a comment

Hilo Volcano and Garden Tour

Posted on March 8, 2024 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Noordam in Hilo

Looking online for information about Hilo cruise port pre-cruise I didn’t find much other than that it was not in town and that there was supposed to be a free shuttle to Walmart. The advice was to book an excursion as there otherwise wouldn’t be much of anything to do. They were wrong though. As it turned out there was a free shuttle to a farmer’s market in town and hop on hop off bus tours available at the port so there was actually something there to do last minute for people without prior plans. The Walmart shuttle was not running that day. The ship offered 4 excursions that went to Volcanoes National Park. The longest tour was too expensive to consider. Of the other three, two specifically said people would not see lava on that tour and the third did not say one way or the other whether we would see lava or not. We chose that one on the hopes that we would. Otherwise we would have chosen the one that said it included a walk through a lava tube rather than the one that went to a botanical garden.

pathway across a lake at the garden

It often seems like the smaller the ship the less organized they are when it comes to sending out the shore excursions and just generally getting people off the ship. While Noordam isn’t the smallest ship out there it is certainly nowhere near the biggest. Definitely not the best organized. Unlike prior cruises we’ve taken, there were no paper excursion tickets on this ship. Shore excursion tickets have gone digital in the Holland America app. We got to the entrance to the meeting point about 15 minutes early, but the line was long and slow moving. Eventually we made our way through the line and acquired our stickers, but by then it was past the time to check in at 8:30, though not yet quite time for our scheduled 8:45 departure. We went into the theater to wait along with everyone else anticipating a variety of excursions going out that morning.

steam in the crater at Kilauea

They finally called for our excursion after 9:00. The days of someone from the crew waiting while holding up a paddle with the group’s excursion number to lead the group out to their bus are long gone. They send you out on your own to find it. So why they bother grouping people up there rather than just sending everyone to an outside meeting place is beyond me except when it’s a very early excursion meeting before the boat docks or at a tender port where they send the whole excursion group out on the same tender.

volcano info at Volcanos National Park

Out in the port building a row of signs for various excursions lined up in front of rows of benches. It took some time for everyone to find the signs, the right group, then find out that the excursion providers out there needed to scan the e-tickets, which had not previously been mentioned by anyone. It’s a good idea to screenshot those tickets so that if you need to show it somewhere the wi-fi doesn’t reach and there’s no cell service you can still pull it up in your photos. That works well when using a digital boarding pass at the start of the cruise too. By the time we finally got out to the busses the excursion left over half an hour later than the posted time, but according to our driver the bus was actually supposed to leave the port at 8:30 am, which was the time we were told to be at the onboard meeting location. Had they just had us meet in the port where we ended up looking for the sign for our group anyway that definitely would have saved some time.

steam in the crater

We had an excellent guide. A local Hawaiian who lived partway between the town and the volcano. He was quite informative telling us all about the local fauna and flora, places we passed along the way, and a bit about the area’s homes and people as well as things tourists could see and do if they were to return for a longer visit. He also mentioned the island’s 5 volcanos, some of which we could see both from and on the way to Kilauea. In the winter some of the volcanos are topped in snow, something most people definitely don’t associate with Hawaii.

sign near the crater at Kilauea

On the way up to Kilauea the two mid-sized busses of our excursion traveled together, but after we got there the other one left first. We definitely got the better of the two on this tour. Besides having an excellent native guide while the other bus driver wasn’t, our bus also didn’t have as much of a time crunch since it did not have to be back in time for a second tour like the other one did. The time at each stop was still a bit constricted partly due to the late departure and partly because not enough time was allotted in the first place at the crater. Ship’s excursions do often tend to skimp on the amount of time allowed for their attractions.

guide’s photo of erupting volcano

Apparently lava comes and goes at that crater so sometimes people see it there and sometimes they don’t, which is probably why the tour description didn’t say whether we would see any or not. Unfortunately it just had steam during our visit. We had hoped to see lava in the crater. The museum at the crater was fenced off and closed due to damage from a previous eruption, but we wouldn’t have had time to see it anyway. Since we couldn’t get any lava pictures of our own, the driver offered to share some that he had on his phone. I think it’s from Kilauea since it’s the most active, but Mauna Loa does erupt sometimes so that one is also a possibility.

steam vent on Kilauea

After the crater we stopped off to see some steam vents just down the road a bit from the crater, followed by a brief visit to a visitors center. I saw a couple geese by the road as we drove up to the volcano.

nene (internet photo)

The visitors center identified them as nene, distant descendants of some wayward Canadian geese that ended up in Hawaii half a million years ago. They have evolved into non-aquatic and non-migratory birds with shorter wings and less webbing in their feet for easier walking on old lava flows.

pathway across the lake at the garden

On the way to the garden we drove down a road winding through a row of banyan trees planted in the past by various different celebrities and famous people. The road passed by a small white sand beach, a rarity in an area where beaches are normally the black sand of volcanic lava rock. The guide did not say if that white sand was naturally occurring or imported as white sand often is on Hawaiian beaches that have it. There was a great view of the ship in port from that beach.

pagoda on the lake

The botanical garden turned out to be more of a Japanese park with bridges and pagodas along pathways meandering through ponds and trees rather than the sort of botanical garden with a variety of plants that have plaques or signs identifying the various different species growing there. A narrow road separated the park from the bay. It was quite a lovely park, and right on the shoreline of the bay. A few people were fishing and one had a couple dogs on a small beach. On the other side of the street just a little way down the road a long bridge stretched out to a tiny island called Coconut Island.

statue at the garden

That was the last scheduled stop, but the guide took a bit of a detour to drop a few people in town, and take another round through the banyan trees for a brief photo stop through the bus windows by the white sand beach for anyone who wanted a photo of the ship – something the other bus would not have had time to do.

lake at the garden

Overall it was a nice excursion, but it could have been improved with better planning on the ship and a bit more time allotted for the park as well as at the crater. The guide was one of the better ones that we’ve had as far as excursion guides go. Guides can definitely make or break an excursion. We’ve had both good and bad ones over time.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2024

Posted in Holland America, Noordam, Ports of Call, Shore Excursions, USA | Tagged cruise, garden, Hawaii, Hilo, Kiluea volcano, photos, travel | 2 Comments

Enchanted Princess

Posted on March 1, 2024 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Enchanted Princess in Grand Turk

When sailing on a medallion class ship like Enchanted Princess, you have an option of either having your medallion sent to you pre-cruise, in which you pay a fee for the postage, or you can pick it up at the port. If you have the medallion sent to you your status is green line which means you bypass the check-in desk. If you pick it up at the port you are blue line and go to the desk. In my experience of having done that both ways there are enough green line people that if you go blue line it doesn’t take very long to get to and through at the desk because so many other people bypassed it.

heated ceramic chairs in the enclave at the spa

On the Enchanted Princess we boarded in Fort Lauderdale through the green line for people who had their medallions sent to them ahead of time with friends in the blue line for people who didn’t. The lines were separated before the door into the port, combined as you come in, and then separated where you either go to a desk for blue line or a kiosk for green line. Their line moved toward the door before ours started moving, but once ours moved we got in the door first. At the time we went inside there was no line in the building for blue and a rather long one for green.

one of many shops on the ship

They finished at the desk before we got to a kiosk, but the ship hadn’t actually started boarding yet so we were all sent upstairs to wait with boarding group 3 cards. So it made no difference at all in the speed of getting on the ship whether we had the medallions ahead of time or not. The blue line did build up while we were waiting in the green line though so if we had been just a bit farther back we would have gotten through before them, but probably not enough ahead to make any difference on the assigned boarding group. It didn’t seem to take people any longer at the desk than at the kiosk either. The only difference seemed to be that the desk scans the boarding pass and the kiosk scans the medallion. If you don’t like lines at check-in or waiting in the terminal to board arriving later after the lines of people who got there before the door opened have cleared and after the ship has actually started boarding often means you can just walk right in without much of a line. It would not have worked for the people boarding on the second leg of our back-to-back on this cruise though. Somebody had gun-shaped cigarette lighters in their carry-on luggage, which stopped the boarding process for 2 hours while security searched for what they thought were guns. Travel hint: don’t bring gun-shaped anything anywhere!

mini golf

Enchanted Princess is the 5^th of Princess’ Royal class ships, launched in 2021. It holds 3660 passengers in 1830 staterooms and over 1340 crew. The ship is 1083 feet long, 126 feet wide, has 19 decks and a maximum speed of 22 knots. Actually since there’s no deck 13 it really only has 18 decks, of which the 3 lower are not areas where passengers have access. Even on deck 4 passenger access is limited to the medical center and tender embarkation areas. Deck 19 hardly counts either being just a small area with a very strange mini-golf course that is just random holes in the green with no set places to start or finish the course and no marked spot to putt for any of the holes.

internet room for people who didn’t bring their own device

When I took my first cruise on Princess a few years ago the time spent on a prior P&O cruise was added to the loyalty points. My husband booked our Enchanted Princess cruise through Priceline, who didn’t know about that cruise, so he had to talk to the loyalty person onboard to get those points added to his since this was his first time on Princess. From her we found out that from 2017 on Princess no longer includes cruises from P&O. Since that cruise was taken in 2016 he was still allowed the points. The reason is because that was started when Princess bought out P&O and it was just between the two of them, but after Carnival bought Princess they phased it out because Carnival has way too many cruise lines to share points between them. Instead of having a special function for past-guests as they have when I’ve sailed Princess before, this one invited people on their first Princess cruise to an event just for them. Not many people attended, but some of the guests who did won really good prizes. If you’re sailing Princess for the first time and they invite you to that event it is well worth attending for the chance to win one of the prizes.

Piazza

The central area of the ship from deck 5 to deck 7 is called the piazza. It is open in the middle through all of those decks, with fancy stairways between them. The floor in the center of deck 5 is host to a variety of activities. It has seating areas and is surrounded by a cafe, gelato shop, a couple bars, and a candy shop. The next two levels above have balcony-type hallways overlooking deck 5 on the inside and shops, bars, or eateries around the edges.

SeaWalk with and without a person on it

The Lido deck has a SeaWalk feature which has a clear floor extending out over the edge of the ship so people can see the sea below. You can also see the lifeboats many decks down. It’s a bit of an odd sensation walking over it and looking down through the glass. It feels quite different when walking the same way the ship is traveling vs the opposite direction. The Lido deck also is home to the buffet, several pools, lots of hot tubs, and a couple of poolside eateries (pizza and grill). There are several premium (in other words pay-extra) eateries around the ship as well as the ones that are included in the cruise fare.

main pool deck and movie screen

There are also other pools, one at the back of the ship and one in the adults-only retreat area – and one in the thermal suite, which is called the enclave and costs extra. There are hot tubs near all the public pools as well as some extras not near any pools and in the pay-extra-to-be-there sanctuary area. A couple of the hot tubs on the deck above the Lido have lifts so they are accessible to people in wheelchairs who can’t get in or out on their own.

accessible hot tub

The Lido pool and some other areas of the deck had the usual group of selfish chair hogs who put their towels and things on all the loungers first thing in the morning and leave them there all day whether they ever actually use those chairs or not. Meanwhile the ship has tiny signs saying saving chairs is not allowed and that the crew will pick the unattended things up, but as is usual on cruise ships everywhere they never do. So if you ever want to sit in a deck chair occupied only by towels with no people who belong to those towels anywhere in sight just do it – but not if the people are actually in the vicinity in a pool or hot tub or something. Only if they are truly not around. They don’t own those chairs whether they think they do or not. At various times on various cruises I’ve sat in a towel occupied chair for hours and so far whoever put that towel there has never returned while I was there. If they did happen to come back if they say anything just thank them for the towel they put on the chair for you. They can’t legitimately complain about it since saving chairs is supposably not allowed on any cruise ship anywhere.

more chairs occupied by towels than by people

The chair hogs weren’t the only selfish people onboard. One day someone went around stealing the decorative magnets off a lot of people’s cabin doors. Sadly the cabin steward said that happens a lot. For anyone who is confused about this, things on or around cabin doors belong to the people in that cabin. Door decorations are not like the ducks that people hide around the ship for other people to find. So don’t take other people’s stuff!

table in the Amalfi dining room set for afternoon tea

There are 3 different dining rooms on Enchanted Princess, but people can eat dinner at any of them. They just need to either make reservations or wait for an available table. Per a Maitre’d that may change in the future to one for set time dining, one for my way (anytime) dining and one that has a mix. You have to take the right elevator or stairway to get to the dining rooms because the galley blocks access from other directions. Two are accessed from the middle of the ship and one from the rear stairs/elevator. Only one of the dining rooms offered breakfast and lunch to any passenger who wanted to eat there.

Churchills Arcade

All of the other Princess ships I’ve sailed on kept all indoor smoking confined to a fully enclosed cigar lounge called Churchills, which kept stray smoke from permeating the rest of the ship. On Enchanted Princess Churchills is an arcade. At first while the ship was docked it seemed like they had removed indoor smoking entirely. That was not it though. Once the ship was underway and the casino got busy people were smoking there. The casino is wide open to the rest of the ship so the smoke spreads. Sometimes all the way through the piazza, the ship’s 3-deck high central area which besides the previously mentioned activities and places is also right next to the casino. Definitely a step in the wrong direction for Princess.

casino

We got the lowdown on the new smoking policy from one of the officers onboard. He said it’s not only this ship. They just changed things a couple cruises prior to ours. Princess is trying it out to see how it goes. It’s possible that they may go back to non-smoking casinos in the future if enough people are unhappy the way it is now. If they get enough complaints maybe someday they will at the very least add doors on the casino to keep the smoke contained. All of the people we talked to were seriously unhappy about that change. Not one of them liked it. People who otherwise would have used the casino stayed out because they couldn’t stand the smoke. Makes it a lot less likely we will book Princess again any time soon. Open casinos spreading smoke everywhere are the reason we quit sailing Carnival years ago – though somebody on this ship said Carnival now has some newer ships with closed-in casinos that keep the smoke contained. We may give Carnival another try sometime to see if ships like that actually exist.

acrobat show in the theater

Entertainment on the ship included comedy and music as well as theater shows and movies. There’s also a spa and fitness center, kids club, and of course pools and hot tubs. The piazza, which as previously mentioned is the central area of the ship and open several decks high with fancy stairs between the levels, is a hub of activity. Besides having shops, bars, and eateries all around it, the floor at the center of the bottom level hosts quite a variety of activities. Sometimes they have dance classes or music performances there, other times things like a vegetable carving demonstration where galley workers made fancy creations out of fruit and veggies, or competitions where passengers can participate like giant Jenga, egg drop, or paper airplane contests. They sometimes host disco or ballroom dances there too. At times the entertainment was provided by random talented passengers dancing in the open space while the actual cruise ship entertainment there was just music.

Crown Grill Bar

Activities also take place in other areas of the ship. Many of the bars have live music, especially in the evening. There are different things scheduled throughout the day like port talks, games, trivia, lectures, classes, or spa events. Besides the Piazza and the main theater, events often take place in the Vista Lounge at the back of the ship, Princess Live near the center, or occasionally in other places.

desserts at the buffet

The main food venues on the ship are its very extensive buffet and 3 dining rooms, but there are other places to find food as well. Some are free like the pizza, burgers, and ice cream by the Lido pool, or sandwiches and pastries at the 24-hour café. Others cost extra like specialty coffee or tea, pub food, or anything at the premium restaurants which include a pizzeria, Italian food, seafood, and a steak house.

weird art seems to be a requirement on cruise ships

The ship gives off an elegant vibe in the overall styling. Artwork mainly consists of pictures. The stairways have paintings of different sizes and styles. Some are nice, others odd or abstract. The hallways around the staterooms have photos. Each deck has a unique theme from various places around the world. These include Canada, Alaska, Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islands, Asia, and Europe. The port side of each deck where all the cabins have even numbers sticks with the theme, but on the starboard side where rooms have odd numbers there are occasionally odd photos from a different area of the world on some decks. This is the first cruise ship I’ve seen that did not have any odd or ugly statues among the ship’s artwork. It did not have any statues at all.

hallway art

Princess’ medallion class ships have a wearable medallion instead of the usual cruise ship card. Besides boarding, these do everything the card other ships have does like open your cabin, allow you to make onboard purchases, and scan you on and off the ship – all with no fumbling around looking for a card. You can wear it around your neck on the string it comes with, but it is way more convenient in a waterproof bracelet – available from Princess onboard or pre-cruise or cheaper from Amazon.

medallion in a waterproof bracelet

These medallions also do other things like the useful yet somewhat creepy stalking feature where you can locate any of the people listed as shipmates in your princess app. You can’t stalk random people, just the ones who have approved of you as a shipmate. It’s really handy when people want to find each other. You can turn that feature off if you don’t want anyone to know where you are, but then they can’t find you if they need to. It’s so much easier getting on and off the ship or buying things when you don’t have to look for a card and the stateroom unlocks itself as you approach. With a bracelet you can even wear the medallion while swimming, snorkeling, and in the pool or hot tub. I’m really going to miss that medallion next time I cruise on a ship that uses cards.

mini-suites have 2 TV’s and a full-sized couch

The staterooms are nice, though the basic rooms are somewhat small. Mini-suites are quite a lot bigger and well worth the upgrade if you can afford it. People can opt for twice daily cleanings or just once. The little computer pad device by the stateroom door that unlocks it when your medallion approaches also has little spots you can touch to indicate if you want privacy or if you want your room serviced. Besides room cleaning, other things you can get from your steward include daily filling of an ice bucket, or when you first arrive a bathrobe or extra hangers.

gym

One thing this ship lacks is any sort of view lounging room. There’s no observation room with windows and places to hang out and relax, nor is there a glassed in solarium with deck chairs and pool or hot tubs. On this ship all the pools and hot tubs are outside in the sun. Even a deck chair with any shade is a somewhat rare find, though they do exist if you know where to look. There are several groupings of furnishings running down deck 7 across the main aisle from various bars or lounges that sort of belong to the adjacent venue, yet work as a somewhat separate place to sit and relax, but not an actual room for that purpose. Some people use those areas to play cards or other games. There are many bars with furniture and tables that work for hangout areas as well.

self-serve guest laundry

Princess ships have self-serve guest laundries, which is always a bonus since so many cruise ships don’t have them – especially when taking a long cruise. It’s a lot cheaper than sending laundry out for the crew to wash and a lot easier than washing things by hand in the cabin sink. Enchanted Princess has one on each of the main passenger cabin decks, all near the back of the ship, pretty much on top of each other from one deck to the next. There are quite a few machines in each as well as irons and a soap vending machine for people who didn’t bring any. The good thing about them all being close to each other is that it is handy to go up or down a deck if all the machines on your deck are full. The bad thing is that if your room is near the bow they are all on the other end of the ship.

Enchanted Princess ship model Christmas tree ornament

Enchanted Princess is a nice ship and we enjoyed our cruise. They had ship model Christmas tree ornaments in one of the ship’s shops, which is the one thing I always look for there.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2024

Posted in Enchanted Princess, Princess | Tagged cruise, cruise ship, Enchanted Princess, photos, Princess cruise, travel | Leave a comment

Things To Do on Wonder of the Seas

Posted on February 23, 2024 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Boardwalk

While all cruise ships have a variety of things to do, some definitely have more than others. Wonder of the Seas has more than most. On some small ships organized activities like trivia, kids clubs, and such are the main source of entertainment besides pools, hot tubs, and deck chairs, but ships like Wonder have all that and so much more.

pork chop dinner

Food is always a major part of cruising, and Wonder has food in abundance. The typical dining room and buffet are just the start. There’s also a couple of cafes, a hot dog stand, a Mexican eatery, pizza, and ice cream along as well as a bunch of premium (pay extra) eateries including Italian, fish, steakhouse, hamburgers, and an Alice in Wonderland themed restaurant with food billed as imaginative cuisine.

gym

There’s quite an extensive gym with large numbers of the most popular equipment like treadmills and elliptical trainers. People can visit the gym on their own or sign up for classes that may or may not cost extra. The spa has all sorts of massages and treatments and even a small juice bar with smoothies and granola as well as blended juices.

track on Wonder of the Seas

The best part of their fitness area isn’t even in the gym – it’s the outside promenade deck, which is set up like a track.

dancing in the water fountain

There are theater shows like you find on most cruise ships, but Wonder also has an AquaTheater with a high-flying high diving fast paced in and out of the water show and a skating rink with an ice show.

ice show

Sometimes the skating rink is also used for other things – like Laser Tag. It’s one of Wonder’s scheduled activities. They cover the ice and put up a blow-up maze that somewhat resembles a giant bouncy house from the outside. It did’t actually have a bouncy floor or roof on the inside, just walls. Reservations are necessary to participate, but for this game they were not hard to get as we booked ours on the phone app 5 minutes before the session started.

beach pool

Participants for each session are lined up outside the arena, then seated inside. The half-hour booking has more than one group so only some people go inside while the others wait. Each group has a 7 minute session. We were in the second group and didn’t have to wait long before we were called down to be outfitted with laser vests that had the guns attached. There’s a short video about the story that goes with the game. Loud music drowns out most of what they say, which was also the case for the instructions on how to use the guns. Each gun gave the bearer a character name, which was their name for the game. People were randomly divided into two teams by a computer which lighted up half the vests in pink and the other half in green. The pink people were sent in through one entrance and the green through another. The goal is to shoot the vests of as many of the opposing team as possible while avoiding them shooting you. When you get shot your gun goes dead for 5 seconds, during which time you can neither shoot nor be shot. At the end there was a display outside of the lasar tag maze at the top of the seating area in the ice arena listing all the character names and their scores from highest to lowest in each group. I think they said it would say which team won with the highest total score, but we only saw the individual scores for each team. Pictures were not allowed during the fast-paced game and there would not have much chance to take any if even if they were.

sea-themed mini-golf

There’s also lots of things to do on your own. Mini-golf and the kid’s playground next to it are there to go to whenever you want. A lot of the other things are manned by staff so only available during open hours. This includes things like the rock climbing walls, flowrider, zip line, and slides. There’s 3 waterslides on the pool deck, and also a splash park for small children with smaller slides. In addition there’s a couple of 10-deck dry slides snaking down the back of the ship. These slides end in the boardwalk area of the ship, which also has a carousel, food and shops, a bar with an arcade and a climbing apparatus for small children.

flowrider

The flowrider has sessions for boogie boarding and sessions for stand-up-surfing. Watching an instructional video is required before signing the waiver to participate, with additional requirements for stand-up surfing. The crew regulating the flowrider sometimes give additional instruction to participants while they have their turn.

top of the Ultimate Abyss

The starting point for the dry slides is the highest point for a view out the back of the ship. There’s an excellent view from there, though only the crew person working on that platform gets to look at it for very long since passengers are only up there briefly to get on the slides. You get a mat at the bottom of the stairway from the deck to that platform to ride down the slide on, then turn it in to the worker at the bottom.

waterslides

The three waterslides all start from the same platform, though when crowded they make separate lines at the top for the bowl slide or the other two.

zip line

The zipline runs above the boardwalk. As ziplines go it’s pretty small and neither steep nor fast, but it’s still fun. The most impressive thing about it is the fact that it’s on a ship since a place to put something like that onboard is pretty limited.

Central Park

Central Park has pathways winding through gardens of live plants. There are shops and eateries around the outer edges, and a small outside bar called the Trellis Bar. Sometimes there’s an additional bar called the Rising Tide, which is on an elevator and divides its time between Central Park and the Royal Promenade two decks below.

Royal Promenade

The Royal Promenade looks something like a city street with shops, bars, and eateries along the sides and even a karaoke spot. This is where the bionic bar is found where the bartenders are robots.

adults only solarium

Our favorite place onboard for hanging out and relaxing was the adults-only solarium. It’s a pretty big area enclosed in glass so there’s protection from sun, wind, and weather. It has its own hot tubs, towel station, and bar as well as lots and lots of deck chairs. It even has its own cafe, which serves buffet-style food at no extra charge.

high dive from the top of the AquaTheater structure at the end of the show

There’s lots to do on Wonder of the Seas. Just walking around and exploring the ship and all its many things could provide hours of entertainment since it is so big with so much to see.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2024

Posted in Royal Caribbean, Shipboard Life, Wonder of the Seas | Tagged cruise, photos, things to do on a cruise ship, travel, Wonder of the Seas | Leave a comment

Cozumel Buggy Tour

Posted on February 16, 2024 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Meraviglia in Cozumel

On past visits to Cozumel we’ve gone to the mainland a couple times for Tulum and cave snorkeling, done the snorkel & beach break, and gone to beach bars and Chankanaab on our own. For something different this time we booked a dune buggy tour around the island with snorkel break through Vacations to Go. The same or a similar excursion was also offered through the cruise ship. Pre-covid a lot of places had all sorts of last-minute things available on shore for people who hadn’t booked anything, but post covid at previous ports it had just been island taxi tours. Not at Cozumel though. All the little stands offering pretty much anything Cozumel has to offer are back up and in business. Taxis abound too so getting out to any of the little beach bars or Chankanaab is no problem either.

Punta Langosta sends cruise ship passengers through a mall when they leave the port

Most of our previous port stops in Cozumel have been at Puerta Maya, with one at the International Cruise Terminal. This time MSC Meraviglia docked at the one place we hadn’t been before – Punta Langosta. The other two are quite near each other, but Punta Langosta is about 4 kilometers away. Puerta Maya and the international terminal both have shops within the port, but Punta Langosta exits passengers through a mall. Kind of like nearly every tourist attraction everywhere that exits through a gift shop, except that the cruise terminal sends you to an entire mall – on the second floor where you have to walk past a lot of shops before finding a way down to the street level.

fake shark photo stand at the meeting place for our tour

The meeting point for our tour was behind the Hard Rock guitar at Royal Village across from the international terminal, an easy walk from either of the other two docks, but a long walk or a taxi ride from ours. One advantage of booking through the ship rather than an outside source would be transportation provided from where the ship docks. There was a platform with a giant fake shark set up for photos where everyone sat to wait for the tour. We all had to get up once when somebody wanted to take a picture.

mustangs and dune buggies at the Sky Reef snorkel stop

As usual with these tours, there’s always somebody who books it and doesn’t show up so the departure time comes and goes while they wait and wait until finally the tour leaves late after they give up waiting. It was booked as a buggy tour, but half the cars were mustangs rather than the advertised dune buggies, which resembled Volkswagen Bugs. The mustangs looked pretty new and sleek, but the buggies had definitely seen better days.

we had a purple buggy

It was supposed to be a buggy tour so we hopped into one of those, but in hindsight we should have picked a mustang because the buggy had to be wrestled the whole time to stay on the road, had sticky gears it didn’t want to shift into, no doors, and the rubber trim around the edge of the opening that would have been a window if it had any glass tended to come off and have to be pressed back in place every time anybody climbed in or out. The front seat belts were set for a very large person and had no way to adjust them any smaller, and only one of the buckles worked in the back seat. The buggies also had a hard time keeping up with the mustangs when the drive involved long stretches of road.

Sky Reef beach bar

This is just a guess with no facts to back it up whatsoever, but it seems that if you booked this excursion through the cruise line the cars might be in better condition because the cruise companies wouldn’t want the liability for their passengers driving substandard cars, and if you booked it straight from one of the walk-up booths onshore they might possibly be even worse as they wouldn’t even have third party booking companies like viator, trip advisor, or vacations to go to answer to. Those companies have no actual control over the vendors, just customers who may make complaints or post bad reviews about their tours online.

beach at Sky Reef

We started out with 3 each of mustangs and buggies, but after an unscheduled stop on the roadside they said one of the buggies was leaking gas. There were 2 people in it. One joined us and the other went to a mustang, leaving the buggy abandoned there assumably for someone from their company to pick up. After he took a short turn driving (that he didn’t want) we wondered if their buggy had really been leaking or if that was just an excuse to leave it behind because he couldn’t really drive it. It was a very scary stretch of road with him at the wheel. It felt like we were going to hit every car that went by or spin out and end up in the bushes, but he managed to keep it on the road and in our lane (just barely). He hardly spoke any English so we couldn’t talk to him much since we don’t speak any of whatever eastern European language he spoke.

fish at Sky Reef

The blurb about the excursion when we booked it said the snorkeling was last, even going so far as to say people could stay there after the tour left if they wished, but would have to get their own taxi ride back to the port if they did. So we were all very surprised when our first stop was for snorkeling. We went to Sky Reef, which is one of the little beach bars where we have been before. There’s not a whole lot of coral there, but there are quite a lot of fish. As soon as you put your face in the water at the bottom of the stairway for getting in and out of the sea you see a whole school of sergeant majors that seem to always hang out there.

sergeant major fish and small coral

They have a pretty big snorkeling/swimming area with a boundary of rope and buoys. There’s boat traffic beyond the buoys at the outside edge, so staying within them is required, and also important to insure not getting ran down by a speeding boat. Within the boundaries there are some areas with more fish than others. Out in the deepest part by the buoys is not where the most fish are found. They’re in a bit shallower where there’s a little more structure on the bottom, and a lot of small corals.

puffer fish

There aren’t any large corals or rocky outcroppings, just more of an uneven bottom with some dips in the rocky floor. Not a lot of structure, but it seems to be enough to attract a lot of fish, and quite a variety of types in various colors and sizes. We even saw a puffer fish there, which is something we haven’t seen all that often.

snorkeling in Cozumel

We have our own snorkel gear and went right out snorkeling when we first got there. They were supposed to have the gear handed out to people who didn’t have their own and a guided tour going for those who wanted it within the first 15 minutes of what was supposed to be an hour’s stay, but we were already done before the guided group even got into the water so our stay there went long beyond the hour it was supposed to be. Sky Reef is a nice place and hanging out there is pleasant enough, but when you have a tour with more places to go there needs to be some sort of time management to keep the tour on track. Assuming the snorkeling would be last I hadn’t brought anything to change into afterword, but needn’t have worried about being wet for the rest of the tour as we stayed there so long we were dry before the tour finally moved on.

fish at Sky Reef

We hadn’t been over to the wilder side of Cozumel before. Most of the population and tourist attractions are on the sheltered side across from Playa del Carmen on the mainland. The other side is mostly jungle with open-water beaches that get a lot bigger waves and have rip currents so going out too deep is not advised. At least that’s what our guide said.

paved trail between the road and the ocean

In some places the jungle was creeping over the road in need of maintenance to chop it back. There was a paved path that looked like a small road between the main road and the beach, but since it had signs saying no motor vehicles or scooters it must have been some sort of trail. Cops are apparently either exempt from the no motor vehicle thing on that trail or they just don’t care because we saw some driving on it.

vultures on a roof at the lunch stop

From the road a lot of the jungle looked like palmettos, but when we made it to the lunch stop the tops of the trees there were about as high as the bottom of the second story deck where we had lunch, which I think would be pretty tall for palmettos. The ones I’ve seen before in Florida were more of a shrub than a tree. Could be a different type though, or some sort of palm tree.

restaurant and gift shop in the middle of nowhere

The lunch included with our tour was supposed to be ready when we got there for what was scheduled as a 40-minute stop. It took about half an hour before they even served it so of course we ended up staying there for over an hour. The best part about that stop were the kudamundis running wild there. They mainly were in the jungle all around the outdoor restaurant deck, but they would come up on the deck and run around by the tables looking for handouts.

coatimundi

They would sit up and beg just like dogs and were adorably cute. They seemed to come up from a compost pile they liked to raid behind the building that the deck sat on top of. The restroom (in a different building) at that place left much to be desired as it had no toilet paper in any of the stalls and about half the toilets were missing their seats.

coatimundi

Kudamundis (aka coatimundi, coati, or Mexican raccoon) are in the same family as raccoons, but with a longer snout and slimmer body. There are 4 types that live in different regions down into South America, but the Cozumel coati is unique to Cozumel and not found anywhere else. These adorable critters are omnivores that forage both in the ground and in trees, mostly eating fruit, spiders, and small animals. They seemed pretty happy with human food too that they found digging through a garbage pile and begging from customers at the restaurant. Seeing them was the highlight of this tour.

ocean view from the lunch stop

There was an ocean beach across the street from the restaurant, but we didn’t have time to do much more than look at it. Maybe that was all a lot of people did because it had a frame set up for taking photos from the top without even going down the stairway to the beach.

ocean beach

We were supposed to make a stop for tequila tasting on the way back to the port area after lunch, but since we were running so late that stop got skipped to make sure everyone got back to their ships on time. We had about an hour to spare when we got back to ours (which was the farthest from the starting/ending point), but some of the other ships may have had earlier all-aboard times plus the guides don’t want to cut it too close when running a non-ship sponsored tour as cruise ships only wait for their own tours if they come back late. Also considering that all of the other stops ran overtime an hour probably wouldn’t have been enough time for any stop on this tour. It was a fun tour, but better time management and easier to drive vehicles in better condition would definitely have improved it.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2024

Other Adventures in Cozumel

Cozumel Cruise Ship Ports

Palancar Reef Snorkel

Playa Mia Beach Bar

Sky Reef Beach Bar

Tulum Mayan Ruins

Posted in Caribbean, Meraviglia, Mexico, MSC, Port Cities, Ports of Call, Shore Excursions | Tagged Buggy Tour, Cozumel, cruise, photos, shore excursions | Leave a comment

The Tree of Life

Posted on February 14, 2024 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Tree of Life

On the west coast of Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula above the beach at Kalaloch Campground in Olympic National Park, a large spruce tree clings to life on either side of a gap in the hillside, the ground beneath it having collapsed decades ago. How many decades I can’t say, with just decades being the closest thing to an answer to how long it has been that way that google would provide.

Kalaloch Beach

Though it is far from pretty much anything, if you happen to be in the area getting there is easy. It’s definitely something worth seeing since it’s such a unique and unusual quirk of nature. The campground is right alongside Highway 101, the main road around the Olympic peninsula. The closest town is Forks, which is almost 34 miles north of Kalaloch Campground.

stairway from the day use parking lot to the beach

A pathway from the day use parking lot leads to the beach and the tree is just north of the steep stairway leading from that trail to the beach. It’s quite a short walk along the beach, maybe 50 yards or so.

the tree of life is about at the middle of this photo where there’s a gap in the cliff

The small cliff rising above the driftwood covered beach is topped by trees all along the way, but none of the others hang in the precarious position that the tree of life does.

Tree of Life

Most photos of the tree show the view from the beach, a view that shows the tree barely clinging to both sides of a gap with bare roots dangling across the middle underneath. From this view it appears that the tree is barely clinging in there and likely to fall at any time, which is why it was given the name Tree of Life – hanging onto its life against all odds while erosion continuously takes ever more soil away from its roots. Its shape also somewhat resembles the tree of life from Avatar and some renditions of the original tree of life.

the tree has an extensive root system on both sides

It’s high enough above the ground that people can walk under it. From the underside you can see that it is more secure than it appears from the front with an extensive root system reaching into the ground along both sides of the gap for the entire length of the area where you can walk underneath it, which goes back quite a ways. Probably at least 12 feet.

under the tree of life

Before going there I had read there was a creek underneath it, but it was dry when we were there. Apparently the creek came about as the result of runoff from a culvert put in near Kalaloch Lodge in the 1960’s and is largely responsible for the erosion under the tree.

the tree of life has some massive limbs crossing the gap

From underneath the tree of life you can see how massive some of the limbs that support it over the gap are. The tree is a Sitka Spruce, which is a type of evergreen so its foliage stays green year-round.

view of the tree of life from underneath

From the area in the gap behind and under the tree you get a different and interesting view of it when looking up. The walls of both sides of the gap are covered in its roots, and they dangle into the open space as well.

Piper in a driftwood house

Making structures from the plentiful driftwood on the beach near the tree appeared to be a very popular activity. There was quite a variety of them among the driftwood lining the top of that beach. All of the driftwood is near the short cliff. The rest of the beach area extending out to the ocean was just sand other than the many people on the beach, some dogs, and a few seagulls.

driftwood on Kalaloch Beach near the tree of life

Kalaloch beach is one of the few places where dogs are allowed in Olympic National Park so there were quite a few of them there. Park passes are required to park in the day use lot. It’s best to get one online in advance as the booth in the parking lot is only open a few hours a day. There was a box where people could pay in an envelope, but at the time we were there the empty envelopes and ones with money in them were all in the same box that anyone could open. Normally the envelopes are outside of a locked box in those sorts of places, but the lock was broken and everything was in the box. I don’t know if it is always that way or if it had been recently broken and not fixed yet.

lots of people taking photos of the tree of life

Posted in USA, Washington | Tagged Olympic National Park, tree of life | 2 Comments

Endicott Arm

Posted on February 9, 2024 by LBcruiseshipblogger

sailing through Endicott Arm

I’ve been on a couple previous cruises to Alaska that were scheduled to go down Tracy Arm, but ended up in Endicott Arm instead because the entrance to Tracy Arm was blocked by icebergs. In contrast, Quantum of the Seas was scheduled to go to Endicott Arm. Perhaps because the ship was too big for Tracy Arm, or maybe just because so many early season cruises get diverted to Endicott Arm that they just scheduled it there. Whatever the reason, since that’s where the ship was already going it didn’t have any alternative place to go for glacier watching.

Margerie Glacier in Glacier Bay in 2018 on the left and 2013 on the right

The trip down Endicott Arm started very early in the morning, with the expected arrival at the glacier a couple hours later. Most Alaska cruises have a glacier day somewhere, whether it’s Tracy or Endicott Arm, Glacier Bay, or the way more impressive Hubbard Glacier. The Tracy Arm cruises I took that ended up in Endicott Arm were one of my very early cruises on the Norwegian Sun and one with my sisters on Ruby Princess. I went to Glacier Bay twice on Holland America Westerdam. The glaciers there had noticeably retreated in the 2018 trip from where they had been when I first saw them in 2013. Hubbard Glacier I saw from the Oosterdam. If you’re booking an Alaska cruise specifically to see glaciers, Hubbard is definitely the place to go.

several ice floes feed into Hubbard – an immense tidewater glacier

On all those previous trips the ship would park broadside to the glacier, sit there for about half an hour, and then do a 180 so the other side faced it. That way anyone with a balcony got a chance to see it from their own room if they didn’t want to find a public area for glacier viewing – and those with rooms at the back of the ship could see it from their balconies as the ship sailed away. It also gave people plenty of time to wander around the ship and get views of the glacier from various different places.

the scenery is great in Endicott Arm even if you don’t make it to the glacier at the end

We got up early enough on the Quantum to have plenty of time to see the glacier once we got to the end of Endicott Arm. We figured on going to breakfast once that was done. Dawes Glacier is the name of the one at the end of Endicott Arm. Most of the other ships we had been on either made some sort of public announcements regarding things to see along the way as well as when to expect arrival and departure at the actual glacier, or had a specific place to go onboard where that information would be provided. Quantum stayed silent.

scenery in Endicott Arm

We thought we were sailing into Endicott Arm until Melissa mentioned the ship having done a 180 earlier in the morning when she’d taken a stroll out on the top deck. It wouldn’t have had any reason to do that unless it was bailing on going to the glacier and heading back out. We’d gone to the girls cabin for glacier watching since they had a balcony and we didn’t. They also had internet so as soon as she could get a signal Mel checked a mapping app, which confirmed that we were on the way out rather than into Endicott Arm. Which explained why we never reached the glacier as it kept getting later past the time we should have been there. There never was any sort of formal announcement about missing the glacier. They just left that for people to figure out for themselves. Or maybe hoped that people would think they had gotten there early and everyone had slept through it. Which would never have happened because a bunch of people had staked out the front row seats in the solarium way early so they’d get them and would have known the second the ship turned around. Mel is a newbie to cruising and hadn’t been to Alaska before. She hadn’t realized what was going on when the ship did the 180 so until she mentioned it we were unaware.

there’s lots of little ice bergs floating around when in the vicinity of glaciers

Unlike Glacier Bay, which has a lot of glaciers that you pass by, or Hubbard which is huge and visible for miles before you get there, Dawes Glacier at the end of Endicott Arm isn’t huge and the passageway is narrow so you don’t see it from a great distance away. There’s not a lot of other glaciers dotting the hills on the way there either.

Sumdum Glacier

We did think we would see Sumdum Glacier on the way out, but hadn’t been looking for it since we thought we were on the way in. We spotted a hillside glacier and took some photos. As soon as we knew we were on the way out of Endicott Arm rather than into it we figured out that had probably been Sumdum Glacier. (It would have been on the other side of the ship on the way in.) At the time we weren’t positive it was Sumdum Glacier since they weren’t announcing anything, but I haven’t seen mention of any other glaciers in Endicott Arm anywhere and the mountains around it look exactly the same as the ones in anyone else’s photos of that glacier so that’s what it had to be. It’s not called that because somebody back in the past thought it was just some dumb glacier. It sits on Mount Sumdum. In Tlingit the name means big noise, likely due to the noise made when glaciers calve. There can be a lot of cracking and rumbling before a piece drops off.

leaving Endicott Arm behind

They did not say why the ship turned around before getting all the way to Dawes Glacier, which isn’t surprising since other than listing approximate times in the schedule for that day they hadn’t said anything about it at all. There must have been too many icebergs floating around or a lot of ice near the glacier blocking the way. Whether or not a smaller ship could have got through I have no idea. As cruise ships have gotten bigger over the years so have the size of ships going to Alaska. Way back when we went there on the Sun it was the biggest ship around everywhere we went that trip. Now it’s one of the smallest in Norwegian’s fleet. Though they didn’t make it down Tracy Arm, the smaller ships I was on did get all the way to the end of Endicott Arm without any trouble. It’s a good thing glaciers weren’t our priority on this trip. The fine print of any cruise always mentions something about itineraries being subject to change. This one specifically said something about going all the way to Dawes Glacier at the end of Endicott Arm if it could get there safely, but never made any promises that it actually would.

we didn’t actually make it all the way to Dawes Glacier regardless of what the photo says

We happened across a photographer out on the top deck. Sometimes the photos they take are just photos, but other times they add stuff to them. The ones from that day must have intended to have been done while the ship was at the glacier because they added a boarder around them that said Dawes Glacier even though we didn’t actually make it there.

Posted in Alaska, Quantum of the Seas, Royal Caribbean, USA | Tagged Alaska, cruise, Endicott Arm, glaciers, photos, Quantum of the Seas, Royal Caribbean, travel | 2 Comments

Hilo, Hawaii Cruise Port

Posted on February 2, 2024 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Noordam in Hilo

Hilo Cruise Port is on Hawaii’s big island (Hawaii Island) which has 6 volcanos. Some are active and some are not. Only 5 of them are above the surface of the water. The 6th volcano, Mahukona is extinct, submerged 1200 feet under the ocean, and 30 miles off the coast buried in lava from other volcanos and coral so it’s not surprising this one wasn’t included when our tour guide at that port said the island had 5 volcanos. Most information I’ve seen only mentioned 5 volcanos on the big island, but since the 6th one is buried underwater 30 miles offshore and the rest are actually on the island that makes sense.

volcano erupting

Kilauea is the most active volcano on earth. Sometimes people can see lava in the crater or flowing from this volcano, but there was only steam while we were there. This volcano erupted continuously for 35 years from 1983 – 2018. Eruptions are more sporadic now with the latest information available from Volcanos National Park, which this volcano resides within. Mauna Kea is a dormant volcano having last erupted 3500 years ago. Measured from the sea floor it is the tallest mountain on earth, though its peak altitude is nowhere near the tallest mountain measured from sea level to the top. It has a lake near the summit which is one of the highest in the USA.

monkeypod tree

Mauna Loa is the second most active volcano in the world after Kilauea. It has erupted at least 33 times since 1843 with its most recent eruption occurring in 2022. Hualalai erupts about 2-3 times every 1000 years with its most recent eruption in 1801. Kohala last erupted 60,000 years ago and is considered extinct.

port crew using a forklift to move the lines when the ship docked

Hilo is on the rainy side of the island so there is a lot of lush greenery. Mango, lychee, and monkey pod trees line the highway. Since Hawaii is a state in the USA, currency is in US dollars. November is the rainiest month and June the driest. February is the coldest month and August the hottest. Temperatures range from lows in the low 60’s F to highs in the high 80’s F. The population of Hilo is over 45,000. Population of the big island is over 200,000.

port building

The ship docks in a container port. There’s a small general store just outside of the port gate. Be prepared to show your ID as well as your ship card when entering. Like most US ports, the security guard at the gate will ask for it. They also ask for it at the port building so even if you don’t walk outside the gate you will still need to show it to get back to the ship.

Farmers Market shuttle

The town is a couple miles from the port. It’s walkable, but for those wanting to save time or who don’t want to walk there is transportation. On the day we were there they had a free shuttle to a farmer’s market in town. There are also taxis and ubers in the area and a free city bus. The city bus stops at the airport too, so it takes a bit more time to complete a circuit than other modes of transportation. The internet says there’s a free shuttle to Walmart, but it was not running the day we were there. Walmart is a couple miles beyond the main part of town so the farmer’s market shuttle would have been the better choice to get there anyway.

hula dancers

There wasn’t much at the port itself other than a small area inside the port building offering information. Other than a couple hula dancing girls to entertain people waiting for excursions most of the rest of the space inside the building was used for staging the ship’s shore excursions.

Hoppa on Hoppa off bus

At the exit from the building there were people with signs offering last-minute tours. There was also a bus parked near where the excursion busses and other shuttles pick up passengers. This bus had hoppa on hoppa off painted on its side. Not hop on hop off as is found elsewhere – this one said hoppa. Just outside the port area a building marked tours appeared to be the hoppa on hoppa off base as it had more such busses in various sizes parked in front of it. Tours from the port on hoppa on hoppa off went to places like a chocolate factory, a Japanese garden, and a waterfall, or on a longer tour out to a volcano.

Posted in Holland America, Noordam, Pacific Ocean & Islands, Port Cities, Ports of Call, USA | Tagged cruise, cruise port, Hawaii, Hilo, photos, travel | 1 Comment

Food on Wonder of the Seas

Posted on January 26, 2024 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Wonder of the Seas

Over the course of many years and many cruises we’ve noticed that the quality of the food even on the same cruiseline and ship often depends on that ship’s current chef. My first sailing on Holland America’s Veendam brought the best cruise ship food I’ve ever had, but sailing again on the very same ship several years later the food was just ordinary. On Symphony of the Seas the chef came up with all sorts of fancy, tasty, and sometimes off-menu desserts that were both gluten and dairy free, but the chef on Wonder of the Seas was apparently not so talented. On that ship they said it was impossible to make such things.

dining room

The head waiter was awesome, but he can’t magically make food appear that the chef won’t cook. The dining room food was generally good, and they did take pre-orders for the next night so they could make gluten and lactose free versions of dinners that otherwise are not, so it was just special-order desserts that were lacking.

pizza at Sorrentos

The pizza at Sorrentos was quite good and they made gluten free without any problems. They do have a limited selection of toppings, but that’s for everyone, not just gluten-free. On Wonder you could have the same toppings as anyone else on a gluten-free pizza, unlike Quantum, another of Royal Caribbean’s ships where gluten-free pizzas were only offered in plain cheese even though they had other toppings available for regular pizzas. Lines could get quite long at Sorrentos, but we beat the crowd and got right in the day we had lunch there. Lines at the start of lunchtime on Wonder were even longer at El Loco Fresh, which had been our favorite lunch spot on Symphony. We tried going there later one day after the line had cleared and the food was as tasty as I remembered.

lunch buffet at the Solarium Bistrp

The Solarium Bistro kind of turned out to be our go-to lunch spot on this ship. It had good food served buffet style, though much smaller than the main buffet. It also did not have the crowds that some of the other places had at lunchtime which was one of the reasons we liked to go there. The line was not very long and we could always get a table.

Solarium Bistro

Table cleaning wasn’t generally done promptly at any of Wonder’s eateries. Maybe they weren’t able to expand the post-covid workforce as fast as they increased the passenger count or couldn’t find any experienced people who knew to go clean them often, or perhaps just hadn’t had time to find a balance in the workforce on a fairly new ship. There were about 400 new crew that came aboard the same day we did. Perhaps a lot of them were new to working on cruise ships and didn’t really know what to do yet, which seems likely as the tables did get cleaned more frequently toward the end of the cruise than they had at the beginning.

buffet on Wonder of the Seas

The other Royal Caribbean ships we’ve been on each had a whole gluten free section in the buffet, but Wonder did not. Being their biggest ship at that time you would think it would have the biggest buffet, but it actually seemed quite small and often crowded with empty tables hard to come by, dirty or not. On the deck plans it looks about the same size as Symphony’s buffet, but it felt a lot smaller. Whether that was due to the different layout, or to the fact that there were a lot more people onboard Wonder than there were when I was on Symphony I don’t know.

Wonderland is an Alice in Wonderland themed restaurant with a view of the boardwalk

Wonder has quite a lot of premium (aka pay-extra) eateries, but we didn’t try any of them so I can’t say whether they are worth the extra money or not. Premium eateries on the ship include The Mason Jar, which serves southern comfort food, Chops Grille steakhouse, Giovanni’s Italian Kitchen, Izumi sushi and Japanese food, Hooked seafood, 150 Central Park for seasonal and elegant dinners, Johnny Rockets for burgers, fries, & milkshakes, Wonderland for imaginative cuisine, Vitality Café at the spa, which is a juice bar with healthy juices and smoothies and homemade granola, and a candy shop called Sugar Beach.

Sorrentos

There are also a lot of places that serve food at no extra cost. The main ones are of course the dining room and buffet, or for suite guests the Coastal Kitchen. Other free eateries besides the already mentioned Sorrentos pizza, El Loco Fresh Mexican, and Solarium Bistro are the Dog House hot dogs, Central Park Café, and a soft-serve ice cream station near the pools.

promenade cafe

The Promenade Cafe has free sandwiches and desserts, but the specialty coffee and tea there costs extra. The one on Symphony always had several gluten free dessert options, but the one on Wonder never had any.

duck a l’orange in the dining room

Like most cruise ships, it would be hard to go hungry on this one. There are so many different options of places to eat and varieties of types of food that pretty much anyone should be able to find something they like. Even people who are on very restrictive diets can find food by having all of their meals in the dining room and ordering ahead so food can be altered to meet their needs.

lamb in the dining room

Posted in Cruise Food, Royal Caribbean, Shipboard Life, Wonder of the Seas | Tagged cruise, cruise food, photos, Royal Caribbean, travel, Wonder of the Seas | Leave a comment

Shows on MSC Meraviglia

Posted on January 19, 2024 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Meraviglia and other ships in Costa Maya

The main theater cast on MSC Meraviglia was quite busy performing a show in the main theater nearly every night. Out of an 11 day cruise I think they had just one night off, with 6 different shows throughout the cruise and 2-3 performances each night. Most other lines have various guest performances several times within a week’s cruise so the cast has more nights off and less shows to learn and practice. Meraviglia also had a smaller secondary theater with a minimal surcharge and one or the other of two different shows having a couple nightly performances most nights as well. There was a different cast for this theater than for the main one.

dome show

The domed ceiling of the ship’s promenade area was a video screen which usually displayed one of a variety of still designs. There were also brief dome shows scheduled throughout the day where one of a number of different videos showed anything from random colors to a submarine voyage to a real-time view of the same lighthouse show as a real lighthouse had going near the dock just outside the ship while it was at MSC’s private island called Ocean Cay. Sometimes in the evening they had a camera out in the promenade that would display whoever walked nearest to it in a series of picture frames along the dome.

singers in a stage show

We went to the main theater most nights. During the first 7 days of our cruise reservations were required, which could be booked at no charge either through their phone app or through an interactive screen in front of the theater. The middle of the 3 nightly performances was the most popular and nearly always booked full. The last 4 days when the ship was far less crowded people could go to either of the two nightly performances without any advance reservation. The shows there were of the typical cruise ship production type with singing and dancing. Some shows were better than others. Most were entertaining, but there was one we thought was rather boring.

roller skaters in the COOL show

They had one show called COOL that had the addition of a talented pair of roller skaters as well as the singers and dancers. Throughout the various shows some of the cast members stand out more than others. Of course the spotlight was on the star dancers and singers during their routines in each show, but when they weren’t highlighted during their special routines some of the background cast stood out more.

Happy Guy is on the far left

In particular one of the male dancers who we thought of as Happy Guy because he always looked like he was having so much fun and was quite enthusiastic in every performance. He always looked directly at the audience whenever facing the right way, wearing a huge smile on his face. Then there was one of the female dancers who was probably totally unaware of whether there was any audience in the theater seats or if the place was completely empty. Her eyes always focused up toward the ceiling and her dancing looked as stiff and awkward as her tight-lipped facial expression. Unlike one of the three female singers who could have as easily been a dancer as a singer since her dancing was better than that of several of the dancers. In one of the shows happy guy and awkward girl were paired up together in one of the dances. Somehow they made it work even though their styles couldn’t have been more opposite.

aerialists and others in the Carousel Theater

Besides the main theater with free shows, Mervagilia’s other theater with a nominal fee is called the Carousel Theater. You get a drink included in the price of the show and since the price is not much more than the price of a drink the shows are pretty cheap. It’s just a pre-made drink that you pick up from a tray on the way in. It’s take it or leave it on the drinks. There’s no option to order anything different than the two choices offered with alcohol and one without. The Carousel Theater has a round stage. The stage has a spinning platform that covers most of the surface area, other than a ring around the outer edge. Seats go nearly all the way around, with the best seats being those that face the front of the stage because they get a straight on view of the backgrounds and the performers tend to face that way more often. Some of the seats are at nearly the backside of the stage and others extend far out to the sides. There’s a lot of aerialists in these performances, which tend to drift over the side seating on their way to the main stage. You have to walk through the casino to get to that theater and the casino is not smoke free. The line to get in while waiting for the doors to open is also in the casino and if you don’t get there early you won’t get a good seat. Unfortunately they don’t open the doors until nearly time for the show so anyone desiring a decent seat is stuck waiting in line in the sometimes smokey casino.

Houdini show in the Carousel Theater

The first time we went there we saw the Houdini show. We were too far back in the line to get good seats that time and were on the backside of the stage where we were behind some of the scenery and facing away from the panel above the stage that got all the video effects. We could still see most of the stage performers and all the many aerialists, though more often than not we saw the backs of the people onstage. Even though it was a Houdini show there weren’t any real magic tricks. Just a few simulations – like fake knife throwing with the Houdini character standing against a wooden background from which knives would pop out as if they’d been thrown into it when other people pretended to throw them. He also did a fake strait jacket escape while hanging upside down from an aerialist apparatus surrounded by a sheer curtain with sound and light effects that made it look like a tank of water.

strong guys at the rock show in the Carousel Theater

When we went to the Rock Circus show we knew to get there earlier, so we got better seats near the front of the stage. We could see the whole stage and the video wall from there. Regardless of whether or not we’d had better seats, the Rock Circus was by far the better of the two shows at that theater, but the price is so minimal it’s no stretch of the budget to go to both. Tickets for the theater can be purchased online before the cruise, but reservations for the particular performance you attend have to be made onboard. The Rock Circus show had lots of talented performers with a variety of aerialists as well as dancers, acrobats, and a singer for a fast-paced lively show with colorful lighting effects. It’s the same people as in the Houdini show, the rock one is just a better show.

dome show

When the ship stops at Ocean Cay there’s a special performance after dark – a light show on the island’s lighthouse. Our first stop there was just for a day and everyone was back onboard for the lighthouse show as the ship left soon after. The second time the ship overnighted there and they had two performances of the lighthouse show with a beach party lasting from the start of the first show to the end of the second about 2 hours later so people could watch either from the ship or from shore.

lighthouse show at Ocean Cay

Posted in Meraviglia, MSC, Shipboard Life | Tagged cruise, cruise ship shows, Meraviglia, MSC, photos, travel | Leave a comment

Cruise Stories

Quantum of the Seas Ocean View Cabin

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Food on Wonder of the Seas

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Shows on MSC Meraviglia

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