10/10/05

By jtutak

• February 11, 2007

Arrived at Port of Miami about 12:30 took about 20 minutes to board ship with Set Sail Pass. Stateroom 4509 was ready and lunch was being served.

Meals: Food in the Mikado dining room was Superb. Both Breakfast & Dinners were top notch the Beef Filet (Formal Night) & Lamb shank (Italian night) were not to be missed. However the buffets in the Windjammer caf? were nothing special the food was not hot and many entries were cold. This was the fault of not having any way to keep the food warm, if you did get it when a new tray was brought out it was OK otherwise the food was soon cold. Ice cream (24hrs) and Pizza were great and no charge.

Bars: In my opinion the cocktails were good & priced fairly.

Entertainment: The Beat Goes On & Boogie Wonderland were excellent though The Beat goes on was better but this is only my opinion. The Farewell comedy show staring Steve Carte & Phil Tag had everyone laughing so hard I was crying!!

Room: Had inside cabin 4509 while I don?t usually book an inside I felt it would do for a short trip with no sea days. The beds worked much better (no wasted cabin space) as twins then pushed together. The TV worked better than any other ship I have been on even though there was no time to watch it. No safe in the room was a definite drawback; RCI should immediately install safes in all rooms.

Ports of Call: Nassau, we took bus #10 ($1pp) to Ardastra Gardens ($12pp) to see the marching Flamingos. It was wonderful and I highly recommend this zoo especially if you have children. Cococay, a great beach day with RCI provided lunch. Again the food was not hot but there were many serving stations & plenty of tables. The snorkeling was very good except for the Moon Jellyfish (they don?t sting badly but I am allergic to them) in the water. Key West: Arrived about 8:30 but ship was not cleared until about 11:00. Every passenger had to parade past one of the four Immigration officers with I.D?s (Passport or Birth certificate with picture ID. I don?t know why they do this it seems like a tremendous waste of resources, I am sure they could catch more illegal?s anyplace on Route 1 in Florida.

Ship: I loved the ship even though a few RCI veterans did not think she was up to RCI standards. Yes, if you looked hard enough you could see a few signs a of wear and a couple of stains on the carpet. However, overall the ship seemed to be maintained in tip top shape. Someone must come out in the middle of the night to polish all the brass because it was always polished and I never saw anyone polishing. The crew seemed happy and all were willing to help you have a good time...

Disembarkation: Luggage had to be out at midnight the day before. Breakfast was served in the Maytime Dining Room (sit-down) and Windjammer caf? from 6:30 to 9:00. You had to vacate your room by 8:00 and wait in your designated public room until called. I got off the ship about 9:30. It went very quickly due to the ship clearing Immigration in Key West. You claimed your luggage at an airport style luggage carousel walked past and handed in your Customs declaration, and I started to think about my next cruise.