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FLL and Port of Miami Arrival

So we got on to Fort Lauderdale but still too many options abounded for Jennifer, is it a cruise, is it Miami, is it Key West? As we drop down to Fort Lauderdale Airport she sees the cruise ships and says, "wait a minute cruise ships sail out of Fort Lauderdale!" Oh no I say, we're not taking a cruise . . . out of Fort Lauderdale. She latches on my choice of words and I ignore her and start talking about something else.

I get on the horn with Frank from SAS Transportation, no doubt the way to get from any airport to any cruise ship terminal in South Florida. Steve is the owner, he is great and Frank was also wonderful, playing along with my game of Jennifer not knowing where we are going, even saying that he would swing by Bayside and then American Airlines Arena so I could see the new place where the Miami Heat play . . . oh damn, how did we end up on the bridge to the cruise ship terminal? Frank was really great, it's the small stuff like that that matters.

Majesty of

Our Stateroom

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Deck 5, Starboard side. It's okay, small, not as nice as Navigator.

the Seas

Well it is definitely no Navigator of the Seas but the Majesty is not bad and Royal Caribbean just does a solid job. We haven't been to the room yet, we are in Windjammer Cafe enjoying the plethora of food. Jen has pasta of course.

No balcony stateroom either, the point was to get away for a quick cheap weekend but we had to have a window at least. Okay, this is a later edit for posterity's sake - the stateroom is quite small, which is the standard on this ship. Because the time at sea is so short, you never really notice it. There are very few balcony staterooms and they do not look all that appealing. The ship was commissioned in 1992 but seems older than that, although reviews of the ship indicate that it was state of the art at the time. The arrangement of lifeboats, public spaces, etc. just don't seem to make much sense. She has a narrow beam that is very evident when in public spaces, but she is steady on the Caribbean waters.

First Dinner

We ended up partying a little too hard last night after finishing a bottle of wine at dinner and then hanging out in Schooner’s Bar singing along with the pianist there. Our tablemates are great and a somewhat diverse bunch with Alex and Rebecca sitting to our right with Alex’s dad, Oranjel. They are from Venezuela originally, living in Pompano but the dad still lives in Venezuela, a place in the south called Trujillo. The father does not speak any English so with a little bit of wine I carried on a pretty good conversation. Definitely of that South American generation that had revolution in its blood; a bit crusty, cantankerous, and set in his ways. There are two other couples and one single lady. Vanessa and John Paul are also Venezuelans but more Americanized; the other couple is from Charleston, SC all-American talking about trying to sneak booze on the boat as the highlight and disappoint of their day; and Patricia, an older lady who is a nurse at Miami Children’s Hospital. A great group to share dinner with, nothing in common really.

The dinner was good and we played it safe with a Caprese Salad and Chicken Marsala. The food and staff aboard are not quite up to the standards of the Navigator though. I think staff members start out on these booze cruises and have to graduate to the bigger, better ships. All said, the ship is okay, it is much smaller than the Navigator and so has less facilities.

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