It has become tradition to escape the cold of January in Ottawa with a mid-winter cruise. Our original plan was to sail on a seven-day Liberty of the Seas cruise. In our research, we realized that we could save some money by booking two shorter cruises back-to-back instead of one seven-day cruise. We booked a three-day cruise on Majesty of the Seas out of Miami, then we would switch to a five-day cruise on Enchantment of the Seas out of Ft. Lauderdale. We realized the logistics of this could be tricky, but we figured it would throw an interesting spin on our January trek to the Caribbean. Plus, it would give us eight days of  cruising for less than seven days on Liberty.

We had booked the cruise early enough to get flights using frequent flyer points. We managed to snag the holy grail of flights: a direct flight home from Ft. Lauderdale to Ottawa. We'd have to connect in Montreal to get to our departure port of Miami, but that was not going to be much of an issue; Montreal is great for transfers.

There were two small issues that raised their heads before leaving on our trip. Lack of money and lack of time off work. Visa helped me with one of these problems, I took time off without pay for the second. I'd rather be on a cruise than at work!

Thursday, January 17th, 2008 - Leaving Ottawa

While none of us are crazy about early morning flights, there was a great appeal to having a full day in Miami before sailing off on the first of our back-to-back cruises on Majesty of the Seas. The flight from Ottawa to Montreal was scheduled to leave at 6:15am, with a connection to Miami leaving at 9:30am. We picked Melynda up at 5am, drove to the Park 'N Fly and we were checked in by 5:30am. David and Tim arrived at the terminal just after us and we all traveled together to Miami. We enjoyed the Miami flight since we had seat-back monitors with on-demand movies and television. We arrived in Florida a touch late at 1:30pm. Lee, Melynda and I reserved a car through Alamo, and took advantage of their new on-line check-in option. By completing the check-in form on-line, you do not have to stand in line or speak to an attendant when you arrive at the rental depot. You simply go into the lot and select the car you would like from the appropriate category. This saves tons of time! Since we had reserved a convertible, we had a choice between a Sebring and a PT Cruiser. The PT Cruiser had more trunk space, so we loaded in the luggage and headed for the exit; Lee only had to sign a form on the way out of the lot. We ended up being stuck in traffic for quite a while on our way to lunch and we only had a short period of time to shop at The Falls Shopping Centre in Miami before the afternoon evaporated. Traffic was bad heading into downtown as well and it took forever to get to the Hyatt to drop off Melynda.

Lee and I were staying at the Marriott Biscayne Bay with the last remnants of my Marriott points. Our room was great: it was on the 26th floor with a fantastic view of the cruise ship port. An unexpected bonus was that we were given access to the Concierge Lounge at the hotel. We showered, changed clothes and grabbed a snack in the lounge quickly to go back to pick up Melynda and meet David and Tim in South Beach. Before we all headed out for dinner, we stopped for a drink at the Rose Bar in the Hotel Delano on Collins Avenue in South Beach. David and Tim love the trendy spots and they picked this location based on recommendation from a reviewer in the New York Times. It was great! Before leaving the Delano, we took a quick tour through the patio area of the hotel, this was where should have sat. It was beautiful with glowing lanterns and nice seating overlooking the pool.

We ventured towards Lincoln Road and had dinner at Sushi Samba. Lee and I had eaten here last time we were in Miami and loved it. We knew David and Tim would love the trendy vibe of the place. After dinner we walked along Lincoln Road and admired all the people out for the evening. The streets were very crowded and many people had stopped to watch some of the South Beach Comedy Festival presentations along Lincoln Road. It was a beautiful evening and it was great to be outside and away from the cold of Ottawa in January.

David and Tim were staying in South Beach at a small boutique hotel called the Hotel Impala. Their room was very nice, it was decorated in a Mediterranean style with tile floors and rough wood trim. The room was quiet despite their location on Collins Avenue. By this time of the night, we were dragging our asses around South Beach since we had been up since 4am that morning. We headed back to our hotel after dropping off Melynda and we finally made it to bed just before midnight.

Friday, January 18th 2008 - Boarding Majesty of the Seas

We boarded the ship around 2:30pm, probably the latest we have ever boarded. Our room was 3598, an oceanview room on the third deck. Since we had sailed on Sovereign of the Seas the previous summer, we knew how small the rooms were on this class of ship. The room would suit our purposes though. Our luggage had already been delivered when we arrived at our room. We had a light lunch in the Windjammer and met David and Tim for coffee. We unpacked while waiting for the muster drill.

Upon checking our table in the dining room, we realized we had been assigned a large table for 10. We were not crazy about sharing with that many people and tried to switch to a smaller table for just our group. Since this sailing was sold out, they could not accommodate any changes to the seating. Nobody else showed up at our table on this first night, so we didn't mind the large table. Our Head Waiter was familiar to us, he was the same head waiter we had on Sovereign of the Seas the summer before.

We ran from dinner to the A Chorus Line theatre to see the opening show featuring a comedian called Steve Bruner. The Cruise Director, Dennis Sciortino, opened the show. None of us were very impressed by Dennis as his "come on, let's party!" schtick would better be suited for a frat-house kegger than a cruise ship. After the show we toured some of the bars on the ship, stopping in the Viking Crown and the Schooner Bar. Royal Caribbean has instituted a new non-smoking policy on all their ships. This policy states that one bar on each ship will be designated as non-smoking. This is fantastic news! On Madge, the Schooner Bar was non-smoking and it was great to be able to sit in the bar without gagging on second-hand smoke. Lee and Melynda were both winners in the casino tonight, with Lee winning $50 and Melynda winning $100. Lee's winning streak would continue for most of the two cruises, with him winning around $350 over the holiday. Between the Royal Delight coffee at Lattetudes in the afternoon, the wine at dinner, and the multiple cocktails during the show and in the bars, I was getting pretty loaded. Luckily, I had the sense to drink a lot of water before staggering to bed at 11:30pm. It wouldn't have been pretty the next morning otherwise!

Saturday, January 19th, 2008 - Coco Cay

Our first port of call on Majesty of the Seas was at Royal Caribbean's private island in the Bahamas called Coco Cay. We are huge fans of the private island experience and we were looking forward to a day of loafing on the beach. I did not get a great night of sleep; I drank so much water to avoid a hangover that I had to pee often during the night. We anchored at Coco Cay around 7am. We had the whole day at the island, and felt no great need to rush off. One thing we noticed about Majesty of the Seas is that only continental breakfast was available through room service in the morning, we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in the dining room instead.  The seas were a bit choppy because of the wind and getting on the tender was a bit tricky, you had to time your step into the tender to the beat of the waves.

It was very windy and the water was kind of gross, so we didn't spend the whole day on the beach.  After lunch, we returned to the ship and I sat by the pool listening to music on my iPod and dozing. I had been fighting off a cold for several weeks and I was still quite weakened by it. Relaxing and napping was a welcome activity. You could tell that people were coming back on board from the island, the volume on the pool deck got progressively louder as the afternoon progressed.

We ended up with table mates for the Formal Night dinner tonight; four teachers traveling together who were seated at a different table the night before wanted to escape the children at their table and had themselves moved. While we wanted to have a table to ourselves, we enjoyed their company and had some nice conversations with them. After dinner we attended the Captain's Reception in the theatre and took advantage of the free drinks. The headliner show followed the reception, and featured a brutal impressionist called Brian G. I might not be judging fairly though, I don't think I have ever seen an impressionist I have liked. This guy  was pretty bad though, they flashed pictures of the character or person he was impersonating on a screen so you would know who it was supposed to be. After he did a Snagglepuss impersonation (in 2008!) about 5 minutes in, we got up an left. Tim, David and Melynda stayed and they said they he did have some talent as a musician. After the show and we went to the casino so Tim could try the slot machines. His $10 did not last long! Since Lee and Melynda had won some money in the casino already, he felt he should have the same luck.

Sunday, January 20th, 2008 - Nassau, Bahamas

We booked an excursion through the cruise line for our day in Nassau, spending the day at the Aquaventure water slides at the Atlantis resort. This excursion is not offered on all cruises (perhaps it depends on capacity at Atlantis) and includes transportation, a pass for the water attractions and pools at the resort, and lunch. We gathered for the excursion on the dock in Nassau at 9am, received our bracelets and were escorted across the pier to a water shuttle. After a tour of the harbour, we walked from the ferry terminal through the outdoor shopping area at Atlantis to the main hotel, through the casino and finally the grounds to the water park area. It took over an hour to get from the ship to the water park and people were getting anxious to get at the water. Had we known it was going to take that long to just get to the slides, we would have just jumped in a cab at the pier after getting our bracelets.

It was still raining after lunch and we decided that the day was going to be a wash. We had to walk back to where we stored our things in a locker and we met Melynda in the shopping area to return to the ferry terminal for the ride back to the ship. The shuttle were supposed to run every half hour, we arrived at 2:20pm hoping to catch the 2:30 shuttle. The boat arrived and the guy said we would be leaving in a few minutes. He returned 35 minutes later; if we had known it was going to take that long to leave, we would have jumped in a taxi. (We noted this on our evaluation, we hate being taken advantage of!)

We had a bit of time before we were scheduled to board the ship, we popped into Señor Frog's for an adult beverage or two. The place was in full swing! Our first cruise was coming to an end, and we did a bit of packing before heading off to dinner and the Crown and Anchor Reception. The show in the theater this evening was called Boogie Wonderland and featured R&B and dance hits from the 70s including songs from Earth Wind & Fire, the Commodores and ABBA. The song choices were excellent and it made for a very energetic show.

The Captain had come on the PA system earlier this evening and told us that we were going to be expecting some very choppy seas on our way back to Miami. On our way back to our room for the evening, we noticed they had vomit bags placed strategically around the ship. Yikes!! Some friends of ours were on a different ship in the area at this time; we had assured them that the ships are usually calm in even in the worst waves. We had to eat our words tonight! We finished packing our bags and got them outside our door before heading to bed.

Monday, January 21st, 2008 - Disembarking Majesty of the Seas and boarding Enchantment of the Seas

Lee had not arrived by the time I got to the check-in counter at the pier; checking in separately was not a problem. This was my first time going into the priority Suites line, there was not much of a line up for the regular rooms either though. Since I was the first one to arrive on the ship, my job upon boarding was to make reservations for the specialty restaurant and the spa. Certain days of the cruise were already booked in Chops by the time I got there and I had to pick an evening that was not one of our first two choices. Since Lee had not checked in yet, I was the first one to see our room, it was immense. We had booked a Junior Suite Guarantee and we were assigned room 8108, a handicapped Junior Suite on Deck 8. The room was very large, with a huge balcony, couch and chair, coffee table and a big bathroom with a wheel-in shower. There was more storage than we knew what to do with. My bags were waiting for me when I arrived in the room after booking the reservation; it was less than twenty minutes from the time I dropped off my luggage with the porter to the time it was delivered. They said that suite guests get priority luggage delivery but I didn't believe they could do it. I started to unpack and Lee arrived shortly afterward.

Overall, other than our room, I think Channie has been holding up well. Tim commented on the wear of the carpet on the ship, but I don't think it was any worse than others I had seen. It got to be very confusing going from one ship to another since certain features, like the Windjammer, are in different places on each ship. Someone mentioned that we should go to Johnny Rocket's but then realized that was on yesterday's ship. I had very fond memories of my time on Channie last time around and, other than the room issues, it looked like I wasn't going to be disappointed. The crew was great as well; it is surprising at how many staff members we run into that we have sailed with before on other Royal Caribbean ships.

The muster drill on Channie was the same as usual, except for the couple next to us that started arguing. It got very heated and finally some very large man in Royal Caribbean uniform had to come over and tell them to settle down and listen to the announcements. We saw them a few times over the five days and they were very lovey-dovey. After muster drill, we finished unpacking and showered before heading off to dinner.

On this ship we were assigned a table for 8, and sat with a nice couple from Atlanta. The opening show this evening was a comedian called Rock Corso, who was not funny at all. I hate to be hard on these entertainers, but I laugh at everything and when I don't laugh, it must be real bad! The Cruise Director on Enchantment was Marc Walker. He was delightful! He still had that "look at me, look at me" thing that many cruise directors do, but he was total pixie. But Marc...seriously, the Village People thing is wearing pretty thin...

At the show we ran into Mark, someone that Lee had chatted with on the Cruise Critic discussion group. He was traveling solo and we ended up seeing him often over the week. We also ran into several other people who we had met online through Cruise Critic or our web site, we never seemed to have enough time to chat though since everyone was always going from one place to another.

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 - Sea Day

When we first started cruising, I felt a bit ripped off when we had too many sea days on a voyage. Now, I LIVE for them! There is nowhere you have to be and you don't feel like you are missing anything in port by sleeping  in. Once again, I was on a cruise nursing a cold. This time, I carried it with me on to the ship. It seems like half the time I come down with a cold as soon as I board a ship. I wonder how resistant my body would be if it ever got exposed to Norwalk?

Room service offers hot breakfasts on Enchantment, so Lee called in an order and the food showed up within a half hour. We  took it easy this morning and left the room to allow the housekeeper to do her thing. Walking around deck we ran into a few people we knew and had some nice chats. We also popped into the infirmary to buy me some cold medication. They have quite a few products available above and beyond what they had in the general store. I bought some decongestant, it cost $12.

There was a barbecue lunch being served on the pool deck today, we sat and ate in the Solarium which was relatively peaceful compared to the pool deck. The rest of the afternoon was spent napping, sitting by the pool and more napping. The spa was busy today looking after the needs of our group. Lee enjoyed a seaweed massage. This experience was pricey, but he got way more time than they had indicated on their description. David got his first facial and really enjoyed it and Tim tried his first hot-stone massage. Considering how touch-and-go some of our previous spa experiences have been, I am glad everyone was happy with their treatments.

We had originally hoped to be done dinner in time to be at the 9pm show in the theatre, but we didn't finish dinner in time. We did get to see the second showing of Stage to Screen. This production show features musicals that have been turned into movies, such as Little Shop of Horrors, West Side Story and Hairspray. We had seen this show before and it was just as good as I remember.

Our room was immediately next to the Internet lounge. There were signs throughout the lounge saying that because of the satellite connection on Enchantment, the Internet service was neither high-speed nor broadband. I used the Internet credit coupon from our Platinum coupon book and to tell you the truth, I didn't really notice any different from the service on other ships. On the topic of coupons, we got Platinum coupon books on each sailing and we put a good dent into them, using the coffee discounts, the second bottle of wine discounts, the Internet credit and the free slot pulls in the casino. With the free slot pull coupon, I won a free t-shirt and a key chain. The coupons we did not use on Majesty were brought on Enchantment and we used some there. We did get a bunch of photos taken since we had a two-for-one coupon to use, but the photos were too similar to others we have bought on other cruises.

We were advised a few times over the evening that clocks were to be moved back one hour this evening as we approached Belize. We were happy about this news since our excursion in Belize was to meet in the theater at 6:45am for a 7am departure.

Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 - Belize City, Belize

For our day in Belize, we decided to take an excursion to the Mayan ruins of Xunantunich. This site was a bit of a drive from Belize City, almost to the Guatemalan border. I have always wanted to see these type of ruins, so I was game to take the trip. David, Tim and Melynda were interested as well, so we all booked onto the same excursion. After a quick breakfast in the Windjammer (which was jammed packed with people for such and early house), our excursion group met in the theatre to be escorted to the tender. The ship anchors quite a way offshore in Belize because of the delicate reefs that surround the coast of the country and the tender ride took about 20 minutes. At the dock we met our guide who escorted us to our bus for the two-hour ride to Xunantunich. Our guide was quite knowledgeable about her country and the sights we were seeing along to the way to the ruins. She spoke for most of the two-hour ride. The bus was equipped with a washroom, and the guide made a point of telling us that it should be used for one thing only: #1. If someone tries #2, we would all regret it. The washroom did not have any of the AC that was running in the bus and i could just imagine what it would be like in that hot, tiny room if someone did #2 in there. The site is located about a mile from the main road, we had to take a hand-cranked ferry across a narrow river to get to the vans to take us the rest of the way. Our group did not all fit in the vans, so a few of us had to stay behind and wait for the vans to return. In that time, another tour group came and was waiting for the vans as well and there was some jokeying for position to make sure we got on the first van leaving so we could meet up with our group.

The Captain's Reception was held in the Spotlight Lounge this evening. I was feeling pretty bold this evening, I was not in the mood for the champagne or rum punch they were offering, so I went up the bar and ordered a few other drinks. The bartender had to setup his bar equipment before he could make the drink, but we got the free drinks we wanted. We had a delightful chat with the Onboard Revenue Manager for the ship during the reception.

The headliner show tonight was a singer called Kenny James. None of us were feeling overly enthusiastic about seeing the show, so we layed low for the evening.

Lee had posted a notice for a Friends of Dorothy party in the Champagne Bar after dinner, we were the only ones there, eventually Tim and David went off the bed. Finally, three guys we had seen on our tender to Belize came to join us. Lee and I were just ready to get up and leave when they came by, but we stayed and chatted about our day in Belize. They had gone on jungle hike and mentioned that some other people in the group had poop thrown on them by monkeys in the jungle. That's a nice way to spend a day, isn't it!

Thursday, January 24th, 2008 - Cozumel, Mexico

Cozumel seems to be a very common port for Western Caribbean cruises, and this was our third time here. I was not overly crazy about coming back, not that there was anything wrong with it, it just had a "been there, done that" feel.

For lunch, we were served a three-course meal. We elected to have our first appetizer course (great chips, guacamole, and the hottest salsa I have every had) on the beach and moved to the dining room canopy for the rest of the meal. I had Mexican tortilla soup and grilled grouper which were both outstanding. The food was freshly made for us and served at the table. Lee and Melynda started shooting back tequila shots. I was thinking the worst of how they would feel afterwards, but I coerced Lee into drinking lots of water, so he managed to avoid any ill effects from all the tequila. Carlos called a taxi for us when we were ready to head back to the ship, and a van was waiting for us by the time we gathered up our things. Lee and I took a quick spin around the shopping area at the pier before heading back to the ship. What can I say, our day a Nachi Cocom has totally redeemed Cozumel is my mind, I can't wait to go back now.

We had an early departure from Cozumel, so we had some time to take a dip in the pool and relax on the balcony once we boarded. Mark called us to see if we were interested in going to group trivia with his this afternoon. The subject of today's game was 60s music, a topic that none of us can really lay claim to knowing very well. We did well considering how little we knew about the subject. Our room attendant came by before we left the room to apologize about the lack of attention to the air conditioning problem and brought us a fan to us. It was a nice gesture, and showed she was paying attention to our concerns.

The show in the theatre this evening was called Can't Stop the Rock and focused on movie music. This was a very fast-paced show, but some of the song choices were a little weird. We ended up sitting in the front row towards the side and I was a bit distracted by the mechanics of the show. You could see into the wings as props were prepared, you could hear the mechanism raising and lowering risers on the stage, you could see how ill fitting and frayed some of the costumes were. it was quite interesting. All in all, I would say it was the poorest of the Royal Caribbean shows I have seen, not because of the lack of talent on the part of the singers and dancers, but more on the poor choice of material they were given to work with. Melynda, Lee and I stayed in the theatre after the show for the Win a Cruise bingo. No luck for us tonight though.

Friday, January 25th, 2008 - Key West, Florida

Up until this morning, we had no idea what we were going to do during our time in Key West. Lee finally decided to spend it by the pool at a gay guest house in town called The Island House. Our port stop as from 11am to 6pm. Before we could get off the ship in Key West however, we had submit to an immigration interview. All U.S. citizens were instructed to assemble in the theatre, all foreign guests were to assemble in the dining room. The lines were quite long and slow-moving since all non-Americans had to speak to an immigration officer before they could get off. We were near the front of the line and were done within a half hour. We spoke to a Royal Caribbean employee that night, and she said that 50 people did not show up at immigration, and they had to search for them since everyone has to go through immigration. Those that did not show up risked a fine of several thousand dollars. Our Sea Pass card was punched to prove to security at the gang plank that we had spoken to an immigration agent.

We had printed a map to the Island House from the Internet and found the place after a few wrong turns. Just as we were getting there, the three guys from the Champagne Bar a few nights earlier showed up as well. Our $25 day pass gave us access to the gym, pool and sun deck. We were unlikely to use the gym today, however. The place also had a restaurant and bar. The pool was heated and it was very nice to float around in. The sun deck had water misters that were running, but weren't really needed since it wasn't really that hot out. The afternoon flew by quickly and we left with enough time to walk to the pier and stop at a few places along the way.

Alas, cruise two was coming to an end as well, and we had to finish packing and get our luggage outside the room before heading off the bed. Packing was simplified on this cruise since I had packed some of dirty laundry from the previous cruise in vacuum bags, once the air was sucked out of the bags by rolling it up, the laundry was quite compact and easy to throw into the luggage. This also helped preventing the musty laundry smell from getting into the luggage.

Saturday, January 26th, 2008 - Disembarkation

We were lucky to get a direct flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Ottawa on Air Canada. Not having to transfer anywhere would cut several hours out of our transit time. Our colour group was called at 8:30am and since we had gone through immigration the day before, we only had to submit our Customs card on the way out of the baggage hall. All told, it took less than 10 minutes from the time we got off the ship to the time we were in a taxi to the airport. Since our flight was still several hours from now, we could not check our baggage at the Air Canada counter and were told to stand in a line away from the counter until the flight to Toronto had completed its check in. Finally, our line was allowed to move to the check-in counter. We had checked-in on-line on the ship the night before and already had our boarding pass; Lee noticed a web check-in line to the side of the long line for the counter. We moved into the web check-in line and we were processed quickly, while everyone else stood in the counter line that did not move for another 20 minutes. We were feeling very smug and superior at this point! You could just tell people were cursing under their breath since we arrived later than many people and we got processed ahead of the queue. We still had a long time to wait before our flight left, at least we wouldn't be spending it in a line to check in.

Our flight boarded on time and we got to enjoy the seat-back entertainment system on the way home as well. Lee and I were watching the same movie, so we synched up so that one of us wouldn't be laughing before the other knew what was going on. It is such a treat to be home by 4pm on the day you disembark the cruise.

In conclusion, I guess I would say that the back-to-back cruise concept was interesting, but don't know if it really was such a great idea compared to a seven-day cruise on one ship. There was repetition of the dining room menus on three evenings of the five-day cruise so we did not get much variety in our dining room experiences, but on the other hand we did get to see three production shows. The packing between the cruises was a bit of a pain, but we did get to experience one new ship and revisit an old favourite. We did save some money on the cruise fare trying the the back-to-back, but then we had to pay for rental cars on our in-between day. Another benefit of this cruise is it renewed my interest in Cozumel and Key West; I would not hesitate to book a cruise with these ports again (oh, we already have!!). If the worst of my problems is trying to decide between one seven-day cruise or a three AND a five-day cruise, I guess I am doing fine.