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The Magic of Majesty. August 2019 and then again in October


twangster

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Cruise Summary

My biggest complaint is the 5 night duration.  Even though I came off another ship before hand it's a lot of unpacking and you just get into cruise mode when it's over.  I feel like I didn't have enough time to really experience the ship properly.   I have a B2B booked in the fall so hopefully that will solve this problem.

Majesty definitely feels like a bigger ship than Empress (the ship I was on before this) but it is a bigger ship so it had better feel bigger.

Majesty is dated in places such as decor and the outdoor carpets on the upper decks.  You can tell some new carpeting has been installed in places but in certain areas or staircases the carpet is older.

Crew was fantastic and I only experienced great service.  

It was great to visit CocoCay again and I look forward to my next cruise when I have the water park and zipline booked.  

O3b Voom was great and I really wish Royal would upgrade more ships to O3b.  

This was a relatively inexpensive cruise and there is great value at the price point I paid.  Majesty has a lot to offer and I'm looking forward to going back to spend more time on her. 

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1 hour ago, twangster said:

Out to the waiting taxis where a lady following after me just threw her luggage into trunk of my cab without asking where I was going.  Hmmm.  So I confirmed she was heading to FLL airport. 

SMH...

Thanks for another great live blog!  Safe travels home @twangster!

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i can say actually meeting the "celebrity" behind the camera on majesty was such a honor on this sailing.  another great live blog with some awesome pictures too.  overall experience can say was good and even if sailing a "baby" ship, she may not have all those bells and whistles but the service received from crew is well worth it.  crew is extremely passionate and truly takes time to bond with passengers.  friendly greetings by crew around ship and being in bars having those bartenders remember passengers by name and drink of choice is uplifting when think how many passengers sailing to sailing.  each ship has its own identity and for value to go to CocoCay in my books is a win win when i could in turn be at home not on a cruise ship at all having those cruise dry dock blues.............. safe travels and cant wait to the next live blog. 

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October 9, 2019.

Back from the wasteland of being land locked, I'm writing this from Majesty's VCL.

Rather than creating a whole new thread I'll just revive this one.

IT'S CRUISE DAY!!!

This booking started as a Cuba booking departing on Oct. 14.  As it turns out that wasn't going to be so to drown my sorrows I added the Oct. 9 cruise.  Very recently (last week) the Oct. 19 sailing was very inexpensive.  I looked at Southwest and could change my return flight for a $2 credit.  So... YOLO, this has become a B3B.   When you can book a Royal Caribbean cruise at these rates it's hard to say no.

5 nights to Mexico, 5 nights to the Bahamas and 4 nights to the Bahamas.

Cozumel, Costa Maya.  Key West, Nassau.  Key West, Nassau.  

I've managed to book the same cabin for the first two legs but change cabins for the 3rd.

We embarked at terminal 19 in Port Everglades today.  Arriving to the terminal at 10:21am I was on board at 11:01am after a short wait in the terminal.

I'm going to be lazy from this point forward, only posting when it's blog worthy.  

Cabins are almost ready, time to go...

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19 minutes ago, twangster said:

  So... YOLO, this has become a B3B.   When you can book a Royal Caribbean cruise at these rates it's hard to say no.

5 nights to Mexico, 5 nights to the Bahamas and 4 nights to the Bahamas.

Cozumel, Costa Maya.  Key West, Nassau.  Key West, Nassau.  

 

I want your cruise life!....I can only hope to one day be able to enjoy it as often as you do!

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Spacious Ocean View Cabin.  

On deck 9 are a series of ocean view cabins that are larger than the standard OV cabins found on lower decks.  The TV's are larger (and newer) as well.  The sofa and chair appear to be newer compared to the OV cabin I had lst time.  

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All cabins on this deck are considered obstructed but they are high enough from the waterline and covered by the overhang so these windows don't tend to get as dirty as the windows at lower levels do.  

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This area in general has crew walkways used when lifeboats are lowered and for other purposes.  The walkway at the forward most cabins are closer to eye level, the walkway aft is two steps down, enough that most crew can't look into your cabin at eye level.   

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I like the cabin, it does feel much more spacious.  

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On 8/20/2019 at 7:15 PM, KathyC said:

Once we sail Empress next summer, we will have done the same.  Majesty was our first ship - sailed her in 1992, when she was brandy-new! 

Edited to add, now that I think about it, once we sail on Empress, we will have sailed every class of ship RCCL has ever had!  We also sailed Song of America back in 1997.  

We sailed her in 1996, our very first cruise, which was our honeymoon and we have been hooked on cruising ever sense. Our kids, especially our son who's 14 looks forward to each and every cruise.

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Time to play catch up.

Day 3 had us in Cozumel with just a couple of other ships.  Sunrise arrival.

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They were exercising the lifeboats today.  It was a work day for me so I stayed on the ship.

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One of the other ships in port today was one of those small specialty ships that do adventure cruises like Antarctica.  The Fram:

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Definitely an adverse weather ship.  I'd love to try one of these some day.

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You know it's a small ship when Majesty looks huge beside it.  From MarineTraffic.com (Majesty on the left):

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The walkway in front of these cabins are well below the window level, except when crew are on top of the lifeboats securing them after the test runs today.

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El Gaucho! in the theater tonight.  He was very entertaining, great show. 

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Voom has been problematic on this cruise.  While Majesty does have the newer O3b it's been somewhat frustrating at times with slow speeds and frequent disconnects.  Same laptop used in August, very different results all over the ship.

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I went to see the Voom specialist a couple of times.  The excuses provided ranged from absurd to insulting.  However on his screen that he kept referencing I noted the maximum throughput he kept on stating as proof that everything is fine was only 37Mbps.   Back in August the IT manager told me they had 120Mbps down. 

So it seems they have cut the bandwidth commitment to the ship to save money resulting in slower speeds for everyone.  I guess with these Majesty cruises being so inexpensive they have had to cut expenses to remain profitable and Voom was trimmed towards that goal.  

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2 hours ago, twangster said:

Voom has been problematic on this cruise.  While Majesty does have the newer O3b it's been somewhat frustrating at times with slow speeds and frequent disconnects.  Same laptop used in August, very different results all over the ship.

 

I went to see the Voom specialist a couple of times.  The excuses provided ranged from absurd to insulting.  However on his screen that he kept referencing I noted the maximum throughput he kept on stating as proof that everything is fine was only 37Mbps.   Back in August the IT manager told me they had 120Mbps down. 

So it seems they have cut the bandwidth commitment to the ship to save money resulting in slower speeds for everyone.  I guess with these Majesty cruises being so inexpensive they have had to cut expenses to remain profitable and Voom was trimmed towards that goal.  

Does this affect your ability to work on the ship? 

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Day 6 Update

Back in Port Everglades for the start of cruise #2.

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Voom is back to normal today and I was able to stream this morning! 

Consecutive cruisers met in the Schooner Bar at 9:45am.  We were escorted off and down to see CBP.  We caught the tail end of departing guests so we had to wait briefly in the terminal.  By 10:45am we were back on board. 

The Voom system hasn't reset yet for the new cruise so I can't validate if the platform is back to normal for this cruise but I sure hope sure as it was very slow doing anything last cruise.

This cruise was supposed to be my Cuba cruise combined with additional OBC from a cancelled chart cruise so I splurged for the Deluxe beverage package.  Last cruise I averaged around $23 per day in beverage purchases that combined with Diamond happy hour was enough to satisfy my libations but it will be nice to upgrade from the Diamond drink menu this cruise.  

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Day 6, or Day 1 Cruise #2

Discovered an oddity on Majesty - gender based elevators.

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Oddly they share a single call button.  It took awhile for the male elevator to reach my floor.

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Last night I saw a terrible thing.  Unless you are back to back!

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With all of my new best friends on board it was time to depart.

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We pulled away from the pier and stopped.  It was odd, why aren't we moving? 

Apparently they had lowered a lifeboat from the side of the ship that was against the pier before we docked this morning, so before we could leave we had to retrieve that life boat.  I've never seen this before.  

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With that done we began our sail away.

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Day 7 - Sea Day

Lazy day as we slowwwwwwly make our way down to Key West for tomorrow.  

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The 6.5 knots on the map channel felt like we were sitting still at times.  The next cruise is one night shorter but the same stops so I suspect we'll have a more direct velocity next week.  

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Flag of Nations in the Centrum with 63 crew countries represented.

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Day... Something?  Eight I think.  Key West.

Not the base pier, but not the primary Mallory Square pier either, but we have a later departure so maybe that plays into it.

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As work ground to a halt a Mojito in Boleros seemed in order.

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Then out of nowhere a sunset threatened my bar time right as sail away was also occurring.

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Not bad.

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And then we sailed away.

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Something I may have failed to mention...  I got a new phone.  All of my pictures for these recent cruises have been from my phone.

Since I last sailed Majesty in August with my full camera gear I boarded this time absent of some of my regular camera gear (this wasn't a bucket list cruise for me).

One of the new features my iPhone 11 Max Pro includes is a new "Night" mode for taking pictures in darker scenes.  It doesn't replace my "real" camera gear but in situations with little motion it seemed promising so I was goofing around with it today, or should I say tonight because it was after the sun had set.  Well after.

The pictures that follow are largely untouched, they are what the phone produced on it's own.

With the sun well down as we sailed through the channel from Key West into the sea.  Night mode on:

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The same picture with night mode turned off.

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A few minutes later with night mode on and me resting the phone on a hand railing to keep it as steady as my several drinks allowed me to:

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The light on the side of the bow is a dead give away that it was actually dark. 

Same scene with night mode off (yes it was that dark to the eye): 

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The sun was well down by this point, the remains of the day where the sun had set were to the naked eye still visible.

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Same scene, Night mode off:

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To be honest I'm quite impressed.  You do have to think about motion and the subject of your pictures remaining very still, but all in all the "Night" mode results are very good.

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So now that you've tried out night mode, I have a challenge for you, if you feel like taking the time and indulging a fanboi... ? 

It was shown in a YouTube video that you can actually do some basic astrophotography with it, as long as you mount the phone on a tripod and max out the shot duration to 28 seconds. Night mode only works with the regular "wide" (26mm equivalent) lens, so you wouldn't be able to capture the Milky Way like you can with your 13mm big glass (if it's even visible any more at this time of year); but I'm curious what you can capture from the ship, assuming you have a tripod mount for the camera and a mini-tripod or something else that can truly stabilize it for that kind of shot.

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5 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

So now that you've tried out night mode, I have a challenge for you, if you feel like taking the time and indulging a fanboi... ? 

It was shown in a YouTube video that you can actually do some basic astrophotography with it, as long as you mount the phone on a tripod and max out the shot duration to 28 seconds. Night mode only works with the regular "wide" (26mm equivalent) lens, so you wouldn't be able to capture the Milky Way like you can with your 13mm big glass (if it's even visible any more at this time of year); but I'm curious what you can capture from the ship, assuming you have a tripod mount for the camera and a mini-tripod or something else that can truly stabilize it for that kind of shot.

Phase of the moon isn't in my favor on this trip or certain sporting events and the drink package have conspired against me many nights plus the milky way center has headed South but I did bring a small tripod to see what it can do.  Will let you know if the opportunity presents itself.

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Day 9, Sea Day

On our way to Nassau so we slowly sailed up the Florida coast and made the right turn into the Bahamas.

Oktoberfest is being celebrated on board.

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WJ specials for the event.

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Navigator sailed past tonight.

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Top Tier event

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The internet had been struggling all day but around this time it went out completely. 

Since it was Thursday they had the NFL game.  Oddly the ALCS MLB playoff game was not televised.  A guy at the Schooner Bar was having a meltdown.  "This is America!  How can you not have the game man!  Football?  There is a whole year left to watch that sport!  Baseball is America's pastime!  It's the World series right now!  Turn off the football!"  The other sports channel had cricket.  Poor bartenders didn't know what to say.  With the internet out there were no game updates to provide.  It was a scope worthy tirade but the internet was out and I didn't want to exacerbate the meltdown.

Football game over and it was time for a late night snack.  Glimpse of internet but the MLB app showed 3-1 then postponed so it seemed was the game was suspended.  Must have been the weather.

Pastrami version of a Kümmelweck in the Compass Deli as a late night snack.  Yumm.

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Day 10, Nassau

Last day of cruise #2.  I have to change cabins tomorrow and that means packing, but first a spectacular sunrise with very calm water as we approached Nassau in the distance.

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Pilot on board we continued...

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Loving this 13mm ultra wide angle lens on the iPhone 11.  

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Here is a panoramic taken with the 13mm wide angle.

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I was hoping the sun would just be rising as we entered port but our timing was off.  It was hard shooting straight into the sun. 

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Not bad for a phone camera.

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Last night at the Sky Bar I noted the cigar options on board.

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The lifeboat maintenance continues.  They are replacing the cables and drive motors that raise and lower the lifeboats.

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Last turn around day this crane was working more forward.  This time they are lifting the new drive system in an aft lifeboat area.  This is an example of the increased cost of maintaining older ships. 

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Seventeen B2B cruisers this time.  Off the ship for ~ 20 minutes.  Last cruise we had to go all the way down to the CBP area that everyone departing uses.  This time a CBP officer came up to us in area where you get scanned onto the ship basically at the bottom of the gangway.    

New cabin tour!

Standard ocean view on deck 5.  Definitely smaller than the spacious ocean view I've had for the last two cruises.

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I came down and met my new cabin attendant last night.  He made a point of doing my cabin first and it was ready as soon as we reboarded.

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Older and smaller TV.

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