JAN '03 Miami to Key West and Cozumel
Written: Jul 25 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Excellent crew, above average food/presentation, superb ship design/decor.
Cons: Slight vibration in aft of ship, dining areas, etc.
The Bottom Line: This ship, SS Norway are the only reasons I would sail NCL again. Majesty's in excellent shape for her age, and has a fantastic crew!
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| garykool81's Full Review: Norwegian Majesty |
My first cruise experience with Norwegian Cruise Lines began aboard the line’s recently refurbished and stretched M/S Majesty. Without doubt the line’s smallest ship at the time, measuring in at less than 700 feet long, the liner is mere in size comparison to today’s mega-liners made popular by Carnival. While she is one of the older ships in the company’s growing fleet, Majesty is a truly magnificent vessel.
In the early half of 1999, Majesty was stretched to her current length of 680 feet with the addition of a new 112 foot midsection to the ship, adding more public spaces and staterooms to what was a fairly small ocean going cruise liner.
Contrary to a more recent and negative experience that I had aboard NCL’s refurbished Sea, the Majesty was a wonderful vacation getaway aboard a beautiful liner that is complimented by one of the best crews in the modern cruise industry.
We arrived in Miami for our January cruise to Cozumel with a stopover in Key West around 1:30 in the afternoon to find the standard long lines of passengers already waiting to check in and hop onboard. Fortunately, staffing at the terminal was adequate for passenger load at the time, and boarding went quite quickly with us boarding the ship within roughly 30 minutes of our arrival.
While entering into the Majesty’s embarkation area, it becomes apparent there is certainly nothing special about this section of the ship. No five story glass elevators or crystal fountains with shimmering neon lights will be found as they are on today’s modern Las Vegas style luxury liners. Instead, her embarkation lobby is quaint and easy to get around in, often not very crowded. Decorated appropriately with hushed down shades of marble, wood and other textures, the lobby creates a cozy and inviting atmosphere into the ship.
After one exits the lobby, however, and begins to explore the Majesty, they can quickly see that this ship is in amazing condition and beautifully manicured from an aesthetic standpoint. Carved wood paneling in near mint condition flank nearly every public room and hallway through the liner, creating an atmosphere of true elegance and warmth throughout the cruiser. The look of the hallways and immediate public areas in sight after embarkation formed a near instant approval from my companion and I.
And, things continued to get even better. Majesty is complimented with an amazing overall crew that was always in an upbeat, courteous and accommodating mood for the passengers. Every single instance where we passed through a tight hallway to our cabin or in some other area of the ship, crew members immediately moved to the side to make way and greeted us with a friendly hello, nod or smile.
Service in Majesty’s dining rooms was absolutely above average for the mainstream cruise industry. The experience we had in these rooms during the night formed such a positive opinion of Norwegian Cruise Lines that I doubted the need to ever sail with another company again. Unfortunately, it seems as though Majesty’s crew is very tightly managed and in superb condition compared to later experiences I went through aboard NCL vessels.
The dining rooms themselves are simple, yet elegant. Complimented with a consistent dedication to service excellence and above average food quality and presentation style for her class range, the dining rooms provide a superb environment compared to cruises I have had on other mainstream liners and even aboard NCL’s sister ships. The Four Seasons Dining Room was a personal preference, as the décor in this area was a tad nicer than the Seven Seas location near the stern of the ship. That room, of course, was also accompanied each evening with the usual vibrations and engine noise that makes enjoying dinner even on a beautiful ship such as this one quite difficult. We found that food on a daily basis was presented in amazing, professional styles with a good attention to detail. Quality was also consistent, with meats often cooked to order without mistakes being noted.
Contrary to a more recent cruise aboard the Norwegian Sea, which I have also published a review on, there was an absolutely ample supply of average buffet selections throughout the course of the day. It seemed that whenever we became hungry, there was always something to eat and an abundance of it. And, for those times well after and before hours, we were of course able to take advantage of room service selections.
We rarely made our way to the main dining rooms or even the lido part of the ship for morning breakfast, instead choosing to have the meal brought into our stateroom around 8:30AM on a daily basis. This let us avoid getting up at the break of dawn in order to make it in time for the short morning hours the main restaurants and even the dining rooms sometimes had. On one occasion, however, we did make it to the buffet and later that same week the Four Seasons Dining Room for breakfast, finding the fare there to be average and meeting our expectations.
Entertainment aboard the M/S Majesty was standard fare for the cruise industry. Nothing too spectacular, but the typical array of variety musical type performances followed with second or even third rate hack comedians that couldn’t pass at any local Improv or major comedy club in the country. However, they of course make the time pass a bit easier when you get into those evening hours, so most passengers welcomed the evening entertainment without question.
Late night entertainment after the main shows were though also included the standard karaoke contests, disco lounges, etc. We found the disco lounge, as they seem to be on most liners filled with more adults than college age or younger demographics, to be fairly empty during the evenings with fewer than 20 people often at peak times. Karaoke was immensely popular, as it usually is, and was able to fill an entire lounge full of laughing spectators and the all too often drunk victims, or “contestants.”
During our first stopover in Key West, which is a wonderful vacation spot that I had spent several days in the year prior, we took the scraps of hours provided to us by the cruise line for exploration (less than 4 hours total in Key West) through the small city’s beautiful and historically rich streets, a quick lunch, and a very speedy ride around the island aboard some rented wave runners. As a word of advice, Key West is not nearly as warm as some may imagine it to be in the winter. With temperatures in many cases reaching only the low 70s, renting a wave runner was a choice we would have backed out on had the shore excursion been refundable. Although it was definitely exhilarating to race through the waters surrounding the island at speeds reaching more than 40 miles per hour, doing so while the water temperature felt like knives into your skin was not what I had imagined. A quick jump into a hot tub generously provided to us by a nearby hotel fixed all of that, though, and we were quickly off to explore the rest of the island and try to remember where things were from my previous visit more than a year earlier.
While it is impossible to spend more time at the sites visited during this cruise due to schedule constrains that correspond directly to the ship’s speed capabilities, my only major gripe with this cruise was a brief, and I mean brief, amounts of time that we were able to spend in the beautiful places such as Key West and Cozumel. Often, cruise lines these days try to shove as much into a short time frame as possible that they provide sea goers with only a handful of hours at each stop, and in some cases vacationers may find themselves scrambling to get back to the boat in time after feeling as though they’ve been able to accomplish nothing during their stopovers at these islands. In today’s modern cruise climate, though, with guests always demanding the biggest bang for their buck, the length of the cruise is often compromised for number of quick stops to make the trip more appealing to those new cruise clients who actually don’t seek out trips with many days at sea as the standard “cruise aficionado” might.
Cozumel was also a blast. While Key West has a more “high end” resident that tends to be a bit more on the wealthy side such as Bermuda’s population, Cozumel is typical of many of the shore stops one might have while on a trip in the central American region or in South America. A beautiful island with an obviously impoverished population, Cozumel has hands down some of the clearest waters you’ll find when it comes to snorkeling and swimming. In fact, it is often noted in many professional scuba diving publications and top ten lists as being the best spot in the world, or at least one of the top five. Those choosing to take a swim or scuba dive along the island’s abundant coral reef will find themselves in a natural aquarium, surrounded by colorful fish of all shapes and sizes, in addition to great underwater visibility well in excess of 30 to 40 feet!
Shore excursions on the island tend to be a lot more physically demanding, and even dangerous depending on how careful you decide to be. On this trip to the island, a gentleman (passenger aboard our ship) driving with us in an off-road adventure managed to hit a tree while he was going too fast down a narrow pathway and flip his jeep over onto it’s side, injuring one of the other passengers. Thankfully, this didn’t result in any deaths or serious injuries, which might have occurred in our vehicle as the seatbelts ALL did not function. Ancient Mayan ruins (don’t think temple; these are much smaller), lighthouses, beautiful coastline, alligator and crocodile pits, among other adventurous sites all await those who choose to take part in any of the shore excursions offered by NCL.
After spending a final day at sea on our way back to Miami, we arrived as always in the early morning hours and decided to stay on the boat and be bored for a bit rather than do the same at the airport. We had a flight that didn’t leave Florida until 2:30PM, so we made the decision to hold off debarkation until the last possible minute, finally making our way off of the Majesty around 10:30AM if I remember correctly.
Overall, this cruise was a wonderful experience, and I would hope that in the future, NCL takes a good hard look a the service levels offered often aboard their other ships, then compares those levels of service and expectations of employees to those aboard the much nicer Majesty!
Until next time…
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Couples
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Epinions.com ID:
garykool81
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Reviews written: 8
Trusted by: 1 member
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