Spain To Miami Transatlantic Cruise – 2009

Well, it is now mid-September, and the detailed plan is starting to take shape for the trip. The cruise and flights are set, we are departing on November 6 from Jacksonville for our flight to Madrid Spain, with a connection in Philadelphia. We arrive in Madrid on Saturday morning, November 7, at 10:15.

MADRID

Upon arrival at the Madrid Airport, we will either take the Metro to the hotel or take a pre-arranged shuttle bus. The choice is dependent on how cheap and adventurous we are (Metro for 4 Euros), or, how tired we may be after the overnight flight, knowing we have to tote our luggage through the two metro stops to get to the hotel (Shuttle for 26 Euros). There is also some concern for pickpocket activity with taking the Metro. We have read mixed reviews from travelers on the reality of this happening. It becomes a matter of being diligent and careful while riding the Metro, and safeguarding against having valuables in easily targeted places. It has been amusing, and sad to read actual stories on the Internet about some of the scams that the pickpockets use to distract your attention, pretending to be helping you, all the while helping themselves to your valuables. However, reading about other person’s misfortunes helps one to be aware of the potential risks. Pickpockets are just a reality in Europe, some areas are just worse than others.

We currently have two hotel reservations for our two night stay in Madrid, one in the old City Center, and one in a quiet neighborhood close to the City Center. Again, we have to decide if we want to get the true experience of staying in the old city center (and less cost), close to the historic sights, but, subject to the possibility of dealing with the locals who apparently like to party ’till the wee hours of the morning. Or, do we stay where it is quieter (and higher cost), but face a little more inconvenience in getting to the sights of Madrid. One good thing about the hotel reservations, we can cancel up until the time we depart without any penalty, so it allows us to take our time and finalize our plans.

After checking into our hotel, our current plan is to spend the remainder of Saturday touring the sights of Madrid. On Sunday, we are going to the nearby city of Toledo, which is the historic capital of Spain. Toledo has more of the older traditional sights to visit than does Madrid. We have already purchased out round trip train tickets for the 30 minute train trip from Madrid to Toledo. We depart at 9:20 a.m. and have a return ticket for 6:00 pm. It is only a 30 minute trip each way, so that will leave us a good part of the day to see the sights of Toledo, but still get back to Madrid before it is too late. We have already purchased our tickets for an early 7:35 a.m. departure on Monday for the 2 hour, 40 minute high speed train trip to Malaga, Spain, the departure port for the cruise.

MALAGA

We are scheduled to arrive at the train station in Malaga at 10:15 a.m.. From our research, it is about 2 km. to the port, so we will be taking a taxi from the train station to the port terminal. Our current plan is to place our luggage in lockers at the train station, and spend a couple of hours looking around Malaga. Unlike Princess Cruises, which we normally take, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line does not allow you to have access to your cabin as soon as you board, you have to wait until after 1:30 p.m., so we don’t see any need to get on-board until then, plus there are a few interesting sights to see in Malaga. Once you board the cruise ship for Embarkation, you can’t get back off, at least not easily, so this will be our only opportunity to tour Malaga itself. Our ship, The Navigator of the Seas, is scheduled to depart at 5:00 p.m.

CRUISE

We will be making 3 stops prior to the Transatlantic Crossing portion of the cruise. The first port of call is Funchal, Madeira. Madeira is a Portuguese Island off the coast of Africa. Our current plan is to walk into the city and take the 15 minute gondola ride to the city of Monte. Is is suppose to resemble the city of Sintra, Portugal, which we visited on our Honeymoon Cruise, and enjoyed very much. It is on top of a mountain, and is supposed to offer great views of the coastline. We will just spend the day there, and back in Funchal.

The next two ports of call are in the Canary Islands. At both of the ports, we will be renting a car for the day, and traveling to National Park Sites, both of which are associated with volcanoes, and are the highest points on the islands. Apparently the roads are winding, and can be slow to get to your destinations, so we will need to carefully watch our time, we don’t miss the ship. For example, one park is only about 35 km. from the port (about 15 miles), but can take about 1.5 hours to get to, if you happen to get stuck behind slow moving trucks, etc. Hopefully, since we are there late in the tourist season, and on a weekday, we will not run into bad traffic. However, the views are said to be spectacular, especially from the 12,000 ft. peaks.

Once we depart the Canary Islands on Friday, November 13, we have 6 days at sea crossing the Atlantic before arriving in our last port of call, Nassau on Friday, November 20. We really have no plan for this stop, having visited Nassau about 15 months ago. Then we depart for Miami, our last stop. We have arranged for a Hertz rental car in Downtown Miami, nearby to the port, so hopefully this will be an easy set-up. However, since we have not sailed on a Royal Caribbean Cruise, and have not been to the Port of Miami, we are not familiar with the cruise ship embarkation process and shuttle bus arrangements to the rental car office. It could be our last adventure of the trip, hopefully not too adventurous. Then we face the long drive home.

Now it is just a couple of weeks until Stephanie and I leave for Madrid. We are continuing to get ready, I am pulling together all of the camera equipment, and performing routine cleaning of the lenses and this time, will attempt to clean the sensor in my Nikon D300 to remove all of the dust. Next will be making sure we have adequate batteries for the flash and tapes for the video camera.

We made a trip to WalMart this weekend to purchase the last remaining items we will be taking. Unfortunately, on Royal Caribbean, they do not provide hair conditioner or hand lotion, so we will be having to pack small supplies of those items. We also purchased hand sanitizer to refill all of our small travel size containers. Seems like this will be even more important than past trips with the ever constant threat of the H1N1 Virus. Before, our only worry was the Norwalk Virus, now it is both. Hopefully, Royal Caribbean will be similar to Princess Cruises and offer hand sanitizer dispensers at all of the buffet and snack eateries.

Although we are looking forward to trying another cruise line, the list of shortfalls that have become apparent with Royal Caribbean (compared to Princess), it starting to grow. So far, these are the items that will be different, some more important than others, but even small items can lessen the overall experience.

1. NO WINE BROUGHT ON-BOARD – This is perhaps the most disappointing, especially since the cruise originates in Spain, a country known for fine wines, and that this is a transatlantic cruise, where we had hoped to enjoy the local vintages on our balcony as we crossed the Atlantic. On previous transatlantic corssings with Princess, there was never an issue bring a few bottles on-board with us at each port.
2. TIPS PAID IN ADVANCE – Since we chose to participate in the “anytime” dining, we were told that we had to pre-pay all of the gratuities for all of the services in advance. Initially we were told it had to be paid by the final payment date, but I later learned one could choose this dining option even after boarding, so we could have avoided that advance cost. Princess just charges tips by the day to the shipboard account, they you just pay voia credit card foa all of the charges at the end of the cruise. I do not know why this is a requirement on Royal Caribbean. I am guessing that with regular dining seating, you either pay in cash at the end, or can add it to your shipboard account. Something to investigate.
3. NO SHAMPOO, CONDITIONER, OR HAND LOTION – I was surprised to discover this while reading some of the Royal Caribbean Forums on Cruise Critic. Sad but true, they only provide you with some type of shower gel, some have reported it is a soap and conditioner combined, others say it is a soap and shampoo combined. I tend to believe the latter. there is no bar soap, hand lotion, or conditioner provided. I have to agree wit the persons posting the information on the forum, even the cheapest hotels give you bar soap and shampoo,and conditioner. Not sure why this si the case, but apparently it is not a new policy. Anyway, just something more to carry in that suitcase, or buy in Madrid prior to the cruise.
4. NO CHOCOLATES ON YOUR PILLOW AT NIGHT – Not that this is a big deal, but apparently due to cost, Royal Caribbean has just recently stopped with nighttime chocolates. Like most, I can’t believe this was a large cost item. However, it was interesting to hear the complaints. I guess it was always a nice extra touch, and anytime something is taken away, people tend to complain.
5. EXTRA COST FOR SPECIAL OCCASION CELEBRATIONS – I have always liked the Princess would provide balloons and decorations outside your cabin door, for special occasions, even for multiple events. Same with the small anniversary or birthday cakes that were served with your dinner for the celebration. All of this was complimentary. I was a little surprised to find out that Royal Caribbean charges for both decorations, and for any cakes, as separate items that are to be pre-purchased as part of a package. I will just say that this is nickle and dime policy.
6. NO LAUNDROMAT FACILITIES – Again, we have become spoiled on Princess, whose ships have multiple laundromat facilities on board their larger ships. This was especially nice on these longer cruises, and even more relevant with the new baggage fees. Although no one enjoys washing clothes, it was nice to be able to do a load or two so that you could lessen the amount of clothes needed to get through cruises of longer durations. We will just have to take our clothes line and wash the smaller items in the bathroom sink. Also, from what I could fine out, any washing and/or dry cleaning services offered are on a per piece basis, I saw some pricing information showing a cost of over $3 for washing a pair of shorts. At least Princess would wash a whole bag for a fixed fee if you wanted to forgo using the laundry mat. Maybe this was where the term “wash-n-wear” came from, we might have to do that with our larger clothing articles, wash them and then wear them while they dry.
7. WINE PACKAGES – Royal Caribbean allows you to pre-purchase (for a small discount) three different levels of wine packages. However, when I checked last week, this option was still not available. Guess they are counting the wine bottles to see what is left for our cruise! This wine can only be consumed at dinner, and is not available to be brought to your cabin. At least that is what I understand from readings postings from past cruisers.
8. INTERNET ACCESS – I guess we were spoiled getting $100 of free internet time (about 250 minutes) as a perk for being Platinum members on Princess Cruises. This is certainly not an issue caused by Royal Caribbean, their frequent cruisers also get some amount of free internet time. However, since we are only on our second cruise with them, we do not have the same level of frequent cruiser benefits. For this cruise, we will be paying to be able to make posts here, and check on things at home. Going rate with Royal Caribbean is $55 for 150 minutes, and $38 for 90 minutes, so it looks like the cost will be about the same for the 250 minutes we got in the past. Just an additional expense for this cruise.

We are still keeping an open mind, and I am sure we will have a great time. It was  just not that apparent to us when booking this cruise on a different cruise line that there would be so many differences.  I guess this is a good reason to try something different, in the end, you get your own valid comparisons, not just the opinions of others. Even in the planning for port days, we had gotten to know and understand how Princess Cruises procedures worked for getting the ship docked, and how long it took to release passengers to dis-embark. Knowing how this worked generally enabled us to be at the gangway at the correct time to be off of the ship at the earliest moment. Thankfully, on this cruise, we are not doing any excursions that are so time specific that every minute counts in making train schedules, local buses, etc.  At least this will give us the opportunity to learn how Royal Caribbean operates without having the stress of trying to actually make tight connections. Again, just another subtle difference.