Wedding Blog

As I told you before the wedding, we booked a honeymoon cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Enchantment of the Seas. Because we booked about a month before departure, we got an amazing deal on our 6-day, 5-night stay aboard the ship.

Our wedding was on a Sunday and the ship set sail the following Monday from Fort Lauderdale, FL. As you can imagine, we had to get up pretty early in the morning to catch our 6:44 AM flight. Thankfully, we decided to spend our wedding night at the Pittsburgh Airport Hyatt Regency Hotel, which is on the airport property and walking-distance from the terminals. We woke up at about 5:00 AM to ensure we’d get ready, get checked-in and get through the security checkpoint with a nice cushion of time to spare.

After our AirTran flights (we had a connection in Atlanta) brought us safely to the Fort Lauderdale Airport, we caught a shuttle we reserved through Royal Caribbean for quick and easy transport to the departure port.

Upon arrival at the port, we went through more security screenings and check-ins. The process was painless and didn’t take nearly as long as I had expected. Posts I read prior to our trip on cruisecritic.com’s message boards led me to believe this would take an hour or more. However, we were on board The Enchantment in about 20 minutes.

When we got on the ship, we were a little overwhelmed. That thing was huge! There were already musicians playing pianos and saxophones in the lounges to set the mood and guests were starting to hit the pools and the bars. We decided to locate our stateroom, so we headed to the fourth deck.

Our room was much more spacious than I was prepared for. (I was expecting a bed tightly crammed in to a closet-size room.) The storage space was more than adequate and the vanity/desk served as the perfect command central for all of our sunscreen, cameras, books and other personal items. The safe in the room was great for stashing away my iPhone, our passports, iPods and our wedding rings. (We wore them most of the trip, but removed them before hitting the pool or an off-ship excursion.) The bathroom was a little tight, but manageable, as long as both of us weren’t in there at once.

The view from the bed. Oh, and my fake toenails stayed on great through the wedding and for about a week afterward!

Before the trip, I was a little concerned about the bed. For flexibility, the ship’s staterooms are equipped with two twin beds that can be bolted together to make one King. I was worried that we would feel the crack between the two, which was something I didn’t want to feel when on my honeymoon. I was relieved to find the joined beds really did sleep like one big bed, with little detection of a space between the two.

Okay, so enough about the room—on with our first day on board. We decided to go eat after getting settled in our room, as it was about 3:00 PM by this point. We went up for the cafeteria-style offerings at the Windjammer Cafe on the ship’s pool deck.

I was amused by the crafty food carvings that greeted us daily in the Windjammer.

The food was pretty good for being buffet style. I think we both ate so much at that meal because we were starving after our early breakfast and flights.

Soon after eating, it was time for the ship-wide muster drill. While it was a little inconvenient, it was important to know where the life vests were and where to report on deck in case of an emergency. The drill took about a half hour.

After exploring the ship some more, it was about time to get ready for dinner. We got dressed up a little, per the ship’s dinner dress code, and took a few pictures on deck.

Mr. DE taking in the amazing views!

And me, doing the same.

We had been assigned the main dining room seating, which had us eating at 6:00 PM at the same table each night. We were seated with another newlywed couple and two other couples who were longtime friends and experienced cruisers. It was nice to get to know the people at our table over the course of the week. We got lots of tips on shore excursions and cruising in general from talking with our table.

Dinner was impressive. The service would rival that at the best restaurants, and the food was cooked to perfection. I think dinner was one of my favorite parts of staying on the ship. I definitely looked forward to being pampered at dinner every evening.

There was some entertainment on board every night and the first evening featured a comedian. I would love to say that we laughed and enjoyed ourselves at his show, but unfortunately for these tired newlyweds, a post-dinner nap turned into an all night slumber.

I remember waking up, looking at the clock, and not knowing if it was 11:00 PM or 11:00 AM. We were so tired from our wedding day and early flight, so I seriously thought we slept in that late. (We didn’t have a window in our stateroom, so it was like we were sleeping in a cave.) To my relief, it was only 11:00 PM, but we still decided to get more sleep to be well-rested for the morning when we would arrive at our first port—Key West, FL! (More on that in Part 2!)

Did you choose to have your first cruise experience on your honeymoon? What was your favorite part?