Tag: traveladvisor

Hi, thanks for stopping by to read my blog, I tried hard not to make it too long(I failed) but I wanted to include everything I could to hopefully help those of you that will be traveling in the future. I recently traveled on Wonder of the Seas by Royal Caribbean with my husband, 5-year-old son, and 3-year-old daughter and I wanted to share my thoughts and tips. We did the 7-night Eastern Caribbean itinerary out of Port Canaveral with stops in Coco Cay, St. Maarten, and St. Thomas. We also did a few days in Disney World before but I will write about that separately. I work as a travel advisor so if you need any help booking future travel or have any further questions I would love to help. Please reach out to me via email at travelbybreanne@gmail.com or on my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/travelbybreanne/

Packing

I always over pack and definitely brought things I didn’t need. I personally like to dress up for dinner because let’s be honest, as a mom of two littles I don’t have a lot of opportunities to dress up so I enjoy it. That being said you will see people from formal to casual, so do what is comfortable for you! There was a formal night as well as a dress-your-best night on our cruise and my son wore a suit. We used this as an opportunity to dress up and take family pictures. I would definitely pack at least one sweater or jean jacket that you can wear at night, the dining rooms can be chilly and it can get windy on the deck at nighttime. The aqua show is outdoors and the ice skating show in the skating rink was freezing! If you want to participate in activities such as ziplining, rock climbing, or ice skating you will need a pair of pants and closed-toe shoes. We wore our sneakers to and from the airport to save space in the luggage. I packed a lot of daytime shorts and T-shirt outfits that I didn’t really need. I mostly wore bathing suits and cover-ups during the day. I will say my kids did wear a lot of their shorts and t-shirts as they sometimes would want to go to the kids club instead of the pool or for the downtime before dinner when we were just hanging out.

Here is a list of things I purchased and was glad I had

Packing Cubes which I also used to hold dirty clothes when packing to go home and this one comes with a laundry bag

Foldable Travel Hangers …allows you to hang more stuff in the closet

Magnetic Hooks… these are perfect for hanging wet bathing suits to dry, hanging lanyards or extra bags

Formal Dress idea…I absolutely loved this dress from Amazon and it traveled well, with no wrinkles. The color was gorgeous with a tan too 😃 

Room Experience

We had an ocean-view balcony room for the four of us and I will say if you have bigger children it may not work for you. We were located on the aft(back of the ship) and I thought this was a great location as most of the pools, restaurants, and Boardwalk were also located on that side. The only place on the opposite side that we frequented was Adventure Ocean. The couch folded out into two twin-size trundle-type beds but once it was set up there was no space between the bed and the door to the balcony or the desk, so it was tight. We enjoyed the balcony as did the kids and they would sit out there and watch their tablets while we were getting ready for dinner. The rail was up high enough that I was not concerned that they would be able to fall over even if they stood up on a chair. The bathroom was a decent size but if your children are not used to showers  🚿 , Start the process now! My children shower occasionally at home but they still hated taking showers on the boat. My mother had an interior balcony room so it faced out into the boardwalk which the kids liked as well. The only downfall is that people can see directly into your room and depending on where you are on the boat you can hear a lot of noise from the activities going on at night. I do not typically get seasick and I really only felt the boat moving one of the last nights but it was nothing crazy. Another thing to remember is the rooms will only get serviced once a day but you can let your attendant know if you prefer morning or evening service, we opted for am as that was usually when we were out of the room for large chunks of time and we usually showered in the evening.

Service

This is something where Royal Caribbean excels in my opinion. I have been on other cruise lines and I feel like the service on this ship was miles above other experiences I have had. Everyone was friendly and willing to help and there was plenty of staff around. You weren’t searching for servers by the pool and there were enough waiters in the specialty restaurants that you didn’t feel like you were waiting around for service. Bar service was also quick with multiple bartenders at each bar. Our room attendant went out of his way to remember all of our names and greet us individually when he would see us in the halls. One day we were in the Windjammer and my son really wanted plain spaghetti with butter, but they did not have a pasta station at this particular time. One of the dining room attendants saw us looking around and asked what we were looking for, we explained what my son wanted to eat and he said no problem we will make it for you, which they did. They told us if there was anything, in particular, we were looking for, for the kids to let them know and they could try and make it happen. Those extra touches really help to make an experience memorable.

Things to do on the ship

This ship had Adventure Ocean which is a kids club that accommodates children ages 6 months to 12 years of age. I can really only speak to the 3-5-year-old group as that is all we utilized. I believe any children under the age of 3 have to pay a fee and have to sign up for specific time frames whereas for the older groups you can just drop and go during their open hours. During sea days the hours for 3 and up were 9-12p, 2-5p, and 7-10pm which was free, you could pay an additional 10/hr per child to keep them there until 12 am. On the days we were at ports the hours were 9-5p and 7-10p. My daughter is 3 so they gave us a phone so they could reach us or we could check in if needed but it only worked on the ship. Luckily our phone never rang and our kids enjoyed going to the kids club. We would sometimes grab them dinner at the Windjammer and then bring them there if we had later dinner reservations. It was nice to have some adult time and the kids enjoyed interacting with other children. There is also a special area on the boat for teens with a private sun deck and hot tub.

Shows

We were able to prebook our shows before getting on the ship. Most of the shows did have availability the night of though so I wouldn’t stress too much if you aren’t able to book in advance. We went to 4 shows and took the kids to all of them. We loved the Aqua Intense show as well as the Effectors show. Those are the two I think the kids enjoyed the most. Tap Factory was my least favorite and while I enjoyed the Ice skating show I don’t think it is for everyone. We unfortunately never made it to the comedy show as my daughter fell asleep at dinner both nights we had reservations( you can only book this show once so we canceled and rebooked) and we couldn’t send her to the kids club tired and cranky =(

Activities

I found that some of the activities on board such as ice skating and laser tag were only available on certain days and times and because those times conflicted with dinner or shows we never made it ice skating. My son and husband loved the laser tag though and that is something you have to reserve in the app. There is a rock climbing wall  🧗🏻, 3 water slides, a dry slide “The Abyss”, a carousel(my daughter’s favorite part of the ship), an arcade(half the games didn’t work), mini golf, a playground, basketball court, spa, gym, flow rider 🏄🏻   ,zip-lining and they even had an escape room but those reservations sold out before we even got on the ship. The casino was fun(thank you Adventure Ocean) and pretty big compared to most ships, there was also a smaller non-smoking area.

Pools

Ok so it is unavoidable, on every ship there will be people up at the crack of dawn saving the best seats by the pool, and it will seem like half the chairs that are saved are never occupied. I did see a worker remove belongings from some chairs but I am not sure how often that actually happens. I was up at 7am most days and had no problem finding 4 chairs together by the pool. On the last sea day, we had a late brunch and when I went to look for a chair around 11:30, I had a hard time even finding one for myself. There are 3 pools, 2 in one area and then one on the side with the water slides and the kids’ area. There is no adult-only pool but there is the Solarium which is a large area with chairs, a small pool, and a hot tub that is for ages 16 and up. Almost all of it is enclosed though so if you are looking to work on your tan you are out of luck. There is a splash pad area for diapered children and then next to that is a small area for older children with small water slides. There are also 10 hot tubs on the ship, but I can’t do hot tubs in 80-degree weather.

Dining

Ok, I think this is probably the one thing I didn’t absolutely love on the ship. I did not have high expectations as I have been on other cruise lines and I have not found a ship where I absolutely loved the food or the options available. The first complaint I have would be that you can’t really make dining reservations ahead of time for the specialty restaurants and until you know what day and times you are doing that you can’t really make your dining room reservations. My mother waited almost an hour in line when we first got on the ship to book the specialty dining and my time dining reservations and we still didn’t get exactly what we wanted in terms of timing(this could also have had to do with us being a group of 11). My recommendation is to make your dining reservations as soon as you get on the ship. We did the 3-night specialty dining package and the kids were free which was nice. We decided to eat at the steakhouse Chops twice and we also tried the Italian restaurant Giovanni’s. Chops was by far my favorite meal on the ship! I loved the appetizers at Giovanni’s but was not impressed with my Chicken Parmesan. We ate breakfast mostly at the Windjammer which is the buffet onboard. I found the options to be boring by the end of the trip, the same thing every day. They did have a kid’s area which had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and donuts in the morning. We did try the main dining room twice for breakfast which I enjoyed. The food was prepared to order which was nice, but it did take an hour or more, so not a quick option. Lunch was always the Windjammer for us but I did try El Loco the Mexican restaurant which I liked. Other included food options are, Park Cafe which served sandwiches and salads, Sorrento’s which serves pizza slices 🍕  and Solarium Bistro which was open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Johnny Rocket’s served breakfast for free but there was a service fee for lunch and dinner. Playmakers served a la carte appetizers as well as the wine bar at Sorrento’s. On the last day, we did brunch at Mason Jar (also a specialty restaurant) which was southern-style food, it was really good! There are a ton of bars throughout the ship all of them have their own specialty drinks, you can also go to the specialty restaurant bars and have a drink, even if you aren’t eating there.

There is a Starbucks on the ship but drinks are not included even if you have a drink package, instead, you can go to Cafe Promenade and get certain Starbucks drinks that are included with drink packages, they also have pastry-type snacks that are free of charge. I was in that line every morning ☕️ ☕️ 

Other Tips/Ideas

• Bring things for your children to do at dinner; tablets(if you are a screen time parent, we are, don’t judge 🙂), coloring books, magna-tiles, books, etc… there were NO crayons to be found at most restaurants even though some of the kid’s menus had coloring
• These are my favorite Kids Water Bottles, we would fill them up in the morning with water and take off the boat for excursions
• Flavored drink packets-my kids hate drinking plain water and I didn’t want them to overload on juices either so I loved having these available
• Water Bottle Carrier– made it much easier for the kids and we didn’t lose the bottles!
• Waterproof Cellphone Holder– If you plan on being in and out of the water with your phone and don’t want to leave it hanging around these are great, also Coco Cay had a swim-up bar
• Snacks- bring things you know your children will like, my kids are picky eaters and I found that they didn’t eat as much at meals
• You are allowed two bottles of wine per stateroom so if you like wine bring it onboard, we found the main dining room did not charge a bottle open fee but not sure if that is consistent with all restaurants, so bring a bottle opener
• We ran to a store before boarding and got a sand pail and shovel for the kids and left them behind when we went home so we didn’t have to pack them, they loved them on the beach and I was glad we had something
• Luggage Tags-these are great, they stay with your bag and fit the cruise tags
• Kids Waterproof Camera– My children loved taking pictures and these even work underwater, I got a lot of questions about these throughout the trip.
• Stroller-we brought a stroller on the boat as we had it with us from Disney but we did not use it once. I think it depends on the age of your children, mine don’t usually use strollers at home, and walking around the ship did not bother them.
• Wet Bag– if you plan on swimming on the last day of your trip there is a chance that your bathing suit is not going to dry in time to pack, so a wet bag will store it safely until you get home.
•  💊 Medications 💊  I brought just in case
  • Chewable children’s Motrin
  • Flonase(in case of ear issues from the plane)
  • Benadryl
  • Allergy medicine
  • Bandaids
  • Inhalers(if your children use them or have rescue inhalers)
  • Aloe cream-sunburns
  • Immodium- you never know how your stomach is going to adjust to different foods, the motion of the ocean, etc, so it is always good to have a few on hand
• Beach Bag-this was super easy to pack, has holes so the sand can fall out, and fit everything I needed for beach excursions
• Water shoes- more for the kids at the beach, I didn’t use mine but depending on excursions you are doing you may want to have a pair.
• Lanyard-If you prefer to wear your Seapass card these are good to have and probably cheaper than purchasing on the boat, I noticed the sea bands they sold didn’t always work great
•  💵 Have some cash for extra tips, and port days and you can also put cash down towards your bill at the end of the trip if you choose.

All in all, we had a great family trip, I am calling it a trip and not a vacation because traveling with children is not a relaxing experience 😛 . I did not want this post to be any longer so I didn’t go into details about the ports we visited but I will do another post later on just that. I would definitely cruise Royal Caribbean again, my husband and I actually booked the Allure of the Seas in November  😎  Again please reach out if you have any more questions or need help booking and I hope this review helps you.