Here’s my review of the Royal Caribbean cruise down to Port Canaveral, Cococay, and the Bahamas (Nassau) we took Nov 2017 with some family and friends on the Anthem of the Seas.
Room Accommodations:
Junior Suite
The suite, in general, was nicer and more spacious than the less expensive rooms, but didn’t really provide many benefits. When we booked, the booking assistant (booking directly) said she’d put chocolate covered strawberries and champagne in our room when we arrived, and that didn’t happen. The only benefit of the suite was that we didn’t really have to wait to get on the ship. Other than that, the room was nicer, a bit larger than most, with some nice paintings on the wall. We did get to go to Coastal Kitchen for dinner, however, we were pretty much eating the same food as in the Main Dining area! I saw both menus one night, and they were almost exactly the same. Unfortunately, in the suite the internet signal wasn’t even good, the Royal IQ app continued to fail or say it was disconnected. Couldn’t really get the benefit of using the Voom internet unless I was outside of the room.
Interior Room
Last time I went interior was with Carnival for my first cruise 10+ years ago. That interior room was horrible. Limited decorations, small, and claustrophobic. One that another family member stayed in was pretty nice on Royal Caribbean. It had a huge TV screen, probably +70″ that had a permanent view of the outside (live camera). That really made a big difference in how they felt. Literally, the TV was the same size as the ocean view room window! I’d probably now go interior on the ship as long as they have the same setup.
Food
The food was excellent onboard. The last time I went a few years ago they had some french Napolean desserts that were extraordinary. The desserts were generally good onboard, but they could have provided a bit more of a variety. Mainly the same things each night, and no Napoleans. All meals were great and the filet mignon, steaks, lobster, and more were excellent dishes. The filet mignon was perfectly cooked at medium, which is often hard to do. The two benefits of getting to dine at the Coastal Kitchen were that the waiters were more attentive to the kids and played games, folded origami, and did other tricks almost every night. That was a nice time for everyone. The second benefit was that we didn’t have to wait in line for the MyTime or Grande restaurant dining and could go whenever we wanted without reservation or waiting.
The worst thing about the food was after 9pm and windjammer closed, literally nothing was available but water, pizza, a few cookie varieties, and these really bad looking cold sandwiches (tried two out of a variety during the entire experience, and both were 4/10).
Improvements:
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- Have more to drink 24/7 At least juice, tea, and lemonade, especially on your private island, but required on the ship.
- Have something to eat even 9-2AM that’s not just pizza and poor quality mini sandwiches. Do something like a sandwich line. Have burritos, something better.
Excursion review
We stayed on board during the Port Canaveral day. This was nice because the kids wanted to do more of the activities on board than some of the random excursions. Good to know that the Express tickets are just a drop off service and you don’t have to buy that along with the normal excursion (wish we would have known beforehand) like I thought from the limited description.
Cococay Review
After looking forward to the company’s own hyped-up private island, we were in for a big disappointment. RCL said that we had so much to do there and made a big thing of how exclusive and wonderful it was there. In actuality, we had to take tenders (boats from the larger ship to the island) because they didn’t have a pier built (ETA Summer 2018?). This was such a disappointment and severely limited our time on the island. We arrived around 9:30 in the morning, and were stuck waiting the entire time to get on the island. They only offered tickets if you waited in line from 7:30 to 8:30AM… lol… then some of those people who waited an hour, were only able to get on at 11:30AM, right before open tender started (anyone can go) around 12:30.
After finally getting on the island right after open tender, the beach chairs were mainly full, and we had limited time to be on the island (12:30pm-3:30pm). The last tender was at 4:15/4:30 and everyone had to be back on the ship after waiting in a 30-minute line to get checked back on board.
While on the island, lunch was limited from 11:30-1pm, and after that, they literally had no drinks or food other than the bar being open. Not great to try and get the kids water or to stay hydrated. After asking for water they just said they didn’t have any non-alcoholic drinks available….
Positives were that it was great weather and we had a good 2 hours on the beach after lunch. Lunch was great and they did provide a nice buffet for the limited time.
Essential Nassau Shore Excursion
Do not buy at all. This basically was a taxi cab drive without any access anywhere. They took us to only 5/7 stops we were supposed to make, and in all of the stops, we didn’t have access to anything but some rum cake taste testing, which I’m sure you can get at any shop. They took us to Fort Charlotte, but we couldn’t get in without paying a few dollars per person. They took us to Atlantis and literally pulled up to the hotel round-a-bout dropoff and said, I’ll be back in 20 minutes to pick you up. For $50/pp you’d think we’d have some access to something more with a guide. We paid for a private tour of the island and it was more like a taxi ride. Luckily we made it fun on our own by finding some nice things to do and see. Definitely could have been a lot better. Rum distillery was alright, but nothing spectacular — just a sales pitch.
Ship Onboard Activities
Adventure Ocean
Their experience was nice and the kids had a lot of fun. We were hoping they would do more activities and make use of more of the Science games they had advertised. It’s also too bad that they don’t take the kids to do some of the major activities on board like roller skating, bumper cars and more, but we had a great time taking them and enjoying that together.
Improvements for a great experience:
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- Larger Room for Kids to Play
- Engage kids in more interesting activities in room 6+
- Engage kids in activities on the ship
Bumper Cars
The ride was a lot of fun, especially since the cars go fast enough to get a good bump from one car to the next. The only issue was the line took hours to stand in, and the ride wasn’t that long. Literally, families were wrapped around the entire SeaPlex room, waiting to get in. No complaints about the actual ride, kids and adults had fun.
Improvements for a great experience:
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- More time driving, less time in lines
- Better organize time… maybe let kids only go first?
Roller Skating
Skating was great. We haven’t been in a while and the roller skates were new. This activity was much better organized because they had people sign up for 30 minute times to skate. This ended up being 45-minute skates, but that seemed to work out even better because people had to get their equipment on and off. Well organized, quality equipment that looked brand new.
Rock Climbing
Rock climbing on board was fast and a lot of fun. The rock wall was high enough, anyone that’s probably not an expert climber will get tired. There may have been long lines in the beginning, but we went after the first two days and almost immediately got on after just a 5-minute wait. Very well organized to move 4 climbers at a time. This is a quick setup and easy process to go through.
Improvements for a great experience:
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- More instruction for kids on how to climb
- Could use a moving wall?
Ripcord by iFly
The iFly experience was pretty underwhelming as it was fully booked after waiting in line to book on board, then discovering the Royal IQ app (which didn’t work to download onboard and had to be downloaded while in FL). The class and instructors were great, but they limited time to 1 minute literally, and 1 flight per person. Such a disappointment. It was fun, but extremely short for the time it took to reserve and prepare. This was definitely something that could have made the trip great, but the time was so limited. We only had 8 in our group and there was plenty of time to go again… unfortunately they didn’t. The flight was fun though and everyone enjoyed it for the short time it lasted.
Improvements for a great experience:
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- Longer flight times
- More rounds to fly
Theater and Entertainment
Some people didn’t go to the shows, and every one of them were excellent. The Gift – wow, with BMX and other treats! We Will Rock You had some great singers and the ideas around that were interesting. Al Romas the comedian was awesome and unique. Game shows were excellent and provided a lot of fun and both adult and kid oriented humor. The Wanted – Great band from L.A.
What a band! Great horn section with an expert trumpet and tenor sax player. Very nice job gentlemen. This live band experience used for almost all the shows was excellent.
Onboard Games
Table Tennis, Foosball, and Xbox should be open 24/7 and available at all times. We always had to wait a while to play either one of those, or there weren’t enough Xbox controllers for the kids to play games or rotate without waiting 30+ minutes. There should have been more of these around, but definitely an improvement from the last cruise where the ping pong tables were on the pool deck. All of these were in pretty good shape.
Billiards
We played pool more than a few times, however, the pool tables were in such bad shape the felt was torn and in really bad shape, the balls were cracked. The triangles were all cracked as well and cues were not very straight. It was nice playing on board when it got slow, but having only 3 tables for everyone on board wasn’t enough.
Norovirus
We received notification of the norovirus spreading throughout the ship. We did experience some issues the last day, but nothing too bad. I was impressed that RCL was taking a lot of precautions to ensure people were constantly washing their hands at every venue, especially at Adventure Ocean with all the kids. I’m glad to see they improved the entrance of Windjammer to include actual hand washing stations + alcohol sanitation. In addition, they stopped vacuuming the rooms for a day or two to prevent spreading germs from one room to the next. We also were up late one night and saw them fumigating the hallways with something strong. Seemed like RCL was taking these steps early on in the cruise just in case for preventative measures.
Casino – Slots, Hold’em and Tournaments
The casino was fun and though they allowed some smoking, it didn’t really affect the atmosphere. I couldn’t smell much smoke at all, which was great to play poker. Unfortunately, they only had one texas hold’em table going in the evenings… which should have been at least 2 or 3 for the people that really wanted to play more than just a 2/5 game.
The slots were fun though they didn’t pay out much. The hold’em tournament was fun and done pretty well. Great time with the NY/NJ/MD/PA folks on board. Great people making it an even better experience.
Overall Summary
This cruise was good, but could have been much better, especially if RCL provided some improvements to their activities onboard for adults and kids. The cruise would have been better if the ship didn’t have such short times docked, and allowed for more people to get off if they wanted. This would have provided less congestion on the ship, and easier onboarding and offboarding experiences for everyone. Cococay is not even worth it until they get the pier setup, don’t waste your time.
Major tips prior to cruising:
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- Book all your excursions beforehand… but make sure you take a day off, you may just want to stay onboard.
- Get the Royal IQ app before you board because the ships internet has issues.
- Internet package – The basic surf Voom was OK… but less than 1mbps. The coverage on the ship wasn’t great either, many spots with low or limited one or two bar coverage. Ensure if you need to do something important that you get the higher speed internet and go somewhere you have 4/5 bars.
Enjoy your next cruise, overall this Royal Caribbean 7-night cruise to the Bahamas was 6/10 stars.
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