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Disney has great kids programs, but for adults there is not much to do. My wife and I aren’t hard to entertain and we became bored very quickly. Our daughter (who is a die hard Disney fan) went with us and said that she kept forgetting it was a Disney Cruise because it didn’t have the same magic that you felt when you walked into a Disney Park. No casino on Disney was a huge negative for us also.

The morning in Nassau started with breakfast in the Windjammer. The buffet was so full, the staff offered Jamie’s Italian, which has its entrance in the lobby of the Windjammer as a place to sit. I happened to run into the same couple I had met the day before, so we sat together for breakfast and had another great conversation. While we were sitting in Jamie’s looking out onto Nassau Harbour and the western tip of Paradise Island, someone spotted a waterspout (a tornado touching down over water) in the distance. Even the staff was moving up to the windows to get a better look. A few minutes after the waterspout dissipated, the Disney Dream joined us in port by backing up into the slot right next-door. After breakfast, I took a few minutes to walk around and take in views of Nassau. While I was walking around the ship, I found the Peek-a-boo Bridge. On the deck above the bridge, the Mariner features windows looking down from a covered deck area into the bridge. In the middle of the area, there is a table with a map of the bridge explaining the bridge positions and functions. There are also two monitors which show the ship’s current navigational information including speed, heading, where we’ve sailed since departing, and where we’re heading to next. Later in the day, I visited Playmakers with someone I had met at The Bamboo Room the evening before. I noticed in the corner of Playmakers, there was professional lighting equipment and a tripod for a video camera set up. While we were having drinks, the area was staged with food from Playmakers. Then, a cameraman came in and set up followed by Hugo the Cruise Director and his assistant Assata. The filmed some promotional videos for the shipboard tv channel, and thankfully, I was just out of frame. I went back to my room to take a nap, then woke up to get some food before setting out on the Sunset Harbour Cruise. Most ships visiting Nassau depart before sundown, but this cruise on Mariner of the Seas stayed in Nassau until midnight. This unusually longer time in port gave me the opportunity to do an excursion not normally offered. If you’d like to read more about the Sunset Harbour Cruise, I’ve written an Excursion Spotlight post on CruiseHabit.com. I booked this excursion through the Royal Caribbean Cruise Planner, but it's also possible to book excursions through outside companies. For more information on making that choice, you can check out this article on CruiseHabit.com. After the Sunset Harbour Cruise, I came back to ship and had dinner. I spent the evening visiting the venues around the ship, and listening to the live musicians. At some point, I returned to The Bamboo Room and tried the On The Run. This is best described as an adult Capri Sun. It’s served in a pouch with a straw. This pouch features a built-in handle — perfect for carrying around. I ended my night with a stop at Cafe Promenade to pickup a couple of slices of pizza and a sandwich to take back to my room. Once back in my room, I turned on the tv to see the broadcast that Hugo and Assata filmed earlier that day.

Day 7!! The weather has really been perfect. For all our concern about hurricane season it was by far the best cruising weather of my 4. All the others in January had days that were to cold or rainy. Today was the best of the best with super clear skies and temps in the mid 80's. So with Jeffrey reminding us of the hundreds of things to do we wound up doing none of them. What we did do was... - have breakfast at the Park Cafe - start the sun bathing on deck 16 close to the solarium like yesterday. - explore more of the ship and have lunch at the Wipeout buffet. - move to the sundeck to relax and read. Seriously a dozen people max there. Took some great photos! - ran five miles again around what must be the best track at sea. The evening was a nice solid meal at the main dining room followed by packing. A long relaxing hot tub soak by ourselves was in order to reflect on the past seven days. After a quick change we capped of the night at Dazzles with some music with the house band. Like many people posting on the RC Blog, I was a little worried about trying the "big" ship. For all those who may read this at some point, the Oasis class is worth doing and will not disappoint! I will get back to land and write a recap of the good and the bad in the next day or so. Thank you all who with your discussion posts have guided me to make great choices for the past seven days and those following and posting on this thread. I didn't think I would do this but am glad I shared. Enjoy a few photos from today!

LOL... I was talking about the wine bar on Celebrity Silhouette.

Make reservations. Always if you want something specific. I'm not sure about Anthem, per se, but I know with MTD if you want something specific you need to let them know.

TheTwangster did it just a few Days Ago when he was in Nassau, & had a Blast!!! It is very amazing, to have something different to do in Nassau and it is very realistic!, I highly recommend!

This is pre-Thanksgiving cruise (get back on Thanksgiving Day) so may not be considered a holiday sailing which may be why everything seems to be a good deal. Voom was $10.79 for 1 and $29.99 for 4 devices. Have never seen the price for 4 devices that low! Drink package not a great deal at $47 but it was the cheapest I've seen for this cruise. By far the cheapest prices for Labadee excursions too.

Following!!

Explorer has a guest capacity of around 4k. Ovation just a bit bigger but not by that much. I never felt the crowds on Explorer. Lots of space to see the glacier, etc. In my opinion the size of the ship has no bearing on the potential to experience Alaska.

I totally get your question. When I booked my 1st Alaska cruise I approached it on that basis - if I'm going to do Alaska once, all my research said to do it right and put a little more effort into booking it one way. I prefer the Southbound one-way in a large part due to the train. What an amazing way to set the tone for the cruise. Then there are the extra ports plus longer times in some of them. To be fair I have not done a Northbound one way. Ending in Vancouver is easy. Cheap transfer to airport or a great city to explore post cruise if you wish. When I booked the RCLBlog group cruise out of Seattle I thought I was settling for a lesser Alaskan experience (based on my research). I was wrong. It was a great Alaska cruise and not just because of the group. Let me put it this way - if I could, I'd go one-way more than Seattle. As a repeat Alaska cruiser or for anyone who is intimidated by the logistics of a one way, a Seattle round trip provides a great Alaskan experience. My next and 4th Alaska cruise is Seattle based (for now). If you can, either way, add a few days to explore Seattle, Anchorage and/or Vancouver. You won't be disappointed. There is no wrong way to cruise Alaska. YOLO, book it.

I had the same question 6 months ago before Allure sailing. If you are ok with just relaxing & not doing some type of adventurous excursion then stay at the port complex right off the pier. There is a huge pool w/ swim up bar, beach sand and loungers. There are servers for drinks & food as well as a whole outdoor mall full of shops. There’s really no need to leave it’s actually pretty nice.

I would if there weren't so many of those!

It's official........ Happy New Year!

Dont' you just love those YOLO moments!!?

Day -1. Barcelona , so many things to do here but I really want to board the ship already. We did not had exact plans for the day so we decide just to improvise. After quick breakfast at the hotel (four points near Diagonal) we decide to first be done with the ship shopping (AKA , two bottles of wines , water and things we forgot) so we went to the nearest supermarket. next we went to see the famous church - Sagrada Familia , it was about 30 minutes walk from our hotel but hey we need to burn some calories before the endless visits to the WJ and the weather was just perfect for walking. the church looks amazing from the outside and I would not skip it. Next came my favorite part , the tapas bar visit , this time we went to a place call Tapas Tapas , the menu is the table cover so its very easy to choose from it. It for sure not the best tapas in town but everything was good and we enjoyed it with a jar of sangria. we took some mussels (which were very very fresh) , olives, patatas bravas (a must for me in any Tapas bar), some fried papers and a small salad. The sangria is not included in the ultimate drinking package, should I go on the other board and complain or since we did not order the package I should leave it ? We continued to walk a while until we decided its time to head back to the hotel. really nice day, we passed near several game tables which apparently were something like tennis tables but you play it with soccer ball (or football in the rest of the world) , we saw two that played it and it was fun to watch for a while. And now , we are not in London , but still this building is near our hotel Now I finally starting my favorite part in a a day before the cruise , making the luggage tags. I guess we will find some place to eat a light dinner and try to go to sleep early as I know I will not be able to sleep late at a cruise day. We did the online check in using the application and it approved us to do the expedite boarding (which I Guess its just to show our online sea passes and the passport). On the expedite sea pass its says board between 1:30 to 2 PM , yap , sure , that exactly what we are going to do ...

@CruisingKat(Kathy) shared on FB in August a really great idea for a Nassau excursion. Here is the link. It looks really interesting and is a great alternative to the norm of beaches etc. https://jetlinesimulationbahamas.com/

I got it for $10.79 a day too for Same time frame (Feb 14th cruise.

That's been my go-to strategy too

I booked this package on Harmony a few weeks ago. The first thing I did when I boarded was going to the Speciality Dining desk that was located on the Main Dining Room. There was no line, and I was able to make my reservations on the day and time I wanted.

Excellent question and not provocative or worthy of starting a fight at all. Here is a blog post from @Matt who runs this site. He lives in the Orlando area and has children. He doesn't work for any cruise line. https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2014/12/22/first-time-cruisers-comparing-royal-caribbean-disney-cruise-line Here is a more recent podcast he did on this exact topic: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/podcast/episode-50-royal-caribbean-versus-disney-cruise-line I've cruised Disney years ago when my kids were younger. Sadly Disney prices have skyrocketed. Royal is very family oriented and has a lot to offer kids of all ages. There is no question that DCL provides a great cruise experience and if you have lots of money it will provide a great experience. At what point though is a fabulous cruise on a family oriented cruise line at a much lower price simply better value? Calling @Lovetocruise2002 who has sailed DCL more recently than me. Lastly here is another blog reader's perspective: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/boards/index.php?/topic/5312-disney-dcl-royal-caribbean-rci-comparisonreview/&tab=comments#comment-53333

Most ships have both, but they use the same SSID. It's up to your device to pick one, which typically means you end up on 2.4GHz. Only Harmony has implemented a form of 'band select' that I can determine, but to be honest I haven't put a lot of effort into checking every ship I've sailed. The cabins are metal with a metal door. 5 GHz doesn't penetrate as well as 2.4 GHz. On most ships each plan is capped to ~4 Mbps down and 2Mbps up. There will likely be someone who points out that once in while you may do better on this ship or that ship but by and large this is the speed cap imposed in the platform. Once in a while you end up on an AP that isn't enforcing this properly and you luck out and get more throughput but don't count on it. Freedom, Quantium and Oasis class all use O3b satellites where latency will be 200-300ms typically. So far all other ships use legacy satellites and latency will be 600-700ms typically.

After checking in at the Cruise Terminal, you will be directed to sit with other guests in the same C&A level as you. When boarding begins, they board from highest C&A level down to lowest. So being in C&A (even at Gold) means you get to board before the unwashed masses non-C&A members.

That would be nice but I've only had to wait one time in the terminal, the boat came in late due to fog in Tampa. Any other time it was check in and straight on the boat.

I am not aware of a priority lounge area anywhere for gold members. The line ups yes, but as mentioned often the line up for gold or even platinum are longer than the general ones! There will be a sheet off offers in your cabin that are pre-loaded to your seapass card and I agree, any perks are defn nice!