Disney World and Royal Caribbean

Kevin here to keep you updated on our 2016 winter explorking escape to Disney and the Caribbean. After adventuring through Disney World and Universal Studios in Orlando we will hop on the Allure of the Seas for 16 days of cursing. This will be my third cruise and Leanne’s fourth Royal Caribbean cruise. We really liked Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas, had mixed feelings about the Quantum of the Seas, and are looking forward to seeing how the Allure of the Seas compares.

I’ll update this post throughout our winter escape and we’ll make sure to provide you some useful insights once we’re back home.

We met many great people and received some amazing service, but there are three Royal Caribbean employees who went beyond great service. They went beyond the standard high-quality service and made our experience on the Allure of the Seas awesome. Thank you:

• Sofiane Jabrallah (Head Waiter)
• Nicholas Dwayne Houston (Sous Chef)
• Tyler Parker (Front Desk Manager)

Today we docked in Bahamas, Nassau again. We decided to take our work to the beach and booked a day at the beach at Atlantis. Unfortunately there were no more chairs with sun shades and the umbrella rental would have been $30 US. Given that the excursion was about $200 US for two, we were pretty disappointed. The aquarium was neat, but not worth the cost. Leanne thought the water was on the chilly side, but I snorkelled around for a few minutes. We took the first bus back to the the Allure of the Seas for lunch and to get some work done. Can’t win them all!

The stop in Fort Lauderdale was great. We decided to experience the famous Everglades via air boat, it was an excursion booked through Royal Caribbean. It was an experience we enjoyed and would definitely recommend this excursion. The staff at the Sawgrass Recreational Park was great.

The air boat ride is pretty short, maybe 20-30 minutes, and we only stopped once to see an alligators. It would have been great to spend more time on the air boat and less time with the rescue animals.

Happy New Year!

We decided to skip the new year celebrations onboard the ship and ring in the new year from our balcony instead. Royal Caribbean wanted $500 per person for a seat, something we thought to be way overpriced.

We have been to Labadee, Haiti before on a cruise and this stop has become one of our favorites. It is a great port to find something relaxing. We decided to spend some time on Amiga Island.

Days at sea are great for catching up on some work. Today is a sun and work day!

The last time we were in San Juan, Puerto Rico we went on a horse riding excursion, which was awesome! This time we decided to explore the old city a bit.

A couple of work related items came up, so we decided to stay on the ship and work.

Docked in St. Maarten. Royal Caribbean didn’t offer an excursion that caught our attention, so we decided to wing-it. We found a bus tour and got to see the entire island. We really enjoyed the tour and the stops along the way.

Great weather in St. Thomas. The last time we were in St. Thomas we went scuba diving. The diving was alright, but not nearly as good as Bahamas or Jamaica.

This time we decided to skip the diving and take to sea in a kayak. We booked the Kayak, Hike, ad Snorkel at Cas Cay excursion through Royal Caribbean. Unfortunately we really didn’t enjoy our time, there were just way too many people. It was packed and people were bumping into one another.

Our first day at sea was very relaxing, just like they should be. We get the impression that the Oasis of the Seas was cleaner than the Allure of the Seas. It’s a big ship with a lot of people, so keeping things really clean is no easy task.

We also noticed that use of the hand sanitizer before entering a dining area is not enforced at all here on the Allure of the Seas. This is much different from our experience on the Quantum of the Seas where we had to wash our hands and use hand sanitizer before entering a dining venue. We also remember that use of the hand sanitizer was enforced on the Oasis of the Seas.

Our dinner was great – again. The turkey was really good and we left very full (and happy). We planned on checking out the aqua show, but it was cancelled due to bad weather (it’s warm but a bit rocky).

Royal Caribbean automatically charges each passengers $13 in gratuities per day. In our case the total charge for the 16 days will be $416 US or $540 Canadian Dollars. At full occupancy of 5,400 passengers that would be $70,200 US per day and for this 10-day cruise the total gratuities charged would be $702,000 US. We wonder how that is distributed.

It was an early morning start. We usually love to spend our first day at sea, but our first stop took us to Nassau, Bahamas. The last time we were here, we went scuba diving, but this time we decided to relax on the beach.

We booked the Blue Lagoon Island Delux Beach Break excursion, scheduled for 7:30 AM. The Wind Jammer is always a great place to get food, they are usually awesome with specific dietary needs, and I got my hands on some dairy free pancakes. We were on the boat to the Blue Lagoon around 8:15 AM and arrived there around 8:50 AM. The food was surprisingly good at the Blue Lagoon and they also had dairy and gluten free options. Oh yea, and free Wi-Fi, which we love.

We were back on the ship around 12:30.

Relaxed a bit in the Thermal Suite before looking for a little snack. We got disappointed in the Park Café in Central Park. They had no idea what was gluten free or dairy free and told us to go to the Wind Jammer.

We ended up chatting at Pawan Sah, the Restaurant Operations Manager, at Guest Services who was amazing. Royal Caribbean should be very grateful to have people like him. Sofi, Shelton, and Paris were serving our section of the dining room and were also fantastic.

Time to get onboard the Allure of the Seas. We rented a car from Sixt and drove from Orlando to Ft Lauderdale. Sixt did have a free shuttle from the drop-off location to Port Everglades, but it was a bit chaotic so we used Uber. The fare from Sixt to Port Everglades was around $10 US. The Allure of the Seas was docked on Terminal 18, but that may change.

The boarding process was much faster than our first cruise o the Oasis of the Seas, we didn’t have to wait in the waiting area. That being said, we preferred the boarding process on our last cruise on the Quantum of the Seas, which departed from New Jersey.

The Royal Caribbean representative who checked us in wasn’t the friendliest and couldn’t provide us with an answer regarding the additional currency exchange fee. Our credit card provider does not charge additional fees for foreign currency transactions, so we chose to have everything charged in USD; our card is in Canadian Dollar.

It was great to get on the ship and have access to our room right away. The bags showed up a couple of hours later. Guest Service wasn’t overly helpful, first we spoke with Stephanie about moving our dining time to 6:00 PM from 8:30 PM; she had a really bad attitude and said it’s not possible and there’s nothing she can do. Thankfully the Royal Caribbean social media team came to the rescue – very cool!

Back to Disney today, starting with Animal Kingdom and then over to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Both are really fun parks, we didn’t think that we’d enjoy Animal Kingdom, but it was pretty awesome. The Uber fare from the hotel to Animal Kingdom was $15.63 US and we took the Disney bus to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The Uber fare back to the Red Lion Hotel was $7.46 US.

Today was dedicated to Universal Studios, which was really great. They were not nearly as organized as Disney, especially when it comes to allergies, but we had a blast. The rides are really fun and the Express Pass is so much better than the FastPass+ system at Disney. We had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, it was good and they were accommodating to my wife’s gluten, dairy, and nut allergies. Harry Potter things were really well done and magical indeed.

The Uber fare from the Red Lion Hotel to Univeral Studios was $26.31 US and the fare back to the hotel was $37.69 US.

I don’t want to share too many pictures, you’re really best not knowing what to expect.

We planned to split the day between Magic Kingdom and Epcot today. The food was expensive but it was a lot of fun. Magic Kingdom was really geared towards kids, but Epcot had something for everyone. I’d really recommend checking out Epcot at night, well the World Showcase anyhow, it’s pretty awesome at night.

The fare from the Red Lion Hotel to Magic Kingdom was $20.67 US and the Uber fare back to the hotel from Epcot was $19.75 US. We were hoping to use the shuttle service from the hotel, but the shuttle service is pretty useless, unless you plan your trip around the shuttle service maybe.

Arrived in Orlando, Florida. We booked a room at the Red Lion Hotel, which was a mistake for our needs. Here are the issues we encountered:

• The safe is too small for our laptops. My 13in MacBook Pro will not fit.
• We had to run the shower for 30 minutes before there is hot water.
• The room feels dirty and rundown, even though only the curtains are visibly dirty.
• Shuttle service to Disney and Universal is not convenient at all; twice a day.
• There is no room service (and no food at the hotel).
• The hidden fees are a bit annoying and caught us off guard.

There is a 7-Eleven across the street, which was great to get water and a few snack. We used Uber to get to the Red Lion Hotel from the Orlando airport and paid $62.42 US for the trip.

Time to check in online. Unfortunately, Royal Caribean requires the travel details to the terminal, in our case they are our flight details. This should be a simple task, but Royal Caribean doesn’t list the airport we arrive in, Orlando (MCO) or the airport we depart from, Fort Lauderdale (FLL). The Royal Carribean social media support wasn’t helpful, asking me if I clicked on the “Cannot find your airport?” link. If they would have clicked on the link themselves, they’d know the information doesn’t help.