Royal Caribbean First Impressions from a Disney Cruise Line Loyalist
We recently had the chance to cruise Royal Caribbean for the first time, and thought the experience was interesting. Especially as fans who have previously espoused an unwavering allegiance to Disney Cruise Line.
Our reason for choosing Royal Caribbean was simple: we wanted to visit Cuba. Disney Cruise Line does not sail to Cuba. Hence, DCL would not be how we traveled to Cuba. This is something that has been on our travel bucket list for several years, and after restrictions on Americans visiting Cuba were eased a couple years ago, we saw the perfect window. When that easing was subsequently rolled back, we knew we better move more quickly.
There was a bit more to our thought process than that, but this is a blog post about Royal Caribbean, not visiting Cuba (stay tuned for those posts on TravelCaffeine.com as soon as I get through all of our Cuba photos). Suffice to say, we’ve been monitoring cruise prices to Cuba for over a year, and when a stellar last minute deal presented itself that worked with existing travel plans to Florida, we decided to jump on the opportunity.
In terms of the basics: dining, entertainment, and daily activities, Royal Caribbean was a pleasant surprise. I wouldn’t put any of these things on par with Disney Cruise Line, but the rate we paid for this cruise was also far less than we’ve ever paid to sail with Disney, so it’s not exactly an apples to apples comparison.
In particular, the food was a bright spot, especially after hearing some negatives about it from friends. We have absolutely no complaints about dining aboard Royal Caribbean. (Although access to all-you-can-eat food when trying to eat healthy is not always the most “fun” experience!)
We also didn’t feel nickel and dimed with Royal Caribbean. The cost of soda and upcharge dining options are commonly cited as ways Royal Caribbean does this, but we just skipped all of these. Soda doesn’t work with the whole ‘healthy living’ thing, but if it did, I probably would’ve been okay spending ~$9 for unlimited Coke Freestyle on our day at sea.
Otherwise, I have to say it doesn’t totally bother me to not pay for things I’m not using. I’m not suggesting line-iteming everything, as that would get tedious and annoying, but it can make sense in some scenarios.
The casino also didn’t bother us. It’s prominently located off the main atrium, and we passed through it several times, but aside from people smoking, it did not have an appreciable ‘impact’ on the nature of the cruise. With the casino, we were bracing ourselves for the worst but it was no issue.
The logical part of my mind views the casino as a nice revenue stream for other cruise lines, and potentially one way of subsidizing costs for everyone else. So…it also can make sense in some scenarios. With that said, I remain glad DCL doesn’t have casinos. These are two very different cruise experiences and I don’t think the vibe of this cruise is something I’d want on a more family-oriented cruise line.
One thing that’s difficult to comment on is the quality of Royal Caribbean’s ships. We’ve heard plenty of positives about the amenities on the newer ships and the array of features they have, but that was not the case with our ship, the Majesty of the Seas.
Going in, we knew that we’d be on one of the oldest ships in Royal Caribbean’s fleet, which was christened in 1992. We booked the cruise it was cheap and because we’d rather do the ‘floating hotel’ thing than deal with an Airbnb or hotel in Cuba.
For us, the ship was intended to be nothing more than a means to an end, and we were bracing for the worst based upon what we had heard about Royal Caribbean’s older ships.
Supposedly, this is the largest ship that cruises into Havana, so the options for a cruise to Cuba are limited.
Initially, we were taken aback by the pronounced late 1980s/early 1990s aesthetic of the ship. It was basically an early 1990s mall in cruise ship form.
Once we got past the initial shock of just how little had been updated, we both commented on how well the ship had been maintained. It was as if the ship had been stuck in a time capsule in 1992, and reopened for our cruise with only the public restrooms and casino updated. For something so dated, it was remarkably pristine.
To be entirely honest, by the end of the cruise, the ship’s interesting aesthetics had really grown on me. It reminded me of the malls, hotels, and even EPCOT Center of my childhood.
Perhaps it’s personal nostalgia, but I think there’s a certain warmth and reassurance in some of the now-derided designs of the late 80s and early 90s.
With that said, the Majesty of the Seas did not hold a candle to any of Disney Cruise Line’s fleet in terms of style, quality, amenities, and so forth. The aesthetic and thematic touches Disney does so well were not really present on the Majesty of the Seas.
The question is how well Royal Caribbean’s newer ships do in this regard, as the cruise industry has essentially been revolutionized since this ship debuted.
One thing that did slightly bother me about Royal Caribbean was how the ship pushed third party vendors. Several common areas were regularly overrun with handbag, jewelry, and art “sales” and there the daily itinerary was filled with seminars offering shopping “opportunities.”
To be fair, Disney’s hands are hardly clean in this regard, and I’ve been highly critical of Disney promoting Diamonds International. This strikes me as tacky, and it still baffles me that people go on cruises to buy these things. It just seems antiquated…but there must be a market for it, as this type of thing is common on cruises and in port cities around the world.
The other main point of apprehension with regard to Royal Caribbean before we sailed was in terms of service. Across all of the Parks & Resorts division, Disney Cruise Line is the gold standard of guest service. We don’t think that Royal Caribbean rises to this high bar, but we also think the service “culture” and goals are different with Royal Caribbean.
Nonetheless, we were very impressed with the service on Royal Caribbean, and it easily exceeded our expectations. There were several crew members in high-profile positions who would’ve been the creme-de-la-creme even on DCL, including the cruise director and culinary director. We’d even go as far as to say that service on Royal Caribbean is generally superior to Walt Disney World or Disneyland, so it’s hardly a slouch in this regard.
Overall, it was a good first impression of Royal Caribbean, but hardly a conclusive one. It’s not an experience that moves the needle away from Disney Cruise Line as our strong preference, but it was sufficiently positive that we are both open to trying Royal Caribbean again. We have zero regrets about cruising with Royal Caribbean (aside from not choosing the overnight Havana itinerary, but that’s on our schedules, not the cruise line) and if there’s a destination we want to visit to which DCL does not sail, or if there’s another steal of a deal on a future Royal Caribbean itinerary–hopefully next time in one of the newer ships for a fairer comparison.
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Your Thoughts
Have you sailed with Royal Caribbean? What did you think of the experience? How do you think it stacks up to Disney? Do you agree or disagree with our take? Any questions? Hearing feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
As others have said, you cannot compare RCL Majesty, a smaller/older ship to a newer DCL ship. Additionally, you should try MSC to Cuba since it spends the night and it is a newer ship than Majesty.
I’d love to read a comparison from your perspective of DCL with any of the newer RC or Norwegian ships. I haven’t cruised DCL due to price (I am very interested) but have cruised newer and larger ships on other lines that seem to be more comparable to the DCL ships. I’d love to know whether DCL truly is worth the upcharge when compared to say the Norwegian Bliss. Both offer an Alaska itinerary of a similar length aboard a flashy new ship. Book yourself another trip, in the name of research……
We did the Bliss this summer.I don’t understand how they can have a ship that’s been built for 1/2 the year in Alaska without heated pools or a retractable roof! In the end it wasn’t for us. No family-friendly shows and not many family activities. The huge atrium where they have so many activities is so noisy. The port times for Juneau and Victoria were odd and short. (Of course we knew that going in.) One thing though – they had better food than previous NCL cruises. We still like Oasis class better.
Thanks for the feedback, definitely good to know! I havent been on the bliss, but I had the same thought about the pools. I would think a “built for Alaska” ship would be more geared toward cold weather amenities.
We’re RC fans (haven’t done DCL because ), and have especially enjoyed the Oasis of the Seas, one of the mega ships, twice now. I’m glad to hear you had a good experience on one of the older, smaller ships, so I would definitely encourage you to sail one of the “big ones” next. Before DH and I had DS in our family, we really enjoyed the Oasis as a couple, and now with DS, it continues to impress us. Thanks for sharing your experience, and happy travels!
I think you were on the wrong ship! You cannot compare Majesty to Disney ships. We’ve been on 8 Disney cruises and the Oasis, Allure, and leaving on Harmony soon. My daughter got hooked on the Oasis class when she was 6 – edging away from princesses. She loves the rock climbing walls and “active” activities on RCI. The pools – sorry I meant
the ONE (family) pool on Disney – is horrible – people soup! There are at least 4 pools that she can go in on RCI as well as the wave pool.
Just so many more food options – we LOVE having a dinner buffet because some nights we don’t want to sit for a couple of hours long meal in a dining room on Disney. Specialty restaurants were AMAZING on the Allure (best food on any cruise!) and I loved that my daughter could enjoy them WITH us, unlike Disney’s Palo/Remy.
My daughter had 1 bad incident in Disney kids’ club and wouldn’t go back. I cannot believe that they group 3-12 yr olds together! That’s insane! Another thing – the staff to kid ratio in non-Disney kids’ clubs is much, much better. Many kids enjoy them more for that reason.
Other than the “movie” shows (Beauty & The Beast, Aladdin, etc.) we find the Disney shows pretty cheesy but we love the Ice Skating and Aqua shows on RCI as well as the musicals. There are always 5 or 6 nights out of 7 of good shows for us.
We’ve had good to excellent service on both lines but didn’t find one light years above the other. Itineraries are another area where Disney just doesn’t cut it. Same old, same old. Hoping with new ships they’ll expand but not holding my breath. (The Hawaii itineraries don’t work with school schedules – you know, for kids…Disney’s prime passengers.) We did our best cruise ever (out of 30 cruises) on the Serenade – 13 night Baltic. Disney didn’t offer anything remotely close.
Even though the Oasis class ships hold several thousand people we’ve never felt crowded. Actually we’ve felt more crowded (and stepped on) in the atrium on the Magic during the Christmas party!
For our family RCI Oasis class ships work best. We will still consider Disney if there is a great reason to go (do love Very Merrytime cruises from NYC) but we see the Symphony in our future!
We cruised RC this past summer to Alaska with family and our two kids – 17 and 11. We chose RC because we had a great experience the other time we used them back in 2001. But, we didn’t realize how things changed.
First, I will say that the ship boasted of lots of activities for the kids in particular. I did my homework because I was concerned about their experience. But, we found it to be just the opposite. Our kids went to the teen and tween activity center the first day and didn’t wantbto go back.. It was practically deserted, except for the under 5 age kids who were dropped off next door. Oh, and one of the activities for the 11 year ild involved creating with play doh…really?
It was too cold and windy to play mini putt or climb the rock wall, and one of the pools had maintenance work so it was out of order. (This was a June 1 cruise!). The best part was the daily movie under blankets–at least many were Disney and Marvel movies.
I think a lot of adults were bored, too. The daily trivia crowd kept growing over our week and was standing room only by day 3. We had the same experience with vendors and art sales. The casino was very smoky.
The food was average but not what we remembered. The formal nights were not enforced so people were in varying degrees of dress code. The lobster was only about 8 inches long and they ran out halfway through our seating time. The great food was an upgrade charge for every meal. The rolls were clearly the same for several days…
While our room was nicely maintained, my sister’s cleaning staff only came 2 times the whole week (her room was more expensive, too.) It was just luck of the draw.
I also spent one night vomiting for almost 3 hours after eating at the buffet line. Luckily, the next day was at sea so I slept all day. No buffet ever again!
My entire family is turned off of cruising for a good while. Perhaps one day we can try Disney and move on. I wish someone had told mevto find a small ship. They can go further in the channels and get closer to the sites.
The Alaskan cruises for all the lines are limited to ship size because of where they sail. We took a cruise from Seward to Vancouver back in 2002 and found the ship smallish as well but like I said they can’t sail these monster fun ships into these destinations. Our ship stopped in Stagway, Sitka, Ketchican and sailed along a glacier. The passage ways were very tight and we had to tender into Sitka because their harbor is very small and not very deep.
We had the same issue with mini golf and this was at the end of August. But you have to remember where you’re sailing. These ships are built to work in very warm climates which Alaska is not.
If you want to experience fun cruising try an Oasis class RCL ship that sail out of Orlando, Fort Lauderdale or Miami. Those ships are light years better than the older ships.
I was on two Royal Caribbean Cruises, and we are doing the 3d one next summer. The main reason we chose Royal Caribbean was the itinerary. We did Northern Europe cruise 2-year ago with 2 days in St Petersburg, and Disney didn’t have any like this that year – to begin with. And now they have but the price is twice as high. That first cruise we did with RCCL we had to switch the dates at the last moment, so the prices were at the highest point. But still we had nice suite + additional room for our daughter – for the price we would have paid for one balcony cabin on Disney. I must comment though that our daughter was 18, so we didn’t need kid’s activities.
I love Disney, I miss Disney music in the corridors on other cruise lines. But I found myself only booking Disney when the itinerary is right AND the price looks reasonable to me. Particularly the price point is often not there with Disney.
We chose RCCL for our next year one more Northern Europe cruise as they do THREE days in St Petersburg – Disney just doesn’t have the itinerary like that, so it is out of question.
By the way one of the RCCL cruises I did was their other oldest ship the Empress of the Seas, and I got the impression very much like Tom did. I went there with lowered expectations, and was extremely pleasantly surprised. The food in the buffet was great, the service everywhere was totally wonderful, the ship was very well maintained. It’s just different type of experience if compare it to Disney. But it is not worse. I have things I can complain about on Disney cruises (like waiters in main dining room), and I have the same complain with RCCL.
I will keep loving Disney, and I have two small beach-like cruises with them next year. But I am totally open to other cruise lines. We didn’t have a chance to try Norwegian, I think I am going to like them. Celebrity is my husband’s personal favorite. And the food on out Alaska cruise with Holland America was amazing – better than Disney main food for sure.
Sorry, I was hesitating if I should even mentioned this. But I thought for the fairness of my above comment I should.
We only did suites with RCCL. So the experience might be influenced by that, as suite rooms are nicer.
Disney balcony rooms are nicer then so called Junior Suites on the Empress of the Seas. But the higher suites with RCCL are definitely better then balcony cabins with Disney, and I am sure they are much better than balcony cabins on the same RCCL ships.
Disney Suites are nicer in general than RCCL higher suites on the older ships. But they are also much more expensive: for me personally the suite price with Disney is almost always out of my personal reasonable range.
Two years ago we did the Serenade 13 nights Baltic with 3 days in St. Petersburg. We only had 1 sea day. It was an exhausting, amazing cruise! Honestly we could have been on a tug and been fine for all the time we actually spent on the ship. 🙂 I would never pay Disney prices for such a port intensive cruise – not that what Disney offered even came close to our itinerary! And BTW, we had a balcony for 1/3 of what Disney’s 11 night Baltic would have cost.
My family has been on 4 Royal Caribbean cruises, most recently Allure in July, which was amazing. Our 12 year old daughter really wants to try a Disney cruise, as did we. But, after pricing out a western Caribbean cruise with Disney as opposed to Royal, we had to go with Royal Caribbean based on price and our budget. An ocean view cabin on Disney was slightly over $2,000 more than a balcony cabin on Allure. Hopefully some day we can cruise Disney, but this time we couldn’t justify the extra expense.
Hi,
We are Diamond members on Royal/Celebrity. We usually only do Royal or Celebrity. In fact, we were married on the Majesty of the Seas, 20 years ago, October 11,1998, we had 34 family members in tow out of Miami. The Majesty was the big dog in terms of cruise ships at that time, until the Carnival Destiny/now Sunshine came along.
With that being said, the Empress and Majesty you can only compare to Carnival’s Fantasy line ships, as they are all about the same age. There is no comparison to any modern day ships. I would not go on those ship for amenities, those ships are basically for a hotel with maybe some good food and service. The last time we were on the Monarch, sister ship to Majesty, was one of it’s last sailings before going to Pullmantur. The food was great as was the service.
Hope you enjoyed the Majesty, it will ALWAYS have a special place in my heart.
Happy Anniversary!!!
Hey Tom,
Great review. As others have commented, it’s tough to compare the Majesty (which we’ve sailed) to any of the newer ships. It is a older classic ship, we my wife and I enjoy. It has an old school charm to it. We personally prefer NCL (which also cruises to Cuba) to RCCL, but it’s just a personal preference. I’d strongly encourage you to try one of the larger ships for a very different experience. The Oasis Class on RCCL is really quite amazing.
We recently returned from the inaugural cruise to Bermuda on the Disney Magic and it was the worse cruise in terms of service and food quality that we’ve experienced the past five years. Our food came out lukewarm and even cold sometimes. The service was just not up to Disney standards, which seems to be a trend lately. It’s tough to justify the price difference. My favorite comments are from those that claim that everything is included in DCL that is why it is 2x the cost. That is just not true. And, I agree with the casino’s subsidizing my cruise — thank you fellow cruisers.
Thanks for sharing your experience and keeping an open mind to other options.
Have to agree. On DCL, we have noticed a definite decline in services.
Our first cruise was in 2014, then again in 2015. Both trips were excellent.
We took our kids and grandkids in May of this year and truly felt like the Disney standards have declined.
In fact next summer, my husband and I have already booked a 7 day cruise with RCL on Harmony of the Seas. Looks fabulous wit h tons of things to do.
We wish we would have taken the family on this ship instead of DCL
Just got back from our first Disney cruise on the Disney Dream. I agree- the food in the main dining rooms and in Cabanas was not very good. I’m a foodie, so this is a big deal to me. Food in Palo/Remy was much better, but of course, you’re paying for that. I was disappointed in our service in the main dining rooms as well. Service in Palo/Remy was exceptional. Maybe it was because everyone talked up DCL so much- said it would be life-changing- but I was overall a little disappointed in our DCL cruise experience.
We are platinum Disney cruisers and they are beginning to price themselves out of our range so we recently tried a RCCL cruise out of Galveston on the Liberty of the Seas. It had recently been renovated and I thought the ship was nice with great amenities. Our room was fabulous for the price. We had a panoramic oceanview which was completely new. I think it was a spa room that was converted into a stateroom recently. It was clean, spacious, new and great view.
We are not foodies so did not do any of the additional cost dining and thought that the main dining room was close to as good as Disney. We also do not drink soda so the complimentary tea and lemonade was perfect an saved us some money.
Our kids were not overly impressed with the kids clubs and they spent little to no time there. They love Disney for that. As for entertainment, it is definitely not “family friendly” or kid oriented. Nothing will compare to Disney in that regard. We enjoyed the comedian but found ourselves nodding off during the shows. The adult spaces were nice however we did not spend time there because we were with our kids. Being a little larger ship, there was a decent amount of shops in the atrium but we did not really shop either so I can comment on prices or product.
They did have a character parade – cute but we would have been fine skipping it. Aside from the parade, we did not see the characters throughout our cruise experience. Overall, service was good but I would say not to the Disney standard. Would I crusie RCCL again, probably but I think I will wait until we said without kids mainly because of the entertainment. For now, we will stick with Disney unless we sail Alaska in which we might give Princess or Norwegian a try because of their cost/itineraries.
You can’t compare Royal Carribbean’s smallest least updated ship to disney cruise lines. Go on an RC Oasis class ship (Oasis of the seas, allure, harmony, symphony), and you will then be impressed. They’re the biggest cruise ships in the world. Those ships are incredible, and as someone who has been on Disney cruise line, AND the oasis class ships– I’m telling you there is no comparison. So impressed with Royal Carribbean’s Oasis class ship. You gotta try it!!