Oct 1

Oct 1 Our First Royal Caribbean Cruise

Christopher and I had been on three cruises, all on the Carnival Liberty, before our first Royal Caribbean Cruise with our family. I’ve always wondered what other cruise lines/boats were like, so I’m going to share about our experience on the Royal Caribbean Mariner of the Seas.

We went on a 4 night (Monday - Friday) cruise to the Bahamas, with stops in Nassau and Coco Cay, the Royal Caribbean private island.

These are some of the main areas of the boat, the big staircase outside of the dining room and the promenade shopping/eating/bar area. The promenade cafe is where you can get your pizza fix, fancy, but not Starbucks, coffee drinks, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, and other snacks throughout the day. This was also a fun place to find live music groups performing.

This is a peak at our interior stateroom and a couple of our cute towel animals. We got an interior room for this cruise to save some cash because we had just gone on our annual friends cruise the week before. We were plenty comfortable in our room, but I did miss having a view.

The main pool area on this boat was amazing. There are two pools and four whirlpools on the main pool deck with a giant screen, live music periodically, ice cream machines, a hot dog stand, and of course a bar. There is also a great pool and two whirlpools in the adults only area, along with another bar, and the cool lounge chairs and beds pictured above. It was a really great place to relax, float, and enjoy a frozen drink in a warm whirlpool.

I feel like you can’t talk about a cruise without talking about food, but I forgot to take food pictures. I did manage to capture my first lunch (chicken fajita, mashed potatoes, roasted green beans and carrots, corn on the cob), the view from the buffet dining area, the cute little napkin chef that the server made for Molly and Heidi, and the super fun cake we had at dinner one night to celebrate Royal Caribbean’s 50th Anniversary.

The Bamboo Room was our favorite bar on the boat. It was right on the promenade, but tucked away just enough to be cozy. The booths and chairs were super comfortable, the drinks were great, and I miss this place now that we’re back on land.

Our Perfect Day at Coco Cay really was perfect. We saw a ton of lizards, floated in a giant pool, splashed in the ocean, and got drinks from the swim up bar.

They have a water park, which we didn’t get tickets to, a giant freshwater pool, beach areas with chairs and cabanas, some splash playground areas, and food and bars, and anything you need right there. It’s awesome because all the food and drinks are still included while you are on the island.

The island was so beautiful, and we definitely want to go back. When we got home we found out that Royal Caribbean has cruises that stop at Coco Cay twice, so that might be the next cruise we book!

These are just a few random things from the cruise that I didn’t want to leave out. The elevators had the day of the week on the floor, in case you needed to know what day it was. I thought the days of the week were cool, and Christopher was like, I’m on vacation why do I need to know the day?!?

One night when the boat was going through some rough weather, we played Scrabble in the library because we are board game loving nerds.

A couple of nights there was a pianist in an elevator. Like what? how? It was awesome. We got to ride with him once, but the pictures from inside the elevator were not great.

And finally the self service Coke Freestyle machines. This was one of the best parts of the drink package on this cruise line, you get a reusable tumbler that you can fill whenever you want, with anything in the freestyle machine.