I can't imagine loving days at sea either! And it sort of boggles my mind that people don't even care where they go, as long as they're on a cruise, or that they might not get off the ship at port! Going to the different ports is the ONLY thing that makes me interested in a cruise! Our vacations are usually fairly active too.
Sea days are wonderful, IMO. You read the cruise activities (on Disney that’s the navigator. On royal it’s the compass). You plan out what you want to do. You do those things.
The feeling of the ship moving, even if it’s just in a big broad circle, is like nothing else to me. The sea is beautiful. You can pretend you’re a pirate in your mind. You can imagine what it was like a long time ago and wonder at how brave sailors were. There’s trivia, you can work out. There are things to fill your day with.
When I travel elsewhere I settle in and pretend I’m a local on a day off. I wander. I grocery shop. I see things. On cruises I settle into the ship and see what there is to be seen.
Royal Caribbean ended the partnership with Dreamworks and they are pretty much gone already. The official end is April 1st so there might be something left out there.
And sea days have become our favorite.
Aw, sad. Thanks for letting me know.
Do you find port excursions really add up though? Or do you typically arrange your own? I'm more concerned about that than spending any money onboard the ship.
I rarely do those. But the best one we did was in Antigua, through an outside company called Adventure Antigua. Amazing amazing day. And I even had a panic attack while snorkeling, which was NOT fun (but major kudos to the guide in the back of the snorkeling pack who noticed and helped me), so you can guess how amazing the rest of the day was to have it still come out as an amazing day.
On Nassau we did the graycliff chocolate tour through Disney. I think there was maybe one other excursion we’ve done on the non-Alaska cruises... Just not big excursion people. (Remembered the other excursion. Hugely popular one on Sint Maarten, and my son and I were probably the only two in their history to not enjoy it)
But I don’t do “tours” for land vacations, either. I’m allergic to the “tourist being shunted around” thing. (And then I watched a Trevor Noah thing about him going on a tour, and felt stronger about it lol)
We started out on a 3 day cruise. We weren’t sure we would enjoy it and were terrified of getting seasick.
Of course, the 3 and 4 day cruises out of Florida start by crossing the Florida straits, which is incredibly bumpy and can make even the strongest-stomached person feel a bit green. When I’ve felt it, it lasts through bedtime. I’m better once the morning comes, and then I’ve got under two days of enjoyment before re-crossing them. So those cruises can actually be the worst in terms of seasickness.
the kids didn't want to stay in the clubs much and then complained
Definitely no fun when that happens. My cousins dealt with that on the cruise they brought their kids on (and that was my son’s first cruise, so when his second cousins didn’t want to stay, he didn’t want to, either, but it impacted us less because we had no expectations).
But we dealt with it once my son hit “teen club” age on royal. He’s tall so kids think he’s older, and that club just wasn’t fun for him. Had to re-do the plans for that cruise once we realized he wasn’t going to be apart from us the whole cruise as we thought.
Contingency plans are important.
(and that was his...7th? 8th? cruise)
but I was more interested in the smaller ships for the main reason that there's less people!
Fewer people but less space as well. I’ve only been on dream with
dcl, so I cannot speak with authority on how the smaller two feel, but the crowd levels on dream have been fine.
We’ve been on smaller ones in Royal and it doesn’t feel any more or less crowded in general than on the freedom class (which is similar in size to Dream class).
Again, of course there will be hot spot moments. The stores will be crowded when they are open, just like stores can be crowded at the parks. Dining can feel crowded until you’re seated.
And just how amazing is Castaway Cay? Should we absolutely make sure to go there?
Cc let me find out that I am, actually, a beach person. I grew up in northern CA, so the Santa Cruz beach was a part of my life, but that’s not overly hot most of the year. We did an Alaska cruise for our honeymoon because I didn’t think I’d like sweltering on a beach. But castaway let me know that lazing on a warm beach is actually quite nice.
On dcl I get up, do the not-quite-a-5k, go back to the ship to shower sunscreen & dress, go back to the beach and lounge. We’ve snorkeled there (snorkel-lite lol). Ok that’s it. I pretend like I live there and have a day off, and just settle in to relaxing island life for 6 hours or so.
(I liked royal’s island better because it was more primitive and felt more remote, but I haven’t been there since they modernized it...sigh)
Fwiw I’m not sure that the beaches in San Juan are that easy to find? They aren’t right there AT the port, that’s for sure.
Ok, OP here. I'm looking at a 6 night cruise from Galveston to San Juan that would be about $4400 for a verandah room our family of 4. I'm also looking at a 7 night Southern Caribbean from San Juan that would be $5131 for an oceanview room or $7100 for a verandah room for our family of 4. Neither one stops at Castaway Cay.
The Galveston-San Juan cruise is clearly a much better value here but the ports aren't quite as interesting to me. Is a verandah room really worth $2000 more on the 7 night Southern Caribbean? I think we'd enjoy a verandah room much more and if it's one-and-done for us I'd like to make sure we really enjoy it....but that's a lot of extra money!
IMO no a verandah isn’t worth 2k. I’ve done four oceanviews (3 on royal with two being panoramic rooms, and 1 large porthole room on Disney) and and one inside cabin (Disney), and I’ve enjoyed them to the same extent as I’ve enjoyed the cruises with a balcony to step out on. The sleep I got in the inside cabin was like no sleep I’ve ever gotten. I have lifelong sleep issues, so that was a major thing for me.