Royal Caribbean VS. Disney Cruises

Last week we sailed on Royal Caribbean’s Wonder of the Seas.  As you know, we love cruising and helping our clients sail on all cruise lines. We haven’t ever compared cruise lines, so we thought we would compare this sailing on the Wonder of the Seas to our most recent Disney Fantasy sailing.

Price

We are comparing the price we paid for this sailing on the Wonder of the Seas versus the cost of the same room type that was available for the sailing on the Disney Fantasy that same week. They were both guaranteed balcony rates which means you don’t choose the stateroom you are assigned.

We have always said that DCL gets your money up front and other cruise lines get your money when you are on board.

Embarkation

Both cruise lines require you to do a check in before you arrive at the port a month before sailing. During that process, you add your passport, a picture of everyone and your credit card information. You also select your port arrival time. This is the time you should arrive at the port in order to go through the physical check in and security check.

RCCL and DCL both have great systems for checking everyone in, but RCCL was a much smoother and quicker process for us. From the time we arrived until we were on the ship was under 15 minutes. We were in the first group to check in for RCCL and that did make the process quicker for us.

Cabin

We typically book a balcony room when we sail. Brandy loves to sit out on the balcony and read while enjoying some coffee, and Avery enjoys his breakfast on the balcony. It is a wonderful way to relax at the end of the day after visiting a port.

The rooms on DCL are a bit larger than those on RCCL in the same category, but it wasn’t the biggest difference for us. On DCL, you have a split bathroom (your shower and toilet are not in the same room). This was the biggest difference for us in the stateroom. It is a lot more convenient to have a split bath so one person can shower while someone else is getting ready in the other part.

Swimming

Wonder of the Seas is quite a bit larger than the Disney Fantasy and you can really tell on the pool deck. There were three main pools to swim in as well as three large slides and then a smaller child slide/play area. We still only enjoyed the pool deck mainly on the port days as the sea days were very packed with almost 7,000 people on board (the Disney Fantasy maxes out at 4,000 guests).

The Disney Fantasy has a few pools but the main pool is usually very crowded. There is the AquaDuck (a raft two person slide), Mickey’s Slide, Nemo’s Reef (splash pad type area) and AquaLab.  There are also some smaller pools that are not nearly as crowded.

Adult Only Areas

This is where RCCL is doing a lot better than DCL. There is an adult only area that is secluded to the back of the ship where children wouldn’t be able to walk through. On DCL ships, the adult only area is located where children do have access to walk through. For adult only activities, RCCL had a crew member at the front of the event space to scan your cruise card to make sure you were 18 or older before entering.  

Dining

There is no comparison between the two lines here. DCL has rotational dining where you stay with your serving team each night, but you go to a different restaurant. Children can order from the adult menu, but there is also a special children’s menu at each restaurant. By the second night, our servers on DCL always have our drink preferences at the table and have any special items we like to have at dinner. Both of our children are very picky eaters and typically have the same thing every night for dinner. By the third night, our servers have their food at the table often before Chris and Brandy order.

Our servers on RCCL were good, but even on night 7 we were still telling them that the kids don’t eat anything different. It wasn’t a big issue for our kids, but the kids menu does not change in main dining.

The overall quality of food at main dining is a lot better on the DCL than RCCL. There were several nights where Brandy didn’t eat her main course because it wasn’t good or it was cold.

Where RCCL does a lot better than DCL is at their buffet. On RCCL, the Windjammer (their buffet restaurant) there are islands throughout the room where you can pick up a plate and silverware to grab some food. On DCL, the individual islands are all in one line. The way it is supposed to work on both lines is you are to grab a plate and then go to the spot where you would like food from. You don’t need to stand in the line of one island if you don’t want anything from there just to get to the next island. On DCL, it takes people about half way through the cruise to understand that they don’t have to start at the front if they don’t need anything from there. With RCCL having the islands throughout the area and not in a line, everyone moves around much smoother when selecting food.

Most room service items on DCL are included in your cruise fare. Our kids like to order lunch or a Mickey Bar a few times each cruise. Room service on RCCL is $7.95 each time you place an order. 

Kids’ Clubs

This was a huge difference between the two cruise lines. On DCL, each kids club has planned activities, but also the club spaces have many areas that the children can do activities on their own. On RCCL, the room was only a room. There were no additional activities in the room. Also, on DCL’s app, you can see what the activities will be during the day in the club (Pluto’s PJ party, GAGA ball, etc), but this was not the case on RCCL.

DCL’s clubs are open from 9am to midnight each day. RCCL clubs were open for three hours, then closed for two hours and closed at 10pm each night (you could pay an additional charge per hour per child from 10pm to midnight).

Shows

This is where the two cruise lines are too different to even compare. The type of shows on DCL are very similar to what you would see on Broadway. The type of shows you see on RCCL are very different. inTENse was our favorite on the Wonder of the Seas. It is a water/diving/dance production like nothing else. There was also an ice skating show and a few shows in the main theater. This ship doesn’t have any of the Broadway type shows, but more of a variety type show.

The difference here is the timing. With DCL, there is an early show for people that have late dining and an evening show for those that have early dining times. For some of the more popular shows, there may even be a daytime show.

With RCCL, most show times were during our dining time or directly before or after. This meant we had to rush from a show ending at 7:40pm to our dining time at 7:45pm or we would be rushing through dinner to make it to our show time.

Activities

RCCL has a lot of activities such as rock wall climbing, zip lining, laser tag, and flowrider that are not on the DCL, but the general activities that you can do with a family are lacking on RCCL. One of our favorite parts of cruising is there isn’t really a schedule you have to worry about. On DCL, almost all day there is an activity we can go do as a family, the kids can go do in the club or there are adult only activities. On RCCL, we did not find as many activities for us to do. We did have fun with laser tag and ice skating, many of the group activities weren’t as family friendly. There were trivias that we could all attend, but most activities seemed to center around shopping or were an additional cost. For instance, on DCL, there are cooking demonstrations for adults, families and in the children’s club that are all included in your cruise price. On RCCL, a cupcake decorating class was $35 per person.

Internet

RCCL’s internet package is more affordable than DCL’s and is much better. Chris was able to stream entire New York Yankee games on days at sea with no issue on RCCL. That has not been our experience on DCL. 

Other items

One thing that was noticeable on the Wonder of the Seas that we have not encountered on Disney Cruises was the smoking areas. There is a smoking section on the pool deck right outside the women’s restroom and the door that leads to their buffet (Windjammer). Swimming in that pool, you did smell the smoke. The women’s restroom beside this area also always smelled of smoke. If you have someone in your party that is sensitive to smoke, you would need to avoid this area.

Even Though smoking is prohibited on balconies on both cruise lines, each day, we could smell smoke when we were on our balcony on the Wonder of the Seas. We had not had that issue before on any sailing we had been on. 

Who Would We Sail?

Both RCCL and DCL gives great options for families. While we prefer Disney, we still had a great vacation worth Royal Caribbean.

Where do you want to sail? Request your quote today.