We sailed on Wonder of the Seas twice in 2022. Here’s our rundown of the best activities, dining, shows, and nightlife on the world’s largest cruise ship! For more, also check out our written guide to Wonder of the Seas.
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Transcript
Jess: Welcome to the Jetsetting Family Travel Podcast. I’m Jess.
Rod: And I’m Rod, and on this podcast, we love highlighting all kinds of travel from travel, by air, by land, and particularly on this episode by sea.
Jess: Yes. Today we’re talking about the world’s largest cruise ship. Wonder of the Seas. Oh my gosh. We’ve been lucky enough to sail on it twice.
Once in March of 2022, right after it launched. And then another trip in December of 2022, and every time I have stepped on board, I am just amazed at. How incredible it is and how large it is.
Rod: Yeah, and you know, talking about cruising in general, I think for those of you that haven’t been on a cruise before, going on the largest cruise ship as your very first cruise , would be something extremely special. But at the same time, it sets a high bar.
Jess: Yes, definitely a high bar. To give you an idea of how big Wonder of the Seas is, I’m gonna give you a few statistics, which we don’t do that often, but today it’s good to give you an idea. This cruise ship is 1,188 feet long. It has 18 total decks, which are floors on a cruise ship, and can carry a total of 6,988 passengers. Guys, it is a floating city.
Rod: It is. And there is a ridiculous amount of activities from water sports to pools, to kids activities, shows, dining, and not even to mention the actual destinations that you go to on the cruise. Royal Caribbean, that’s the company and the brand that we choose to sail with. Over the past four years, we’ve been spent like almost 60 days that we’ve spent at sea on Royal Caribbean ships from Alaska cruises to Caribbean cruises. We did a European cruise. We sailed across the Suez Canal from Rome to Dubai, which was freaking awesome.
But today, let’s, let’s talk about Wonder.
Jess: Yes. We’re excited to show a lot of this ship and things that particularly our family find are special. So yeah, let’s get started with some of the main activities that I think you guys should test out because not all cruise ships are the same. This cruise ship has a lot of unique activities you can do.
So you definitely wanna take advantage of that while on board. We’ll start with the FlowRider. If you don’t know what a FlowRider is, it is essentially a fake wave that you can boogie board or surf on, and the fact that it’s on the ship is crazy.
Rod: And that you can fall on, which is typically what I do when I go on.
It makes me feel like a surfer for a good like five seconds, and then you just can’t balance yourself and you end up falling over. But they have a bunch of open hours. You go and you learn, you’ll have instructors there that are helping you, you start off on your knees just to make sure you get a good sense of like how that water flow affects your balance, how to move left to right.
I mean, it’s a pretty small enclosed space, right? So, you have to, be able to figure out how to navigate from the edge, where you start to get to the middle, how to move forward and back. And then you make that big transition from being on your knees to standing up and it’s game changing at that point, because then, balance comes in to play a lot more.
And, I think at the end, not necessarily a goal of mine, but at the end of every cruise they have a FlowRider competition where all the guests that love going on the FlowRider kind of compete. Some people can even do tricks. They can do flips, they can do spins. it’s pretty cool. It is. And when they go and the instructors actually show you what they can do, it’s pretty impressive.
So that one is free, included in your stay so, whenever, just take a look at the activities. Just make sure that you know what hours it is gonna be operating. Sometimes they have like full family hours where they do a lot of the boogie boarding focus. Sometimes it’s more of the advanced times, where if you wanna work on your standing or start working on tricks and you can do that too.
Jess: Something to note, is there are height restrictions on the flow rider. I believe it’s 52 inches to boogie board. 58 inches if you want to do the standing surf part, if you’ve never surfed before, have no fear. They have an instructor there guiding you along the way. And it’s pretty fun. The kids love watching Rod and I try to stand up because they see us wipe out.
And Santi actually, this is the first cruise that he did the Boogie Board and he was awesome. I felt like he was a natural. He put us to shame, that’s for sure.
Rod: Oh, for sure. Yeah. And I think his FlowRiding career has just begun. But I mean, it’s kind of hard to really dedicate a bunch of time when there’s so many other things to do.
One of the things that’s particularly new on this, ship, Wonder of the Seas is part of the Oasis class from Royal Caribbean. So that’s like their largest fleet of ships. I think this is the fifth one. But this activity is called the Wonder Play Scape. One of the big, not criticisms but feedback that we’ve seen because we’ve sailed on the previous world’s largest cruise ship, which was Symphony of the Seas, is that there’s not necessarily a good place for young kids to have like a dry little play area.
So this place called the Wonder Play Scape is this like multi-story playground that has a bunch of slides. There’s netting that you can go on, and all these cool little activities that have sounds and lights and stuff. It’s a good place for parents. There’s a bar right next to the Wonder Play Scape. So, if you want to relax, grab a drink and let your kids just kind of go hang out and play in the Wonder Play scape. That’s what we used it for. And then it’s right next to the Ultimate Abyss, which is a slide that goes from the 16th deck all the way down to the sixth.
Where the boardwalk area is, where you can catch shows and have more restaurants too. So it’s really well designed and planned and a place that we kind of spent a lot of time in.
Jess: And I really like that. The Wonder Place scape is at the back of the ship. So it’s also really cool place.
It’s always our favorite place when the ship is leaving a different port because you can watch the ship sail away while having your drink and your kids are happy and entertained. And it’s also right next to the Wonder Dunes Putt Putt golf, which isn’t particularly new, it’s beautiful and it’s well designed, but putt putt golf’s on a lot of ships where I feel like the Wonder Playscape itself is something really special that they added.
And I think as a mom a great feature because sometimes you just want a quick activity to do before or after dinner. It’s not a water feature, so it’s like our kids can be dressed for dinner and quickly go get some energy out. One of the other really cool features about Wonder of the Seas is that they added new water slides.
There are three, so the three include the Typhoon and the Cyclone, which are slides. You can kind of race down. They’re really cool and exciting. But the newest one that I loved was called the SuperCell, and this slide is one that you go down and I call it the toilet bowl slide. I think that Royal considers it the champagne slide to be a little classier.
But it’s like the tube slide that dumps you into the big bowl that you circle around before you make your exit. so that one’s a really, really, really cool slide that they’ve added. And Rod and I and Santi have really enjoyed ’em. I don’t think that Nora has made the height requirement quite yet for those.
But right next to that, for those who do miss the height requirement, there’s SplashAway Bay, which is a really cool, they’ve really made it larger and has a lot more features for the younger kids. It’s the one with like the little water guns. There’s little slides, there’s a water bucket and they can kind of run around and play.
So that is a new area of the ship. I don’t know if it’s new particularly, but it’s definitely more expansive. And it’s much so larger than what I’ve seen on previous ships. And that’s for Nora particularly really. Running around that area and just being able to meet little friends and kind of have her own little freedom while on the ship.
Rod: And when it comes to staying dry, there’s an entire area, it’s called the Boardwalk. It’s on the back of the ship, as you enter this boardwalk, you see this huge carousel greet you, and it’s right in the middle of the boardwalk. It’s really charming. It’s really lit up well at night.
It looks beautiful. The kids can go and kind of have a seat there. Right next to it, there’s a candy shop, called Sugar Beach that for our daughter, Nora, it’s the one place that she can’t miss every time that we go. Last time that we went in March was, special because she picked like the five pound gummy bear, and we took that thing home and she kind of chewed on it for a while. Too long, guys. Yeah, way too long. And it actually, yeah, we’ve had, it took too long to get that.
Jess: But another cool thing about that, I think that whole area is very nostalgic feeling. It feels like you’re on a California boardwalk, which is why it’s called the Boardwalk area, where this carousel is.
And it’s so beautiful. And Rod’s favorite wings from Playmakers are right there as well. So it’s really nice because you can kind of get an outdoor table, have wings, have a beer, watch a game while your kids ride the carousel. And then they also have like a climbing wall with a net. And so I like that it’s a place we can sit down, kind of have adult time talk if the kids aren’t at the kids’ club and they still have a little bit of freedom while under our eye.
Important to note too, that the boardwalk is, if you ride that Ultimate Abyss down that Rod was talking about, that was near the Wonder PlayScape and the FlowRider, it takes you right here to the boardwalk. So if you really wanna get a cool tour of the ship, I recommend your first night. Watch your sail away right there from the boardwalk.
Then all of you hop down that ultimate abyss and then grab a drink right there at the boardwalk with, your family. So that way you get to experience two of our favorite parts of the ship.
Rod: Yeah. And the last activity that we’ll highlight for now, I mean, there’s, there’s way more than we have time to cover on this podcast.
So we actually have an article on our blog that you can go check out. we’ll put a link on the show notes so you can kind of get a sense of what other activities there are and our take on it. But this, this is an activity that has both like an adult and a family version, and that’s the silent disco.
So silent disco, the adult version happens on the Solarium, kind of the adults only pool. But the family silent disco typically happens on the fourth deck. There’s like a little comedy club lounge area. it’s a little bit smaller, but that’s where, you know, families can go in. You put on the headset.
And, you can switch between two different DJ songs. So then it changes the color, your headset color from like green to blue or whatever, depending on which channel that you’re tuned to. So, you’re in this room, there’s the only music is coming through your headphones and everyone’s kind of dancing, but you’re not really sure.
Or like some people are dancing to one song. Some to another. And throughout this half an hour or an hour, you see this different dynamic of switching from, you know, one channel to another. If someone finds a really good song in the room, just really starts getting active with a specific song, then everyone switches to that and then everyone goes back and forth.
So it’s really cool.
Jess: Yeah, the kids was funny. I didn’t know if they would love it, but I think our kids fell in love with the silent disco in that moment and it was really fun to see them so happy, they were a little bummed they couldn’t go to the adult one, but that’s okay. They really enjoy the kids club, so they got to have some fun there.
And the only last part of the ship, it’s not really an activity, but something I did wanna highlight was Central Park. Central Park is something that is so unique to this ship and it’s just a really pretty place to walk through or have a date night. I really think it’s not as kid friendly as other parts.
I mean, it’s fine for kids. It’s not as catered to kids as other parts of the ship. So it’s one of my favorite places when the kids are at the kids club to go have a drink or just walk through. Because it really feels like you’re in this lush New York garden, in the middle of the ship, which is unique.
Rod: Yeah. It’s on the eighth deck, so I want to correct myself. I think we said that the boardwalk was on the eighth deck, but it’s actually on the sixth. and yeah, the Central Park is on the eighth. There’s a bunch of little restaurants there. I think one of our favorites, is in that area and I think there’s live music sometimes on the Central Park area, so it’s really nice to go and check out.
Jess: Yeah. But next guys, before we talk about too many restaurants, we’re gonna talk about shows because I personally think at least one of the shows in particular is like my ultimate favorite part of being on Wonder of the Seas because I could go every night. And that show is called Intense.
Intense is performed in the Aqua Theater, and it is incredible. It’s a totally female cast. Yeah. So, there’s only women in this show.
Rod: What’s this aqua Theater though? Let’s, let’s kind of go through what that means and then you can talk about the show.
Jess: Well, the Aqua Theater is almost like an amphitheater.
It’s outdoors and it’s at the very back of the ship and it has a pool and it has incredible diving boards. So, these diving boards are insane. The fact that people are diving on a moving ship into this small pool, is just crazy. But the show itself, there’s also, a lot of lighting features, a lot of cool new technology that’s very hard to explain unless you’re there.
Rod: And that pool itself, has different levels where there’s a rising platform where it can go into like a deep-water pool. It can be up to waist level, it can go into ankle level, and then it can go into an entirely dry stage. So this show, they have a really good use of that dynamic where sometimes you don’t know at what level the pool is.
So sometimes there’s divers that are coming in, synchronized swimmers, that are in the deep end area, half of it. Sometimes it’s deep and half of it is shallow. So, I think it’s, it’s just a really dynamic, like really, really cool show.
Jess: And it’s a show. It’s almost, there’s so much going on, you don’t know where to look.
They do everything from high diving to synchronized swimming, to trampoline work, to slackline work, to these high-flying acts, to trapeze. I mean, it’s just hard to put into words how beautiful the show is, how just jaw dropping the show is all I can think to compare it to a Cirque du Soleil.
Rod: Yeah. And the, the show is called Intense because the amount of athleticism and energy that all of these women are displaying it. It’s an hour-long show. I think it’s probably 45 minutes to an hour. And it’s, and it doesn’t stop. I mean, there’s a couple of slower paced, parts of it, but for the most part they’re dancing and performing to some really, like fast songs.
Jess: It’s pretty incredible. I almost feel bad because there are other shows we’re gonna mention that we should have seen by now.
But I feel like every time I have the chance to go to Intense, it’s like I just keep re-watching that show because every time I go, I see something new, I see something different, and I’m just inspired. And something to note about this show as well is the first three rows around this aqua theater, you are in what’s called the splash zone.
And this last time we sailed, we decided to sit in the first row. And let me tell you, you will get wet.
Rod: We actually did not have a choice because the entire Aqua Theater was full. The only seats open were on the first row.
Jess: Looking back though, I think that if you don’t mind getting wet, it was so cool to see the show from the front row.
I mean, I felt like the, the people in the show like made deep eye contact with you. They interacted with you, and it was really cool, especially for the kids. I mean, we were soaked. You get really, really wet. So yeah, if you don’t wanna be getting soaking wet and that’s not for you, I understand. Go early, I’d say arrive 20 minutes early to get your seat.
And try to sit in the middle, because I don’t know, I just think that that’s the best place to see the show from. But it is amazing.
Rod: Yeah, I absolutely agree. I really do recommend sitting in the splash zone in the first row. It was cool. You’re literally standing like two feet away from the performers and they’re, sometimes they’re like splash.
It feels like they’re splashing you on purpose. But it’s so cool. It’s super fun. They’re like running right next to you and you, you really do have the best view. And granted, yes, you do get wet from it. Pretty substantially wet on the first row. Take a towel. We took a towel. And we actually like shielded ourselves a little bit, but our towel was completely soaked.
It was fun.
Jess: Yeah, it was, it was great. Another show we did make time to go see on this past ship was called the Effectors.
Rod: Two. It’s a sequel.
Jess: It’s a sequel. The Effectors, how do I describe the Effectors? The Effectors is a superhero show made by Royal Caribbean. It’s their own personal superheroes, and the kids were very excited to see the show.
And I will say the highlights of the show is the technology that went into the show, the amount of tech that they utilized. There were so many moments where I was just amazed between drone work, lighting work, flying lasers. Lasers. A lot, a lot of technology went into the show that was just very innovative, very cool.
The people performing had some incredible voices that when they were singing, the singing was incredible. The tech was incredible. It was worth seeing. My only thing that I thought was weird is the storyline. I don’t know if it was just me. I thought the storyline and I haven’t seen Effectors 1. This might have played a part into it.
I couldn’t really follow along, and I thought the storyline was a little.
Rod: Yeah, I think it’s, it’s definitely catered towards younger audiences. It’s super cheesy, and like corny in certain places. But yeah, it is basically like a musical. It didn’t really follow like a very clear story because you’re just moving from song to song and highlighting each of the superheroes that are part of this Effectors team.
Kind of like the Avengers. But yeah, ultimately I think, if you have the time to see it, see it for the technology, it was really cool. Not necessarily the best story compared to some of the other shows that we’ve seen on Royal Caribbean ships, but if you could only pick one between Intense and the Effectors, I mean, I would hands down a hundred percent recommend Intense.
Jess: Intense. That’s sucks to say though. I, I know a lot of effort went into the Effectors and the talent and the technology were incredible. Just know that the story is a little quirky. The other shows on board is, there’s 365 the Seasons of Ice. We sadly have not seen this show in person, which is crazy because every time we’re on the ship, people talk about the show and everyone seems to absolutely love the show.
It is an ice-skating show in the ice-skating rink, and I hear that the performance is one incredible, and I hear that there’s a special surprise at the end. To turn this down, if you don’t wanna know, the surprise is a really cool drone feature. There’s a lot of drone work in the show, and they say it’s incredible, and I honestly never thought about it.
But we spoke to someone who worked for these shows once, and they said the amount of work that goes into having these drone performances on a moving ship is just insane because they have to figure out how to get the drones to move in sequence while also moving forward at the pace the ship is moving in that moment.
Rod: But it’s also sometimes it’s coordinated also with the performers that are skating on the skating rink too. So it’s a really cool mix of human talent with the display from the drones that have these lights and they all coordinate with each other. It makes it a really cool like visual spectacle.
Jess: And the last show that’s a big feature is Voices. Voices is a show that a lot of people expect to hear completely acapella, but it’s actually a cool mix of technology with voices with, so it’s not fully acapella, it’s a lot of recording, different sounds, and then kind of mashing that on top of one another until you hear this really cool concert.
One thing I think is cool about Royal Caribbean is the talent they find on these ships. Just incredible. I don’t know how they find all these people with such incredible voices or talents. I mean, even if you look at Intense, a lot of them are former Olympians. It’s just crazy the amount of talent.
So all of these shows, I think are just amazing that they have them and that they’re free. and that you should definitely take advantage of because it’s almost like being in Las Vegas, yet you’re out at sea and you have free shows to go to. I think some of them rival Las Vegas shows for sure.
Oh yeah. and so definitely if you can, if you’re like us, you might go to Intense a couple times, but if possible, try to check all of them out.
Rod: Yeah, and I mean, it’s gonna be hard because your schedule is gonna be packed between the activities, the shows, and really wanting to segue into the dining experiences there because there are a lot of unique options, I think.
Starting off with probably the most unique one, it’s a restaurant called Wonderland. And Wonderland is a restaurant that’s fully themed on Alice in Wonderland, where everything from the way that the room looks. To the way that the drinks are presented and the food and the menu. The menu itself has a really cool way that you get to experience, how you take a look at that menu.
I don’t think I want to ruin it for anybody, but, once you go, you’ll see what I mean. But the menu itself is based out of like land, earth, and sea. So they have very unique takes on traditional meals that I think it’s one of a kind, I don’t think it’s our favorite in terms of the taste or like the portion sizes of the food, but the presentation is really spectacular.
And then sometimes you might get a visit from the Mad Hatter, who will be walking around and sometimes will be sitting with you and we’ll be, you know, chatting it up and having a really interesting conversation. That really is a highlight of that night.
Jess: Something to note about Wonder is that it is a specialty restaurant.
So, as we kind of go through here, we should highlight which ones are specialty and which ones are not. So, specialty dining means that it is not included in the actual price of your cruise. They sell ’em in packages. So, you can have either like, I believe it’s a three-night dining option or unlimited dining option where you can go to all these specialty restaurants.
And have a meal at, no extra cost besides the cost of that package that you actually purchase. So, Wonderland is a specialty dining option. we personally have been very lucky that when we’ve gone on board, this has been something offered to us since we’re working. But I do think that some of these restaurants make it worth it.
I think if we were to sail and pay on our own, we would purchase them because like Wonderlands is very unique. Our other favorite is a specialty restaurant called Izumi. And this is just really good sushi. And maybe just because we haven’t found a good sushi place where we live in Florida that we absolutely love.
We’re always very excited to go eat sushi at Izumi’s. The drinks are great. The sushi’s incredible, and it’s just one of our favorite date night restaurants.
Rod: Yeah, it’s like a very small and intimate venue, at Izumi. I think it’s on one of the lower decks. So, it’s, yeah, the food there is absolutely delicious and that’s definitely one of the places, Izumi is not exclusive to just Wonder of the Seas.
There’s a bunch of other Royal Caribbean cruise ships that have Izumi restaurants. So anytime that we’re in a ship that has an Izumi, that’s one of the ones that we go to.
Jess: Another specialty dining restaurant we love is Giovanni’s, which is an Italian restaurant. And I think I just love it. One because the portions are huge. I’m a huge fan of their desserts.
I don’t know why I love the Giovanni desserts, but I think it’s a great specialty dining restaurant in that there’s something for everyone. The kids always love pizza or pasta or whatever they have. That one is located in Central Park. So it’s a really pretty atmosphere and I just, it’s one of those restaurants I love.
And then the newest restaurant on Wonder of the Seas is the Mason Jar, and I think that one is Wonder of the Seas specific? Yep.
Rod: Yeah. It’s only at Wonder of the Seas. It’s brand new, it’s a southern style restaurant, so they have anywhere from fried chicken to chicken and waffles, just all kinds of really delicious southern food.
They also have breakfast available in some, on some days, but yeah, as it’s included in specialty dining, just make sure you take a look at the schedule because I hear we haven’t been to the breakfast at the Mason Jar, but everyone that we talked to raves about it.
Jess: Yes. As far as complimentary dining, because we get this question a lot.
Okay, there’s all these specialty dining, but what is actually included and what do we not have to pay for? Because we realize a lot of people are going on a cruise ship on a budget and they don’t wanna have to pay for extras if possible. So, for complimentary dining, there’s the Windjammer, which is one we hit up every time.
It is like the infamous the buffet that they have open quite often. We go there a lot for breakfast. You can go there for dinners. It’s a great place to just grab something quickly. There’s a huge variety.
Rod: Day to day, they’ll change out the different options, particularly for dinner. I think breakfast is typically, similar types of breakfast foods, but sometimes they’ll have an Asian night, sometimes they’ll have Mediterranean.
Sometimes, they’ll have like a Mexican and Latin food night. So it’s always changing. There’s also the main dining and that one you have a schedule of when you show up to your main dining there, you’re being served, a menu and you know, you can pick from the menu of the day.
And typically, that’s one that we don’t end up going to just because we when we are on a ship, we are so busy that to be able to commit to like, okay, we’re going to eat at exactly [5:30] every single day this week. That’s very hard for us. But if you have everything planned out. We’re not the best at like fully planning out our days.
We kind of go with the flow a lot of times.
Jess: And another tip is the main dining times are, I think it’s typically like [5:30] and [7:30]. I’m not exactly sure because we never go. But that’s a great time to be at the pools, guys. That’s when everyone else is eating and the pool decks are empty, so we typically eat a very late lunch.
We’ll go hang out at the pools, go do the FlowRider. We try to do like the activities that are typically busy. The water slides are normally empty during that time, and then we eat a really late dinner. So, it’s up to you. We have eaten in the main dining and I think the food is delicious.
We’ve had everything like delicious soups. Oh yeah. Big portions. And it’s a sit-down place. So, unlike the buffet, this one, you sit down and you have a waiter and, it’s a great option. It’s just, we tend to be either working photographing at sunset. Or enjoying an empty pool deck during that time. There’s a huge list on our blog, as Rod mentioned, that it’s gonna be more comprehensive.
But let me just highlight the other complimentary places that we mostly eat at with our kids. Sorrentos is grab and go Pizza. We go there almost every day when we’re on the ship.
Rod: The kids love Sorrentos!
Jess: Love Sorrentos. So that’s one of those things. A late night, eight or nine o’clock, we’re feeding our kids Sorrentos Pizza.
El Loco Fresh is an amazing taco and burrito place. Think like the Chipotle style taco and burrito place right by the pool.
Rod: That’s only one of my favorites. It’s, it’s on the back of the ship right next to the Wonder Dunes and Wonder Playscape. So, a lot of times we’ll get out of the elevator in the back. There’s an arcade there where the kids can play for a bit. We’ll grab food at El Loco Fresh. We’ll have, we’ll do some mini-golf. We’ll go over to the Wonder Playscape and down the Ultimate Abyss into the boardwalk. So really, really good food there.
Jess: The other place we hit up a lot is Cafe Promenade.
That is actually in like the main promenade level of the ship. And this has coffee, donuts, cinnamon rolls, pastries, snacks, little snacks, little sandwiches. So sometimes if we have an excursion in the morning, Rod who wakes up the earliest inour family will sometimes run down there. He’ll grab a plate of donuts, some coffee and bring them up to the room for us to eat while we get ready.
But that’s a great place just to grab and go, if you need a snack, you know, before going out or just during the day. And then lastly, something to point out is Johnny Rockets is a specialty dining restaurant. They have burgers and things, but a lot of people don’t know that it is a complimentary breakfast. So, if you want a different option for food, and you wanna try a specialty dining place that Johnny Rockets does offer a complimentary breakfast,
Rod: I didn’t know that.
Well now you, I should have gone there instead of the cafe from or not on some of those early days.
Jess: I don’t know if it’s offered every day, that’s something to check out. But I do know that they do offer complimentary breakfast. So, if you want something different to kind of shake up your schedule. But there is a lot of free options.
The blog post details them a little bit more, of all the names, but you definitely don’t have to do specialty dining to have a wide variety of food and have a great time. It’s just if that’s something important to you, or if you really want some special meals, I think that’s when that would come into play.
Rod: Yeah. So in terms of activities, dining shows on the ship. We barely scratched the surface. These were kind of our picks and our favorites, the cruises themselves. right now it’s, you know, January 2023. Wonder The Seas is sailing out of Port Canaveral, and I think they’re alternating between seven-day trips, sometimes eight days between Eastern and Western Caribbean routes. So, when we went back in March of 2022, we went on the Western Caribbean route and some of our stops were particularly in Mexico. We went to Cozumel, we went to Costa Maya, then down to Roatan in Honduras. And then on our way back we stopped at, Coco Cay, which is Royal Caribbean’s Private Island.
We could probably dedicate an entire episode to Coco Cay itself. Yes. Because that island is pretty magical. But yeah, one of the highlights of our trip actually, in terms of the destinations, when you go to Costa Maya, there’s an excursion there to Bacalar. It’s a lagoon. It’s probably about a 45-minute drive.
So, if you set up an excursion, you’ll get bused out to this, lagoon and you know, tell me about this lagoon, Jess, because I know, it’s one of our favorite places we’ve been to.
Jess: Bacalar is known as like the Maldives of Mexico. And people say, oh, I’m sure that’s an overstatement. But truly the waters there are so crystal clear and blue and different shades of blue, and it is just magical.
It’s a freshwater lagoons. You’re not in salt water, you’re in freshwater. . And so, with the excursion, at least the ones we did, we got bus there like Rod said. And then you get on a boat and you go out into this lagoon and you have different stops where you get to swim in this magical water. And it honestly feels like you are in a totally different place.
It is, it is really beautiful and it’s was our absolute favorite. The kids love the boat ride. They love swimming in the water. and I just loved seeing how magical the different shades of blue were as you went. It was truly breathtaking and it’s just amazing that water can be that clear.
Rod: Yeah, I think there’s very few places that we’ve been to where you’re in the water and you can look down and you actually see like your feet and crystal clear
That’s just crazy. Yeah.
Jess: I think Saipan, which is like way so far away. Oh yeah. It was like the only other place that we’ve been to. So magical. I actually really liked this cruise lineup and Roatan. We got to see some monkeys at a forest, which was awesome. They um, pooped on Rod.
Or peed on you? I don’t remember,
Rod: I can’t remember if that’s good luck or bad luck. But I’m assuming that it was for good luck.
Jess: It was a really, really great cruise. I definitely think every now and then, sometimes you’ll see these smaller sails offered. It’s not common, I think on some of these large Oasis clash ships, like Wonder of the Seas, seven nights would be the minimum I’d wanna sail it.
Because even with the seven nights, like Rod said, we didn’t list all the activities available. I really think even in seven nights, you can’t do it all. There’s just no way. So yeah, you will definitely have enough to do, even if you don’t get off the ship at all, to fill those seven days.
I think anything under that is almost overwhelming. If you’ve never been on the ship before, I think if you’re a returning guest, you’ll be fine. Yeah. But for your first time, like seven days is like, you’re just getting acquainted with everything when it’s time to go.
Rod: Yeah. And I think the good thing about all these Oasis class ships is there are a lot of common areas.
For example, on the main promenade level, there’s a place called the Bionic Bar. That’s where like the little robotic arm, is making your drinks that you order off of an iPad. They have that in I think a lot of the other ships too. So, if you haven’t sailed on Wonder of the seas, but you’ve sailed on one of the other ones from that class, and you might see a lot of common areas.
And I think the ship design, in itself is very similar, the way that it’s put together. So, you know, definitely just look up the differences if you’ve already been on a ship of that class just to see what’s new on Wonder. And, and I think even bby next year, already looking ahead to the next one.
The biggest largest ship in the world called Icon of the Seas that, Royal Caribbean just announced a couple of months ago. Jess got to go out to the media event there, which was super cool.
Jess: Oh my gosh, it was so cool. It was cool to, we got to put in these VR headsets and feel like we were walking on the newest ship and it was, it was unreal.
But they have all that technology. But back to Wonder of the Seas really quick. One thing we haven’t really mentioned that I wanna highlight really quickly is the nightlife as well for adults. Oh yeah. We missed the nightlife, but let’s talk about the nightlife
Rod: And the kids club, which kind of go hand in hand on that night.
Jess: Yes. So, the kids club is open. You can actually leave your kids till [1:00] AM but you’re charged a fee per hour after, I believe it’s [10:00] PM. So, if your kids wanna go throughout the day, it’s free. Our kids love it. It’s called Adventure Ocean. They have tons of activities for them.
They keep them busy. They do arts and crafts, they do games. There’s this game called Gaga Ball on all the ships that my son’s obsessed with. I think it’s like dodge ball, but he always wants to stay till like midnight to try to win the Gaga ball trophy , and he’s won. He’s very excited, but the kids love going there, and so when they go there, Rod and I love to do the nightlife activities on the ship, and these include a ton of things.
There’s karaoke. There’s silent disco. There’s this really fun nightclub event called Red.
Rod: You have a DJ and it’s, yeah, it’s on one of the last nights of the cruise. They only have it one time during the cruise. Don’t miss Red. Yeah, so don’t miss it. It’s like the nightlife nightclub experience where the, the ice rink gets kind of turned into this massive dance floor.
They take the ice off and you’re like in a really swanky looking nightclub.
Jess: Pretty cool. Another one that they just brought back; it’s been gone due to Covid for a while. It is called Quest. Quest is an adult only scavenger hunt that gets very rowdy and wild . And whether you wanna partake in it or just go witness it, it’s a good time.
There’s comedy shows.
Rod: Yeah, there’s a casino, where you can go gamble. There’s Boleros, which is like the Latin theme bar, and has Live salsa, Merengue, Cumbia music that, that’s the favorite of mine. They have lessons there sometimes where you can learn the dances too during the day.
Jess: There’s, yeah, there’s a piano bar. I mean, there is endless nighttime activities. I think the biggest struggle we have on the ship is that Rod and I like to enjoy these nighttime activities, but that means our kids are at the kids’ club so late and then it’s hard if you have an early morning the next day.
Sometimes these port of calls you’re off the ship by like [8:00] AM but definitely check out the nightlife. I would say especially save up some energy for those last nights or the most fun typically on the ship for that nightlife aspect.
Rod: Yeah. Well, with that I think, had a good introduction to Wonder of the Seas.
We look forward to eventually making it back onto that ship
Jess: We’re actually hoping to do maybe a group cruise ship eventually, maybe one day where we get to invite some of you guys on with us, if you want to join us. So, I think that’d be a really fun way since we love sailing so much to, I don’t know, share that enjoyment with some of you.
And I mean, it’d be cool to be on one of the largest cruise ships with new friends.
Rod: Yeah. So, if you have any questions about Wonder of the Seas or Royal Caribbean Cruise ships, then always feel free to reach out to us. You can find us on Instagram @thejetsettingfamily, or you can email us. Our email is hello(at)thejetsettingfamily.com.
Always love getting our listeners because during the podcast it’s very hard for us to find ways to interact with you aside from just telling you our experiences and tips and stuff. So, it’s always great to get messages from our community, so we really appreciate you for taking the time to listen to us, chat about all things family travel .
Jess: And for more resources on what we have so far for cruising, be sure to check out our blog post about Wonder of the Seas. And there’s also an old podcast about tips we have for cruising with kids that is full of knowledge. That one’s more tip based on cruising overall rather than a specific ship.
Rod: So yeah, so we’ll link those on the show notes, so you can check that out.
Thanks again for listening and until next time, Happy Jetsetting.
