Oasis of the Seas vs Disney Cruise Line

Well, I kind of abandoned this blog a little! Between getting a new job and part running a business I have been incredibly busy and not able to sail since January, when I took two short cruises on Royal Caribbean. Neither of which I found time to review. And then my September cruise on Oasis of the Seas snuck up on me, and then I was boarding with zero plans. I was actually sailing with a couple we met on Disney in March 2013 on the Fantasy, and then we sailed the Southern Caribbean with them last year. It’s fun to sail with the same people again, although this time they brought some friends to make it an even bigger group. In total, we were a group of nine. It should have been ten, but my husband couldn’t come at the last minute.

Overview: I took a seven night cruise on the Oasis of the Seas from September 12-19. It visited Labadee (one of Royal’s private “islands”), Falmouth and Cozumel in that order, with a sea day sandwiched between Falmouth and Cozumel. I actually really liked this as it broke up the itinerary. In total for a Neighborhood Balcony Guarantee room, we paid approximately $2000, and received $300 OBC. With an inside it was around $150 cheaper but only $25 OBC when we booked, so the balcony ended up being a better deal. We couldn’t pick our room and ended up with a Central Park balcony. More on that later. I’m not 100% sure when the room was assigned. It was definitely before final payment date.

NCL Epic vs Disney Cruise Line

As an early Christmas or late birthday present, I convinced my wonderful husband to let me take a solo cruise. I was really limited to cruising the week of the 13th or 14th December out of Miami, since we were already embarking on the Disney Wonder on December 21st. On some of the newer Norwegian Cruise Line ships – Epic, Breakaway, Getaway and the two still being built – they offer solo cabins which they call studios. This can be a lot cheaper than paying the solo supplement on most lines, which is usually 200%. I decided on the Epic over the Getaway, mostly because the Epic is moving to Europe permanently in April 2015, but also because the cruise dates avoided a hotel stay.

Overview: I took a seven night cruise on the Norwegian Epic from December 14-21. It visited Falmouth, Grand Cayman and Cozumel (in that order) with three days at sea. For a studio cabin which sleeps one, I paid $389 plus tax. The promotion at the time was either 10% back in OBC ($38.90) or three free meals at Cagney’s, Le Bistro and La Cucina ($65). I took the three free meals as I wanted to try out some of their specialty restaurants anyway! I booked a guarantee stateroom and was assigned my room around a week before I embarked.

I’m not going to disclose what we paid for the Disney Wonder over Christmas, but it was a lot more than the Epic. 😉 Although the Epic holds twice as many people as the Wonder, I thought that since I sailed them back to back I would compare the two ships in service, food and a few other things.

Ruby Princess vs Disney Cruise Line

Instead of doing a trip report on Ruby Princess, I am going to do direct comparisons between Disney and Princess. Why? I think it’s easier to compare apples to apples this way instead of wading through a lot of information that you don’t want or need! Like, who really cares that I went to the pool deck at 2pm on the first sea day?

Overview: We took a five night cruise on the Ruby Princess. She departed Fort Lauderdale and visited Princess Cays, Bahamas and Ocho Rios, Jamaica with two days at sea. We booked this around right weeks ago while Princess was running a deeply discounted sale. We paid $199 pp including $200 OBC pp plus taxes. Our total pre-boarding cost was $600 which included $400 OBC.

day three on the Ruby

It’s day three of our cruise, a sea day sandwiched between Princess Cays and Ocho Rios, Jamaica. So far Princess has been pretty good. Not as good as Disney, but overall much better value for money. Trying to spend $400 of OBC is harder than we thought it would be!

The main area so far that Disney excels where Princess doesn’t is how personable the service is. Disney definitely tries to treat you as an individual guest. Princess you are one of the many on board. The main places that you notice this are in the main dining room (although our server has been better than the ones we have had on the Disney Dream) and at guest services. The service isn’t bad, it’s just different to Disney. Disney isn’t perfect in their service either but generally it is one step above Princess. The other thing I am not fond of on Princess is the atrium – there are no ‘sea views’ from it and it feels smaller than what I am used to! Ruby is a beautiful ship overall and very well maintained on the inside. Possibly better than Disney. However, the decor (which looks more like a hotel) and the smaller atrium space give Disney a slight advantage in both of those categories.

What Princess does well is the pool decks and the amount of public space there is on the ship. The pool decks are much better laid out, with larger pools and many more deck chairs. They also have Movies Under the Stars, and while I have yet to catch a movie, I have caught some concerts they have been playing during the day. The food is also probably better than Disney overall also, with special mentions to their pizza (hand tossed and amazing), their desserts and the buffet which is miles ahead of Cabanas in quality.

Today looks busy, with lots of events and trivia!

boarding the Ruby Princess!

We have arrived at Port Everglades! It is our first time sailing from this port and it was fairly easy to navigate to and around. Sadly there is a huge line outside the terminal filled with people waiting to board! The Ruby has jut completed a repo cruise and we are in the same situation as we were on the Disney Magic after the transatlantic. It will be interesting to see how Princess handles this as a comparison.

As we had such an early start this morning (we were on the road at 7.30am!) I will be thankful when we are on board and enjoying the buffet. 🙂 And as soon as the life jacket drill is over – a nap!

planning with Princess

Since it is only 23 days (!) until we set sail with Princess, I decided it might be a good time to take a look at our reservation and how easy (or not so easy) Princess makes their booking process.

My parents are sailing with us on this cruise, and at around 35 days out I called Princess to link our reservations. It was a fairly painless process. The reservation agent took both of our booking numbers, confirmed the names and then said that our reservations had been linked for dining. At that point, our rooms had not yet been assigned. At around 28 days out our rooms were assigned – both rooms were assigned forward but two decks apart, so this may not be good if you are booking with young children or wish to have rooms close to each other or require specific locations on the ship. As two adult couples traveling together, I have no problems with our rooms being on different decks. As we have cruised before, we also know we don’t have any issues with the ship’s motion. My personal preference would have been an aft room as I like being close to the buffet, but for the price we paid ($600 including taxes per couple, with $400 OBC per room) I am not about to complain! It is a risk you take with a guarantee room on any line you sail, not just Princess.

The online check in section is much longer than Disney Cruise Line’s. We are British Citizens, but reside in Florida, and you definitely needed you passport with you to answer all of their questions! My parents, who still live in England, had a slightly easier time. They do want to know a lot more information about your passport and travel habits that DCL does. However, their website is fast and easy to navigate, so Princess definitely gets points over DCL for that. You can navigate through the whole of your booking from one menu.

Excursions are also extremely easy to book. Like DCL, you do not have to pre-pay your reservation if you book it before you get on board (this is unlike Royal Caribbean and Norwegian, where you have to pre-pay). However, it is an option if you wish to do that. You can browse reservations by port, and there is a handy key at the top of each port page so if you want to do something specific (such as Dunn’s River Falls in Jamaica) it’s easy to find excursions that match that. When going to book an excursions, it actually tells you how many spaces are left on that particular excursion. This is much better than DCL, which will often tell you excursions are available when there is only one spot left. It was also much easier to figure out what each excursion offered without having to open a new page every time. It doesn’t surprise me that Princess has a much better online system than DCL. Take note, Disney!

We plan to drive to Port Everglades (this is why living in Florida is amazing), so didn’t need to use the transfers or flight options. However, the travel itinerary is a page that DCL needs. There is no place to select a port arrival time on Princess (not that anyone adheres to that on DCL), but it does detail check in times and advises that arriving after 2pm will mean a faster check in. It also gives information on flight transfers, if you have purchased them through Princess, tender ports, and what type of clothing you should pack for the main dining rooms. Our five night cruise has four smart-casual nights and one formal night. It will be interesting to see if Princess is stricter than DCL at enforcing this.

Overall, Disney Cruise Line could definitely take some notes from Princess on how to make a functioning online booking system.

southern caribbean excursion reviews

We are finally back – and mostly unpacked – in sunny Florida! Unpacking is definitely the worst part of any vacation. It definitely puts you back into ‘real life’ too fast for my liking. However, in 29 days we sail on the Ruby Princess, so I can’t say life is too bad.

But now is the time to reflect on the Southern Caribbean cruise. Mostly, it was an amazing cruise, with great ports and a lot to see on each island which sometimes made picking excursions tricky! It was probably my second favorite cruise we have taken, second to Alaska (and honestly, there isn’t much that could beat that). Out of the islands, four out of the five we would visit again. The only one that neither me or my husband cared for was St Lucia. However, most Southern Caribbean cruises stop at St Lucia, so if we choose to do another in the future I would definitely pick a different type of excursion and hopefully see more of the island.

In the future, I would definitely take another Southern Caribbean cruise. However, I would probably not take another Southern Caribbean cruise with DCL. Because it’s a port-heavy cruise, we spent most of our free time in the room sleeping because it was incredibly tiring being in the water every single day. There was really no chance to experience anything which makes a cruise “Disney”, like using the movie theatre (especially as there were many Spanish showings of movies) or seeing the shows (we saw one the whole week). The sea day would have been better had it been in the middle of the cruise, not the first day, just for a relaxing day between excursions. I also would have loved a buffet dinner some nights, which DCL does not have.

Excursion and port reviews are below. 🙂

reflections of the southern caribbean

If you get a chance to sail to the Southern Caribbean – whether that is with Disney or any other line – I would highly recommend it. Apart from Alaska, the ports are among the most beautiful I have visited in the Caribbean. Grenada was definitely my favorite of the week, followed closely by Antigua, Barbados and St Kitts. The least impressive to me was St Lucia. The main problem with this itinerary – if you can call it a problem – is that it is so port intensive it doesn’t give you a chance to enjoy the Disney Magic.

Overall it was a great cruise – just extremely busy and I need another cruise now to relax! I am still in San Juan, but will write a more in depth review when I return home to Florida. 🙂

the Princess diaries

For whatever reasons, DCL rarely offers deeply discounted sailings. They – like most major cruise lines – offer some form of a discount as the sail date for a cruise approaches. The latest offer on Princess Cruises offers an almost free sailing, something that Disney would never do.

Their latest offer is priced at $199 per person for an inside stateroom, plus applicable fees and taxes. There are a select handful of sailings in October and November this special pricing applies to. Each sailing is approximately $600 for two in an inside cabin after the fees are added. But Princess is offering $200 per person in on board credit for booking these cruises right now. So in essence, you are only paying for the port fees and taxes. This is really one of the best last minute deals I have seen, probably on par with another Princess deal they ran last year, where you booked certain cruises and they applied that fare to another future cruise with them.

As we now live in the sunny state of Florida, this was too good to pass up as an offer. On November 3rd we head to Princess Cays and Ocho Rios on the Ruby Princess. Princess is a line I have wanted to try for a while; I have heard amazing things about their pizza, popcorn and movies under the stars. I wouldn’t say that it looks more upscale than DCL, but dinner attire is either formal or smart casual (something which my husband will hate) and the activities on board look much more geared towards adults. Even if we don’t enjoy the cruise, there is no way that it will be poor value for money.

Princess might be having to deeply discount the end-of-hurricane season fares to fill the ship (it is one of the quietest times to sail on any cruise line) but it could be a good way to gain future customers.

the Magic of the southern caribbean

When DCL released their fall 2014 itineraries, there was one that stood out above every single other itinerary that DCL offered at that time. In the middle of double dips to Castaway Cay and the normal Eastern/Western rotation, there was four Southern Caribbean cruises on the Disney Magic. As DCL doesn’t change up their itineraries very often, I knew it was an itinerary we had to book on.

It’s one of the most creative and unique itineraries Disney has come upon recently, with port stops in Antigua, St. Lucia, Grenada, Barbados and St. Kitts. The cruise leaves from San Juan in Puerto Rico, a city we were fortunate enough to explore on an Eastern itinerary in 2013. We booked the inaugural cruise on opening day, and ended up with what I thought was a good price for a seven night cruise. (On Disney, it is a great price.)

Except now I’m wishing we had shopped around. On such a port intensive itinerary, do you really need the magic that the Disney cruise provides? This itinerary only offers one day at sea, paired with five port days, and only one of those port days is less than five hours. No other line offers the exact same itinerary, but Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Celebrity all offer Southern Caribbean cruises from San Juan. They are on older, smaller ships but the Disney Magic is not exactly new, despite the “reimagining” which took place in 2013. Carnival even offers eight night Southerns from Florida ports.

The Jewel of the Seas leaves on the same day from San Juan; the ports are slight different (St. Croix USVI and St. Maarten instead of St. Kitts and Grenada) but the ships are a similar size but the Jewel of the Seas is a newer ship than the Disney Magic. Without using an onboard booking, at the lowest price point the cost of an inside stateroom on the Jewel of the Seas is $900 less than an inside on the Disney Magic. That difference would pay for every excursion we have booked. Our actual price difference was closer to $500, as we used an onboard booking from October 2012 so saved 10% of the fare and have $200 OBC. With the new onboard booking rules, this would no longer be possible. The cost difference is not exactly apples to apples, as the Royal Caribbean inside rooms are much smaller than the inside rooms on Disney. However, the price of two rooms on Royal Caribbean is not much different to one inside room on Disney which would actually give you more space.

When we booked this cruise initially, we were 100% set on never trying another cruise line. Disney Cruise Line has plenty of wonderful things about it. But on our last few Disney cruises, things have been less than magical. We have had poor service in the Main Dining Rooms, poor stateroom hosts, lost luggage, kids in the adult areas and guest services staff who didn’t seem to care about any issue we had. If I’m not paying extra for better service on Disney, what am I paying for? The answer is simple; I am paying for the Disney name. I’m not sure that in the future I can justify a 42% difference in cruise fare when the cruise might only be 10% better.