Cocoa Beach, Royal Caribbean Cruise and WDW vacation - Day 3 - Embarkation Day

Embarkation Day

I woke up before everyone else, as I often do, and quietly put on my running clothes to sneak out the door for a morning run down the beach. It was a calm and peaceful morning with no indication that a powerful storm had taken place the night before. I enjoyed an easy 30 minute run out and back on the beach. Very few people were out. I saw a man fishing, a few other people out for a stroll and a group of people that had signs they were marking sea turtle nesting sites with. There were a lot of sea turtle nesting sites, which was really great to see.




When I got back, everyone was still asleep so I quietly got myself something to eat and checked my email and Facebook until they began to stir at which point we all ate breakfast and showered and got ourselves packed up and ready for the day.

We were ready a little earlier than we perhaps needed to be, but we didn’t have any other plans for the morning so we went ahead and checked out and took our rental car back and got on the shuttle to the port where we got a glimpse of both our ship, The Mariner of the Seas as well as several other ships in port, including the Disney Dream. We felt a little sad to not be on the Dream, but excited for our new adventure. Are we cruisers or just Disney cruisers?

Once at the terminal, we handed over our bags and headed inside at about 10:30. We went through security and then checked in. I was a little confused that we didn’t get our room keys, instead we were to use our paper check in sheets I had printed at home and they said the keys would be at our room. Okaaaay.

Prior to sailing, we had purchased an add on called “The Key” that allowed us a variety of perks including priority embarkation. Right around 11 AM they began boarding and they called for suites and “Pinnacle” (whatever that is) and The Key so we got right on board. On the way in, we stopped by a table for Emmaline to pick up a wristband that had our muster station on it so that if she were in the kids’ club during an emergency, she could be brought directly to our muster station. It was one of those plastic things that you’re not supposed to be able to remove, but I explained that she has some sensory issues and we needed it loose enough that she could slip on and off and they were happy to do so. We just made sure she wore it any time she went to the clubs.

Once onboard, we took our carry on baggage to the theatre and dropped it off for delivery to our room by 1:30 (another perk of The Key). It wasn’t quite time for lunch yet so we gave ourselves a little self-guided tour to orient ourselves to the ship. Overall, the ship was clean and modern looking with a lot of different amenities. I took a moment to stop off at the main dining room to try to sort out a new time for our dinner seating.

Like Disney, Royal has an early and a late seating and you can choose one or the other upon booking, but they have a third option called My Time Dining where you can choose whatever time you like and make a reservation for a different time each evening (or the same time - whatever you want). Before sailing, I had made reservations with My Time Dining for 6:15 each night, but about a week prior, when we saw that what the entertainment schedule would be in the app, I logged into my account online and tried to make changes and couldn't. So I called and they told me that my travel agent had called that day to change my dining from My Time Dining to first seating. This was patently false, but the agent insisted that my travel agent had done this. I checked with her and, of course, she hadn't, so she called and the agent she spoke with said that there was an issue with our account and somehow we had both. The agent said that she solved it but that the time slot we wanted was full and once onboard we should be able to change the reservation time. When I went to change it the man at the podium of the dining room was EXTREMELY rude and told us we didn't have My Time Dining and we were assigned a table at first seating. I tried to show him on my app, but he literally wouldn't even look and just kept repeating that we did NOT have My Time Dining. I said that I was confused and didn't know what to do. He just rudely told me to come whenever and I could just have a table. He was so awful and dismissive.

After that we decided it was time for lunch so went to eat our upgraded lunch (again, The Key) at Chops (vs. the buffet lunch). Lunch at Chops was a very mixed bag. The bread service was hands down the best bread I’ve eaten on a cruise ship ever. It was soooooo good. I’m pretty sure Emmaline ate almost an entire loaf for lunch. But the service was painfully slow. Just ridiculously slow. Thankfully we were somewhat entertained by a dolphin playing in the water below that we could see out the window. The food was pretty good. Most of the meal was very good with the exception of the mashed potatoes which were some of the worst I’ve ever had. They tasted like they were from a box, which was surprising. For dessert, the chocolate lava cake was incredible. One of the best desserts I’ve had onboard a ship - right up there with the Palo chocolate soufflé (maybe better *gasp*) but the ice cream served with it tasted like it came out of a cardboard box in 1986. They serve Ben and Jerry’s in the Promenade. They couldn’t spring for the good stuff in the upcharge restaurant?

When we were finally done with the slowest lunch ever (seriously, I’ve eaten Palo brunch in less time and walked away more satisfied) our room was ready so we made our way there. One of the perks of The Key was reserved time on the ice rink and for other activities. I had read about this in advance on the Internet and knew that it was likely that our one and only reserved time for the ice skating would be at 1:30 and I packed our long pants and socks (required) in our carry on. We found our room where our room keys and The Key welcome letter were waiting for us. Sure enough, the assigned time for The Key to ice skate was 1:30 so we changed and went down there.

We were the only people on the rink. A couple of other people came but were turned away due to lack of long pants and socks. They complained (justly) that they didn’t know this would be the only time they would be able to skate with the special time afforded by purchasing The Key. They were told there would be a public skating time on the final night at 10:30 PM. Yes, PM. That was the only time over the 3-day voyage for public skating. Pretty skimpy if you ask me.



I had my fill of skating before Roger and Emmaline and returned to the room to organize some of our belongings from the carry on bag. They joined me shortly thereafter, Roger having stopped by the dining area to ask about the wine corkage at dinner, was told by a different guy, “I see you have My Time Dining! See you at 6:15!” Can you feel the eye rolls coming at you through the blog? Nobody knew what was up with our dining. What a mess.

We decided we were going to stay dry for the rest of the day and Emmaline really wanted to try out the SkyPad (jumping bungee cord trampoline thing) so we went to see what the wait was like. It wasn’t too bad so she tried out the SkyPad (and I did as well).  I thought it was pretty fun and Emmaline was really into it.



After the SkyPad, we fiddled around with the mini golf (we didn't play a full game) and explored some of the other areas of the upper decks where they have some cute swings and a climbing structure for kids. Roger returned to the room to relax, but Emmaline was curious about the sail away party so we waited for it to begin on the pool deck, but it just seemed to be more of a loud music type thing than any kind of organized event like Disney (unless we didn't wait long enough, I don't know). We shrugged and wandered off and Emmaline wanted to do the SkyPad again so we went over there and there wasn't much of a line so she jumped again.




By this time it was getting close to 5 PM so I was hoping the luggage had arrived so we returned to the room to relax and unpack and get ready for dinner. We decided we wanted to go dinner around 6 PM and since everyone was confused about our dining time anyway, we opted to just give it a go. Unlike Disney, which has three distinct dining rooms with their own theme and menu, Royal has one dining room (and several upcharge dining rooms). This one dining room spans 3 decks (3, 4, and 5) and the My Time Dining folks are all on deck 3. We were seated quickly and greeted by our dining team for the evening, Reynaldo (aka Rey) and Randy. They were really good - as good as the best we’ve had on DCL and we were very impressed. The meal was very good, though we found the menu each night lacking in the same variety that the DCL menu has. Whereas DCL has a large menu of different items each night and a small number of consistent items, it seemed the reverse on Royal, with just a few new items each night, but a larger selection of consistent items from night to night. One thing we did enjoy was that right upon being seated, they provided Emmaline with a cup of fresh fruit. This was nice as she focused on eating this as opposed to half a basket of bread.

Upon finishing our meal, our serving team told us that if we returned at the same time the following night and on the way out asked that we note we would like Rey and Randy on our My Time Dining reservation (haha) we could have them again the next night at the same table. We were happy to do so and we did end up with Rey and Randy each night on our cruise, which was great. Overall, even though we did miss some of the theming and variety of DCL, we really did like the food on Royal very much. There were a few misses, but there were also quite a few hits and if comparing DCL and Royal, I would rate the food very similar on both lines.

After dinner we returned to our room to gather our things and head for the ice rink to watch the ice skating show. We were supposed to have reserved seats as part of The Key, but found perfectly good seats elsewhere and we settled in for the show. We really enjoyed the show and found it fun to see something different. DCL puts on amazing shows, but we’ve seen them all several times and so seeing something new and completely different was great.

After that, we were tired and ready to turn in for the night. Our first port stop the next day was Nassau, however, having been twice, we had decided we were going to stay on board and explore everything that The Mariner of the Seas had to offer.

Click here for Day 4.