Cocoa Beach, Royal Caribbean Cruise and WDW vacation - Day 4 - Nassau

Nassau(ish)

I woke up before everyone, tossed on my running clothes and made my way up to the jogging track. We were still sailing into port and the track on the Mariner is way up top on Deck 12 and it was CRAZY windy up there and already getting hot. Unlike on the Disney ships where the track is on Deck 4 and somewhat protected, being way up in the wind and heat was less than ideal. On the plus side, they didn’t have to shut down a portion of the track in order to moor the ship. Unfortunately, in the negative category, the track is narrow and in a walkway that people frequent at all hours of the day and it’s extremely short. 8 laps for a mile (vs. the 3 laps I’m used to on the Magic and Wonder, I can’t remember how many laps make a mile on the Dream/Fantasy). So that’s a really long way of saying that by the end of my first 8 laps I was going stir crazy and decided that weight training in the gym sounded awesome, so that’s what I did.

I wandered into Windjammer after that (the buffet akin to Cabana’s on DCL) and scoped out the breakfast options, grabbing some juice and a pastry to refuel after my workout (it’s vacation - no judgement). I went back to the room where Roger and Emmaline were stirring as we started coming into port in Nassau.

We got ourselves ready and went up for breakfast at Windjammer, which I thought was about on the same level of quality as Cabana’s on DCL. We then went back to the room and put on our swim costumes. Emmaline tried out the pools first, but upon dunking her head under water the first time, declared that it was salt water and she couldn’t deal with it so we moved on to the slides.

We planned to make our way over to our special reserved time with The Key for the big slides from 10-11. We were a little early, but the slides were open and not busy so we each tried out each of the two slides. When 10 AM rolled around, it didn’t appear that there was any sort of checking for The Key. It wasn’t busy, but it was getting busier. Either way, we were done with the slides and saw that the line for the Flow Rider surf simulator was short so we jumped into that line. Emmaline was only tall enough for boogie boarding so she did that. I did one round of boogie boarding, which was fine, but it was pretty much a constant flow of water right in my face. I tried stand up surfing and found it nearly impossible. Emmaline wasn’t really a fan either so we cut our losses and moved on.

We spent a little time up near the flow rider/slide area with the hammocks, climbing structure, and swings I mentioned from the day before. Emmaline climbed and played a bit, while Roger and I relaxed in some chairs. Then we all decided we were done with the wet activities and went back to the room to shower and get into dry clothes.

From there we were ready for our special reserved time for The Key for the rock climbing wall, which again proved to be completely unnecessary and not busy at all. I had forgotten to mention that Emmaline tried out the rock wall the day before, but Roger and I hadn’t. I think we all climbed three times, with Emmaline outclimbing all of us. I only made it halfway up both times, but Roger was able to make it to the top on one of his attempts. It was harder than it looked. Unless, of course, you’re a 10 year old gymnast, in which case, it's easy.



After climbing, it was about noon so we went back to Windjammer to have some lunch. There were many options available and we all found something that we liked from the buffet. I particularly liked some of the Indian dishes available. After lunch we went back to the room to relax for a little bit but soon grew restless and Emmaline and I set off for a game of mini golf, which was fun, but up on the top deck with zero shade so it was very very hot.

After mini golf, we went to find ice cream by the pool deck. They had chocolate and vanilla the entire voyage (unlike DCL which has one or two machines of chocolate and vanilla and another one or two machines of rotating flavors - usually fruit like blueberry, banana, or strawberry). Despite having two machines on deck, they only ever had one machine operating and this often meant long lines, which was frustrating. This time the line wasn’t too bad.

After ice cream, it was time for Roger to participate in the ping pong tournament so Emmaline and I met him there to watch. We had reservations for the Sky Pad at 2:30 so we didn’t get to see the end of the tournament (which Roger didn’t win, I think a guy from India did, there were a lot of people from India on the ship).

We went back to the Sky Pad and Emmaline and I both jumped again and then Emmaline jumped yet again because the line wasn’t too bad. Then she wanted to do the rock wall again so she climbed that yet again. (I’m worn out just thinking of all the jumping and climbing, but she loved it.) During this time, Roger decided to disembark the ship in Nassau and shop for some kind of alcoholic product to take home, but he returned shortly thereafter empty-handed declaring that there was nothing worth purchasing.



After that, we returned to the room again and rested a bit and tried to figure out what to do next. We saw that there was a belly flop competition up at the pool and Emmaline wanted to see what that was about. Roger and I speculated that it was going to be large white men who had too much to drink flinging themselves into the pool on their bellies. Which is exactly what it turned out to be. Emmaline was sort of baffled by the whole thing, having not really had much exposure to intoxicated people doing stupid things.

During this time, Roger went in search of a quiet place to have coffee. Something like Cove Cafe on the DCL ships. There’s a Starbucks onboard and they also have coffee drinks at Promenade Cafe on the Promenade, which is sort of a little mini mall-like corridor where loud music was always playing and there was always a line of people either buying coffee, buying Ben and Jerry’s, or trying to get pizza or a sandwich at one of the only placed to obtain food when the buffet wasn’t open.

Unlike DCL, if you had a mid-afternoon hankering for food, it wasn’t readily available. There are numerous quick service options on the pool deck of the DCL ships serving up everything from healthy options like salads, fresh fruit and wraps to comfort foods like burgers (both meat and veg), chicken fingers, fries, pizza, and even schwarma. On the Mariner of the Seas if you wanted something by the pool your included options were hot dogs and potato salad. If you want a burger and fries, you would have to pay the cover charge for Johnny Rocket’s. So the pool is up on deck 11, which is where the hot dogs are (you know, right next to the smoking section that takes up HALF THE POOL DECK on one side, port side, I think) and the other included food was pizza and sandwiches in the freakishly long line way down on deck 5 on the Promenade. Hands down, DCL has the edge in quick service department.

So anyway, back to our day. We met up with Roger in Promenade Cafe and had a couple slices of pizza and Roger bought an iced mocha that we shared. We found a quieter table in the back of the busy cafe that wasn’t quiet as loud as the rest of the area, which brings me back to my next complaint, noise. The noise level many places on the ship was generally just loud. In the evenings DCL frequently has live music happening around the ship, in the atrium or Promenade Lounge and in some of the adult areas, but on Royal there was ALWAYS loud loud loud music in the Promenade. I have no idea how the poor guest services people could do their job. The couple of times I visited the desk, we practically had to shout at each other over the music. I would probably lose my mind if I worked there.



After our snacks, we still had over an hour until dinner and we were looking for something to do. There just didn’t seem to be many activities, and certainly not many family activities that we are used to doing on DCL. We made our way to the library we remembered visiting from our self-guided tour the day before. It was blessedly quiet and we found a shelf of board games and Emmaline and I played a rousing game of backgammon and did some sudoku puzzles we found on a stack of printed up activity sheets.

Eventually it was time for dinner so we made our way to the dining room and checked in, pleased that we had Rey and Randy again as our serving team. We had a good dinner. Again, I would say the meal was on par with DCL in terms of quality, but the selection seemed a little lacking.

After dinner, our original intention was to see the stage show in the theatre at 8:30, but we learned from looking at the app that there wasn’t one at 8:30, only 10:15 so I asked at Guest Services what the deal was and they informed me that because of our late departure time (all ashore was 8 PM, I think) not enough people would be back on board to enjoy an 8:30 show. I was pretty annoyed by this and really didn’t know what we were supposed to do to kill time for the next three hours.

Ultimately, we did a little shopping in the increasingly crowded Promenade. We didn’t buy anything from either the shops or from the super tacky tables of cheap crap they had set up in the hallway (making it even more impassible). As the evening went on, more and more people were coming down to the Promenade to begin drinking and partying (there are a lot of bars on that ship).

We made a nighttime trip to the Sky Pad, then I talked Emmaline into visiting the kid’s club so she could see how things were there, so I dropped her off there to play and assured her that I would check in with her in a little while (which I did and she was having fun and wanted to stay). Meanwhile, I organized some of our things to prepare for the next day at CocoCay so we could get to bed right after the show, because I wanted to be up and on the island as early as possible because I heard that the slides in the waterpark could get really busy and have long lines.



On my way back in the elevator when checking on Emmaline in the club, the elevator doors opened on a piano festooned with disco lights and man dressed in Steampunk style singing and playing. Inside the elevator. It was actually pretty cool and fun and I ended up riding up and down with him for a bit, singing along here and there. When I picked up Emmaline, we waited for that particular elevator and she loved signing along as well.



Finally, at 10:15 we went to our special are of the theatre reserved for The Key, which, again, we didn’t really seem to need as there weren’t that many people in the theatre. I think they were all boozing it up in the various bars on the ship. Or maybe they heard about the show, “Gallery of Dreams,” and how it had zero plot, didn’t make any sense at all and wasn’t really very good. I was ready to get up and leave about a song or two in. Emmaline and Roger weren’t impressed at all. It just seemed like they had set up random scenarios for doing really bad covers of various pop songs through the years.

Well, you win some you lose some, I guess. We went to bed feeling a little discouraged by our evening and pining for the Disney Dream that had been docked next to us in Nassau (where they enjoying pirate fireworks without us?!) but we had high hopes for CocoCay the next day.

Click here for Day 5.