September 24th, 2008 | Posted in Royal Cruise Fleet | 1 Comment
You probably know that the ships in the Royal Caribbean cruise company fall into six classes, according to their size. Maybe you want to know more about each ship, by name, so you know what to expect when you see it serves one of the hundreds of cruises covered by Royal Caribbean.
Royal Caribbean Ships Overview
These are the ships, in alphabetical order, with a few words about each of them. As this is going to be a long article, we are going to break it into a series, so we can offer you as many details as possible about each of these luxury ships
Adventure of the Seas
The size of this ship is 142000 tons. It entered in service in 2001, it can accommodate 3114 passengers and it has a crew-to-passenger ratio of 1 to 2.6. You can imagine what coordination they must have, in order to make all those people work like a team and have all passengers feel like home.
This ship has three dining rooms, a golf simulator, fitness center, entertainment complex with ice skating facility and concert venue, aquarium bar, Casino Royale, Royal promenade with bars, cafeterias and shops, three pools and an outdoor family deck with water slide. The Optix teen disco can keep your kids entertained all night long, and adults are not allowed in. The Cloud nine, the upper bar with panoramic view, offers you piano music and intimate seating arrangements, for romantic moments and great photos.
After dinner, you can enjoy a good cigar and a glass of brandy in the Connoisseur Club, the cozy lounge situated on deck 5.
The jogging track will help you keep your home habits, so you don’t turn into a sedentary guy while having your Royal cruise vacation. The spirit is not ignored as well, trivia games being held daily in the library, where you can find books for all tastes and needs.
All these facilities and many more are spread on 15 decks. This is more than the building I live in. It’s like a small town which takes you to great vacation places while keeping you in shape and entertained.
Adventure of the Seas is a member of the Voyager family of Royal Caribbean cruise ships and it serves the Southern Caribbean cruise lines.
Can you imagine your week at the board of this Royal cruise ship?
September 24th, 2008 | Posted in Royal Cruise Destinations | No Comment
Royal Caribbean cruise lines are already well-known for their fleet of luxury vessels, grouped into six ship classes: Oasis, Freedom, Voyager, Radiance, Vision and Sovereign. According to the length of the cruise, or to its popularity, you can go with one or other class of ships. A very popular destination would require a bigger class of ships, because of the need to accommodate more passengers. However, rest assured that even small ships have all the comfort and luxury to make you feel like in heaven.
Here you can find a few cruises available from Royal Caribbean, so you can see for yourself what you can do and what you can see in such a cruise:
7 Night Southern Caribbean Cruise (San Juan Round-Trip)
Served by the ship called Serenade of the Seas, this Royal cruise is taking you to the following ports of destination: San Juan, Puerto Rico; St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands; Philipsburg, St. Maarten; St. John’s, Antigua; Castries, St. Lucia; Bridgetown, Barbados; San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The prices go from $549 if you choose to stay in a cabin with inside view, to $649 for ocean view, to $799 if you want to have a balcony, up to $1399 if you want to book a suite. What vacation do you think you can have anywhere on land for this kind of money? I think such cruises are really an alternative to classical vacations in resorts on land.
There’s another 7 days Royal cruise which takes you in a San Juan round-trip, served by another ship, Adventure of the Seas, which stops in the following ports: San Juan, Puerto Rico; Aruba, Dutch Caribbean; Willemstad, Curacao; Philipsburg, St. Maarten; St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands; San Juan, Puerto Rico. For this one, prices are lower, the inside view place in the cabin being $449 and the suite $899.
7 Night Eastern Caribbean Cruises
These cruises can either be Miami round-trip or Orlando round-trip. The Miami one is using the Liberty of the Seas ship, while the Orlando cruise is using Mariner of the Seas.
The ports of call in the first case of Royal cruise are: Miami, Florida; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Philipsburg, St. Maarten; Labadee, Hispaniola, Haiti; Miami, Florida.
For the Orlando round-trip cruise, the ports of call are: Port Canaveral (Orlando), Florida; CocoCay, Bahamas; St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands; Philipsburg, St. Maarten; Port Canaveral (Orlando), Florida.
Here I have to mention that CocoCay in Bahamas and Labadee in Haiti are two exclusive destinations of Royal Caribbean company, and I heard only great things about both of them.
6 Night Western Caribbean Cruise (Ft. Lauderdale Round-Trip)
Starting from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, this cruise takes you to Belize City, Belize, then to Costa Maya, then to Cozumel, both in Mexico, then it ships you back to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for a 6 night round trip. Independence of the Seas is the ship which serves this cruise line. The prices are in the same range with the others mentioned above and they include port charges. Other fees and taxes may apply.
If your time is limited, or you have a tighter budget, you can go for instance on the 4 nights Bahamas Miami round-trip cruise, with the refurbished ship Majesty of the Seas, where the most expensive place is $649 and the cheapest is $129. This is less that one weekend in the mountains, at least in the place where I live.
I’ve given you only a few examples here, but you can choose among several hundreds of cruises, so we can safely say that there’s a Royal cruise for everybody.
September 24th, 2008 | Posted in Royal Cruise Preparations | No Comment
Until not very long ago, we used to think that Royal cruises and any other kind of cruise was meant for the rich guys. We never thought that we can also enjoy those luxury ships, those formal dinners, those leisure activities we’ve often seen on TV as being habitual to millionaires. Nowadays, just try to book a cruise vacation and you’ll be amazed to see that there are many of them perfectly affordable for the average Joe like you and me. I have many friends who have decided to take a Royal cruise as their main vacation of two or three weeks. There are also shorter cruises, for the busy people. The last cruise I’ve been in lasted only 4 days. It is true that it wasn’t on a ocean, but on the Nile river in Egypt, however, the ship had everything it needed to make a great vacation. We even had gym equipment on the upper deck, so we were able to do our fitness workouts under the nice January sun and with the wind blowing in our hair. Too bad it was a bit chilly to use the upper deck swimming pool. But the rest was just fantastic, the cabins were big enough to accommodate twin beds, a coffee place with a small table, a couch and an armchair, plus a locker for the luggage. Although the bathroom was small, it included a bathtub, so we were really pleased with the degree of comfort we found on that ship.
Where to find a Royal Cruise
Look no further that the official website of Royal Caribbean Cruise lines and you’ll discover over 100 destinations, even in far away places you never thought you’d visit. From Bermuda to Mexico, from Europe to Asia, there are so many destinations that it would take you a lifetime to visit all. If you are booking the cruise vacation for the first time in your life, you may want to ask for details. The staff of Royal Caribbean cruise will be more than happy to assist you in offering all information you may need, from what to pack on a cruise, what is not allowed on board, weather indications, itinerary maps and many more. If you are planning to take the children with you, search for a cruise which offers baby sitting services and entertainment programs for children. This is how your kids will have a lot of fun under strict surveillance, while you and your spouse will have some time for yourselves, to put some fuel on the love flame that brought you together in the first place.
It is really cool to turn your main vacation into a Royal cruise.
