We took a non-Disney cruise - comparing DCL and Royal Caribbean

We're back. I'm going to get into all the details later, when I have a keyboard in front of me instead of a phone.

The biggest question I had going into this trip: is a Disney cruise worth the higher cost or are you just paying for the Disney name? The answer is a very emphatic YES, DCL is totally worth the extra cost. The Disney Wonder beats out the Royal Caribbean Grandeur of the Seas in nearly every area - staterooms, food, amenities, activities, entertainment, and what's included in the cost of the cruise. I will happily sail Royal Caribbean again, but there really is no comparison to a Disney cruise.

The Grandeur of the Seas actually had a few things the Disney Wonder didn't have.

First and most obvious, a casino. The casino was small, but still had a decent selection of slot machines along with several tables. Slots ran from penny slots to nearly high roller machines - they took a few dollars per spin but none of those $100 per spin machines. The penny slots were only technically penny slots because they were set up to require a minimum bet of 27 cents per spin. They weren't going to let anybody hog a machine playing a penny per spin. I'm not big into gambling, but I did blow $40 on the slots. Of course, the slots are about as tight as they can get. I didn't have even a half-decent run. I would've preferred a movie theater to the casino.

Live musicians accompanying the stage shows. It was a small band - piano, drum set, and four guys on brass, one of which switched to guitar for some numbers. I preferred this to the canned music accompanying stage performances on the Wonder.

More and more varied shops. They had a shop just for fragrances, another for jewelry, another for clothing. You name it, they sold it and probably had a separate shop just for that type of merchandise. They also set up tables all over the ship selling still more stuff. Bermuda-themed T-shirts went 2 for $20 on the final full day. On departure night they had a free liquor tasting in the shopping area. Using small condiment cups they gave us a swallow of several different kinds of liquor so we could taste new things before committing to a purchase. Then we could sign up to purchase stuff at steeply discounted prices - since we were still in the Chesapeake the sales couldn't go through until the following day. We took advantage of some of the two-for deals along with good sale prices and brought home eight bottles. And we weren't the only ones. I saw a lot of people taking cardboard liquor carrying boxes off the ship.

More specialty restaurants. The Wonder had Palo and that was it. The Grandeur of the Seas, actually a slightly smaller ship, had three upcharge restaurants - Chops Grill, a steakhouse; Giovanni's Table, for Italian; and Japanese-themed Izumi. We thought Izumi was as good as Palo, but we like Asian cuisine more than Italian. We never ate at Giovanni's. Chops Grill wasn't in the same league as Palo.

Finally, the Grandeur had those high-tech Coke Freestyle machines to dispense soda. There was one on deck 6 near a coffee shop and four in the buffet. However, sodas cost extra so I would rather have the Disney set-up, where sodas are included, even with the more limited variety.

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Things the Wonder has that the Grandeur doesn't:

The movie theater. They showed one movie per day on the Grandeur, either on the pool deck screen or in the regular theater. And no new releases at all. They did have Star Wars: The Force Awakens once on the pool deck at midnight and the next day in the theater as we got ready to leave Bermuda, but neither time suited us. On the Wonder I saw at least one movie each day of the trip, and I really missed that on the Grandeur.

Disney characters! I'm not really big on standing in line to meet characters - on the Wonder I only did that to meet Remy from Ratatouille - but I loved walking past the atrium and seeing all the characters meeting and greeting, or bumping into them elsewhere on the ship.

And of course, Disney entertainment. The DCL ships have a huge advantage in that Disney owns the rights to all Disney material in addition to Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars. I only saw one stage show on the Grandeur, and it was a song-and-dance variety show featuring popular music from decades past. The show wasn't bad, it just wasn't as engaging as the shows on the Wonder were.

Comparing staterooms on the Disney Wonder and Royal Caribbean Grandeur of the Seas:

Wonder standard inside stateroom - 184 square feet, sleeps 3-4
Grandeur inside stateroom - 136 square feet, no sofa so presumably only sleeps 2
We got a look at the Grandeur's inside staterooms when they were open for cleaning on our deck. They are TINY. Just a bed and a chair for seating/sleeping.

Wonder deluxe inside stateroom - 214 square feet, sleeps 4
Grandeur large interior stateroom - 145 square feet, has a sofa so presumably sleeps more than 2
We likewise got a look inside the Wonder's deluxe inside staterooms when they were open for cleaning on our deck and they're just like the deluxe oceanview, just no porthole.

Wonder deluxe oceanview stateroom - 214 square feet, sleeps 3-4
Grandeur large oceanview stateroom - 152 square feet, has a sofa so presumably sleeps more than 2
Grandeur preferred oceanview stateroom - 193 square feet, has a sofa so presumably sleeps more than 2
We had a deluxe oceanview stateroom on the Wonder. It was quite nice and roomy enough for the two of us to share comfortably.

Wonder deluxe oceanview stateroom with navigator's verandah or open verandah - 268 square feet including verandah, sleeps 3-4
Grandeur superior oceanview stateroom with balcony - 230 square feet including balcony, has a sofa so presumably sleeps more than 2
Grandeur junior suite with balcony - 299 square feet including balcony, has a sofa so presumably sleeps more than 2
I include the Grandeur's junior suite here because it's really just a large stateroom and the Wonder has no equivalent category.

On the Grandeur we got a free upgrade from a superior oceanview stateroom with balcony to a junior suite, so our stateroom on the Grandeur was actually nicer than the one we had on the Wonder (oceanview) and presumably nicer than the Wonder's oceanview with verandah. But comparing similar categories, the Wonder's staterooms are unquestionably larger.

The Grandeur does not have split bathrooms. In our junior suite we preferred the nonsplit bathroom because it was quite spacious by cruise ship standards. But in the smaller staterooms I can't imagine the nonsplit bathrooms are much roomier.

A few photos of our junior suite.

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I can't speak for Carnival, but I can tell you that Royal Caribbean doesn't have nearly as much for kids as DCL does. They have a kids' club, but it's small compared to the DCL kids' clubs, and I'm not sure what they have for teenagers. Also, most of the activities and entertainment were aimed at adults. Not everything was unsuitable for kids, but a lot of it wouldn't hold their attention for very long. One thing I can guarantee is you will not enjoy it near as much as a DCL cruise. We didn't. But it was still a nice cruise and we'll do it again.

Here's the Grandeur of the Seas docked in Baltimore. It's a bit smaller than the Wonder but close enough to be comparable.

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Aside from determining where our emergency muster location was, the safety drill was a waste of time. We mustered as directed. And waited, and waited, and waited...This is not to say that there was no waiting when we mustered for the safety drill on the Wonder, but I'm fairly sure we waited longer on the Grandeur. People do NOT take those drills seriously. Once the drill commenced, they sounded the emergency alarm and instructed us to put on warm clothes, grab essential meds, and get our butts to the muster station. Do not look for your family, do not go get your kids from the kids' club, just get to the muster station. The kids will be delivered to you. Okay, that's good to know. Then they showed some of us how to put on the life jacket - but they were so careless about how they lined us up, putting tall people in front of short people, that I only heard the instructions. And then some completely non-safety related instructions like don't flush anything you didn't eat first except toilet paper.

Safety drill - this was at the beginning, still waiting for the stragglers.

While waiting for the safety drill to begin, I noticed a bit of peeling paint and rust overhead. Although the ship was very nice, Royal Caribbean is not quite as OCD about maintenance as DCL is. This says more about Disney's attention to detail because the Grandeur was mostly well maintained. However, there were a few other areas where attention to detail wasn't quite what we'd experienced on the Wonder - hubby mentioned that a public men's room was a bit untidy, we found a few hand sanitizer dispensers that were empty, and the Coke Freestyle machines ran out of some flavors and were never replenished.

Another thing DCL ships have that Royal Caribbean doesn't is wave phones and the DCL phone app. Aside from paying something like $16 per day for a wifi connection, there was no way to communicate with others in your party when you weren't together.

There were things outside the stateroom door similar to the fish outside DCL stateroom doors, but no fish extenders.

Customer service was also a subpar compared to DCL. We heard a few stories about rude cabin stewards. Ours wasn't rude, but he seemed to think we should work around his schedule when it came to vacating the stateroom so he could make up the room or turn down the bed. We also heard two different stories about activities being canceled with no notice. One woman had signed up for a fitness class; she showed up and waited around then finally went looking for someone. Oh, that was cancelled, not enough people signed up. But nobody attempted to let her know. Much worse was a couple who had signed up for a shore excursion; they went looking for their excursion on arrival day and couldn't find it. So they asked and were told, again, that not enough people had signed up and it was canceled. Okay, so what else was available? Nothing. Everything was full. If someone had just TOLD them, they might've had time to sign up for something else.

Hubby noticed that the passengers seemed friendlier on the Wonder. He missed the camaraderie in the smoking area - on the Wonder they sort of had a smokers' club going and even had an impromptu late-night party in the smoking area one night. There was none of that on the Grandeur, and he also noticed more grumpiness and fewer smiling faces.

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Interesting you mentioned the Carnival Pride, alicemouse. The day after we sailed for Bermuda, the Pride docked in Baltimore and actually crashed into the gangway! How the heck that was possible I don't know. When we returned to Baltimore we had to exit the ship via deck 1 because the gangway was still inoperable. We'd been warned it might delay our departure, but fortunately it didn't.

Forgot to mention that there's no curtain to separate the sitting area from the bed in the cabin. If somebody wants to go to bed early while the other stays up reading or whatever, oh well.

On to the food and drink. (No photos.)

Coffee, tea, lemonade, juice, and maybe one or two other things were included in the price of passage. Sodas were not, nor were alcohol and non-alcoholic specialty drinks. We were allowed to bring two bottles of wine onboard, which was all the alcohol we consumed onboard. I learned from friends who sailed Royal Caribbean last fall that you can bring an entire package of bottled water onboard as long as it's in its original sealed package. Drink packages on the ship (working from memory) included just bottled water, just sodas, all nonalcoholic beverages, all alcoholic beverages, and I'm not sure whether the alcohol package also includes all nonalcoholic beverages or if there was an even more expensive category covering literally everything. We got the Royal Replenish package, which covered all nonalcoholic beverages, because I like a cup of tea in the evening and didn't realize basic coffee and tea were complimentary. Our package meant we got all the soda we wanted, bottled water, and every nonalcoholic specialty beverage available. So we stopped by the Starbuck's counter every freaking morning for lattes and macchiatos and mochas. Hubby got several each day, but I switched to soda after the one coffee. This package cost a bit more than $20 per day. Now that I know basic coffee and tea are complimentary, I'll switch to the just soda package next trip, which I think costs around $5 per day. Hubby doesn't even want that much but will order it if everyone in the stateroom needs to be on the same drink package. Next time we'll also bring along our own bottled water.

The Grandeur didn't have as many counter-service restaurants as the Wonder, so no pizza counter or burgers and hot dogs counter. They did have a place for sandwiches and snacks in the adult pool area, but the Wonder had two or three of those. Also the Starbucks counter had a few pastries.

The buffet had burgers, hot dogs, and pizza by the slice, but they were only available while the buffet was open. In general, food at the buffet was all right, but not as good as the buffet food on the Wonder. They did have a few international dishes every day. We ate there for breakfast and lunch only.

The main dining room had one option not available on the Wonder, "My Time" dining. You had the option of choosing a standard seating, either 5:30 or 8:00, or you could choose "My Time," meaning you could dine whenever it suited you during dining room hours. Standard seating was on deck 4 and "My Time" was on deck 5. Breakfast and lunch, as on the Wonder, were show up when you want. We had one breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the main dining room. The food was okay, but not as good as on the Wonder. IMO the food lacked flavor. My fish enchiladas at lunch completely lacked spice, and the cocktail sauce that came with my shrimp cocktail at dinner was barely past ketchup. It's not total crap, but it's nothing special either.

The Grandeur has three upcharge specialty restaurants, as I mentioned earlier. You have the option of paying as you go or purchasing a dinner package. We got the three dinners for $70 option.

Izumi, the Japanese mostly sushi place, is excellent. It has a la carte pricing, so if you go there with a prepaid dinner package you get a $30 per person credit and anything above that you pay extra. Of course, you go over. But it's worth the price. We had the best food on the trip at Izumi and dined there twice, skipping Giovanni's Table.

Chops Grill is a steakhouse. It costs an extra $30 to eat there, but you can get whatever you want for your $30...except the best stuff, which had an additional upcharge. A lobster was $21 extra, and a 16-ounce aged steak was $19. The steak sounded good, but I didn't need to eat a pound of beef. (Later it occurred to us that we could've shared that steak.) The food covered by the initial $30 upcharge was on par with the food in the Wonder's main dining rooms. So for an extra $30 per night you can get food of the quality that's included in the price of passage on the Wonder. Hubby and I agree that we will always purchase a specialty dining package on a Royal Caribbean ship unless we're travelling with friends who don't want to spend the extra money.

The Disney Wonder doesn't have Remy, but the Grandeur has something slightly comparable, the chef's table. For something like $85 per person, twelve people can have a special dining experience hosted by one of the ship's chefs. Based on everythjng we ate, I'll guess that the food is excellent but not on par with Remy.

As on the Wonder, room service is available 24 hours a day. We never got room service.

I have a photo of the main dining room that I will add soon.

Here's my photo of the main dining room, called the Great Gatsby. This was after lunch, so we're on deck 4 where the standard scheduled dinner times are seated. The balcony is where "My Time" dining is seated.

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Activities and entertainment on the Grandeur of the Seas did not live up to what we'd come to expect on the Wonder. On the Wonder, we had trouble choosing among all the different options; on the Grandeur we sometimes looked at the entertainment/activities list and couldn't find anything that appealed to us at all.

The best activities were the ones that cost extra. We attended a sushi-making class, $30 per person, that was totally worth every penny. I've made sushi at home, and it was...edible. Not bad. But thanks to the class, I've learned techniques that will make my homemade sushi much, much better. I will even venture to make sushi for dinner guests now! And for the $30, we got to eat our sushi and had a glass of either champagne or a bellini. This is hubby's sushi; mine was poorly lit and also a mess. I'll do better next time.

The sushi-making class was held in the Italian specialty restaurant, Giovanni's Table, because Izumi is too small. They made us wear those stupid little white hats, but half of us had them fall off as soon as we bent over the table to make sushi.

Early in the cruise, there was a "cooking" demonstration in the Centrum (the atrium area). It involved no actual cooking, just assembly of precooked items, like an antipasti platter and some sushi. The main purpose of the demo was to convince people to pay the upcharge to eat at the specialty restaurants. It did seem that a lot of the "activities" were actually attempts to get us to buy something - the liquor tasting, for example, and tons of free classes and demonstrations at the spa.

Speaking of the spa, yes, we shelled out the bucks for hot stone massages again. Lovely.

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