Wonder of the Seas Trip Log Day 2: 7-Night Western Caribbean Royal Caribbean Cruise – Perfect Day at CocoCay – March 11, 2024

Trip log, day two. Perfect Day at CocoCay.
7-Night Western Caribbean Royal Caribbean Cruise from Port Canaveral, Florida 
March 11, 2024
Cruise Compass – Day 2 | The Social Feed – Day 2 | Perfect Day at CocoCay Brochure Map
Wonder of the Seas Deck Plan

I slept surprising well after my first impression of the bed and pillows which first didn’t feel great. In reality, they turned out to be the perfect combination for a wonderful sleep. As usual, I was up and out of the stateroom early to go walk around. It is often a mixed bag, some times it is quieter on the first few mornings versus later in the cruise. Mostly true for the first day at sea, so being that we were heading to one of Royal Caribbeans private destinations today, there were more folks up and roaming around before the breakfast venues opened up.

One aspect of the ship that sticks out is the excellent wayfinding maps and directories prominently displayed near the elevators. Locations were listed for each deck in an easy to read format, and there was color coding for the staterooms. Regardless of where I was previously, I could easily find which quadrant of the deck I needed to walk towards based on the color coding. We were in stateroom 10629. Deck 10, stateroom 629 which was denoted by the yellow block of rooms. I found this extremely helpful since I was still learning my way around a new cruise ship layout.

For research purposes, I made the decision to not do my homework and study the deck plan ahead of the cruise, just as I did last year when we sailed on the Mardi Gras. My normal number 1 tip for cruising on a new ship is to study the deck plan so you are not wasting time running around in circles your first few days onboard and potentially missing out on a schedule activity. The research side was simply to see how well the cruise line set up signage for guests to navigate the vessel. I am giving Wonder of the Seas a solid A, maybe even worthy of an A+ on the wayfinding signage.

Royal Caribbean calls their room key, a SeaPass card, which is essentially the same as Disney’s Key to the World Card (KTTW). The SeaPass card uses RFID technology to open your stateroom door, pay for purchases, and to tap at security on the gangway. The staterooms also have the spot inside the door for a card to activate the power in the room and just like with DCL, you can put any card in the slot. In addition to the ship and sail date details, the SeaPass cards include your assembly station, dining information and even your stateroom number. Normally, key cards do not have room numbers printed on them for obvious security reason, but the number printed does NOT include the deck number. I wouldn’t be surprised to see security appear if someone tried this card on multiple 629 staterooms in a short period of time. There are cameras and signs everywhere mentioning you are on surveillance. Royal Caribbean also offers a WOW Band for $9.99, which is wearable along the lines of a Disney Band+. Personally, I am not a fan of either, so I did not get one for this cruise, nor did anyone else in our party.

On the Wonder of the Seas elevators, you will be reminded what day of the week it currently is in the real world.

I made my way down to the Royal Promenade to get an Americano using my Café Select coffee card at Café Promenade. The Café Select card entitled me to “15 specialty coffees” during the voyage which is in quotes for reason, but first some background.

This was a pre-cruise purchase for $31, which I picked up on embarkation day at Café Promenade and is redeemable at all coffee locations onboard except the licensed Starbucks stores.

The “15 specialty coffees” part comes down to the fine print and the barista’s enforcement of the fine print.

I must admit, I did not do my homework on this one, so I figured it was a literal 15 coffees, only to discover at Café Promenade, they are sticklers for the fine print. A grande Americano was a two punch order. Math works out well considering it is $4 for a grande Americano on the Wonder of the Seas, which is about the going rate for a grande Americano at my local Starbucks.

The line at Café Promenade was long versus the ghost town down at the Starbucks since they do not accept the punch card or any of the other beverage packages. Although, there are multiple places to purchase specialty coffee around the ship whereas there is just the one Starbucks location. It is worth mentioning that the complimentary drip coffee available onboard was some of the best I’ve encountered at sea. They brew Lavazza coffee.

It was still early and I had a nice window of time to do some work. The internet was hit and miss with intermittent long delays in my Remote Desktop connection. If you do not work on a cruise, awesome; skip this paragraph. When the connection worked, it was great, but when it lagged, it was aggravating, especially in the middle of an important task. I eventually got used to the random lagging, and used the connection hiccup to look away from my laptop to reduce eye fatigue.

Below is a look at the screen to switch your internet plan from one device to another. If you are like me and have a Two-factor authentication (2FA) login requirement which uses your smartphone, you can still accomplish this with a single device plan. In my case, I simply plug my iPhone into my laptop allowing the smartphone to use the same connection as the laptop allowing my 2FA app to work. Same process works on DCL’s plans as it is silly to pay for a second device just for 2FA. I recommend practicing this at home by putting your phone in airplane mode and disabling the smartphone’s WiFi.

As we were packing up our day bag to head ashore, we discovered that the TV moves! In our room, the TV was mounted at the foot of the bed, making for a difficult viewing angle for anyone sitting on the sofa.This was a great feature, as we could sit outside and still catch a glimpse of the final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, then later in the week The Players, and the NCAA conference championship games.

Around 9:15 AM, we were ready to head ashore, but first we had to stop and check out beach towels. Key phrase here is “check out”, not pick up. You can check out as many towels as you want, but they scan your SeaPass card and must be returned by the end of the cruise or they say you will be charged $25/towel. Carnival had a similar towel check-in and return procedure, but we were staying in a suite on the Mardi Gras, so we were provided towels in the room to use. This is one of those things I can say is truly a Disney Difference with the easy access to towels when going ashore, and at various spots around the upper pool decks. It actually is something I’ve taken for granted. Each time I have to stand in line to check-in or out a towel, I am reminded of how it is not even something that crosses my mind when sailing with Disney Cruise Line.

Our first port of call on this voyage is Perfect Day at CocoCay which is pronounced “KEY”. Perfect Day at CocoCay is located the The Bahamas’ and is one of the Berry Islands known as Little Stirrup Cay.

Land, and our first close up look at the Wonder of the Seas.

One aspect about Perfect Day at CocoCay is that you are likely to share the island with another cruise ship. In our case, the Odyssey of the Seas was docked on the other side of the pier.

The walk from the ship on the pier was picturesque with prominent “Perfect Day” and “CocoCay” signs flanking the pier.

Helpful to newcomers such as myself, Royal Caribbean offered an actual printed brochure and island map.

Additionally, in our room, there was a paper handout (below). It was a welcome sight to see options other than using a cruise line app.

Did we have a plan? Did we have a pre-determined spot to sit? Did we…? Nope to all of those questions. We were just casually heading ashore and let life play out naturally. We did a little window shopping at the various huts before moving along to where we settled in for the morning, an area labeled as Chill Island on the map located on the east side of the island.

We found a nice spot with 5 loungers and essentially hung out talking and reading up until it was time for lunch. The weather was subjectively cool combined with the subjectively cold water temperatures, and wind chill water based activities for me were out of the question. In fact, I almost went back over to the shopping huts to find long pants and a sweatshirt. For perspective, anything under 80ºF is cold, which I am fully aware is a me problem, not shared by most. Emily and Isabelle also were not going to participate in water activities ashore due to the temperature and wind, either.

We dscovered a couple of basketball hoops setup on Chill Island near the restrooms. They appear to be in full sun most of the day, so if this is something you are interested in, bring appropriate footwear because that court surface is going to be toasty.

I strolled over closer to the southern side of the island to Breezy Bay spotting the Beach Beds which are available to rent (starting at $199 and up based on seasonal pricing) for the day to enjoy the beach and include two floating beach mats, a cooler stocked with four bottles of water and beach towels. Something along the lines of these day beds would be a welcome addition to Castaway Cay and possibly at Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point (no idea what sort of amenities will be offered other than the cabanas at this time).

Now these over the water cabanas looked awesome, but they are not cheap – prices vary, but range based on seasonal pricing from $999 to $4000+ a day. The price also includes access to the Coco Beach Club offering access to an exclusive private beach, the clubhouse, the infinity pool, beach chairs and towels, and complimentary dining at the Coco Beach Club restaurant.

There is something about a flag flying in the wind that is a bit hypnotic, I stood in this spot longer than I’d like to admit while I was waiting to meet up with the family just watching the flag.

I was ready to find the bar. It just so happened we were a few yards away from the Chill Island bar named Bar, #28 on the map. Good or bad, I like to try local beers at least once when traveling. Today, it was an easy order, SANDS from Bahamian Brewery. Of course I ordered it because it was a beer that had a name that was only missing two letters from my name. Emily ordered off menu and taught the bartender at the Bar how to properly make a French 75. Later, she went back and ordered a Prosecco, pictured below.

Around lunchtime, we walked around and I caught wind of a few items available on the island. I still checked Chill Grill serving up complimentary BBQ, fresh salads, and tacos.

There was quite an assortment (as you can see in the gallery below), including soft serve ice cream, and a self-serve beer tap! This was also one of the locations on Perfect Day to fill up on complimentary ice, water, and juice!

I was not going to be lured away from my mission to find the one of the three Snack Shack locations where you can get sandwich, salads, side, and desserts. I was delighted to see I was not led astray, and there were Mozzarella Sticks available – the good kind with a crunch and glorious cheese pull. The ultimate Bahamian island culinary treat.

Two Shack Crispy Chicken Sandwich and order of Mozzarella Sticks please!

Day 2 and I’m headed off the rails with the most unhealthy, but incredibly amazing sandwich ever created. I am sure I am not the only one to create this culinary masterpiece, but I imagine it’s a small but amazing club. Technically, I enjoyed the crispy chicken mozzarella sandwich without the bun because I’m watching my carbs.

The tacos were a hit with the rest of the family as they looked on in either disbelief or concern for my health. NO RAGRETS, not even a single bite!

After enjoying lunch, it was time to hold down my lounge chair all wrapped up in beach towels for warmth, and resume flipping pages in my book. This probably would have been a great time to walk around the island with Emily and the other teen in our party, but I felt like I had a good feeling about the island, and I know I will be returning in hopefully warmer conditions. My laziness didn’t stop the family from walking around exploring other areas of Perfect Day at CocoCay such as the pool area. I like the vibe so much more than Amber Cove, the exclusive resort in the Dominican Republic for the various lines under the Carnival umbrella. Perfect Day never felt crowed or busy even with two cruise ships.

At about 1:45PM, we decided to pack up and begin our short journey back to the ship. Perfect Day at CocoCay has a lot of potential, but with the cool temp we opted to head back onboard for the hot tub.

Our official hammock tester was impressed with the hammock’s scattered around Perfect Day finding quite a few that were not being held for future use and in the shade.

On the way back, we stopped on the bridge where we could see the Harbor Beach area where you can ride a zip line across (see video below).

Harbor Beach area also includes Skipper’s Grill offering the same fare as Chill Grill. Similar to Cookies BBQ and Cookies BBQ Too at Castaway Cay, there are redundant offerings so guests are not trekking all over the island for sustenance.

The tower on the right is a collection of waterslides that are part of the Thrill Waterpark area on the island. According to this PDF from Royal Caribbean, pricing varies with seasonal pricing ranging from $89-$169. This seems like a nice addition, but for a first time visit on subjectively cooler day, it was never an add-on that I considered.

The bridge offers a nice spot to take a family picture that I am pretty sure will be on this year’s Christmas card. It helps when you travel with friends who can take great photos!

There was a cute sand sculpture that changes every so often (my way of saying its real, but I don’t know if it changes designs seasonally, or just when it gets too worn down by the weather).

The walk to the ship from the pier really isn’t much different from the walk at Castaway Cay to the tram stop. The main difference is there is a dedicated tram at Perfect Day at CocoCay that runs continuous service between the ship and Arrivals Plaza.

One of my favorite things to due while cruising is to photograph the ships in port. There are number of great vantage points along the pier to capture picture of your ship.

Below is a collection of random video compiled into one YouTube video that will never get picked up by an algorithm because I am stubborn and will not give it a clickbait title, or design and upload stupid thumbnail with my mouth agape with a scene unrelated to the actual video.

All aboard was 4:30PM, but we were back onboard around 2PM. We dropped our bags off at room, and went up to the pool deck finding the lukewarm whirlpool which was better than the Atlantic Ocean, so I call it a win.

After a bit, we dried off and headed back to the stateroom to clean up. Well, I took a detour to scope out the offerings for a return lunch trip later on in the cruise. Since I already stopped at the poolside bar for a beer, I made a nacho bowl to take back to enjoy on the stateroom balcony. Clearly, my lunch didn’t phase me.

Somewhere around 3:45 PM, I could hear some peaceful music from the balcony. I looked down and had a view to a wedding! Congratulations and cheers to a life long adventure that started on a cruise ship. Fun fact: while we didn’t get married on a cruise, part of our honeymoon was spent sailing on the Disney Wonder, which was my first cruise.

I spent some time working on the balcony with the internet behaving much much better while I waited for my turn in the shower. One thing about our stateroom is that it does NOT have a dividing curtain which requires a bit of communication with the family when getting changed outside of the bathroom. We did notice another stateroom had a dividing curtain, but I am not sure if this was something that was available upon request or something that the guests brought with them and afixed with magnets.

Tonight’s dinner menu was themed as A Taste of Italy.

Vijay started us out by welcoming us to dinner with the artisan cheese plate from the dessert menu in his hand to enjoy with our wine. Day 2, and he gets us!

The appetizer round was highlighted by the Golden Polenta Fries which were cubes of deliciousness in a hazelnut-red pepper sauce.

The entrées were fresh and flavorful. After last night’s disappointment with the Chef’s Recommendation, I went right back to that suggestion and ordered the Lasagna Al Forno which did NOT disappoint!

The desserts looked great as well with the Crumbly Oat And Berry Bar by far my favorite. Much like a granola bar, it was not overly sweet leveraging the flavor and sweetness of the berries. The rest of the table loved the warm chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream on top, the best, but they were all delicious. Very impressive for main dining room fare.

Overall, dinner was much better than the first night, and the service remains excellent and we were in and out in less than an hour! Vijay even brought extra desserts to our table for everyone to sample.

After dinner, we were walking around the Royal Promenade, then headed up on flight of stairs to the Schooner Bar. While we were waiting to order, I decided to run another speed test, this time with some excellent results. The Starlink connection is routed through Atlanta, GA the first couple of days which is great if you are dealing with remote access where the firewall prevents connections from outside of the United States. Again, if you do not work while on a cruise, ignore this part.

The Schooner Bar is decked out in a nautical motif inspired by tall ships. There are nautical features such as rigging, a compass, and even a diver’s helmet.

There was one odd occurrence, well, two because it occurred twice this evening. The server took menu from the table before we had a chance to order. We were seated at a couch with a table waiting for our entire party to arrive. For some reason, I don’t know if it is a mechanism for the servers to identify which parties have been checked on instead of placing a cocktail napkin on our table, but it felt more like the case of the potential stolen menu – there were plenty of empty tables with menus available so it was a limited supply issue. It was strange that it was taken after ordering our first round. So, I grabbed one from the nearby table and when our drinks arrived, and the server took the menu again. I give up.

Anyway, back to the important stuff, the cocktail that brought us in after we previewed the menu on embarkation day, the Toasted Marshmallow Old Fashioned. An Old Fashioned is my go to cocktail and in recent years, and bars have been coming up with some excellent variants on the classic cocktail. I was hesitant because, I’ve been burned before by overly sweet creations that completely mask the whiskey. Pro tip, this tends to happens more often when a flavored whiskey is used. The Schooner Bar used Buffalo Trace and an appropriate ratio of their toasted marshmallow syrup which was accompanied by cocoa bitters, and four toasted marshmallows made up the garnish on a cocktail pick. The cocktail was great with my only criticism being that I wish the toasted marshmallow garnish was toasted longer.

While in the Schooner Bar which looks out over the Royal Promenade, you can see the Rising Tide Bar which is built on a moving platform taking patrons and the full bar itself from the Royal Promenade on deck 5 to Central Park on deck 8. Below is a time-lapse of the bar descending where in real time it takes about 7-8 minutes. We heard this was a popular spot, but we never saw it at capacity.

Our next planned activity was starting at 7:15PM, Name That Tune: 80’s Hits in Luna… OOPS, I meant the Music Hall.

In all seriousness, my first impression of the Music Hall spanning decks 8 and 9 on the Wonder of the Seas was that it was similar to Luna on the Disney Wish (and Sarabi on the Disney Treasure), but better. In no way am I bashing the Wish Class venue, but the Music Hall in my opinion has a much better design specifically a spiral staircase in the corner that allows patrons to move from the balcony area to the main floor. Overall, the venue was appropriately sized for the music trivia sessions we attended.

After trivia, we headed back out to walk around the mall, which is what I consider the Royal Promenade. Show me the lie — there is food court of sort, stores, and even kiosks.

Hidden in the corner at guest services, you can see the commemorative bottle of Veuve Clicquot below a portrait of the Wonder of the Seas godmother, Marie McCrea. Personally, I think it is a shame when the Godmother portraits are hidden away like an afterthought, but since cruise lines are more focuses on making floating resorts instead of cruise ships, it is no wonder the maritime tradition is being pushed to a corner. Perish the thought, anyone realize we are sailing ON A CRUISE SHIP IN OPEN WATER?!?!?!

We made our way back up to deck 8 to Central Park. Emily and I strolled into the EFFY Boutique at the tail end of ‘Ready…Set…Celebrate with Effy.’ There were people leaving with bags and bottles of sparkling wine, so it must have been a successful event. We spotted a sign showing some cat jewelry and decided to check it out. Good Grief! We were not expecting those prices for the panther ring and clearly I do not know much of anything about jewelry. Did I mention, my wife is amazing? The event was a great time to look around as all the sales associates were busy with the event so it was easy to browse the collections without the sales push.

There is something special about Central Park in the evenings when there is a live musician. Even in the following extremely short video clip you can get the idea of the tranquil ambiance of the space with Elton John’s Can You Feel the Love Tonight from The Lion King being played by the Blue Notes Jazz Quartet Live.

Here is a link to full set from the Blue Notes Jazz Quartet posted on YouTube by one of the musicians.

Tonight we fall back 1 hour, mere days after springing ahead to daylight savings time. Not this guy, even though this is vacation, I’m going to force myself to operate my home time and play the game of ‘will I miss the all aboard time’ based on the upcoming confusion of local time, my time, and ship’s time.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, is a sea day, and boy wouldn’t it be awesome if Disney Cruise Line announced the Summer 2025 a couple days ahead of the common release day of Thursday when we have an all day excursion in Honduras. I know how this is going to play out; the announcements have been synced up with my vacations for a few years now, but soon we will be free of the county school schedule and I will finally find out if shoreside is really tapped into my family calendar. Plus, Disney Cruise Line teased the announcement on social media, but not on X (formerly Twitter) because they along with other official Disney accounts apparently abandoned the platform in late November of last year most likely on due to comments from the proprietor of the social media platform. However, for some reason, I just now discovered this bit of information.