Sailing Royal Caribbean in Greece… a Disney Cruise Line comparison

by Senior Travel Planner Meghan Umlauf
We recently sailed on Royal Caribbean’s Jewel of the Seas out of the Port of Civitavecchia for a 7 night Greek Isles cruise  - as a platinum Disney Castaway Club member, why not Disney Cruise Line, you ask?  Well this trip was to celebrate my 20th anniversary and sadly Disney didn’t offer a Greek Isles itinerary in 2019!  So the choice of ship was made based on itinerary, and dates!

We arrived in Rome a day and a half early - both to acclimate to the time change and see Rome!

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​I had scheduled a driver to pick us up in Rome around 10am as the drive to the Port of Civitavecchia is about 45 minutes away!  Our driver arrived just as we headed down with our luggage and we were off!  Additional ways of getting to the port include train, shared private vans, and transfers coordinated by Royal Caribbean.

​The embarkation process couldn’t have been easier - our driver pulled up right in front of the ship - our luggage was unloaded and taken by a Royal Caribbean staff member - we were even missing 2 bag tags and they quickly took care of that for us - and then directed to the check in area, just a short walk away!  With hardly any wait, we were checked in, our embarkation photo was taken and we were on the ship!!!  Sadly I had forgotten to bring us lanyards (Disney provides these for you each cruise after your first one) so we just had to find a safe place to keep our room card for opening our stateroom and charging to the room.
We walked on with our backpacks and my “beach bag” (a MUST HAVE for the cruising) we each had brought our bathing suits so we could have lunch and get to the pool pronto!!  As is the case with most cruise ships - our stateroom wouldn’t be ready until 1:30 or 2pm.

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Our Stateroom
I choose our room based on the square footage we were used to cruising on Disney - NOT ALL CRUISE SHIPS OFFER THE SAME SIZED ROOMS!  So a veranda room on a Disney Ship came out to about the same size as a spacious veranda stateroom on the Jewel… and actually it was even a bit wider (or felt that way) once we got into our room!  The biggest difference besides size was the bathroom - it was one area vs the split bathrooms we are used to on Disney Cruise Line - but it functioned just fine for our family!  We all travel with those hanging toiletry kits that helped with bathroom clutter and I followed some suggestions found on the internet about bringing magnetic hooks, as well as a shoe organizer to go up on the metal walls to help with clutter in the main area… the hooks were used regularly - the shoe organizer not as much, but it did keep a lot of little things off the desk area!

The Stateroom I choose (9076) was also midship surrounding the atrium with a veranda on the bump out giving us a bigger veranda than most!  This was by far my favorite space!  I did research regarding the noise level with rooms around the atrium and read several that said they had no issues - to clarify - YOUR CAN DEFINITELY HEAR MUSIC COMING FROM THE ATRIUM in this room at night!  There is a hallway door that is shut at 10pm to help with the sound, and we had no trouble falling asleep each night - but if you are sensitive to noise, and go to bed prior to midnight, I wouldn’t choose this room!

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Kids Camp/Activities
Our kids were 13 and 16 on this sailing so I cannot speak for the younger kids areas here, but I can tell you that my kids found friends and things to do every time we were back on the ship!  The one thing we insist that our kids do (and have always done in the past) is to attend the open house (when they were little) or the ice breakers event sone the first night of the sailing.  This os when the kids (of all ages) meet each other for the first time and I cannot stress the importance of this - especially for the older kids!  On this ship they held an ice breaker event that both my kids went to and found friends to hang out with for the rest of the week!  The teen club - Fuel -  on the Jewel is a small room with a foosball table, some video game consoles, and small dance floor and small hang out areas - but there were also scheduled events for the kids to meet at various areas of the ship - to play ball at the sport courts, mini golf, the arcade ect.  The club was also used by the kids as a meeting point to then go and do their own thing.  One bit of advice, before allowing your teens out on their own, is to speak to your kids about ship specific rules to keep them safe and from annoying other passengers… discuss what to do in an emergency, never go to anyone’s stateroom, don’t be loud in the hallways, ect.  It’s easy to feel a false sense of security on vacation, so reminding them that real world rules as well as some ship specific rules do still apply!  The ship does have a 1am curfew for the “oldest kids” but we found that this wasn’t necessarily reinforced every night.  A note here about communication on the ship - unlike Disney and even some of the other Royal ships - the Jewel doesn’t have ANY method of communicating on the ship with each other unless you buy a wifi package.  This then allowed us to text with our kids while on the ship!  Almost a must have if you have teens.  This package was deeply discounted around Black Friday the year before we sailed - if you booked your cruise closer, they offer pre-booking discounts all the time for the wifi packages!

Main Pool area
The main pool area was large and offered shallow pool sitting areas as well as deep areas to submerge yourself.  There were also 2 shaded hot tubs and showers.  As with most cruise ships the pool was a salt water pool - a fact I forget all the time as Disney’s pool are all freshwater!  For this reason I did use the pool deck showers to either rinse off the saltwater or to just cool off vs jumping in the pool!  This area also had a stage area where they ran entertainment, fitness classes, dance lessons, as well as a huge screen where they had either played a movie or they were showing youtube channel type short clip videos that my son and husband loved!
The only day this area was packed was our last sea day - there wasn’t a chair to be found around the pool on either the main deck or the sun deck above it.  

Adult Areas
The Jewel of the Seas has a adult only pool area called the solarium - a fully glass windowed enclosed (air conditioned) area with cushioned loungers, a bar, and hot food/snack area.  It’s a very calm space - where you do feel the need to whisper.  My only issue was that the minimum age to be in this area was 16!  So my daughter was thrilled - but me not so much.  I will say I was never bothered by any teens in this area - but I was used to being able to completely escape from my kids in most adults areas in the past - and glancing over and seeing your daughter sitting with a group of other kids (some of whom were drinking, as the drinking age on this ship was 18) was not very relaxing for me!  Most likely my own issue - but you have been warned!  There is also a casino on this ship - another adult only area, that you will see children walking through if only to get to the theatre!

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Dining
I passed on the “My time dining” for this cruise - for 2 reasons, I knew the 6pm dinner time would work for my family, and if we couldn’t make it, I knew we could find other food to eat, and I wanted to spend extra money eating in a few of the ports in Greece!  
Our first night when we entered the dining room, we hadn’t been assigned a table number - so we had to wait while they found us one.  I wish I understood why this happened, I asked a number of times and was told someone would get back to me, but I never got an answer!  They found us a temporary table for the first night, and eventually assigned us a table for the remainder of the cruise - but we weren’t seated with anyone else.  For some this would be welcomed - we would have liked to have had an opportunity to meet some other diners - but of course in the end it was fine.

The food in the main dining room was ok - they had a few dishes that changed each night, and some that stayed the same.  We didn’t eat here every night, but the few we did - it was fine.  Our servers were very nice - and we did see the same ones after that first night - nothing to write home about though.  Mysteriously we did receive a note in our room one night that we had been given a complimentary meal at one of the specialty dining restaurants!  So we did utilize that thinking that at least our meal would be comped - when in the end they comped the ENTIRE meal including drinks!!  That was impressive… we ate at the Chopps Grill and had the best meal on the ship!  Not sure it would mean we would pay to eat here on a sailing with a similar itinerary in the future - but I can still highly recommend it!

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​I will tell you, that the Jewel of the Seas pleasantly surprised me - I had actually been on this ship many years ago, for a scrapbooking cruise (yes they exist!) and remember feeling the ship lacked something and felt worn to me - recently the ship had been in dry dock to refresh it, and they did a great job!  It’s central atrium that reached to the top of the ship is really impressive… the beautiful windowed elevators that allowed you a view to the ocean, also amazing!  The ship is a smaller ship, thus less “stuff” to entertain us than some of the other Royal ships - but that is how all the ships that visit Santorini and Mykonos are, as larger ships cannot dock there.  This ship has 3 pool areas (one for those 16 years and up, and one for the toddler/preschool set with water slide), a casino, a performance theatre, a movie theatre, a casual buffet dining room, one main dining room, 3 specialty restaurants, many lounges and bars, as well as a sports court and mini golf… you can see my comparison chart of the Jewel to the Disney Magic below… some pros and cons for both!  I am pointing out things where they differ, not mentioning the aspects that are the same - for instance, they both have spas on board!

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If you are trying to decide between Royal Caribbean or Disney Cruise Line - let me help you, or ask your questions below - have an RC or DCL experience you'd like to share? Please share in the comments below!  Coming soon are my blogs on each port in Greece we stopped at on this amazing cruise!