Royal and DCL comparison as a young family

I felt like sharing my un-requested, un-professional, real life comparison after taking two week long cruises this year, separate trips with each side of the family. This is a throw away account cause I don’t particularly want this connected back to me.

For context we are a family of 4, two young children 5 and under. We’ve cruised before kids a handful of times but this year was an odd one with two different family trips (mom’s side and dad’s side) lining up in the same year and our kids first cruises. I feel like it’s not everyday you get to compare two big names next to each other and maybe this will help someone else in their planning. I’ll share on major topics as I think of them but happy to answer questions as well and I’ll try to respond.

Ships Royal: Symphony of the Seas Disney: Treasure

Decor/ship layout

• Disney wins in regard to detail, beautiful ships, with tons of easter eggs, visually stunning, and a well laid out ship.
• The oasis class ships are wildly impressive. I loved having the Central Park space and the different sections of the ship to go to (Promenade, Central Park, etc). They’re beautiful ships but not nearly as visually interesting.

In-room

• Disney wins again. The room felt a hair larger but even without that the bunk bed layout means the room remains fairly open to move around even when set up for sleep. The TV has a ton of Disney movie and TV options that are free and make hanging out in the room a really pleasant experience. The storage and shelf space on the wish class ships is incredible.
• Royal we had a pull out trundle when sleeping which left half the room unusable in the evenings. We ended up asking for it not be set up and just had the youngest sleep on the bed with us. The in room movies are pay-per-view and the live tv options are very limited and honestly not very current for the age group.

Kids club

• More of an even pros and cons exchange here. Disney staff rock. Period. But the 3-10 age range for oceaneers is just too big of an age group. My kids were very freaked out by the intensity of the big kids in there and didn’t want to go after a few days.
• Royal the kids are split more by age, making it a bit more approachable with more age appropriate activities. The club has more restrictive hours. The staff are kind but I wouldn’t say they’re amazing. They at times seemed stressed and overwhelmed by the kids. Which, I get, but it didn’t exude confidence.

Things to do

• Disney main stage shows are incredible. It’s probably one of the things Disney does best. The princess and sensational six is just magical and there’s a ton of special moments around every corner.
• Royal show are also really incredible. The talent and athleticism, particularly in the aqua theater and ice skating, are breathtaking. We loved the broadway musical too! I will say for the aqua show and ice skating, again talent was amazing, but the story lines for each were just odd, they didn’t make a ton of sense or really have much of a story. But they were still fun. They have a great variety of activities on the ship including really great pools, water slides (that our kids where too little for), and we had plenty to do for entertainment.

Food

• Both have great food. Disney food across the board is good to great. Royal food is very comparable but I will say I love that they have more specialty restaurants for different tastes. We ate at Jaime’s (had a promotional credit as part of our booking) and it was one of the top meals of my life. I’ll be thinking about it for a while.
• main dining room, I prefer the Disney entertainment and kids centric meals. Royal the staff seems more to tolerate than celebrate the kids. It wasn’t a bad experience but just not magical.

Value

• Here’s the kicker. Same length cruise, similar itineraries, same room type, Royal came about 1/3 the price for the base fare. Now, Royal includes less in the base fare (drinks, etc). But at the end of the day Disney is Disney, and does almost every part of the experience well.

Overall, if you can afford Disney, do it. It was a top notch experience. But Royal is also great, particularly on the newer oasis class or higher ships. We won’t hesitate to do it again. I wish we could afford to do Disney more but the cost is definitely more prohibitive for us and will likely need to be more sparingly taken.