Actress and avid traveler Shay Mitchell is Royal Caribbean's "Adventurist," the adventure adviser and storyteller for the world's most adventurous cruise line, Royal Caribbean International.
Royal Caribbean's WOW Sale begins today, with stackable savings that provides 50% off the second guest, plus up to $200 onboard credit.
The WOW Sale is valid on cruises booked between 2/7/18 and 2/11/18 to sailings departing on or after 3/7/18.
The WOW Sale includes:
WOW Sale is combinable with select promotions. WOW Sale is open to residents of U.S. or Canada.
It does not take much to convince me to eat at Royal Caribbean's popular Japanese specialty restaurant, Izumi, so when I learned that there was a menu update on Brilliance of the Seas, I just had to try it out for myself.
Izumi has spread to much of Royal Caribbean's fleet in just the last few years, and its success has a lot to do with the restaurant's creator and master chef, Chef Travis Kamiyama. Chef Travis spends a great deal of his time visiting Izumi restaurants across the fleet, and trying out new ideas and offerings.
Last year, a few new menu options found its way to Izumi, and in the name of research, I took it upon myself to sample these changes. You know, for science!
I have dined at many Izumi restaurants across Royal Caribbean's fleet, but the Izumi locations on Radiance class ships are particularly lovely for their location and decor.
Izumi on Brilliance of the Seas is located on deck 12 aft, above the Windjammer and near the kids waterslide.
Walking into the restaurant, you will find a mostly circular room, with tables lining the outside, a sushi bar, and tables in the interior. In short, there is plenty of seating throughout the restaurant.
The seating by the window offers a view out to the ocean, while the booth seating on the back wall features the most comfortable seating. Never hesitate to ask to sit at the sushi bar, where you can watch the sushi chefs at work.
The decor of Izumi on Brilliance of the Seas features a lot of dark woods and oranges mixed with bright colors, notably a light blue.
The Izumi menu on Brilliance of the Seas is very similar to Izumi restaurants across Royal Caribbean, but as we mentioned earlier, there are a few new menu items to consider.
It is also important to note that Izumi on Brilliance of the Seas features a hot rock option, which is incredibly popular among non-sushi eaters.
Dining at Izumi is unlike most other Royal Caribbean specialty restaurants, in that there is no cover charge. Rather, you pay for what you order. What is nice about a la carte pricing, is you can drop in for a small bite to eat without fear of overpaying.
All meals at Izumi begin with a refreshing hot towel and a complimentary bowl of edamame, lightly sprinkled with salt.
For this meal, I focused on what was new on the menu. I was a man on a mission, so to speak. You might even say I was hungry for the truth...and for tuna.
First up was the Crispy Rice Spicy Tuna, which features creamy tuna on hot crispy rice, topped with a slice of jalapeno.
As an appetizer, this is a great starter and easily shareable (not that I offered to share any of this, but theoretically it would be possible). The consistency of the tuna was different than most of the other tuna offered on the Izumi menu, and I am a fan of jalapeno with any of my sushi offerings.
I then moved onto the Mixed Poke Taco. The taco combines tuna, albacore and octopus to form an interesting mix of fish in a crispy wonton shell.
I really liked the taco, because you get the tenderness and flavor of the fish, mixed with a rigidness of the taco shell. Combining the two made for another fun and shareable appetizer (note, I did not share this either).
Moving onto the entrees, Izumi now offers a Poke Bowl option, which is essentially the exact same ingredients as the Mixed Poke Taco. The Poke Bowl is significantly larger than the tacos, while offering much more of those great ingredients.
If you enjoyed the taco and want more, the Poke Bowl is for you. Likewise, if you fear your tablemates may want to try one of your tacos, get the Poke Bowl so you can selfishly devour all the sushi-grade goodness yourself.
I also gave the Boxed Yellowtail roll a try, as I did not recall seeing it before. Like the Crispy Rice Spicy Tuna appetizer, this roll also features a spicy creamy tuna terrine, topped with yellowtail sashimi, scallion, and a ponzu sauce.
While I was guarding my sushi like a lion protecting its fresh kill on the African Savanna, my wife ordered a hot rock entree.
The hot rocks (known as Ishiyake in Japanese), are essentially a really, really hot rock (heated up to 575 degrees Fahrenheit) and served with your choice of protein to be cooked on the rock.
With the recent menu change, Royal Caribbean dropped the chicken option, but added some other choices.
My wife went with the beef tenderloin, which is thinly sliced beef tenderloin that comes with assorted vegetables.
If you are concerned with cooking the meat correctly, your waiter is happy to jump in and assist. It takes just a few minutes to cook the meat to your liking. Plus, it is fun!
As someone that loves anything tuna, the new Izumi menu choices were right up my alley. Izumi has always had a strong and varied menu, but these new appetizer choices are a great addition to the menu and theoretically shareable with your tablemates (not that I even considered doing that).
Whether you go for the sushi, hot rocks, soups or anything else inbetween, there is a lot to like while at Izumi. It is a strong menu, and I think fans of Japanese food will enjoy eating here on Royal Caribbean.
Izumi is open from 12:15 - 1:30pm on sea days for lunch, and 6:00 - 9:30pm for dinner.
Royal Caribbean appears to be the most Instagrammable cruise line, according to a recent study that compared all cruise lines on the popular social media platform.
SeaHub found that among the over 1.8 million Instagram posts tagged on various cruise ships around the world, Royal Caribbean topped the list with over 634,000 posts.
SeaHub also compared which ships in each cruise line were the most popular, with Royal Caribbean's Oasis class ships topping the list.
If you were wondering, the lowest scoring Royal Caribbean ship on Instagram was Rhapsody of the Seas.
To compile this study, SeaHub scraped Instagram for #cruise to obtain over 1.8 million posts. They grouped all posts by mentions of specific keywords or cruise lines. Rankings were determined by case frequency.
New cruisers are often curious to know how much does a Royal Caribbean cruise really cost, so we sought to share with everyone an example of the total cost of our 4-night Royal Caribbean cruise on Brilliance of the Seas.
Our costs will obviously vary from many others, but I hope it provides helpful insight into budgeting for a cruise.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the various costs, I wanted to provide a ballpark picture of how much we spent. This includes costs before and during the cruise.
I prefer to break up the total cost of the cruise by making certain cruise purchases prior to when we sail, as it avoids having all the cruise costs in one billing cycle. Each of the costs will be broken down further in this post.
Cruise Legnth: 4-nights
Stateroom: Category E1 Balcony
Passengers: 2
Cruise fare total: $1193.46 (including gratuities)
Pre-Cruise purchases: $342.74
Onboard spending: $271.28
Cash spending (on shore): $100 (estimate)
Cash spending (onboard): $150 (estimate)
GRAND TOTAL: $2057.48
Before the cruise began, we pre-purchased the BOGO 2 Night Dining Package, along with a seperate reseration for Giovanni's Table. I enjoy the main dining room, but my wife felt since it was just the two of us, we would be better off with specialty dining. We have dined on many occasions in the main dining room, but it is an experience that we enjoy the most when we are dining with friends (or Billy).
I also write restaurant reviews for this blog, so the opportunity to try the dining package and re-visit some restaurants is something unique to my style of cruising.
BOGO 2 Night Dining Package: $80 + $5 gratuity
Giovanni's Table reservation: $48
Izumi overage (from BOGO 2 night dining package): $23.80
Dinner at Izumi on night 3 (not included in dining package): $57.82
Sushi making class: $33.04
My wife puts up with a lot of nerdiness before, during, and after the cruise. She often hears me say things like, "Honey, I need to go do a Facebook Live" and then disappear for an hour. Thus, I try to ensure my wife has some reward for putting up with all of that, so we booked her a salon appointment before the cruise.
I prebooked it during a Cruise Planner sale and I feel like the price was cheaper than if we had waited to book onboard. The service included gratuity when I booked it, but my wife gave the stylist a small tip on top of that after the appointment. Suffice to say, I think she liked it.
Shampoo / Cut and Style Dry (Long Hair): $98.22 (including gratuity)
Since I live blog from the cruise, I always purchase an internet package. I went with the two device plan to give my wife internet access as well.
I was pleasantly surprised with the performance of the internet on Brilliance of the Seas. I was able to browse and post on social media with ease, managed to do many live videos while onboard, and found it fast enough not to remind me of the "old days of cruising". It was still not as responsive or reliable as the internet on an Oasis or Quantum class ship, but significantly better than when we were on Brilliance a few years ago.
2 VOOM Surf + STREAM Voyage Package - 2 Device: $121.52
After much deliberation, we did not purchase any drink package before our cruise. Our strategy was to rely on drink specials at bars onboard, drink a lot in Cozumel, bring our own bottles of wine onboard, and hope for a drink card to appear.
In retrospect, everything worked out as we planned. In fact, I was surprised how low the bar bill was for the two of us prior to the drink card showing up on day three. I would be curious to compare this to another cruise we may take in the future when the weather is nicer and the temperatures warmer, to see if that contributes any to our spending.
Drink Card: $88.50
Individual drink orders: $57.12
We did not purchase an excursion through Royal Caribbean or through a third party. We simply took a taxi to downtown Cozumel and walked around on our own. We did a bit of shopping, and ate at a few different restaurants. We even stopped at a grocery store on the way back to the ship to pick up tortilla chips to bring home.
I freely admit I did not keep receipts or track of what we paid, so I am making an educated guess on what we spend in Cozumel. It may have been higher or lower than these numbers indicate, but it is close enough.
We also tipped the porter when we arrived to the Port of Tampa. Since we took our own luggage off the ship when we returned, there was no porter service necessary. If you are wondering about the cost to get to the port and parking, my father graciously drove us so we paid that back in love.
Taxi fare: $20 (with tips)
Drink and food around Cozumel: $70 (estimated)
Porter on embarktion day: $10
You can blame me for nearly all the spending in the casino, because I am drawn to it like a moth to the flame. I know it is more likely we will lose than win, but I really enjoy playing for the thrill of it. My wife rolls her eyes and tries to talk me out of it, but it is no use.
On this cruise, the casino gods were extremely unkind and I never lost my money so quickly. We mostly played roulette and slots, although I did spend $10 on the quarter machine because there was so much motion in the ocean that I thought my odds were better.
Alas, at the time I enjoyed the thrill of it, but recognize I could have spent that money elsewhere (like on more sushi from Izumi).
Estimated losses: $150
Royal Caribbean held a special event in London, England last week to preview its upcoming fourth Oasis Class cruise ship, Symphony of the Seas.
The event was held in Central London, where members of the public that had registered for an invitation were able to preview some of the exciting new features coming to Symphony of the Seas.
Royal Caribbean Blog reader Joel Alderman was able to attend the event, and shared photos a synopsis of the event with us.
Photo by Joel Alderman
Guests entered a reception area, which then leads to a corridor and stairs that are meant to look like the Ultimate Abyss slide.
Photo by Joel Alderman
At the end of the hall is a slide that leads to a ball pit, which is meant to represent a hot tub that is featured in the Ultimate Family Suite stateroom.
Photo by Royal Caribbean UK
Photo by Joel Alderman
From the Ultimate Family Suite, guests go into the room next to it where you are shown a video of some of the places you can visit and adventures you can experience when traveling with Symphony.
Then from another hidden door comes a man dressed as an explorer who takes you through a jungle trail to a waterfall.
Photo by Royal Caribbean UK
Photo by Royal Caribbean UK
Then the waterfall stops and you go through to a Hairspray experience, it’s a mock up of a dressing room and one member of cast encourages you to assist her with a song from the Broadway show.
You then are ushered to a red curtain where you are asked to perform the song with her but as the curtain opens you are actually led into the “sweets” room, where you meet "Lolly." She helps you work out the code to a treasure chest, which contains free sweets given to all participants.
Photo by Royal Caribbean UK
Photo by Royal Caribbean UK
Photo by Joel Alderman
Happy weekend! We hope you are in the midst of a wonderful weekend full of friends, fun, and plenty of things to do to pass the time between cruises. We have a summary of all of this week's Royal Caribbean news in case you missed any of it!
Royal Caribbean made headlines this week with details of the $90 million refurbishment coming to Mariner of the Seas.
After months of speculation, Royal Caribbean releaved which new features and amenities will be added to Mariner of the Seas when she undergoes a refurbishment later this year.
Guests can look forward to a bungee virtual reality trampoline experience, FlowRider, new specialty restaurants, a Polyensian-themed bar, laser tag, and much more.
Mariner of the Seas will call Miami, Florida home in 2018, and will be the first Voyager Class ship to offer short Caribbean sailings. Mariner of the Seas will offer 3- and 4-night itineraries from PortMiami, beginning on June 21, 2018.
The 235th episode of the Royal Caribbean Blog Podcast is now available and this week, Matt reviews his recent cruise on Brilliance of the Seas.
Matt is back from his Brilliance of the Seas 4-night cruise, and shares what he enjoyed about his cruise, as well as reviews of experiences and dining while onboard.
Please feel free to subscribe via iTunes or RSS, and head over to rate and review the podcast on iTunes if you can! We’d appreciate it.
The Maritime Executive is reporting Royal Caribbean is pledging to cut back on plastics.
Bloomberg wrote about the secrets of cruise ships after sailing on Harmony of the Seas.
CNBC spoke with Royal Caribbean Cruises Chairman and CEO Richard Fain about its recent better-than-expected earnings report.
We love to explore the various staterooms on Royal Caribbean cruise ships and today, we have a look at the Royal Suite stateroom on Enchantment of the Seas.
This category RS room was photographed by Kenneth Jarvis during his recent cruise.
Category RS staterooms on Enchantment of the Seas measure 1,119 square feet, with an additional 148 square feet of space on the balcony.
Friday is here, and whether the groundhog sees his shadow or not, we have some great Royal Caribbean cruise photos to share with all of you.
We begin this week with a photo by John Bamber of DNCE performing on the Eclipse Cruise aboard Oasis of the Seas.
Olivia took this photo of Anthem of the Seas looming over Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Here is a look at the camera Royal Caribbean uses to provide video to the virtual balcony staterooms on Anthem of the Seas. Photo taken by Anoop.
Mark Greenwalkd shared this photo, which is either a photo of him and his wife sharing a kiss under a moongate in Bermuda with Grandeur of the Seas in the background OR he is about to go into a Stargate to rescue Kurt Russell's character from an under-apprciated 90's sci-fi film.
Twangster shared a photo of the bridge on Harmony of the Seas.
Here is a shot of Oasis of the Seas and Liberty of the Seas in Cozumel, taken by Marissa Webster.
Our final photo this week is by Arlene Martinez, taken in Alyeska, Alaska.
Thank you to everyone for sharing their great cruise photos with us! If you want to share your own favorite Royal Caribbean photos, use this form to send them in! Have a great weekend!
Royal Caribbean is doubling down on its weekend offers, with up to $150 instant savings on cruises booked this weekend, as well as up to 30% off internet and drink packages.
Royal Caribbean's "Score More, Save More" deal is spread across its site.
Guests can save up to $150 extra when booking during the Score More Savings Sale.
Royal Caribbean cruises booked between February 1 - 5, 2018 on sailings departing on or after March 1, 2018 are valid for this offer (excluding China departures).
The Score More Savings Sale offers up to $150 instant savings
The Score More Savings Sale is combinable with the current 30% off every guest monthly offer.
Guest that log into the Cruise Planner will find certain items discounted. Keep in mind that not all sailings may see the sale applicable, nor are all offers significantly cheaper than previously posted.
Based on the countdown timer, the sale expires at midnight on Monday, February 5, 2018.
To check if your sailing has this new offer available, log into the Cruise Planner on Royal Caribbean's web site and navigate to the Dining & Beverage section to see any available offers.
If you spot a better discount on something you already pre-purchased, you should be able to cancel the purchase and then re-purchase the same item under this promotion.