First-Time Cruisers? Here’s What We Loved & Learned!

🚢 First-Time Cruisers? Here’s What We Loved & Learned! 🎙️

In this episode of Rollin’ With the Dolans, we’re sharing our honest review of our first Royal Caribbean cruise! We took a trip aboard Enchantment of the Seas with 25 family and friends to celebrate Tamekia’s big 5-0—and we’re breaking down everything from boarding to dining, entertainment, and disembarking.

➡️ Was it worth it?
➡️ How did the rooms stack up?
➡️ What surprised us the most?
➡️ Would we cruise again?

We’re giving you the real deal—the good, the unexpected, and the tips we wish we knew before setting sail. Whether you’re a first-time cruiser or a seasoned pro, tune in for some laughs, lessons, and cruise hacks!

🎧 Listen now and let us know—what’s YOUR best cruise experience?

#RollinWithTheDolans #CruiseLife #FamilyTravel #RoyalCaribbean #FirstTimeCruiser #TravelVlog

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Transcript

Welcome to Rollin’ With the Dolans!

Patrick: I'm Patrick Dolan.
Tamekia: I'm Tamekia Dolan.

Our podcast focuses on the joys and challenges of blending families, our interracial marriage, parenting children of multiple ages, and the journey of entrepreneurship. We share our daily life experiences with a positive but real perspective.

And today's topic is talking about a recent cruise that we went on.

We’ll give some feedback and our opinions on how everything went.

Setting Sail: Our Royal Caribbean Cruise Experience

Patrick: We went on a Royal Caribbean cruise to celebrate Tamekia's big 5-0. And that was the end of December.

Tamekia: And it was—what is it?—Enchantment of the Seas.

Patrick: Yeah. It was 25 of us, including kids and adults. And what did you think?

Tamekia: I loved it. One of the things we were wondering going into it was that, really, out of those 25 people, only a few had ever gone on a cruise, and some of those had been a long time ago.

Patrick: I went into it with low expectations.

Tamekia: I had higher expectations.

Patrick: What was your initial thought?

Tamekia: I thought that it was easy to board and get settled. What did you think?

Patrick: Yeah, I definitely thought it was going to be much more difficult, take a lot longer, be more confusing—things like that. But it was really simple, easy to get on board.

Room Review: Expectations vs. Reality

Patrick: Yeah, and then what did you think about our room?

Tamekia: The room—again, I did a little bit of research ahead of time. I had really low expectations because people were complaining about the size of the room, the ship's age, and all these different things I read ahead of time. I thought we were going to be in a shoebox, but it was a little bit bigger than that.

Patrick: So there were two configurations. One was for the kids, and they basically had one, two, three, four beds in it. It was tight, but there was enough room for all of them. And then ours just had the one king-size bed and a couch.

Tamekia: I think you forgot to say that both of the rooms were the exact same, right next to each other.

Patrick: Yeah, we just opted for one bed, whereas they had two beds. It was a bunk bed, and—what is it? Was that a queen-size bed underneath the bunk bed?

Tamekia: It was, yeah. It was a pullout couch that they just left pulled out the whole time.

Patrick: Yeah, it was around a queen. But same room, just configured differently.

Tamekia: So if you just have the one bed in it, it seems plenty roomy enough.

Patrick: Without it, all they really needed was a place to sleep anyway.

Tamekia: Yeah, and then, so we had a total of eight—wait, a total of nine of us in our immediate group, and we had three rooms.

Patrick: So I think that was perfect, right? Because there were three in one room, four in another, and then just the two of us. Right?

Tamekia: Yep. Three, four—was that right?

Patrick: Five—wait, how many?

Tamekia: Four, three…

Patrick: Four, three, seven…

Tamekia: Yeah, and us two is nine.

Patrick: Yeah, nine of us between three rooms, and I think that was perfect.

Dining on the High Seas: Food and Service

Patrick: And then what did you think about the food?

Tamekia: The food was good. I'm sure with all cruises—unless you're on, like, a yacht—that there's a lot of processed food. It didn’t completely agree with my stomach, but it wasn't horrible at all. I just felt like I was a little more sensitive to some of the processed food, but it wasn’t bad at all.

Patrick: Yeah, and at least for this cruise—the Enchantment of the Seas—the service was amazing. It kind of offset some of the food. If I had to rate it, like one to ten, and I rated it as a restaurant, it would probably be like a four or five.

Tamekia: A four?

Patrick: Yeah.

Tamekia: A four is low.

Patrick: Some days it would be good, like a six or seven.

Tamekia: Yeah.

Patrick: And then some of the days it’d be, like, a three or four. Overall, it's a four or five.

Tamekia: Wait, are you meaning the dinner part or when we went out?

Patrick: Dinners, mostly.

Tamekia: Okay. You know what I'm talking about.

Patrick: Yeah.

Tamekia: Yeah, because remember that one time we finally went for brunch at the same place that we ate dinner? And that was actually really good, remember?

Patrick: Yeah.

Tamekia: Yeah, just depends on the day, right?

Patrick: Yeah, it would be fun to have really great food, but the food was good enough.

Tamekia: I agree.

Fun and Entertainment Aboard

Patrick: Okay, what about entertainment?

Tamekia: It was fun. There was so much to do—and we found out I'm really good at karaoke.

Patrick: Oh, my gosh.

Tamekia: So it was a lot of fun. There was more than we could actually do.

Patrick: Yeah, and there was so much more that we wanted to do that we didn’t get to. And I was telling a lot of my friends and clients that the nice thing about it is that we didn’t always have to do stuff together, but we knew for sure that we would always meet up for dinner, which was super nice.

Tamekia: Right.

Disembarking and Final Thoughts

Patrick: Getting off the ship was an experience.

Tamekia: Oh, okay. Wait—you mean when we went to Mexico?

Patrick: Yeah.

Tamekia: Or, like, when we were done?

Patrick: When we went to Mexico.

Tamekia: Oh, okay. Yeah, let’s talk about that.

Patrick: What did you think? Easy to get off to go to Mexico?

Tamekia: I thought it was super easy. You just basically scanned your card and you were off, right? You just needed to know where to go exactly, but that was it.

Patrick: Yeah.

Tamekia: It was like going through airport security, but very minimal airport security.

Patrick: I agree. No lines or anything like that. It was pretty much just walking through, and it was easy.

Would We Cruise Again?

Patrick: Just in general, what did you think? Would you do it with the kids, without the kids?

Tamekia: I would do both. Now the kids are interested in trying to find a cruise that they would enjoy more.

Patrick: Yep.

Tamekia: But I would do it both ways—just you and I, and with the kids.

Patrick: So we are now cruisers.

Tamekia: Cruisers.

Conclusion and Farewell

Patrick: All right, until next time—thanks for listening! Make sure you like, subscribe, and follow us.

Tamekia: We’ll have more stories and tales next time.

Patrick: All right, till next time—bye!

Tamekia: Bye!