Our ‘Perfect Day at Cococay’ while sailing on Adventure of the Seas

Six months ago we came to CocoCay only it didn’t look anything like it did this time! Perfect Day at CocoCay, as Royal Caribbean calls it, is their newly redesigned private island in the Bahamas.

If you’ve never visited, it looked like was just one island with some buffet areas, bathrooms, game area and several beaches to lounge and just chill. Which honestly is still a perfect day in my opinion.

Private Island Time

A fantastic view of the island! The tower in the middle is a water slide! You can see it from all areas of the island. To the far left is a beach area. Behind the bridge on the left is a lagoon area with beach and calm waters. Near the balloon is the freshwater pool and kids splashaway bay. To the right is the thrill water park.

So, what’s new?

The upgrades included adding a water park with massive slides ($$), a hot air balloon ride over the island ($$), more cabanas ($$), freshwater pool, swim up bar ($$ unless have beverage package), more restaurant locations and two splash areas for the kids.

For those with teens this is where it’s going to get a bit costly.

YOU HAVE TO PAY TO PLAY.

For those with young kids the splash pads are a fantastic break and those in swim diapers YOU GET TO GO IN!

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Choose your own adventure

Visiting CocoCay is a choose your own adventure. You’ll receive a map to the island in your cabin the night before. If you are already booked I’m sure you are already getting the many marketing emails to upsell the various attractions that cost money.

You have a day at their private island. We were there from about 8am until 4:30pm. One of the best parts of this private island is that you dock at the island. No more tenders which takes time away from enjoying the beach.

The Galleon Ship

Galleon Ship. This is located as you walk in and is great for little kids. Word of caution: the slides which come from the various levels of the boat and end up on the bottom where you see the blue area are very fast! Our kids ended up sliding all the way to the brick walkway.

Oasis Lagoon Pool

Oasis Lagoon Pool Rules. Chairs line the pool and there are lounge chairs in the water too! The zero entry is great for kids and they have plenty of life jackets available for all ages. The water is padded until you get to about 3 1/2 feet depth. Be prepared for plenty of chairs to be taken with no one using them in sight–they are all off doing other activities.

Splashaway Bay

Splashaway Bay. Slides are to the left, pad in front with water buckets and climbing structures! There are also showers for washing off.

Chill Beach

Chill Beach is the original beach area and one that we love. That’s the family walking to secure chairs. It was quiet and located next to a snack stand, games and near the kayak tour counter. Word of caution: this area is open to the ocean. On our last visit our little little was stung by a jellyfish hiding in the seaweed. Note: we now carry a small spray bottle of vinegar to help get the sting out if it happens again! This time around we saw some beautiful stingrays swimming and even a reef shark that we caught on our gopro.

As with all cruise ships there are plenty of activites

Free airbrush tattoos! SWEET! The kiddos loved their free airbrush tattoos that they got on their way out. We got there late so there was just one color to use (yellow) and endless patterns. They lasted about a week!

Not so perfect…downright made me mad

I’m a less is more kind of girl. Since I’ve been cruising since I was about 8 I have enjoyed the relaxing aspect of cruising. I think that’s why I am drawn to the ships that are more midsize with not all the latest and greatest thrills.

So, here is what made me angry and I am sure other parents will agree. See the images below. My little little is 5 years old and measures 40″ when we went on this trip. On the Adventure of the Seas they have two splash areas for kids. The purple slide in the image on the left you need to be 42″ to go down. The staff from Adventure Ocean manage the stairs.

So, my daughter got denied. She was devastated. I was devastated for her. They said she could be in the yellow slide on the other side. You can catch a glimpse of this on the right side of my photo. Well, in this area moms let their babies in swim diapers just sit in the water area at the bottom of the slide. So, my kid would have flown down and knocked them over. She was way too big in my opinion no matter how small she is to be in that area.

My anger at Royal Caribbean

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Well, let’s fast forward to our private day now in CocoCay. See that purple and teal slide on the right? My kid is allowed to go down! This is why I am ticked off and angry? An island OWNED and OPERATED BY ROYAL CARIBBEAN. My kid can go down this large slide and yet not allowed on the small one on the ship? Not to mention I saw smaller kids on the ship’s slide later in the week smaller than she is go down.

I try to play by the rules. I don’t expect any favors and come on. Are you kidding me? When our kids were in swim diapers we knew they couldn’t go into the pools no matter how low the water or splash pad. I get the whole kids can’t swim until potty trained on the ship and this though it’s outrageous.

So, if you skipped to the end here are some tips to enjoy your Perfect Day at CocoCay

1. Get room service on the ship for continental breakfast and eat early or bring it with you (boxes of cereal are perfect) to the island to enjoy even more time. There is plenty of food to have for snacks when you need them.
   
2. Head to the beach first then pool area. We had no problem getting chairs at that time.
   
3. Save time for the splash pads in the afternoon (that way you wash off the beach before heading back to the ship.
   
4. Try the funnel cake! What an awesome surprise. We had quite a few. Located in the snack shack near Chill Beach.
   
5. Try to get it all in, unless you already know you are heading back again.

Honesty is the best policy

Overall, we really enjoyed ourselves and had a semi-perfect day at CocoCay. It took time to get the lay of the land, when we didn’t need to before. This go around wasn’t quite as relaxing as in the past. Again, we didn’t have to deal with kids saying they wanted to do the big slides or having to go here or there. It was grab a chair, pay for an umbrella and enjoy the water and sand.

Now that we’ve been and know what to expect we can map out our plan in advance. Overall our day worked well moving from beach to pool and slides so we’ll do that again for sure! We did have a HUGE bahamian downpour during the day and that helped clear some of the crowd away!

There was only our ship in port that day however, there will be up to two ships at one time so think midsize like ours plus small. One of our favorite ships, Grandeur of the Seas, is expected in port the same day at Adventure. That means there will be close to 6K people versus our 4K when we were there.

It’s a personal decision on what to spend your money on. I’m here to help save you time and money and I don’t see the justification.

We can’t wait to go back and enjoy even more though we’ll stick to the FREE parts and not worry about paying to play!