SATURDAY SIX Presents: A Kid’s Guide to Royal Caribbean’s WONDER OF THE SEAS (Laser Tag, Mini-golf, the Arcade and MORE!)

This week’s SATURDAY SIX returns to the high seas. You may remember our earlier “big picture” look at Royal Caribbean’s WONDER OF THE SEAS (the world’s largest cruise ship) along with an in-depth review of using THE KEY on the ship. Both of those articles were written more from an adult’s perspective of being on the Wonder of the Seas. Today we are going to look at the ship’s amazing amenities from a kid’s perspective. We’ll talk about what they liked doing the most, starting with …

# 6 – Laser Tag: Battle for Planet Z

Before we start, I have to say that as someone involved in the theme park blogging world, I was outright shocked at how little information was available on certain features related to the Wonder of the Seas. For the Disney and Universal theme parks, literally every inch of the two properties is covered on the internet with articles and videos. Before our sailing on the Wonder, I tried to research as much as I could and kept running into dead-ends where almost no information was available. Now, I knew the ship had Laser Tag, but finding any concrete information on it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I would occasionally see someone doing a YouTube video on their sailing briefly mention they did Laser Tag, but that’s about it.

Now that I am back from our sailing, here are the main things you need to know:

1) Laser Tag: Battle for Planet Z is complimentary and there is no charge for this activity as it is included in your cruise fare.

2) Laser Tag is absolutely awesome for both kids and adults. It’s a total blast. It was better than several Laser Tag experiences I have paid for us to do over the years at various arcades. Make a point of doing this experience if you sail on the Wonder of the Seas.

3) Laser Tag takes place on Deck 4 in Studio B, home of the Wonder of the Seas ice skating rink.  The rink is covered up and the Laser Tag area sits on top of it.

4) For our particular sailing, Laser Tag took place on two days of the sailing, Day 2 and Day 7. You can NOT make reservations for Laser Tag before you get on the ship in your Cruise Planner, but you can make reservations to play Laser Tag through the Royal Caribbean app once you get onboard the ship. It’s very easy. Don’t worry if the app says that Laser Tag is “sold out.” You can always show up at Studio B and get into the standby line.  The hours for the activity were 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

5) There are a few restrictions: Laser tag participants must be at least 5 years old, 40″ in height, and wear closed-toe shoes.

Here is Royal Caribbeans’s backstory for the Laser Tag game: “Two forces are facing off and you’re about to be recruited. Whether you join the remnant of a robot civilization, or the alien scouting party looking for refuge from a meganova, only one force can take control in this glow-in-the-dark laser tag faceoff. Will your team be the one to claim the last planet for light years around? Take aim and find out in Battle for Planet Z.” If you have kids who are invested in being on the side of justice, you’ll note that there is no good-guys/bad-guys setup in this backstory.

Outside Studio B there were two larger-than-life blow-up characters to take photos with.

Once you enter Studio B, you’ll see the Laser Tag area on top of where the ice skating rink normally is. The area is large, and filled with inflatable obstacles to create a maze.

Groups of up to 20 people are first brought into the debriefing room where you are shown a film explaining the backstory of the game. This video made about as much sense as a live-action Transformers film, but theme park fans will easily recognize that you’re in a pre-show room waiting for the group ahead of you to finish their game.

Once the video is over, guests are handed their Laser Tag vests. Here’s where I thought things got very interesting. Once everyone gets their vests and registers their laser guns, the vests and guns then randomly turn one of two colors (green or purple.) What that means is that you may not necessarily be on the same team as the other members of your party. For example, originally our party of four had three people with purple vests and one with green. However, in our room there was a Dad and his five-year-old son who were randomly selected to be on different teams. So we switched one of our vests with the Dad so that he and his son could be on the same team. When the game started, our group now had two people on the green team and two on the purple team.

Remember that although there’s an us and them once you’re assigned to teams, it isn’t a good guys and bad guys scenario. Everyone is just out to have fun. When it is time for the game to start, everyone from the debriefing room leaves to go into the arena and is given 10 seconds before the game actually starts.

I’m not exactly sure how long the Laser Tag experience lasted once inside the arena, but it seemed like a good amount of time. I’m guessing 10-15 minutes. You earn points every time you hit the vest of someone on the opposite team with your “laser.” The points from every player on each team are added up at the end of the game to determine the winning team. You are not out of the game if you are hit by a laser, but your vest will take a couple of seconds to recharge before you can start shooting at other players again.

When leaving Studio B, a leaderboard is shown which shows how the two teams did and how many points each individual person on the teams scored.

The leaderboard also shows which player on the two teams got the most points, which player was “Trigger Happy” and fired the most shots, and the person who was the most accurate. PRO-TIP: The names on the leaderboard are related to the names printed on your Laser Tag guns. Our first time through the game we didn’t even notice the names on our guns so we had no idea which of these players we were on the leaderboard.

# 5 – Wonder Dunes Mini-golf

The Wonder Dunes mini-golf course is located on Deck 16 on the sports deck. Like Laser Tag, it is completely complimentary to all guests. There is no reservation needed and it is also available every single day of your sailing. You can even play during the day or night as the course is open 24 hours.

Putters and golf balls are located in a giant clam shell. The golf balls are not the traditional balls you see at other mini-golf courses and are more rubber-like.

The course itself is designed with a whimsical sea-life theme.

I’ve stayed at many hotels and been on other cruise ships that offer complementary mini-golf and none of the courses were designed this well.

Various lighting elements make Wonder Dunes a great place to go for a quick game at night.

MY NUMBER ONE TIP WHEN SAILING ON WONDER OF THE SEAS…

Before your sailing, head on over to Amazon and purchase glow-in-the-dark golf balls. CLICK HERE to see the set that I bought (which worked out fantastic!)

During the day, these golf balls look like normal golf balls and you can definitely use them on the Wonder Dunes course during the daytime (they are much better than the free rubber-like golf balls.) However, when activated, these golf balls light up, which brings a whole new experience to nighttime mini-golfing!

The glow-in-the-dark balls feature added so much fun to our overall vacation experience, and I can not tell you the number of other guests who asked where we got these golf balls while we played on the ship.

We had friends who were sailing on the Harmony of the Seas at the same time we were on the Wonder of the Seas. We recommended the glow-in-the-dark golf balls to them before the sailing and they had the exact same results we did, they loved them!

# 4 – Room Service

Before the sailing, I booked several dining experiences for the family at restaurants such as The Mason Jar and Wonderland. Once aboard the ship though, I repeatedly had to answer one question from our younger guests … “can we get room service?”

When I was a kid being taken on vacations by my parents, me asking that question would have got them laughing for hours, because when I was growing up, “room service” was my parents giving me 50 cents for the vending machine at the nondescript hotel we stayed at off 192 when going to Disney. Times have changed, and we ended up ordering room service meals three times during our sailing. We had a printed-out room service menu in our room, but there was also a room service menu you could access via the TV in our stateroom. There is a continental breakfast room service option available from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. that is free, but only includes items like coffee, juice, toast, bagels, cereal, and fruit. Other menus, including the American Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner are a flat fee of $7.95 (plus 18% gratuity) per order. The American Breakfast is also available from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and includes all those “other” breakfast dishes that aren’t on the continental breakfast menu such as eggs, omelettes, pancakes, and bacon. The Lunch and Dinner menu is the same and is served from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m., giving full 24-hour coverage for Room Service orders.

To place an order for room service, you have to order through the phone located in your stateroom. You cannot place an order through the Royal Caribbean app or through the TV. It was very easy to place the orders over the phone, and similar to theme parks I found that the “estimated” time of delivery was on the high end. One night we were quoted 90 minutes for delivery and the order came to our room in about 40 minutes. The other two orders were quoted for about 45 minutes and arrived in about 25 minutes each. Of course, your mileage may vary.

I can definitely say this was the fanciest peanut butter and jelly sandwich I have ever received.

My picture is awful, but the grilled hot dog was actually better than the free hot dogs available at the Dog House on Deck 6. Not that the Dog House hot dogs were bad, but we liked the way these hot dogs were grilled as opposed to the Dog House ones that are cooked on rollers.

The pepperoni and cheese pizzas were perfectly acceptable. I would say they were a step up taste-wise from the free slices served at Sorrento’s Pizza on Deck 5, but nowhere near as good as the pizza available (for an up-charge) at Giovanni’s Kitchen on Deck 8.

Here’s an example of the receipt you will get once the order is delivered to your room. As you can see it is $7.95 per order, no matter how many items you get. With the 18% added gratuity, each of our room service bills came out to $9.38 per order. We also gave an additional tip – in cash – to each person who delivered our room service orders.

Here are some more items ordered through room service over the course of the week, including The Royal Burger. This burger was actually really good, only topped by the burger at Playmakers (which was an additional charge) and the Chops steakburger we received during our The Key Welcome Lunch on embarkation day. It completely blew away the burgers you could get in the Windjammer food court.

Similarly, the quesadillas you could get at El Loco Fresh on Deck 16 for free paled in comparison with the ones delivered with room service.

Almost shocking – in a good way – that this level of salad is served via room service.

My pictures do not do justice to how good the desserts were. They were always fantastic.

If you are sensing a theme, you’re not wrong. The food we ordered from Room Service was usually better than similar options that we could get from restaurants and food windows for no extra charge. That isn’t because the food that was included in our cruise fare for no extra charge wasn’t good (see below). But the food we got from Room Service was consistently quality, so you do not have to worry about getting a bad meal if you want to go ahead and make your kid’s day with Room Service.

# 3 – Ice Cream and Pizza

As I said, we ordered Room Service three times during our week-long sailing, but something we did every single day? Hit up the complimentary ice cream on Deck 15’s pool deck along with the complimentary pizza on Deck 5’s Promenade. If you have any experience with kids, you will totally understand why “hot and cold running ice cream and pizza” made this list.

Despite there being multiple soft-serve ice cream machines at Sprinkles, each day of the sailing only chocolate, vanilla, and a chocolate/vanilla swirl were offered as flavors. They were fine, and no one is complaining, but I think a strawberry option would have been appreciated.

Sprinkles is not self-serve, there was a Royal Caribbean employee manning the machines and making the cones for guests.

A staple of every Royal Caribbean sailing we’ve been on to date is Sorrento’s, the grab-and-go pizza place located on The Promenade.

Cheese and pepperoni slices were available all the time, along with a third option that would change daily.

The Primavera, pictured below, is an example of one of the options, while another day had BBQ Chicken slices.

Sorrento’s Pizza serves slices non-stop from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. and it is fascinating just to watch them work. The chef is constantly putting pizzas into the various ovens, pulling others out, and using the pizza wheel to cut them into slice-ready pies. It’s all free and you can ask for as many slices as you want. Sorrento’s can be extremely busy at times, but they are constantly cranking out pizzas so the wait is never that long. The slices themselves aren’t the absolute best pizza in the world, but they are definitely good enough. (And for theme park fans they are definitely better than the vast majority of pizza we get at Walt Disney World, especially in the parks.) For those who are Gluten Free, Sorrento’s will make you an entire pie, you just have to wait for it to be cooked, which takes about 10 minutes.

# 2 – The Arcade

Located on Deck 16 of the ship, I wasn’t expecting much from the arcade on the ship. I was pleasantly surprised to not just find a wide assortment of games, but that so many of them offered the opportunity for multiple people to play at the same time. These games are an extra cost in addition to your cruise fare, but you can purchase discounted arcade credits before your cruise through your Cruise Planner. We bought $100 worth of arcade credits for $79.95.

While on the ship, the price to play each particular game in the arcade varied based on how many games you would commit to up front. For example, 1 game of Skee-ball was $2, but if you paid for 2 or 3 games of Skee-ball up front, you would save a little money.

Who doesn’t like a good game of air hockey?

The Tomb Raider game below allowed up to four people to play at once. It was actually really well done and I don’t even want to think how much we spent overall playing it.

There are several games of “skill” that allow you to possibly win prizes immediately, along with several other games in the arcade – including Skee-ball – in which you win “points” to accumulate on your SeaPass card to redeem for prizes.

You redeem your points at the Prize Hub located in the arcade. I had never seen one of these before and it was pretty cool.

Prizes range from cheap rubber toys to more high-end items such as radio-controlled monster trucks and headphones.

Each time you use your SeaPass card to play a game, the display would show how many credits you have available. This is for those who have bought credits, either pre-purchased credits before the cruise, or while on the cruise. You can also use your SeaPass card to just play a game whenever you want without any credits pre-loaded. In this case, the charge to play the game goes directly onto your stateroom account, just like purchasing any other item while onboard the ship.

It looks like Royal Caribbean has a system in place so that if you spend $50 in a single day from one SeaPass card at the arcade, the card becomes disabled to play any more games.

The next day, my “daily limit” reset itself and I was allowed to play games again. This is certainly a good idea to have in place because with kids they are generally not paying attention to what the games cost and are just having fun. This prevents any parent from getting an end-of-cruise bill like Kevin’s room service charge in Home Alone 2.

Down on Deck 6,  on the Boardwalk, there are also some games that you can use your arcade credits to play. There is a football throwing game, a basketball game, and another basketball game for very small kids. These games are located outside next to Playmakers and across from the Dog House.

Inside Playmakers there are even more games. As for video games, there is a Super Mario racing game that you have to pay for, just like the same machine upstairs at the arcade. However, there are also five old-school video game cabinets that are set to free play and include games such as Defender, Galaga, Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., and Space Invaders.

# 1 – The Pools, Slides, and Hot Tubs

Anyone who has taken kids on vacation to Walt Disney World or the Universal Orlando Resort often has the same takeaway: no matter how many E-Ticket attractions you go on, or world class shows you see, or Michelin Star rated restaurants you eat at … when kids get back home one of the things they say they loved most about their vacation was the hotel pool. That’s right, we’re delivering Breaking News here on the SATURDAY SIX, kids love pools. Good news though, because the Wonder of the Seas has three main pools for every guest to enjoy along with multiple hot tubs, 3 humongous slides, and a kid-friendly play area.

There are two main pools located near the front of the ship, with the Port Side pool having hours of 9:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. and the Starboard Side pool having hours of 8:00 – 8:00 p.m. The third main pool is located near the back of the ship next to the slides. This pool is called the Beach Pool and was open 7:00 a.m. – 11:00 p.m.

During our sailing’s three sea days, the three main pools became busy at times in the middle of the day, but I would not say overwhelmingly so considering the number of guests (6,000+) onboard the ship. Every day of the sailing the pools would generally clear out around 4 p.m. as families began getting ready for dinner and nighttime shows. One thing I noticed on the Wonder of the Seas is the large amount of seating options there both on Deck 15, where the pools are located, but also the nearby Deck 16 which overlooks the pool area below (and has several hot tubs.)

There are three major slides on the Wonder of the Seas with a collective name of The Perfect Storm. The hours for all three slides were 10:00 a.m – 7:00 p.m. Typhoon and Cyclone are a pair of racing slides and are next to each other.

The third slide is called Supercell and has guests travel down a slide entering into a large bowl … it’s clearer what that means in the pictures.

…when the guests enter the bowl, they eventually wash down to the middle like the drain of a toilet bowl. They exit the slide exactly the same as Typhoon and Cyclone above.

There was also a very large water play area with its own slides for smaller kids called Splashaway Bay. This area is located directly across from the Beach Pool. The hours for Splashaway Bay were 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

With all the lighting features along the ship, outdoor areas truly transform at night, including the pools.

There are a lot of pretty great hot tubs across the Wonder of the Seas. One of our personal favorites was at the very entrance of the Solarium. It was a split hot tub that you could cross over in the middle and was very similar to an infinity pool with how it went straight to the glass window in the back. All the hot tubs on the ship are open 24 hours.

While we were still docked in Port Canaveral, we took a quick jump into this Solarium hot tub as other members of our party switched into their swimsuits.

There are two gigantic hot tubs on Deck 16 that were big favorites of many kids during our sailing…

…because the rear wall of the hot tub was transparent and allowed them to look across the pool deck.

Honorable Mention – Towel Animals

Opening your stateroom to discover a towel animal on the bed is a really nice surprise. These are created by the amazing stateroom attendants and we received three of them during our week-long cruise. This is one of those “little things” that cruises really have going over their land-based hotel counterparts. They are just plain fun.

When I was at the Picture This area of the ship on Day 7, going through our cruise photos, I noticed they had a variety of picture-related merch that you could also buy there. Things like photo frames, key chains with photos, and photo books. But as a merchandise guy, one item truly stood out to me. They had plush animal photo frames that were designed to look like towel animals. LIKE I WASN’T GOING TO BUY THAT?!!! Interestingly enough, the size of the photo that the plush animal photo frame holds (4×6) is not one that Royal Caribbean offers (which is kind of bananas) so I had to wait until I got back home to print out a photo from the cruise to put into the frame. The elephant towel animal frame was originally priced at $24.95 but was on sale the day I bought it for $19.95.

Some great attention to detail in this plush including the Royal Caribbean logo on the ear and a little tail in the back of the plush.

There was another option available which was a plush monkey wearing sunglasses. I went with the elephant because that was the first towel animal we received in our room during the week and it was such a big hit.

Double Secret Honorable Mention – THE DUCKS

One feature of cruising I just never knew existed was guests hiding rubber ducks throughout the ship for other guests to find. We did a little bit of research before the cruise and thought this might be something fun to do. SPOILER ALERT: It was fun and definitely something we will be doing on all of our future cruises. Leaving – and finding – ducks is a completely voluntary part of the cruise and is not affiliated with Royal Caribbean.

I went to Amazon and bought a 20-pack of ducks along with tags. Knowing what I know now, next time I will possibly buy the ducks from Amazon/Wal-Mart/Dollar Store, but will definitely get personalized tags made from Etsy. The creativity I saw in the ducks hidden around the ship, along with photos of others posted on Facebook groups, really blew me away.

The only rules are 1) do not hide ducks in any stores and 2) have some common sense and don’t put ducks in places where they could get blown off the ship. Finding places around the ship to hide our ducks was a fun activity, but when we found ducks it really made our day! Knowing how it made us feel, later in the cruise we started putting some ducks in easier-to-find places for little kids and watch from afar when they discovered the duck to see the smiles on their faces.

I do have to say, looking for ducks started to become an obsession …

… to the point where the kiddos started looking for ducks EVERYWHERE. Guess what, they’d find them! The photo below was taken when we were walking along a path at Perfect Day at CocoCay and we suddenly heard “I see one!”  As you can see in the photo below, some guest hid a silver duck deep into some brush. That’s a weird enough spot to hide something you want people to find, but even weirder was that this kid saw it.

There are big ducks to find, small ducks to find, themed to everything you can possibly imagine. Somehow I had taken multiple cruises with Royal Caribbean and never even knew this world existed, but once I realize it was there I started to notice people everywhere with ducks.

I should definitely point out that we ran into several families during the course of our sailing who raved about ADVENTURE OCEAN, which is a collection of aged-based clubs and play areas designed specifically for kids (up to 12 years old.) For teenagers there was a large area called Social100 for them to hang out in (with video games, books, and other interactive elements) along with an outdoor patio on Deck 17. Our family did not spend any time in Adventure Ocean, but it seemed just from walking around the ship over the course of the week that both the kid’s clubs and the teen area were well visited by guests.

If you’re interested in sailing on the Wonder of the Seas, or thinking about any cruise, be sure to reach out to the TouringPlans Travel Agency and ask for a quote. It costs you *nothing*, will surely save you money compared to a sailing you book on your own, and they’ll be the ones who handle any problems that may arise before or during your sailing.

So there you have it: The SATURDAY SIX Presents: A Kid’s Guide to the Wonder of the Seas! See you next weekend for the latest installment of the SATURDAY SIX, where we’ll look at something fun from the world of Disney and Universal. If you enjoyed yourself, be sure to check out the THEME PARK ENJOYMENT INDEX, giving a monthly recap of all the theme park news you need to know (and a lot more you don’t need to know, but we’re gonna tell you anyway). You can also follow Your Humble Author on Twitter (@derekburgan).

If you enjoyed this article, you will surely like the following: 

The SATURDAY SIX Sails on Royal Caribbean’s WONDER OF THE SEAS – the World’s Largest Cruise Ship

The SATURDAY SIX uses THE KEY on Royal Caribbean’s Wonder of the Seas: Is it Worth the Cost?

Six Reasons We Love Sailing on the DISNEY CRUISE LINE

SATURDAY SIX: Tribute to Josh easyWDW

SATURDAY SIX: Tribute to Ian Barritt

Special Thanks to The Elite Brandon Glover, Digital Maestro Scott Walker, the bio-est of all reconstructs @bioreconstruct, Captain Cruiseline Scott Sanders of the world famous Disney Cruise Line Blog, my personal protege Hunter “Elvey” Underwood, artist @SonderQuest, the mighty maven of merchandise Hedgehog’s Corner, the SAT SIX Fun Squad of Parkscope Joe and “the Dadalorian” Nick, hot shot Michael Carelli, charter member of the Universal Four @Nitro230, the permit princess Alicia Stella, master cartographer Tommy Hawkins, and Hermione Granger’s tutor Megan Stump for their invaluable assistance with this article. Absolutely no help was added by SeaWorld Influencer @SuperWeenieHtJr. The SAT SIX is inspired each week by goofballs Aengus Mackenzie and LitemAndHyde and you Potterheads will  enjoy Meg’s other blog work over at the Central Florida Slug Club.