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Hello everyone! Today I’m gonna be talking about my trip on the Utopia of the Seas. The Utopia of the Seas is a cruise ship owned by Royal Caribbean, a very large corporation that provides quality cruises mostly originating from Florida. They go to a variety of destinations like the Bahamas or Mexico. The first Royal Caribbean cruise I ever went on was actually to Mexico, but we only went to shore for one day. This time, on Utopia of the Seas, we were on it for four nights and five days. During this time, we visited two places: the city of the Bahamas and the Royal Caribbean private island, Coco Cay.

But before I talk about the cruise more, I just wanted to say something about the names of the ships. It seems to me that a large number of Royal Caribbean ships are named something “of the Seas”—for example, Symphony of the Seas or Star of the Seas. Just something I noticed that seems funny to me.

Anyway, back to the cruise. The reason we went on the cruise is because there was a conference aboard the ship. You see, my parents belong to this organization called AKMG—Association of Kerala Medical Graduates. I’ve mentioned them a few times on this blog, so if you’re a long-time reader you’ll probably understand what I’m talking about. Basically, it’s an association that serves as a meeting place for all the Kerala doctors and their families who have settled around the world. Of course, people do come from India itself for AKMG, but for the most part, people come from places like North America.

On this cruise, we had our annual convention and I was in charge of the kids’ club. We were planning on holding activities, but then we realized that the cruise itself is already such a full activity. So we figured we would just be taking away from the experience of enjoying a cruise, and we canceled all the organized activities. What I did do instead though was MC one of the programs. Since I wasn’t running the kids’ club events, I hosted the karaoke night and ran a little quiz for the audience, trying to get them to mess up on questions for fun.

Let’s talk about the ship itself. Utopia of the Seas has 18 decks. Each deck is divided into four sections: forward port, forward starboard, aft port, and aft starboard. These divide the ship into four quadrants and help people locate themselves more easily. Decks 17 and 18 are reserved for suites, but Deck 16 is the sports deck with a variety of activities like table tennis, mini golf, a teen club, a zip line, and a giant slide that goes from the 16th floor all the way down to the 6th. Deck 15 is the pool deck, with—you guessed it—a variety of pools. The waterslide entrances are also on Deck 15, though the actual slide entry platforms are technically on Deck 18. However, you can only get there through Deck 15, so I don’t really count Deck 18 since there’s not much else up there.

There were three slides. Two of them—the blue and yellow—went off the left side of the ship and were low difficulty, just some twisty stuff, pretty basic. On the right side though was the orange slide called Supercell, and wow, that one was high difficulty. It was actually kind of scary because you went really fast and got swirled around a bowl three times before getting funneled into the center. You had to orient yourself the right way or you could risk hurting yourself. I got really scared because I went into the bowl in the wrong position—head down—and ended up hitting my head because of how fast the walls spun. I never went on it again after that.

Anyway, now onto the 14th floor. The 14th floor was mostly daycare and rooms. Oh yeah—back to the 15th floor—I forgot to mention there are two complimentary restaurants there: the Solarium and the Windjammer, where you could go for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Though you can’t go to Solarium for lunch. The Solarium also had an adults-only area with a whirlpool, bar, cabanas, etc.

There were also two open areas on the ship: one on Deck 6 called the Boardwalk and one on Deck 8 called Central Park. Central Park was towards the front, while the Boardwalk was towards the back. The Boardwalk had a small movie theater, the exit to the Abyss slide I mentioned earlier, two rock climbing walls, rooms facing inward, a variety of restaurants, an arcade, a carousel, and lots of other fun stuff. Central Park, on the other hand, was more restaurant-focused with places like Izumi (a sushi place), a grill house, and other fancy restaurants. Central Park also had live musicians—just like Deck 5, which had a smaller band playing too.

Speaking of music, on Decks 9 and 8, there was a music venue. Deck 9 had a pool table and some balcony seating, while Deck 8 had the actual stage with all the instruments, a bar, and snack tables with chips. Different styles of music were played each night, such as jazz on the first day and disco on the last day.

The back of the ship also had a huge dining room that took up a large number of floors. The dining room had lots of menu options, excellent service, and a dedicated team of chefs. There was also a casino and a theater on Deck 4. The casino was pretty busy, but the theater was less visited. There were aqua shows too, but I couldn’t find where they were, and after hearing from friends that they weren’t great, I decided to skip them.

There were also a lot of complimentary food spots around the ship, like Sorrento’s on Deck 5, which was a 24/7 pizza place. There was also Sprinkles, an ice cream place with—you guessed it—customizable sprinkles. It only had two flavors (chocolate and vanilla) and a twist option, so I guess technically three. Me and my friends—Ethan, Ayan, Kanav, and Arnie—visited the ice cream shop a lot. It was also right next to the towel station, which made it super convenient.

Most of the time on the cruise, I was with my friends exploring. We found cool things like the jogging track on Deck 5, which also had a hidden shuffleboard court and a disco table. We never ended up playing shuffleboard though because the people already there were taking forever to finish. Still, it was a fun discovery.

Now let’s talk about the shore excursions. During the cruise, there were lots of activities on the ship, but also things to do off the ship. On Days 2 and 3, if you had booked in advance, you could leave the ship and explore. On Day 2 we went to Nassau, and on Day 3 we went to Coco Cay.

We stopped at Nassau for about half a day. Many of my friends, including Kanav, got off the ship and visited the city. They went to the beach, did some shopping, and checked out some sights. In my opinion though, Coco Cay was way more exciting.

Coco Cay is tailored for the ultimate cruise experience. It has waterslides, exotic activities like dolphin swimming, a huge beach, tons of restaurants with great food, bars, and other cool stuff. In fact, it was even used in a MrBeast video where he compared different luxury islands. The island’s full name is Perfect Day at Coco Cay because—yep—you’re supposed to have a perfect day there. I thought it was really cool that MrBeast featured it, and it just shows how luxurious the place is. Royal Caribbean owns and operates it, which is impressive since it’s pretty far from other islands—it takes about a day at sea to get there, even on a big ship, so the logistics must be tough.

Back to the ship—most of the floors were state room floors with a few activities mixed in. I didn’t explore every floor, just the ones that seemed interesting to me like 15, 16, 5, and 4. If you ever go on one of these cruises, there’s a map in the Royal Caribbean app that shows you everything—each deck, each restaurant, all the events, and even how to connect to Wi-Fi.

Speaking of Wi-Fi, there was free phone Wi-Fi in common areas. But to connect, you had to download the app, log in, and turn off something called iCloud Private Relay. If your phone didn’t have that setting, you had to buy an internet plan, which was super annoying because it cost around $100 per device. There were also Coca-Cola machines around the ship that worked with a drink package. If you had it, they’d give you a special bottle that let you use the machines to get all kinds of drinks like Sprite, lemonade, Coke, and juice.

Now let me talk more about the AKMG part of the trip. There were a lot of activities, and it was inclusive for the kids too. On the first day, there was a general board meeting about upcoming events and the future of the organization. I didn’t go to that—it didn’t seem that fun—but I did volunteer at the registration desk for about two hours. I was joined there by a few members of the Young AKMG chapter from Florida, who were also helping out. They were really organized and helpful, and they made sure everyone got their badges, event info, and welcome kits smoothly. I say this because they wouldn’t let me do anything so I was sitting there in a corner for 2 hours straight. It was an okay way to start the cruise, because during that time I just checked out the ship map on my phone and planned out the rest of the day.

On the second day, I MC’d the karaoke night like I mentioned earlier. On the third day, there was a fashion show. My friend Ethan was actually in it, along with his sister. The fashion show had lots of people in it, all with different themes—mostly flowers, but also ocean and cruise-related ones.

Finally, on the fourth day, there was a big music show featuring famous singers from India. Throughout the cruise, there was also a raffle draw fundraiser run by the AKMG Florida chapter, where they gave away prizes like a $250 gift card, a diamond ring, and $2000 (I think they canceled the last prize though). To wrap up the trip, we had a gala night dinner at the Solarium on the night of July 3rd, just before the Fourth of July. It was a nice dinner with Indian food—though it could’ve used more spice.

I hope if you ever get the opportunity to see the ship or go on it, that you do. Anyway, bye everyone and see you later!

Sharing comments from readers! Thank you everyone.

Great. Very well written.

Great Farhaan! Learnt new things.

A big shoutout to Farhan Haroon for writing such an amazing blog post capturing his experiences at the AKMG Cruise Convention! Your vivid storytelling made us feel like we were right there with you—celebrating, connecting, and making memories. Truly a delightful read!

“…So we figured we would just be taking away from the experience of enjoying a cruise, and we canceled all the organized activities….“- 👌👍👍

Fantastic Farhan! 😘
I never knew there was an opportunity for free WiFi at least in common areas!

Great job Farhan ❤️👏

Beautiful write up Farhan!

Way to go Farhaan 🥰

Wonderfully written Farhan, all in such detail giving us glimpses into areas some of us did not even know about !!! It was fun to be a co MC with such a cool kid ☺️❤️

Great write up, very detailed!