I’ve been fighting a migraine most of today, it finally seems to have ebbed. I’m so ready for bed. We packed a lot into today. Just waiting for the first day balloon drop, then I’m making a beeline for our stateroom.
The water show we saw really seemed like the idea sprung from “Dune, but make it on a water planet instead.” It was extremely impressive, all female performers, true athleticism on display.
The water show surpassed my expectations—the performers shared responsibilities as tightrope walkers, acrobats, high divers, dancers, and synchronized swimmers. This was all set on pool containing hydraulic floor panels to convert swimming areas into walkable surfaces. Not sure how well these photos will do it justice:
After the show, we went to the midnight balloon drop.
Personally, my highlight was the watching the Rising Tide bar descend from Central Park to deck five. This is where it rests:
And here it is descending:
And then I didn’t take a picture once it got down because there were a bunch of people sitting in it and looking at me, and that would have been weird.
Is there an arcade on the ship?
My parents love cruises. They’re all-inclusive, you sample each destination and my Dad is an extremely picky eater so he can fall back on the basics if he doesn’t like the local cuisine. So I’ve been on more than a few since I was a kid.
Vacation spaces (hotels, boardwalks, cruises and theme parks) are great ways to gauge the health of arcades. in the mid-aughts when I went on cruises the Carnival ships had Time Crisis, House of the Dead, F-Zero AX(!), Initial D, Tekken 4, and Metal Slug, to name a few. They were packed with teenagers and it’s where I spent all my time on the ships. I went on a cruise in 2011 and all those kinds of games were still there, but flash forward to my next cruise in 2023 and you’ve got a claw machine and some Raw Thrills malarkey awkwardly nested in a hallway to the daycare. I did a P&O cruise last month to the Canaries (I highly recommend visiting the Canaries but do not recommend P&O!) and they only had a claw machine in the casino.
I like to think that F-Zero AX is waiting for your quarters in a Carnival warehouse in Miami.
There is up by the kids areas. We haven’t run into it yet. I’m pretty sure you still have to pay separately to play the games.
i’ve told my barcade operator friends to get one if they can, that people would travel out of state to play em
where’s the tibster
Is there a map of the ship
Is this the closest we’ll ever get to a SB meetup on a cruise ship? Maybe after jsnlv has reached the top of the corporate ladder we can work out a deal.
My parents used to make escargot at home from time to time. It’s not that fancy people, it’s snails for gods sake
not everyone was born with a SILVER SPOON FULL OF SALTY SNAILS in their mouth cuba
You don’t use a spoon, it’s a tiny fork
yes thats part of the declasse joke im making thank you!
You act like I didn’t make the initial post just to let you make that first response
Who’s straightmanning who here
WHO INDEED I NEED MORE PICTURES OF PRETTY CRUISE SHIP OR IM GOING TO EXPLODE WITH RAGE OVER HERE
There are more complete versions on the Royal Caribbean website—just look up the ship (Wonder of the Seas) and access the deck plan.
Here’s one of the onboard maps:
Other photos from today:
Central Park from above. I think this might have been while we were going to breakfast this morning?
Our first port of call was “Perfect Day at Coco Cay”, Royal Caribbean’s private island. I worried before the trip that we’d feel like we were missing out if we didn’t purchase passes to the water park, but it turns out we’re both wiped out and were more than content to just chill in the adults only beach, Hideaway Bay.
The second show of the week: Voices, an a capella celebration of music and humanity. Most of the percussion and more demanding voicework was pre-recorded, and while the show was reasonably impressive, they lost me when they tried to pair recordings of the first moon landing and King’s “I Have A Dream” speech with an image of Tesla’s fucking owner.
Tomorrow is our first sea day with no port access.
Yeah, we slept in, went to the buffet for breakfast, then left the ship for the private island. There x can be two ships there at once, but it was just us today. Even with two ships the island is pretty big so i imagine it wouldn’t really impact anything, like finding a chair. We opted to pay like $20 each for access to the adults only area, which has a cove beach and heated party pool with a swim up bar and dj. We didn’t even make it to the pool, which is just as well as it would’ve been SO LOUD given how easily we could hear the music from the beach. And of course once we were out of the water Jason promptly fell asleep. I easily could’ve in the hammock I was in but luckily I didn’t since I was in direct sun and would’ve been so so burned.
Apparently Norwegian Cruise Line has their own private island next to RC’s and they were there today. No dock on that island, so the ship was moored out in the water and they ran like shuttle boats back and forth. It also left at the same time as us and last we knew was sailing parallel to us. We could see it from our balcony.
Did some disappointing trivia before dinner and Jason managed to spill his drink on me. We ate at the sports bar for dinner and had poke nachos that were very good. Back to the room for a nap before the Voices show. Talented performers but a let down overall, especially after that hard to top water show last night.
We are currently in Central Park listening to a jazz band from Hungary. For being in the dead center of the ship, it is breezy enough that I’m cold. But it is basically a wind tunnel.
I can’t believe this thread is making me kind of want to go on a cruise. This is the first time I’ve ever been remotely interested in that.
Thank you for liveblogging, this is great!
I never thought it would be something I would enjoy/ could afford until he got the job with the cruise line and learned he had the option to take a free cruise. Honestly thought I’d hate it until basically we stepped on board. Especially since this line caters to families and it’s spring break so there would tons of kids. But this ship is so damn big and has plenty for just adults. I still can’t stomach how expensive it is, even with us getting the room itself for practically nothing. I get the cruise lines make their money on the incidentals like the drink packages, but fuck. It would have been $1200 for the drink package for both of us, since both of us would have to purchase it. I really don’t know how people afford this when they are paying a normal rate for the room.
I think if we cruise more in future we’ll look at sailings out of Baltimore or NYC/NJ. I can stomach the cost of a drink package or excursion more if we aren’t also paying for flights.
if anyone ever wants to do the icon of the seas for real lmk
it is my white whale and I will do an extremely problematic queequeg bit the whole time to demonstrate this
