Cruisin'

There was a neutron scattering conference scheduled for the first week of September in Zaragoza Spain. It just so happens that one common route to get there is through Barcelona. I found out in January about the conference and immediately starting planning our Mediterranean vacation.

 

We booked a week on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, Allure of the Seas. This thing is a monster. While we were in Pompeii there was a Britsh couple that told us it was the biggest cruise ship on the water. We did a little checking, and sure enough, it is. I think it holds something like 7500 people. It is a city floating around on the water. The schedule took us from Barcelona to the Spanish Island Mallorca, to Marseille France, to La Spatzia Italy, Civitavechia Italy, Naples Italy, then back to Barcelona.

 

 

 

There is always food available on a cruise ship. You can have room service free of charge from 5:00 AM to 1:00 AM. There is a giant buffet for three squares as well as the formal dining room for dinner, and there are random food stands about with various hours. One such place was called the Boardwalk. It had a hot dog stand with amazing hotdogs. There was a merry-go-round, a donut shop, a burger joint, fun mirrors, a Mexican restaurant and a giant Aqua theater. Just this one place on the ship was the size of a Walmart.

Looking down onto Boardwalk

 

There were also specialty restaurants you could book and pay more for. These were all located in a courtyard in the middle of a ship that was about half the size of Market Square. It was filled with plants and benches. At night they turned on the cricket sounds. It has been almost three years since we heard crickets. Even though they were fake we still sat many a night and listened. The specialty restaurants were still all you could eat and you could order anything and everything on the menu you wanted. We tried it out one night at the Italian restaurant.

 

 

 

There is also a lot entertainment. There was a full sized casino, the promenade, and an indoor theater in addition to the aqua one. There were about 4 other "clubs" to hang out in too. The second night on the boat we went to the water show and a few nights later I went to see the musical in the main theater. They were both really good.

 

Promenade

Every evening the caretaker of the room came in for turn down service. The mood lights were turned on and a couple of nights we got towel animals. This one just happened to be wearing my sunglasses. He would also leave the "cruise compass" in the room. It was a 4 page flier with an insert telling you everything you needed to know for the next day. We would spend some time each night planning for the next day.

 

Of course there were also acres of sun decks with pools and hot tubs. We spent most of our time in the solarium.

 

Just because they could, there was also an 83 ft zip line, two rock climbing walls, and two wave riders.

 

Our room was awesome. We had a couch and TV and desk, and also a balcony. We got to see a lot of fantastic sunrises and sunsets. We slept with the door open most nights to listen to the water and take in the warmth.

 

The travel schedule was packed, more posts to come on that, but we still found some lazy time. Even if you never got off the boat you could do something different everyday and be completely entertained. There were shops and random musicians, putt putt, a spa, a gym, it was way too much to take all in. We had such a fabulous time and feel super lucky to have had the chance to go.

 

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