Day 09 - At Sea

Our last day on the cruise was spent at sea traveling from Naples back to Barcelona. We woke up around 7am and made our way to breakfast. Today we decided to avoid the Windjammer and instead try Park Cafe in Central Park on deck 8.

The cafe was virtually empty when we got there. Most of the passengers were likely sleeping in on the last day of the cruise. Roy and Gwyn were just finishing up their breakfast and Ray was drinking his morning coffee. We all sat at a table a chatted a bit. We wished we had found this place earlier in the cruise to avoid the crowds. 

After breakfast we roamed the ship to get some pictures. 

We walked through Central Park and then went down to deck 5 and walked through the Royal Promenade. We enjoyed the solitude of so few people around. 

On deck 6 we walked along the boardwalk and took a look at the Aqua Theater and the two rock walls. You can also see the purple tubes of the Abyss dry slides as they snake and wrap their way from deck 15 above.

 

We walked up to deck 15 and made our way to the back of the ship where the two Flowrider pools are located (technically on Deck 16 but only accessible via stairs on deck 15 at the very back of the ship). We watched as people rode boards on the pools. We then walked forward on deck 15 to visit the Solarium at the front of the ship.

We then walked back down to deck 4 to have a look at the ice rink in Studio B. The morning session for ice skating was close to ending. Michele had intended to ice skate this morning but time got away from us so she will try to skate during the afternoon session.

We then took a 1-mile walk around the running track on deck 5. A single lap around the track is 0.42 miles. The track is outside but pretty well covered and flanked by the lifeboats. Michele noticed that each can carry 372 passengers.

Michele and Katlyn went to the ice rink to skate at 2pm and had to wait until 2:50 for their session. Marcia and Melvin came over to watch. Melvin decided to join in and he and Michele held Katlyn’s hand and skated around for the twenty minute session.

After the skating session, we went up to the zip line. These pics are of Katlyn and Marcia. Rob got video of Michele but no pictures of her. It took longer to strap in than the length of the line. 

 

Jason was already at the Flowrider and we saw him take a turn. He did really well.

Michele and Katlyn went down the Abyss dry slide again. Both were scared because the first time down was rough. They pushed through and yelled the whole way. Both said this time was much easier. They rode the merry go round (yes, a real one) until Marcia finished getting a new sea pass card. We then got ice cream to prepare us for dinner.

After dinner we packed up most of our clothing for leaving the ship tomorrow. Then we went to the 9pm showing of Flight. Flight is a musical put on by Royal Caribbean and highlights different eras of the history of flight: the start of civilian aviation, space flight, supersonic flight, aviation in WWII and the beginning of flight with the Wright Brothers. Many of the performers have amazing voices and the wire performances were pretty imaginative. The ending had a smaller replica of the Wright Flyer plane and it “flew” around the theater held by wires. 

After the show we finished up packing and watched some of World Cup before bed. Today was supposed to be relaxing and instead we did a lot of activities. We plan to get off the ship tomorrow before 8 am.

We really enjoyed our cruise. The ship is new and is a lot of fun. Our room was spacious and comfortable, and there was a lot of storage space. It was a good place for quiet away from all the activity and people. The staff was very nice and seemed to enjoy meeting people. The seas were the calmest of any cruise we have been on, much calmer than the Caribbean and Alaska. We really lucked out on weather. We all wanted to stay onboard another week.