Transatlantic cruise, Post 4: Cartagena, Spain

Our first port of call was Cartagena on the eastern side of Spain's mainland, and this was the day after we departed Barcelona. As it was a Sunday, only some of the more touristy shops in the streets near the port were open, so the town felt quite deserted - except for all the people off our ship!! We spent a few hours wandering around, and Ben got a t-shirt here, but that was about as exciting as it got!

Transatlantic cruise, Post 3: Activities and entertainment

Now for a summary of the activities and entertainment options on board...

Each night we were given a list of the activities and events for the following day. They had a "Vitality Rewards" program where we could collect a token each for various active pursuits. We tried to do a lot of these to make up for all the food we were eating!! There was the Walk-A-Mile (five times around the running track beside the pools on the top deck equalled one mile!), various ballroom dancing lessons, stretching and exercise classes, etc etc. We managed to collect 28 tokens during the sea days, and Ben exchanged 20 of them for a Vitality t-shirt at the end. :)

Other options included a library, regular movie screenings, a boardgames room (where we played Rook one day with our dinner companions Dave and Barb), ice skating, a few pools, and a gym! We didn't get around to trying out these last few things though.

We played shuffleboard a few times - this is a popular cruise ship game that involves using a stick to push a puck along the deck, with the aim of having it land on areas that are worth points. We played once with Dave and Barb (pictured with us below - the men won), and even went in a tournament! It's quite a relaxing and enjoyable game, and very easy to learn the rules (although landing the puck where you want it to go is not so easy!).



Our ship also had a rock climbing wall on the top deck, about two storeys high and out in the open with incredible ocean views. Ben climbed it while exploring the ship by himself early in the cruise, but I managed to avoid it until the very last day. :P However, I agreed I really should have a go even though I had never rock climbed before and was quite nervous as I have some issues with heights...

So Ben climbed it again, and I climbed it as well, and I'm happy to say that I made it to the top and rang the bell! But it was definitely amongst the scariest things I have done in my life, due to what seemed to be an oversupply of adrenaline that had my legs shaking uncontrollably (Ben could see this from the ground!) and my limbs frequently frozen in place even though my brain was instructing them to move!! I actually found it much more nerve-wracking (although over much sooner) than Go Ape! You're meant to use your legs to push yourself up where possible, rather than pulling yourself up with your arms, but the aforementioned issues made this almost impossible - so my arm and back muscles are still sore now, 3 days later! But I am glad I did it, and Ben was very proud of me. :)



In addition to various live music all around the ship throughout the day and night, a key highlight of the cruise was the nightly "Showtime" entertainment in the La Scala Theatre. This was usually at 9pm, and the artists would have already done a 7pm show for the people who eat at second sitting. Here are the performers we saw:

The world's leading Beatles tribute band
Jacqui Scott (a West End singer who played the lead in Evita and Cats, among others)
John Christie (an Australian singer who lives in England)
Renato Pagliari (an Italian tenor)
A British violinist whose name escapes me
Neil Austin (a British comedian/magician)
Los Pampas Gauchos (three guys from Argentina who played drums and performed stunts - pictured below)
Horizon (a motown trio from Des Moines - pictured below)
Fluoresence (fluoresent glowing puppets that seemed to float against a pitch dark backdrop - hard to describe but really amazing)
An American comedian, Bruce someone
The Royal Caribbean singers and dancers



As well as these, we saw an ice skating show called "Ice Odyssey" - similar to the Holiday on Ice show we saw in Brighton last year, but even better! It would have been incredibly impressive even on land, but the fact that the ship was moving and rocking a little made it even more amazing. They fell a few times but carried on hardly missing a beat. There were nine or ten skaters in bright glitzy costumes, performing choreographed dances and stunts such as the man carrying the lady above his head or spinning around with her hanging on only by her feet clutching his neck!! Absolutely awesome!!

One of the highlights of the ice show was seeing a Russian skater called Vladimir in the ice rings. I think he must be somewhat famous as he seemed to be a guest performer and was older than the others. The ice rings are difficult to describe, but click here to see a video of something similar - however, Vladimir was much better than this, and he rolled much lower and for much longer in both the double rings as seen in this video, and a single ring. Unreal!!

Anyway, that's an overview of what kept us occupied on the ship for 15 days - so we certainly had no reason to be bored!!! It really was a fantastic way to travel and we totally recommend it! Stay tuned and soon I'll post some photos from each of the ports of call. Goodnight!

Transatlantic cruise, Post 2: About the food

I think the food on board the Voyager of the Seas deserves a post all of its own, so here's a little bit about how it all worked...

At any time of day, we could eat at the Windjammer Cafe on deck 11 (great buffet variety) or Cafe Promenade on deck 5 (snacky things), and these were included in the overall price of the cruise. There were also a few eating places that cost extra. Although the majority of our daytime meals were eaten at the Windjammer, the Cafe Promenade also exerted a strong pull throughout the day as a result of its chocolate chip, triple choc, and coconut cookies - they actually even served these to us before the check-in process at the port in Barcelona!!

We ate breakfast almost every day in the Windjammer Cafe - there was a wonderful range of fresh fruit, individual serve cereal boxes, hot breakfast options, juice, etc. One day we ate in the formal dining room at breakfast - ordering from a menu, served by waiters, etc - very nice, and also all included in the price, but the rest of the time we chose the much faster buffet option.

For lunch, we mostly ate in the Windjammer Cafe too, with everything from salads to pasta to meat and vegetable dishes to choose from, and even the ingredients to make our own burgers, tacos etc. Not to mention the delicious desserts that were different every day! Also, twice we ate a three-course lunch in the formal dining room, and once we ate at Johnny Rocket's, an American hamburger chain. The latter included a USD $3.95 cover charge per person, then we could order whatever (and however much) we wanted. This was the only meal we ate on board that we actually paid extra for - not bad huh!!!

The photos below are of the fruit art (awesome!!) in the Windjammer Cafe on the day we boarded the ship, and the last photo shows Ben with our Oreo Sundaes at Johnny Rocket's.



Then, for dinner/tea, we were assigned a table in the main dining area, and ours was table 300 on deck 3. Our assigned dinner time was 6pm, the first sitting - there was also an 8:30pm sitting. Four other couples - all from the USA - were our dining companions each night at table 300. We got on very well with them - you can really feel quite comfortable with people after eating dinner with them every night for 2 weeks!! They are all pictured below, and in order they are: Dave and Barb from Louisiana, Doug and Barb from Washington state, Gary and Jennifer from North Carolina, and John and Loli from Texas.



Each day there was a dress code for dinner in the main dining rooms, and it alternated between casual, smart casual, and formal. We had three formal nights - the picture of us below is from the second one, somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. :)



The photos below are of our waiters - Francis from India (our waiter), and Jamie from Chile (our assistant waiter). They did a great job and were good fun too! On two or three nights, all of the waiters, assistant waiters and head waiters paraded through the dining room in a line, and then stood on the stairs and sang a song for us. I think the numbers were something like 110 waiters and 90 assistant waiters, and they were from 43 different countries!!



Now let's get down to the important thing: photos of food!!! :P Following are some photos of main courses and desserts we ate. The first photo is of the shrimp cocktail I ordered for an entree at least five times - yummy! And yes, we even had lobster!



You can see for yourself that the food was incredible and of a very high quality, so I won't go on about it. :) Suffice to say, every night the menu of entrees, mains and desserts was new and different, and sitting down to make and enjoy that exciting choice, in great company, was easily one of the highlights of the whole trip. :)

Goodnight!

Transatlantic cruise, Post 1: About the ship

Hi all! Well, we've made it safely to the USA and are currently at the home of some friends near Houston, Texas. For the past 15 days we have been slowly making our way across the Atlantic Ocean on the magnificent Voyager of the Seas.

We left Barcelona on Saturday 29th November and arrived in Galveston, Texas, at 7am this morning. We stopped at five ports along the way, plus had a total of 9 sea days, 6 of which were consecutive whilst crossing the Atlantic - not even a glimpse of land!

There is so much to tell about the last two weeks that I hardly know where to start, but I've decided to do a couple of posts about life onboard the ship, and then some posts about the ports of call along the way. So here are some vital statistics for the little tinny we called home for the past fortnight...

Vessel: Voyager of the Seas
Company: Royal Caribbean International
Weight: 125200 tonnes
Length: 311 metres (1020 feet)
Height: up to 15 storeys at the highest section
Guest capacity: 3114 (numbers were about 200 short of this on our cruise, plus there were 1200 staff)... the Voyager was the largest cruise ship in the world when it set out in 1999, although it isn't anymore
Click here for a virtual tour

So, in a nutshell, it was HUUUGE!!! And very grand - we're certainly not accustomed to such luxury!! We can't rave enough about the cruise; it was absolutely wonderful. The food was delicious and never-ending, the service was exceptional, the activities many and varied, and the entertainment incredible! More details about these in subsequent posts.

The great news is that it still cost less than our alternative option of flying to Canada and paying for two extra weeks of food and accommodation, so we are very happy!! Anyway, there is so much to write about, and so little time before we start accumulating more adventures, that I'll just have to leave it up to these photos to paint a thousand words...

The ship:



The top deck (deck 11):



The Royal Promenade (deck 5):



The main dining rooms (decks 3, 4 and 5):



Our stateroom (deck 6):



...And the AWESOME towel animals made by our stateroom attendant every second night: