Day 21
This day we were in no hurry. We did have some plans, but they were all from lunchtime onwards. So I did not bother setting an alarm. We woke up just before 10:00. We must have needed our beauty sleep. We got up and ready and then headed out on the balcony. We were due to have our safe haven drill that morning at 10:30 so there was no point to move until then. I had read about this drill on a trip report from when the Quantum of the Seas did the same cruise so I knew what to expect. We also received a letter about this when we checked in. For a good chunk of the next few days we would be in Gulf of Aden and not too far off the coast of Somalia. There were issues with piracy in those waters in the past. A cruise ship is not really the target they are looking for and there has not been too much trouble there recently, however it is a good idea to be prepared.
At some stage when I came inside to get something, I could hear an announcement in the corridor, but this was not piped into the staterooms. That was kind of a useless exercise. I did step out into the corridor and although I had missed most of the announcement in English, I caught it in German not long afterwards. The drill was relatively straightforward. If you had a cabin with an ocean view or balcony, you had to line up in the corridor outside your cabin. If you had an inside cabin, you stayed put. Our stateroom host went around his section and if he saw people out in the corridor, he put an "evacuated" sign on the door. There were not that many people on our corridor. So at some stage he made the round of the cabins. Some were obviously empty as he put an "evacuated" sign on them. However, he flushed out a good many people that seemed to be blissfully oblivious to what was going on. I think it must have been the same story all over the ship as this went on for a good half hour and much longer than it should have done.
After we were finally dismissed, we headed back to the cabin to get some stuff and then we headed out. We headed up to the solarium for a bit. Graham headed back to the outside deck and I found myself a lounger to read. We did not spend much time there as we had somewhere to be, which was just as well as it was pretty warm even away from the windows.
Just before noon, we headed down to the Via. The Ovation has 4 different speciality restaurants. Two of them were very tempting, but as I was very excited about the complimentary restaurants, I did not make any reservations. Some of them were open for lunch and I had planned early on to visit Jamie's Italian for lunch. Originally I thought we might end there on embarkation day, but it took a little longer. Jamie's Italian is a restaurant chain owned by the UK celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. Like its owner, Jamie's Italian is a very casual affair. You essentially sit on patio furniture and instead of napkins you get tea towels. The emphasis is on simple fresh food. Even on the ship they make their own pasta daily. Their signature dishes are the antipasto planks, but I had other plans. We were the only people there for most of the meal. Towards the end a group of cruise director's staff arrived for some lunch. This is a real shame as the food was really fantastic.
Shortly after we were seated, our server introduced himself and brought some bread and the menus. He took our drink order. I had some Coke and Graham just had water. We got garlic ciabatta, breadsticks and another kind of bread with a mix of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping. I could have made a meal of this alone. For our starters, Graham went with the baked chestnut mushrooms with smoked mozzarella, thyme and crispy music bread. I had the pea and mint Arancini with herby cheese fonduta, which was delicious. For his main course, Graham tried the pasta and went with the Penne Carbonara. I stuck with the risotto theme and had the Risotto Caprese which was a tomato risotto with cherry tomatoes, baby mozzarella, basic and extra virgin olive oil. I also had a side of polenta chips with rosemary salt and Parmesan cheese. Neither of us really needed dessert after this, but our server was very convincing. Graham had the Amalfi Lemon Meringue Cheesecake, which he said was nothing special. So it looks like the curse of the cruise line dessert was alive and well in the speciality restaurants as well. I played it safe and had chocolate and vanilla gelato, which was divine.
Once we had finished our dessert and paid, we headed up to deck 15. We had something else planned for this day that was a long time in the making. We had another reservation for the escape room. This time we were in luck. When we got to the room, there were plenty of people there. We were still waiting for one other person and then we got going. There are now three escape rooms on Royal Caribbean ships. They are operated in partnership with Puzzle Break, which is a Seattle-based company. The Anthem of the Seas and the Ovation of the Seas have the same escape room. It is called Escape from the Future and is space-themed. The Harmony of the Seas also has an escape room called Escape the Rubicon. This is completely different from the one that we did and from reviews that I have seen, it has a lot of special effects. I am not sure that this is actually a good thing. Anyway, once everybody had arrived, the crew member running this laid down some ground rules and then we watched a short introductory video to set the scene. Then it was time to enter the escape room.
The room was not particularly big, but it was brightly lit and there were all kinds of objects around the room. We were encouraged to explore and that everything in the room could be part of the solution. So explore we did. Without giving away too much, we found puzzles as well as clues, which tended to lead to more puzzles and clues. There were word puzzles, crossword puzzles, Sudoku, etc. The group quickly split into smaller groups to solve the puzzles. About halfway though, the crew member advised us that we had found all the clues. Now we just had to figure out how everything fitted together. There were a couple of very tricky parts, but in the end we managed to solve it all with just 8.5 minutes to spare and escaped. Graham had been quite reluctant about doing this, but he actually really ended up enjoying it. I had a lot of fun, too. Before we all headed out again, we took a quick group photo.
We went briefly into the SeaPlex to check out if there was something interesting happening there. They had put the netting up and split the area into two different sports courts. In one half some people played volleyball and in the other half, people played indiaca. Graham was looking rather bemused. He had never seen this before. I suppose if you have never seen it before, it does look strange. It is played with something that consists of 4 feathers attached to a flat round base. When I still lived in Germany, I worked at a summer camp for 4 summers and indiaca was one of the camp sports. Even though I was utterly useless at it, seeing it played on the ship brought back very happy memories.
As there was not a great deal going on, we decided to get the iPad and telescope respectively and find a nice spot to hang out and relax. We knew that it would be too hot in the solarium and headed to Two70 instead. We managed to get some seats near the windows right at the back of the venue and enjoyed the view. I settled in with my book. We spent quite a while just relaxing and then crew arrived and essentially started to rearrange the venue. They started to set up for Spectra’s Cabaret. It was at that stage that I realised that a lot of what you can see at Two70 is not really what it appears to be.
It started that they moved furniture away from the carpeted area by the window and onto the stages. This seemed very weird. It then transpired that the middle of each stage is actually a lift and the furniture disappeared down to the next level. At some stage, we were asked to move. The next surprise was the planters. There were huge planters around the venue and they looked pretty permanent. However, it turned out that they actually contained individual potted plants that were removed to reveal more lifts. Those were for the performers. They came out to practise and warm up shortly afterwards. The ceilings were also hiding ropes for the acrobats. I was absolutely spellbound by the whole process. I watched the performers for a bit and then we decided to move on. At this stage, we went our separate ways.
I quickly went down to the Royal Esplanade where Puss in Boots was about to appear and this time he had a bit of a following. The line was still very short and soon it was my time to see him. His escort took some photos of us with my phone. After this, I checked out my photos before briefly heading back to the cabin to drop off some stuff before heading up to the spa.
I got there nice and early. I checked in and was directed to the relaxation room to wait. I was also given the obligatory health certificate to fill out. There was somebody else already in there as well, who got collected shortly afterwards. I had to wait a little longer, but I did not mind. At some point, my therapist arrived and we headed to the treatment room. She asked a few questions about what I was hoping to get out of the treatment and if there are any particular areas of concern and then she got going. She started with the full body massage and used hot stones for the top half of my body. You probably remember that I mentioned that I had a persistent knee injury. Well, it turned out that there was nothing wrong with my knee at all, but I had a very tight thigh muscle, which was pulling on my knee giving me pain. Once she had worked on this, my knee was fine. After the massage, I got a half body exfoliation followed by a facial and scalp massage. The last part was a collagen eye treatment. I felt thoroughly pampered. As the therapist had realised that I am very familiar with Elemis products and I had shared with her that I used them at home, I did not get the hard sell. When she came back to bring me some water, she just handed me a card with a couple of products I may wish to try. I could live with this.
I headed back to the cabin and got changed. Graham seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth so I decided to head for dinner figuring that he would turn up soon enough if he felt like dinner. He never did. I stopped for some photos outside the restaurant and then I headed in. Dinner was at Silk and this time we had a different menu. I went with choices from their signature section for my soup and starter again and had the Mulligatawny soup and the Vietnamese tacos. For my main course I had the Teriyaki Sirloin steak with Wasabi mashed potatoes and stir-fried vegetables. This was absolutely delicious. For my dessert I had some peach and green tea cake, which was OK, but nothing special.
When I got back to the cabin, I found Graham fast asleep. I got ready and then I headed to bed, too.