Cruising
Take a transatlantic Story by Shauna Dobbie, photos courtesy of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines
A
ship with a merry-go-round. Neighbourhoods. An ice rink. Mini golf. A climbing wall. A zip-line. And it was only half full! My husband David and I took the Royal Caribbean Allure of the Seas from Fort Lauderdale to Barcelona in April of 2015. It was in celebration of our 25th wedding anniversary. The ship was on its way to drydock for refurbishment, but unless you take a suiteclass level stateroom, not much has changed. (If you do travel in a suite, you now have a dedicated lounge.) Now, there are a few things about the Fort Lauderdale 38 • Spring 2020
to Barcelona route that you need to consider. There are no ports for 10 days. Some ships might stop in the Bahamas on day one or go north a bit to Bermuda on one end or the Azores on the other end, but even then, you’ll be eight days without a port. This means you can’t contact anyone from home without incurring great expense (unless you pay for a data package with the ship, again at great expense). And if someone does call from home with an emergency, you cannot leave. Not even if you could afford a helicopter evacuation. On a less serious note, aside from drinking, eating, The Hub
