Take a transatlantic cruise

Story by Shauna Dobbie, photos courtesy of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines

Aship 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 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, trivia contests, crafts, karaoke, guest lectures, gambling and shows, you’d better be able to entertain yourself. The shows, by the way, include the usual “Broadway-style entertainment” in the ship’s theatre, diving shows at the Aqua Theatre and ice shows (think Ice Capades) at the rink. Also? There is no such thing as ship-lag. You lose an hour every day or two, and it’s really quite manageable. Plus, the cruise company has no port fees to pay and no in-port closure of the casino to deal with, so transatlantics are a good deal cheaper than other cruises.

At that time, Allure was the largest cruise ship on Earth. Royal Caribbean has since launched Symphony of the Seas and Harmony of the Seas, which take the numbers one and two spots respectively. They are slightly bigger but they’re all Oasis-class ships—they all have the same essential design with minor differences.

One thing that sets these ships apart is the Central Park venue. It’s an area on Deck 8 that is open to the air above. This, although there are 18 decks. It’s achieved through the unique design, with towers of guestrooms with balconies over the park on either side. The very cool thing about Central Park is the flowers, trees and plants.

The trees and plants in Central Park at night.

Inside the 150 Central Park specialty restaurant.

There are no loungers and the sun only comes over the sides of the ship at the peak of the day, so this is where I could be found most days, book open and enjoying the freshest air possible, from the middle of the ocean and cleaned by plants. I’m a member of the rare breed who do not care for sunbathing; I can spend a week or two on a beach quite happily as long as I’m in the complete shade of umbrellas.

David, on the other hand, is a sun worshipper. His favourite spots were on our balcony or on the upper decks. Of course, this was the end of April in the mid-Atlantic; warmth was not guaranteed all day. He would join me for a bit in my spot most days. We would meet for lunch then go back to hang out in our favourite places until it was time to dress for an early dinner. Then we usually hit the champagne bar before the restaurant.

The tradition on cruise ships is to have a main dining room and an always-open buffet. About 20 years ago, ships started adding some for-a-fee venues, known as specialty restaurants; originally, the fee you paid might be 10 to 20 dollars. Now there are a minimum of 3 on a ship and the added fee is at least 30 dollars, going up to 60 dollars. As well, casual eateries have been added that may or may not have an additional fee. On Allure, there was Johnny Rockets, a kind of 50s diner, and Rita’s Cantina, a Mexican joint. There was also a pizzeria called Sorrentos.

We dined at the main dining room most nights. We love getting glammed up for dinner after spending the day reading, and though there were only three formal nights (gown and tux!) on our two-week cruise, we made the most of the “smart-casual” nights by dressing more smart than casual: dresses for me, jackets for David. You can wear casual clothes at the buffet every night, but we never went to the buffet for dinner.

The chairs where Shauna would sit and read during the day.

A performer at the high-diving show.

We did try all the specialty restaurants, saving a few bucks by buying a dining package before the cruise. (You pre-purchase multiple specialty restaurants for a discount of about 10 per cent.) The specialty restaurants are mostly centred on Central Park. Giovanni’s Table is an Italian restaurant, 150 Central Park is supposed to be very fine dining, Chops Grill is for steaks and, way up on Deck 15, Samba Grill is a churrascaria, or Brazilian steakhouse, where they bring out endless just-roasted meats on a spit until you pass out in a meat coma.

Unfortunately, the specialty restaurants weren’t that special. The Italian was too salty and garlicky. The fine dining was tired. The churrascaria was not necessarily fresh off the grill. Adagio, the main dining room, was likewise uninspired. This is a problem on five-star cruise ships that has been developing for the past five or more years: the quality of the food is going down while the prices are going up. The different cruise lines will sign on a master chef everyone knows from TV then go about making everything banquet-style. When you have 5000 people to serve day in and day out, it seems to be the only way. Nonetheless, we did enjoy going for a romantic dinner every night dressed in our glad rags, and the food wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t great.

The purpose of our voyage was to get David away from the rigours and stresses of his job and to enjoy each other’s company. We had plenty of time to do that and were a little sad when the voyage was coming to an end.

We did make one stop; after 10 days at sea, we stopped at Malaga, Spain, and David and I took an astonishing tour of Alhambra. Then another day at sea before reaching Barcelona, where we got onto our plane well rested and ready to take on the world.