Life's A Ride!

The live stage show onboard the 
Anthem of the Seas 
is We Will Rock You
with music by Queen.
It was very appropriate for this voyage!

  
Hope you're still with me out here in the
smack dab middle of the North Atlantic.
The poor captain is predicting calmer seas every
day, but that hasn't happened yet.
We are up to about day 5, and all of the unique
onboard activities have had to be cancelled.
The ship has bumper cars.
Cancelled.
The joke was that we had bumper people instead.



There is something called iFly, which
simulates people flying in air in a big tube.
 Cancelled.



Now those two things didn't affect me.
I was too chicken to do them anyway.

But...
this trip was all about rides to me.

You remember this

in London!


Well, this

was to be my ride on the Anthem.
Except that it goes up 330' over the ship,
and that wasn't safe on our rockin' and rollin' seas!
It is called the North Star.


So every day we hoped for calmer seas
and winds.
The wind was the real culprit.  
It could be no more than 30 m.p.h.
On Day 6, I got all ready and went up early
to get in line.
36 miles per hour.  Boo.
At that time I resigned myself to the fact that
I might not get to ride it. 


I took this photo of a couple who had been 
out on one of the open decks on Day 6.
I caption it:
"Typical Cruise Attire on the Anthem Transatlantic!"

Many of the shows had to be postponed, too.
Some involved suspended acrobatics.
Too dangerous.
Some of the glass elevators were taken out of service.
But I was still never seasick.
(Or stuck in an elevator!  Some people were!)
I just wanted to ride my ride! 


I did get to:

Have a massage and my hair done...

 The waiting area.

I liked my hair!


 Tour the galley...

Chopping English bacon.
I never made it to breakfast to have any! 

and the bridge...

 The two men are just chatting. 
No one is "driving" the ship!

The closest ship to us at about the 2:00 position.

A rear view from the bridge.

Pretty!



 This is a very new-agey, techno-marvel ship.
I loved this elevator art, which was inside the 
non-glass elevators.

They always made me smile as I tumbled
into the elevator!


A couple of beautiful shots.

A fabulous chandelier.

The giant silver tuba sculpture--with funky lighting.
My friend Linda took this. 

The most beautiful of the restaurants--Silk

 Surf and Turf from American Icon--
I had this twice!


And then it was Tuesday.  Our last day,
and my last chance for a ride on the North Star.
The weather forecast was very promising.
North Star opened at 9:00 A.M.
So I got up early and was all bundled up
and in line by 8:30.

The line was already very long, but I never hesitated.
If it had taken me all day I would have waited.
The weather was very tolerable.
I had lovely "queue" mates.
They even let me do this for a while.

 And about 2 hours later, it was our turn!

AMEN!!!


Now I can go home!
Wait til you hear about that part!  
And you won't even have to wake up before
the crack of dawn like I did to see it!  

The Main Event

Yes, London was just to be the warm-up act.

To my great delight, it turned out to be so much more!

At 10:30 A.M. on Tuesday morning, October 27th,

I was picked up at my hotel by a 

Royal Caribbean Cruise Line bus for 

transfer to the cruise terminal in

Southampton, England.

Just look what was waiting for me there!

Didn't I get a great shot?
And all that printing I managed to get on there!


Actually, I was only able to snap bits of the ship
through the bus window as we arrived at the port.

 And there would be no more opportunities for
an overall shot of the ship.
No--I was off for 8 days at sea,
crossing the N. Atlantic to the good old U.S.A.


My stateroom was another small room for one only!
No paying double--no single supplement.
For the first time ever, my luggage actually
beat me to my room!
Here I am arriving at 7652.

 (No making fun of my quantity of luggage allowed.)

 

The size of the room was perfectly fine.
It had a balcony--but no chair in the room.
That was the only drawback.
The bathroom was standard size--plenty big.


If you will click on that last picture you will see
a black bracelet in a plastic holder on the bed.
That was my WOW band.
It opened my cabin door, charged items to me,
opened the Concierge Lounge door, etc.
I LOVED IT!
With the band on, I couldn't lock myself out
 of my room!
(Which I usually do a couple of times!)


I had studied the ship's features extensively,
so I didn't miss much!
I headed for "270" (degrees exposure, I think.)
That is where the famous roast beef
sandwiches are on the Anthem!

 270 is Huge!
Complete expanse of the back of the ship.
I don't know how my camera angle managed 
to make it look small.


Royal Caribbean did an excellent job with
my dining table placement.
I was with 2 other ladies traveling solo--
one from near Houston and one from Florida.

Here we are in the nicest restaurant--Grande.

That's Linda in the center and Donna on the right.

Donna was actually my next door neighbor--

7650 to my 7652!

Linda and I enjoyed some shows together.

Great match, RC!

For a person who had no chair in her room, this

was life saving--or at least back saving!

 I spent lots of time here.

Cappuccinos, lattes, etc. here 24/7.

Through the web site Cruise Critic I had volunteered
my cabin for the "Cabin Crawl."
Groups traveled around looking at all the
different cabin categories.
The ship was rocking and reeling so bad that
I joked that we might all have to end up
actually crawling to see the cabins.
In fact, here's a video taken in 270 as I was
waiting for the Cabin Crawl to begin.

We were hit by several exceptionally big waves.
I don't know if you can tell, but I just
happened to be filming when this one came along.
Those two ladies are rushing over to try to
photograph it.

After only about a day and a half of mind-bending
effort, I managed to get the wave visible from here!!!
Just click below,
even though the print is not very mammoth!



Mammoth wave


I got to visit one of the two story suites.
Fabulous!

Not only a chair--a sofa!!!

I got to sit out on my balcony for a while

a couple of days.

 I really have no idea how I took this picture!

At noon on Halloween the captain delighted in 

telling us we were exactly halfway between

Southampton and Bayonne, NJ, our destination.

Incidentally, I loved our captain.

He began every announcement with:

"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen.

Good afternoon dear guests,  good afternoon

dear crew."

I hope there really was as much concern for

the crew on this ship as there seemed to be.

Here I am with Captain Claus:

(which he pronounced "Close.")

 Just a little f.y.i.
I can't stand fake backgrounds!
Now how could we possibly be standing as pictured
when we're in the middle of the Atlantic?
But the picture was free.

Sharing my adventure with you takes me almost
 as long as the adventure itself did!
But...do come back.
The best is yet to come!