Spectrum of the Seas Review: Day 17 – Sea Dayfeatured
When you think about it, the end of a cruise…it’s a little morbid, isn’t it?
I don’t know about you guys, but every time a cruise ends and we’re on our final day, whether I want to or not, my mind always races with lasts.
This is the last time I’ll wake up to a sea view.
This is the last time I’ll stroll The Via.
This is the last time I’ll have a slice of that bbq chicken pizza.
Of course, it’s never the end or the last – there’s invariably another trip that we’re planning. But it’s the last for now, on this trip, and I can’t seem to ever stop the thoughts from rolling through my head. I look back at this now and I don’t think in my wildest dreams, this would be my last sea day for almost three years – that a global pandemic would change how we travel for years to follow.
A quick peek out the window confirmed that it was still overcast and gray, which meant another day of not doing much at all. We started with breakfast up at the Windjammer, which was crowded but somehow a little more manageable. Maybe it was the timing. Maybe our expectations finally aligned with reality.
After breakfast, we headed down to the shore excursion desk to drop off our flight form for our tour the next day. They weren’t open yet (and it wasn’t even that early!), so we decided to go sit out on the promenade on deck five. I think the next time we book a balcony room, if we can help it, we’ll book on a lower floor. I’ll take any balcony over no balcony each and every time, but being on the 13th floor had us up so high that it was basically like being in a hotel room looking out on the water. Being lower gives you that distinct feeling of being on the water. I love that feeling so much.
When we got back inside, the shore excursion desk was finally open for us to drop our forms off and then we headed down to the Leaf & Bean to try the lemon coffee. I saw it on the menu all week. It looked pretty good. So I figured, what the heck, final sea day, lets try it. Lemon coffee? Not for me. One, I don’t like lemon, so as Stephanie pointed out, she didn’t know why I was ordering a lemon drink. Two, it was carbonated. Coffee shouldn’t be carbonated. Your mileage may vary, but lemon coffee? It’s a no from me.
With very little left to do after our coffee sesh, we hit up the shops, we walked around the ship, we took in as much as we could. We looked at the local delicacies in the gift shop (there weren’t many, much to my disappointment). We tried to figure out what the heck they were selling in the pharmacy. We took pictures. We took it all in and tried to commit to memory as much as we could.
And then when we had nothing left to do, we grabbed a quick lunch of Kummelweck sandwiches at Café Two70 and then went back to the room to nap. Because, hey, we were on vacation and nap time is a totally appropriate vacation activity!
Stephanie decided she’d had enough procrastinating and got to work on packing. I can never procrastinate enough – I sat and watched her. Packing is the worst. I don’t want to do it until I really have to.
When she needed a break, Stephanie and I headed out to the Seaplex to watch people surf the Flowrider and navigate the iFly wind tunnel. We walked around the decks and filled our time with as much of the entertainment as we could, enjoying it a little more because we knew our time onboard was coming to a close.
We had dining reservations for Chops, the onboard steakhouse, so we got fancied up one more time, took a few more pictures out on the promenade and headed to our last dinner.
I’ve always really enjoyed our meals at Chops and the Spectrum was no different – the food and the service were both stellar. A table full of Royal Caribbean execs (and Mom’s favorite former cruise director, Mr. Ken Rush) were seated at the table next to us and we were just kind of fascinated. How cool to have an executive-level job at a cruise line. Well, maybe in the “before” days. I’m sure it’s filled with a lot of headaches now. But man, what a fun job that would have been, back in the before.
As if we weren’t already acutely aware that our time onboard was drawing to a close, we had to check into our flight as we were finishing our meal. We noticed that, except for our Premium Economy cabin, most of the plane was empty. We received an upgrade offer to Business for $650 each and part of me seriously contemplated it, but we were plenty comfortable on the way in and the flight home was much shorter so we stuck to our Premium Economy seats and crossed our fingers for a smooth journey home (note from the future: lololololololol).
We were walking out of Chops when the captain came on to announced we had begun our entrance into the Yangtze River and were in a long line of ships and vessels to enter Shanghai (which is, apparently, a very busy port). He anticipated we’d dock around midnight, but there was a stunning sunset outside, so we hightailed it to the Solarium to catch it. We had a sweeping view of a truly lovely sunset, punctuated by a queue of ships that were indeed lined up in a very long line to enter mainland China.
I tried to stay outside as long as I could but Stephanie is wise to my shenanigans and told me I couldn’t avoid packing any longer. Packing was a PROCESS, you guys. I don’t remember shopping nearly as much as I did but finding a place for everything was stressful and chaotic, but ultimately we got it done with little time left to spare before our suitcases were due out in the hallway for collection.
To celebrate the fact that we didn’t have to deal with packing anymore, we headed up to the Windjammer for some ice cream and a walk around the Seaplex (which, by the way, also turned into a LASER TAG ARENA!! How cool is that?!). It was such a gorgeous night outside that I just wanted to soak it all in.
They were showing Welcome to Marwen on the outdoor movie screen, so we watched a bit of that. It was the perfect night for a poolside movie and while the movies weren’t our faves throughout the week, I wish we had made it out once or twice more.
Around 10:00 PM, we started entering Shanghai and by the time we started approaching the cruise terminal, there was a full on laser lights show with loud techno music. Welcome to China, I guess.
At some point, I just plain on passed out. I don’t remember going to sleep but I do remember asking Stephanie not to tell me what time we were waking up. Famous last words, right?
