Adventures of a part-time traveller.
17 September 2015
This is the final blog in the season, and to be honest the video isn’t the most exciting! We had a final sea day, another dinner in Silk, and then travelled home the following day!
Our final sea day was mostly spent packing, but we made time for a bit of reading, food, and some shows too! There’s always something going on!
On most ships I’ve sailed on, the documents for disembarkation are issued several days before the end of the cruise. I assume this is to allow them to work out when everyone needs to leave and issue tags accordingly. Because the comprehensive online check-in process for Anthem of the Seas asked this question, there was no disembarkation questionnaire at all towards the end of the cruise, and the first thing we knew about it was when luggage tags appeared on our bed half way through the last day!
As usual, the process was to attach the numbered tags to your luggage and leave them outside your stateroom by 10pm. We decided not to bother with this, and as a result had almost the entire disembarkation window to leave the ship. We found this convenient though I can understand why those with difficulty carrying all of their luggage wouldn’t do this.
Despite being the last day and being a bit rough at sea, Royal Caribbean kept the action coming with various shows and music happening around the ship for those who wanted it. We chose to see the pop-up pianist in a show in the main theatre.
They actually call him the Stowaway Piano Player and the idea is that he’s secretly entertaining us while evading the ship’s security. By the end of the cruise he’d been caught and was told that he could stay on the ship if he played a proper show for us in the theatre. He came on stage with chains and an orange jumpsuit marked Anthem of the Seas correction facility (or something like that) and then changed into a glitzy outfit soon after starting.
All good fun, and definitely worth watching him on the ship.
In the evening we saw a musician who apparently had some fame a while back when he hit the UK charts. A guy called Berni Flint. He has a Wikipedia page, so he must be at least a little bit famous! He was a fab singer and had an absolute lovely voice, so I’d highly recommend his show, which we saw in Two70º.
Immediately after this was a cover band called The Secret Police. We watched for a little while before deciding they weren’t our cup of tea, then went to bed!
The following morning we left the ship and lugged all of our luggage out to the car. Alex observed that every cruise we’ve had from Southampton (including this one) has started with glorious sunshine and finished with pouring rain! Oh well…
Getting out of Southampton was a little slow because of traffic, but nothing too horrendous. Once on the motorway it was a nice easy drive home with a couple of stops, getting us back in at around 17:30!
I really appreciate the comments and feedback that you’ve all given as I’ve been going along. It’s been wonderful to share our holiday with you and doing the vlog has been so much fun! I hope you’ve all enjoyed it, and I look forward to sharing our next trip with you… whether it’s a video blog or just an old-fashioned written one! (It’ll depend mostly on the internet!)
In the meantime, happy cruising!