Cradle of Civilization: The Ship

I've been mentioning that we really wanted to do this cruise with Royal Caribbean, but it might be good to explain why I was so set on this.  To begin with, as a travel agent I book more people on Royal Caribbean than any other cruise line and I wanted to get more experience actually sailing with them myself.  New ships are always coming out and the "feel" of a cruise line can change over time, so its good to try and stay as current as possible.  Also, I have always felt their prices were very good for what you got.

So, what do you get?  Well, its a very active experience aboard a Royal Caribbean ship, with lots of things to do throughout the day.  All the entertainment is free (if you don't count the casino!), so there are musicians performing virtually all the time throughout the ship, they have fitness areas, a video arcade, games at poolside, informational seminars on the ports you'll be visiting, a full-service spa, a movie theater, a live theater and even an ice skating rink.  No charge for any of this stuff!  I am not the type of person that just likes to lay around in the sun on deck all day--although they have a couple of nice pool areas on the top deck that Agnes would enjoy.  Here's one thing I would get to do to my heart's content:

Virtually all Royal Caribbean ships have rock climbing walls.  This  is me working on  a moderately challenging  section of the wall aboard the Mariner of the Seas.  Photos of me working on a more challenging section were too embarrassing to post.

This kind of thing can keep me busy for hours though there would be much more to see and do on the ship, as we would soon find out.  To begin with, we would be going on the Mariner of the Seas, which is part of the Voyager class of ships, one of the largest cruise ships in the world.

At over 1,000 feet long and nearly 140,000 gross tons, the Mariner of the Seas was built at a cost of approximately $650 million back in 2003.  With complete overhauls and inspections required a minimum of every 5 years, the Mariner had just been through dry dock in April of this year and got some brand new updates.  Amongst those updates were some changes made to its interior promenade (below):

Unique among cruise ships, Royal Caribbean's larger ships have interior promenades like this one running the length of the ship.  There are all kinds of shops, little restaurants, etc. on the floor while above some cabins for passengers actually look down on the spectacle below.

Our actual cabin aboard would prove really quite nice, providing plenty of space for two people throughout the two week cruise.  Of course, its good to keep in mind that we are not talking about gigantic, hotel-size rooms but rather very large ship cabins in all this.  For the mathematically inclined this is an area of roughly 275 square feet (not including 50 square feet for the exterior balcony or patio) or the size of one bedroom plus a half bath.  Lots of storage space and closets, but only a smaller shower rather than a bath/shower combo.  Anyway, our cabin would look like this when we first walked through the door:

At this point, however, I am getting a little ahead of myself since we would still actually need to get to the ship, which was a few thousand miles away in Rome.  And, of course, Rome would have its story with many sights to see which I'll put on my next post...