Spectrum of the Seas Review: Day 13 – Sea Dayfeatured

Vietnam had been everything we’d hoped it would be and the places we’d already seen on this trip and the things we’d done – I could not have asked for more.

Well, that’s not true. Sleep. I could do with more sleep. It’s hard, right? Between the jetlag, the excitement and the coffee, I wasn’t really sleeping much at night. The minute I did the time conversion to home and my mind recognized that it was barely the start of the work day at home, my body refused to sleep. I don’t think I know how to slow down on port days, so I let exhaustion roll over me as I counted down to the next sea day, the next pause where there wasn’t any pressure to do much of anything and I could just relax.

It was especially important for us to relax ahead of our time in Hong Kong because even though it was an overnight port, there was just SO much to do and see and EAT! So when I woke up and saw nothing but blue seas ahead as far as I could see off the balcony, it was like a big exhale. I could get up, I could go back to sleep, I could get up and THEN go back to sleep. Whatever got me through the day.

We opted to get up because there was only one thing that was really going to get me through the day and that was coffee. Is cruise ship coffee the best? No, not really when you think about it. But when it hits? It hits. We stopped trying the Windjammer. There were next to no smaller tables (which made sense – the ship was designed for the Asian market where you typically see larger families cruising together) and we weren’t going to be those people who took up a table for eight with the two of us, our beach bags and the empty Splenda packets from all that coffee. So that left us with another breakfast down at Café Two70, where the options were less robust, but not having to circle the dining room four times to find a table made up for it.

After breakfast, we headed up to the pool to catch some sun and quickly found loungers. The sun was in overcast and the main pool was shockingly empty. We didn’t last long – it was too hot – and as we were leaving to see if we could ride standby on the North Star, we made a shocking discovery: THE COVERED POOL DECK WAS AIR CONDITIONED! Yes, the smaller mid-ship pool was domed and refreshingly frigid from a steady blast of sweet air conditioning. File that under “Things We Wished We’d Learned On Day 1.”

The North Star was a bust – they were only offering rides to casino VIP’s for the first two hours, but since there weren’t really any, it was mostly going up with just a couple of guests or sitting and waiting.

With storm clouds looming and the North Star shut down for those of us who don’t know the first thing about gambling, we were kind of limited with our options. There wasn’t much by way of daytime entertainment, so we headed over to the Solarium. On most of Royal Caribbean’s fleet, the Solarium is adults-only. On the Spectrum, however, all ages are allowed in the Solarium. The time of year meant there weren’t many kids anyways so it wasn’t a big deal for us, but it was much more crowded than the other two pools (and definitely more resort-like!).

The only thing left to do was grab lunch and we had plenty of options, but we ended up back at Café Two70 because it was our running favorite for a light meal or snack. The food was great and everyone else was cramming themselves into the Windjammer so it was win/win. We grabbed some sandwiches and salads and eavesdropped on the gossip from the dance troupe a couple of tables over.

The seas were really starting to roll beneath us and storm clouds loomed in the distance. There was no trivia, no deck competitions and not much else to do, so we did what we do best: we went back to the room, showered off the sunscreen and spent the rest of the day lazing around. We took naps, we watched TV (well, for a bit – the only things on were Chinese movies and old Glee episodes), we Googled everything we could about Hong Kong and made maps of the places we wanted to see and when we ran out of things to do, we ordered an obscene amount of room service and sat on the balcony. If nothing else, I was coming into Hong Kong rested, refreshed and ready to hit the ground running.

We had late dinner reservations, so we napped off the room service and then took our time getting all glammed up. Some people don’t like to get dressed up on cruises. Some people go full glam every night. We’re somewhere in the middle. I like the excuse to get dressed up and wear things other than yoga pants and top knots, but across all the cruises we’ve been on, it’s always run on the same very wide gamut.

As we were strolling around on deck, we noticed a short line for the North Star and hopped over, getting the last two standby spots for the day. The views were much better at sea than the first time we rode when we were in port! And the sunset – it was a beauty.

We finally made our way to Sichuan Red for dinner and I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. Sichuan Red features Chinese cuisine, but it’s not like the Mongolian Beef and Wonton Soup that you get at your local Chinese restaurant – this was much more authentic, refined Chinese food. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the menu options (bullfrog, sea cucumber and fish, oh my!), but everything we ordered was incredibly good and the service was phenomenal. The only downside was that because were dining so late, they had already run out of a few of the things we wanted to order, but we certainly didn’t go hungry.

Sichuan Red is specialty dining restaurant and the menu was priced a la carte. Using our specialty dining package gave us a stipend of $70 ($35 per person, pooled together by party) and that got us plenty of food.

After dinner, we headed over to the Music Hall, which was packed for a performance from a Journey tribute band. The Music Hall might be my favorite entertainment venue at sea – it feels like a real concert venue, almost like a mini floating House of Blues.

There wasn’t much to do after the show, so we headed back to the room and called it a night. We still felt woefully unprepared for our first day in Hong Kong – we thought we were docking downtown and just came to realize we’d be docking at Kai Tak, which is a bit further out. A day of coffee and naps kept me awake far later than I should have been awake, but that just gave me more time to scroll through the Hong Kong tags on Instagram and get excited for the two days ahead of us.