This freaking cruise ship, Anthem of the Seas, is a floating city. Not Boston or San Francisco or Seattle, but more like Las Vegas, New Orleans, or Key West. Other than eating and drinking, here are a few other things we enjoyed.
Kim did a little rock climbing.
Kim also tried out the skydiving simulator. We couldn’t get a picture of her, but she took this short video of another person. (If you are reading this in an email click here to go to the original post where you can see the video.)
The Anthem has an attraction called the North Star. It is a capsule that rises 300 feet above sea level and allows 14 or so individuals to take in the sights. The Northstar has one spot for a wheelchair user, although the user is required to transfer to Royal Caribbean’s wheelchair, for some unknown reason. Early in the week, when we were standing in line to get Kim a ticket for the attraction (I had no interest in transferring to their wheelchair) we bumped into an employee who works on that attraction.
“We have people transfer to our chair because we need to attach tiedown straps. Since your wheelchair can accept the straps, I don’t see why you couldn’t stay in yours.”
Kim and I decided to give it a try, knowing that if this employee wasn’t present, I might get denied.
On Wednesday, we arrived at the attraction as scheduled. “Okay,” the attendant said, “I can help you transfer to this wheelchair.” He pointed to an uncomfortable-looking manual chair.
“No thank you. I’ll stay in my chair.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to transfer to this chair. It’s a requirement. I’ll help.”
“I already spoke to the people loading the attraction. They said I would be okay. Go ask them.” He disappeared for a few moments. Unfortunately, my friendly attendant was not working at the time.
“I’m sorry,” he continued. “They said you have to switch over to the other chair.”
I choose my battles. Getting on this ride was not important to me. I just thought I would give it a try, and I appeared to have exhausted my options. A couple of men in line behind me offered their assistance.
“Thank you very much, but it’s difficult for me in the best circumstances, so I’ll take a pass,” I replied.
Kim continued up onto the ride and took these pictures.
Look on the jogging track and you’ll see me in my iBOT.
Kim wanted to try out the bumper cars, but the line was too long.
And we gambled. Kim plays video poker, and I like blackjack. Both of my wheelchairs elevate, but neither of them allows me to get close enough to the blackjack table so that I can place my own bets, so that I can move around my own chips. The dealers and my fellow gamblers were more than willing to help me out, and I made some friends along the way. Long story short, Kim and I lost our asses all week until a spectacular final day on the ship when we won almost all of it back in a few hours. Here is a picture Kim took of three potential Royal straight flushes, which would have paid handsomely. This photo was supposed to be the “before,” but alas there was no triumphant “after” photo, as she ended up only with a single flush, and not of the Royal variety.
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Woohoo! Exciting times. I was very disappointed when I read that you didn't get on the ride. I really wanted to hear what the experience was like for you. Still, I do understand the "choosing your battles" thing.
ReplyDeleteStu, rules, rules, rules….They drive me crazy at times.
ReplyDeleteThe staff who supervise the North Star were very bad. They were all over the place and it was just overall a very bad experience for me too. They gave my mom's and my spot to someone else that was booked for the next hour because they showed up first (we were on time for our booking). I deliberately picked that timing for a reason and without a sorry or anything, they just cut us off and allowed the other group to go. Every time I think about it, I get so mad. Not wanting to ruin my vacation, I didn't make a scene, but its definitely enough for me to never want to sail RCCL again. There is way too mich competition out there for them to be such a-holes.
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