After an exciting morning of getting on board our first Royal Caribbean ship, we decided to spend some time exploring the ship.  Our first stop was the indoor pool area.  This area had a retractable roof (that was always closed during this trip).  There were two separate pool areas (one near the bar) and two hot tubs.  This area remained surprisingly uncrowded during the entire cruise.

We then moved over to the Solarium, which is an adult only pool area for cruisers 16 and above.  There is a cafe inside the Solarium which we visited several times during our cruise.  We found the Solarium to be much busier and crowded than the indoor family pool area.  This area was wonderful in terms of having an enclosed glass area for scenery watching, especially wildlife.

The Solarium has lots of seating, including lounge chairs and large day beds.  There are loungers on the interior and also along the glass walls.  There are tables near the Cafe as well.

The Solarium also contains a bar to handle all the adult beverage needs. 

The very front of the Solarium has a row of chairs that face outwards.  These were prime locations during sea days and on the glacier day. 

Immediately behind the row of chairs and deck area, are two hot tubs, one on each side of the ship.  They aren’t quite on the glass at the front of the ship, but they are very close. 

Between the hot tubs are several loungers that sit in fairly shallow water.  These would be great for cooling off during a Caribbean cruise, but I don’t know how well they worked out on this cold weather cruise.  It was warm enough inside the Solarium though that there were people using them during the cruise.

Behind the loungers are two different levels of pools.  The pools aren’t deep, but enough to sit in and be covered up to a person’s neck.  Behind the pool is the bar that I spoke of earlier.

We exited the Solarium on the starboard side of the ship and started heading aft.  We noticed that the jogging track is located on Deck 14, which is also a sun deck.  This could make it a bit tough to actually run on the track without encountering some pedestrian traffic.

Our first stop was to look at the North Star.  The North Star is a glass-enclosed capsule attached to a boom arm.  The North Star offers 360 degree views from heights of up to 300 feet above the surface of the water.  We had scheduled a trip on the North Star for Glacier day as well as for the sea day that followed.  The Glacier day experience was an additional cost, but was billed as a premium experience.  The sea day trip was at no additional cost, but only went up and then down and did not include the capsule going over the side of the ship.

As we walked aft, we saw the outdoor family pool. While it doesn’t seem large enough for a summer cruise, there wasn’t much usage during this cruise.  I’m not sure if the water was heated or not during this trip.  Behind the family pool is a water play area that includes a splash zone and several slides.

We continued walking aft with the eventual goal of heading to 270, which is a large entertainment area that also has a cafe.  I had heard it was a good, calm place to get lunch on boarding day.  As we headed towards 270, we passed the outside of the seaplex (which contains the bumper car area/basketball court) and the rock climbing wall. 

Once we got to 270, we went inside the cafe to get some lunch.  The line wasn’t very long, but it was difficult to get seating at the tables outside of the Cafe because we had waited so long to get lunch.

After enjoying our lunch, we headed to Wonderland to pick out the specialty restaurants for our four night dining package.  The person helping us commented that we were on the only party on board to have purchased the four night dining package.  Royal Caribbean stopped offering it soon after we had purchased it.  We selected Chops Grille, Wonderland, Izumi’s, and Jamie’s Italian and picked out 8:15 pm as our dining time.

It was now approaching time for our room to be ready, so we headed down the Royal Esplanade towards the front of the ship where our stateroom was.

We passed by the Bionic Bar on our way.  The girls were very excited for us to get a drink from the bar, but we decided to wait for a while.

There was always a sale going on in the middle of the Royal Espanade.  Jackets, jewelry, hats, cups, etc., there was always something for sale down there.  The sales people were always polite and didn’t harass anyone walking by.  I thought it was done rather nicely.  There are also tons of stores in general available. 

The Schooner bar was at the end of the Royal Esplanade.  It was more of a piano bar, so we didn’t spend any time in this area.  The music was nice, it just wasn’t our thing.

We got to the room and went inside.  We found our suitcases as well, so Nancy decided to unpack.  The girls and I grabbed our drink mugs and went back down to the Royal Esplanade to get some soda.  While we were there, we decided to grab some pizza from Sorrento’s.  The pizza was great!  We would revisit several times a day after to grab a slice while walking past.

We then headed to the rock wall, where my younger daughter gave it a try.  She really enjoyed rock climbing.  She did it several more times over the course of the sailing.  By the time she was done rock climbing, Nancy was done unpacking the room, so she met us at the shops on the Royal Esplanade.  We looked in the shops for a bit, and my daughter picked out a necklace that she liked. 

It was time now for the muster drill.  Thankfully, our muster station was in the balcony off the main theater.  We went to the theater and watched a movie regarding what to do in the event of an emergency.  It was over in about 15 minutes and then we headed up to the top deck to watch sail away. 

Once sail away was over, we had some time to kill before dinner.  We went to 270 to watch the rest of sail away from inside.

We left 270 after watching sailaway for a while and explored the ship some more.  There was so much for us to see since we had never been aboard Ovation.  It was also really interesting to notice some of the differences between Royal Caribbean and Disney. 

We eventually returned to the room to get ready for dinner.  We had dinner in the main dining room on Deck 4.  We check in at the main desk and were escorted to our table, which was a four person table next to the window where we met our servers, Adrian and Marc.  We really liked them and they provided great service the entire time we were there (we ended up not going every night because we had booked the four night specialty dining package). 

After dinner, Nancy and I headed back to the room.  The girls went off to try the ice breaker activities in the Teenage club.  My younger daughter hung out for a little bit and then headed back to the room after she didn’t really find a group to hang out with.  Her older sister found more success and stayed a bit later, but also eventually came back as well.  We went to sleep to rest after a really long day.

Tomorrow would be a sea day where we could enjoy some of the fun activities on the ship!

Planning | Travel | Seattle | Boarding | Exploring | Sea | Juneau | Skagway | Glacier | Sea | Victoria | Disembarkation | Travel

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