Embarkation Day - Royal Caribbean Spectrum of the Seas Cruise Vlogs - Part 1

Hey, what's up everybody? It is cruise day. This is the day that we go on the spectrum of the seas leaving Shanghai, China, going to Japan. Now been in China for like three days and the weather has been perfect, but we woke up to some interesting developments. I'm going to show you what it looks like outside our window here. It is raining. The wind is picking up and it really prompted us to check our email. So we've talked about it before. You always have to check your email. I got an email late last night from Royal Caribbean saying that they are tracking a typhoon that is making its way basically to our location. And please come to the cruise port earlier. So we are finishing packing. My buddy Don from Don's family vacation is getting ready and we're going to get a car and we are going to go to the cruise port. We're supposed to be there between 10 and two 30 and the goal is the cruise ship to leave by three o'clock to escape the typhoon. So, um, man, we've had a fun couple of days here at the Disneyland resort. I'm a little, it's a typhoon. We've had a great couple of days here at the Disneyland resort, but now, uh, now we are putting, now we're putting everything in motion and try to get over to the cruise port. It's an interesting ride. I'll take you along with me, but this it's cruise day. Super excited about that. Hopefully we are not interrupted by a typhoon. Catch up with you in a bit. Holy moly. Typhoon in China. All right, let's do this. That's going to be a, that's going to be a great, Oh, look out the, uh, look at the North star already kind of elevated. All right. So we've just dropped off our luggage. We are here at the terminal. We're heading to cruise terminal one, a steady stream of rain, but man, we were walking right beside this huge cruise ship. It's going to be a blast. Don, you feeling good? I'm feeling good. We're here at least only an hour. It took an hour and the last half hour was like 10 of what? A hundred yards. It's crazy. All right, I'm going to stow this camera. We'll see you guys on the inside. They're probably in our room. Yeah. Yeah. You think it's open? It says the rooms aren't ready till one anyways. All right, well let's see where we can go to hang out. Buffet? Windjammers on 14 from these elevators. Yeah. Good. How are you? All right. So 1109 we've made it to the wind jammer here on the spectrum of the seas. It's the buffet. Uh, so all in all, we left the Disney resort about eight 43 took about an hour 20 to get here. A lot of traffic getting through Shanghai, especially when we approached the cruise port. And then the process was fairly streamlined. We went through security. Uh, we showed our travel documentation, we cleared Chinese customs and then we boarded the ship. We had to fill out a customs form or a immigration form for Japan. They collected that form. They collected our passports, gave us a copy of our passports. So actually we surrendered our passports at the check-in process. The rooms are not going to be ready until one o'clock. And so we just wanted to come find a place to sit down and chill out a little bit. Don's grabbing some food. So a pretty decent process. Uh, we haven't heard anything new about the typhoon. It's not raining right now. Uh, the seas are, the seas are the seas. And so, uh, we'll just have to see what the weather turns out to be, but so far so good. We got here pretty quickly and uh, we've got the, our pickup seats here in the, in the buffet. What did you get Don? Let's see, let's see what the cuisine of just what was on this side, because there's a whole other side further down. Excellent. So dim sum, this is pork and seafood, seafood and rice, chicken, a chicken dumpling, seafood, rice, and a shrimp. Crispy shrimp. Wow. All right. So it looks pretty good. So we'll grab our rooms at one o'clock. Uh, we're going to try to leave at three so there'll be muster sometime within then. But uh, yeah, so far so good. And uh, what we can see from the ship is beautiful. I think the goal right now is just to relax, enjoy some food and uh, get to our rooms and let the exploration begin. Uh, day one, it's cruise day, not without incident, but exciting nonetheless. I guess it's 1205. We've made our way to the sportsplex and we're going to have us a game. A pig. Look, Don's a champion already. A ping pong, but uh, yeah, sportsplex, they have bumper cars here, basketball, table tennis, all kinds of stuff. There's a hotdog joint. So far so good. There's some advantage of being early. There's nobody up here. So, uh, I got a, look, I'm not a paid teacher, but it's time to take Don to school. So I'll catch up with you in a bit. 2119. It was that close folks. I couldn't beat Don though. It's too good. Don's too good. He suckered me up here to the sportsplex and all of a sudden he's crushing the first competition of the cruise. What do you know? You gotta do what you gotta do. You gotta do what you gotta do. We can get to the room soon. Not really. 41 minutes we can get to the room. Sail away at three o'clock. I'm going to sit down. It's been a busy day. We'll play again. And the second one and the third one. There's no second one yet. Let's look at Shanghai. Doesn't look like there's going to be a typhoon. I'm no weatherman. What do I know? All right. So two o'clock made my way to the cabin. I'm in a solo balcony on the spectrum of the seas. Let's show you what the room looks like. Just a brief, no, no, no serious room tour. Just here's a quick once over. It's a quaint little room. You got the bed. They've done a lot to put the storage around the bed. Little sitting area. Nice TV though in front of the bed and the bathroom is kind of a normal size. So they stuck with the normal size. You got the shower pod, all that. Hey, what's up? So yeah, I'm not sure how many square feet this is. And I'm still waiting on my suitcase. Uh, Don already has his, he has the same layout except his balcony is twice the size. So he has a huge balcony, but this is a, I'm on the cruise terminal side. They are still loading folks up. And then you can tell my view here is basically the, the life, the lifeboats still raining. It looks a little rough. It's going to be interesting to see what it's like when we sail away. But yeah, so the stress of trying to get on board is done. And now just to get through embarkate or to get through the mustard drill and then to actually sail away. Uh, we haven't heard any announcements of our itinerary is going to be changed because of the potential typhoon. But time change is still messing me up. So two o'clock here, it's two o'clock in the morning and we have to set our clocks forward 30 minutes tonight. So my body's going to be like, what's going on? All right, we'll catch up with you later. So it's like two 15. The Costa ship is already making its way away from Shanghai. So again, we're supposed to be have everybody on board at three 30 and it's on its way. Yeah. So it's three 22. The mustard drill is at three 45. I was just kind of sitting here and getting acclimated to the room. I look out and we're leaving like we've been underway for a little while now. And so, yeah, I guess you can, I guess in China they can leave before they do the safety briefing. So there's Shanghai off in the distance. And again, we're trying to escape the typhoon that's bearing down. So, uh, it's a little yucky. I haven't got my luggage yet. Uh, the room steward just came by and said that he was going to go check on it, but get the drill at three 45 and we'll go from there. But yeah, I guess it's wild. You don't have to, you don't have to do the safety drill before you leave. So we are underway. What a crazy day. It's a, it's been stressful, not a lot of sleep, but it's that cruise life. I'm pretty excited to explore the ship. There's a show tonight. And so a lot of stuff going on. We'll see what Dawn's into, but here we go. Next stop, uh, Japan, sea day tomorrow, but next stop, Japan, and more stuff to come tonight. So stay tuned for that. Safety information and the instructions are posted in your stateroom. You will also find your assembly station letters and a few minutes from the official drill. It's already filling up in the main dining room. So it should be a pretty simple, easy muster. We don't have to go outside. No requirement for life jackets. Uh, just a quick safety briefing. So we'll see how long it takes. It officially starts at three 45. It's pretty wild. Everything's a, everything's new here, but yeah, we are making our way out of Shanghai. The cruise is underway. So four o'clock we are done with the muster drill. Here's the deal. We're going up the Yangtze river and at nine o'clock tonight we're going to hit the outer bands of the typhoon. They said be prepared for 12 hours of the spectrum of the seas to pitch and to roll as we navigate the typhoon. So we've got that to look forward to. Now Don and I were in different muster drills, so I'm going to go track down Don, figure out what we're doing next. But uh, yeah, quite the crowd here on the spectrum of the seas. Look, I found Don. We're here. So crowded. It's crowded. It's crowded. They told us not to open the balcony doors. They said that that's dangerous. And it is because my balcony door was open because I said, Hey, we're sailing. And all of a sudden there was a knock on the door and I walked over nonchalantly and opened my door and we're in a small room. Our balconies are huge, but the room is very small. And when that opened the door, everything in my room went everywhere. No opening the balcony door and we're going to sail right through the outside of the typhoon. And so for 12 hours, it's supposed to be a wild ride. Just button down the hatches. And you know what's nice? We're on a low deck. So when the waves get high, we're going to see them right out our balcony. It's going to be a crazy night. We are, we're actually in one of the theaters. We're trying to get synced up on some of our show reservations and there is a show tonight, a vocalist called goddess, uh, that we're going to check out. But, uh, maybe, well, if we can see the early show, it'll be before the ship starts rocking. So the ship's not rocking though. Not yet. Nine o'clock, nine o'clock. It's supposed to. So we'll see how it goes. All right. So six or seven, I took a little nap and nap, nap, uh, a little tired. It's crazy, but we are in the Yangtze river. And, uh, man, this ship is rocking and rolling. And we're not even to the point where they said it's going to be rocking and rolling. Um, I'm right off the, right outside there is the life boats and they're clanking and, but, but a good update is they did bring my suitcase. So my luggage is here. Uh, meeting Don at six 30. We're going to go get a seat for the opening night show, uh, starring or featuring a singer called God tests. And so we're going to go check that out. I'll probably grab some, some dinner after that and then call it a night. Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together and make some noise for your host and crew director. Well, hello. Hello. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard the beautiful spectrum of the seas. You should make sense of it. I got one shot. What do you saw on the palm of the light? Thank you. Are you ready for a great show? Are you ready for a great show? Are you ready? Yes! And put your hands together, applause! And welcome to the stage, I give you, the goddess! Alright, Don, our first show of the cruise, what do you think? I enjoyed it. Really good singing, really good music. Didn't know all the words. No, but there was a mix of English songs and also Asian songs. But you know what? Music is music. Music is music. That's the interesting thing so far, they do try to do announcements in multiple languages, and even though there's not that many English speakers here, they do do English announcements. There's gotta be at least eight of us. Yeah, eight or nine. Maybe nine. It's the first cruise I've been on in a while where they said, alright, who's from North America? And that included US and Canada, and it was like... Then they said China, and there's 4,476 Chinese residents on this cruise. It's wild, and it's a big holiday, it's National China something day. So we've got a lot of people on holiday from China, and yeah, great start. Right into the hurricane. Yes, so now we're hitting the rough seas. I'm gonna go get something to eat and make my way back to the room so I can get rocked to sleep, and we'll do some more tomorrow. Some more tomorrow. I might have to cancel a bunch of stuff, but we'll get her done anyway. Alright, well, great first show. We'll catch up with you later. Later. Alright guys, made it up to the buffet. Missed out on main dining because of the show. And let me tell you, it is rock and roll, and there are people sick all over the place here. We're just trying to outrun the typhoon. The goal is to get 100 miles away, so we're on the top of it. So it's chasing us, we're trying to move away from it, but I'm gonna have a little dinner, and maybe call it a night. It's like 9.30, I'm exhausted. But yeah, so basically I grabbed a lot of the Western cuisine they had there. They had some pasta selections, they had french fries, they also had hot dogs and hamburgers, but anything like that. Some watermelon, cheese, and salami. Pretty standard fare for me, but yeah, I'm going side to side. So I'm gonna have my dinner, and I'm gonna head back to the room. But I'll catch up with you before we end it. It's been a fun day so far, but this is an adventure like no other. There's so much movement on this cruise ship, it's crazy. Walking out of the show is almost like I was lifted up, so pretty cool. Checking in for the last time, 10pm. A busy embarkation day, a lot of stuff going on. It sounds like we're gonna be battling this rocking for the next 12 hours. So I think I'm just gonna crash out, I'm working on getting a video uploaded. But after that I am done. Yeah, so the journey begins. We have a sea day tomorrow, and a lot of activities potentially cancel. Right now we're not allowed to go out on our balconies, we're not allowed to go up on the top deck. So I know Don, for example, had the skydiving and the trampoline jumping going on tomorrow. That may be canceled, so who knows? But thanks for tracking along. I hope you're having a good time watching these videos. If you enjoy them, please hit the like button, leave a comment below. Thanks so much for stopping by. This is Tony with La Lido Loca, and until the next time, we'll see you on the Lido. You can't go out on the Lido. It's a tie. We'll see you later. Bye.