So the cabin door slammed behind us. It was midday, it was fine.
We collapsed onto our respective beds, me a king in the air in front of the 46″ flat screen embedded into the wall; her a twin trundle on the floor by the balcony facing Italian islands our feet knew well, blots of Italy our eyes have twice feasted upon.
An extra key card was wedged down in the slot but neither of us flipped on a light. Curtains were pulled together leaving no more than two feet of daylight, a slice from carpet to ceiling. It cut the room in half, or thereabouts.
Royal Caribbean Symphony of the Seas Day in Naples Italy
Outside, down the hall in either direction, up and down on the dozen and a half decks of the world’s largest passenger ship, I could only imagine that pool water was being splashed around by kids with cheeks of red from the late summer sun, that hot tubs were rimmed, like coarse salt around a margarita, with adults who’d checked far more than hard shelled Samsonites at the pier, who had a rum swizzle or a Peroni in hand with sunglasses down, heads down, eyeslids down.
I pictured also, on deck 15, the electric blue sportcourt encased in netting, framed by white tables, each garnished with El Loco Fresh’s carnitas tacos and fresh gaucomole, playing host to another match of pickup futbol with the Barcelonas again pitted against the Real Madrids, as it should be, with a black and white vertical stripe sprinkling of Grimbsy Town and Juventus.
Meanwhile, on 6 Aft, the Boardwalk must remain abuzz as a movie rolls on on the two screens flanking the Aqua Theatre, as Johnny Rockets slings burgers, as candy coated dreams become realized in Sugar Beach.
There was work still to be done — food to taste, an Ultimate Abyss to plummet into, time lapse videos to create, glamour photographs to stage — but we left all that for later.
It was midday, it was mid-cruise, it was fine.
Time is finite on a cruise, very much as it is on dry land, in everyday life with jobs, school, bills, spam email, dinner that still won’t cook itself, that bedtime story again for the 193rd time, one more hug, one more sip of water, falling asleep before the final credits.
But, even as an early A.M. return to a starting port looms there exists a sense that, on a cruise, everything can wait. That when your kid has had it and you yourself have nothing left to offer mentally or physically or creatively after a three hour, six mile stroll in the sun around the crooked narrow corridors of Naples Italy, everything that’s everything on board the Symphony of the Seas, from laser tag on 4 to the zipline on 16, can and will wait.
Until later.
*Royal Caribbean covered all costs relating to this cruise experience, save for the gelato and all of the Italian clothes and Miraculous Ladybug toys my teenager bought.
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