The Most Intense Hour Of My Life…On A Cruise Ship
16 Aug 2016
One of the most intense hours of my life happened on a cruise ship, it was just any ship, it was Harmony of the Seas and the event occurred during the pre-inaugural sail from Southampton.
What happened during the most intense hour of my life on a cruise ship?
When you think of cruising you may think that they can bit a bit boring and uneventful. However, there are many activities to choose from, areas to explore and also unexpected encounters.
As anticipated one of the most intense hours of my life happened on this ship, I will share with you my thrilling experience.
It was our last night on board of Harmony of the Seas, the 19th May 2016, the pre-inaugural sail. I was one of the lucky few to get a taster of the ship of wonders. After a three course dinner in the majestic restaurant, me and other two Ocean World Travel members, Alan and Natalie, went ahead towards Deck 15 to play Escape the Rubicon, a game in which you solve various puzzles in a team to try and escape the room.
Me with Nate Martin, Co-Founder and CEO of Puzzle Break: the first person to introduce this type of games in the US
We were extremely excited to try out this new game, but we were having some doubts: we needed another 3 people to be able to play the game. So we walked around the ship trying to find more people to play with us and thanks to Alan, Ocean World Travel director and his connections, we found additional participants.
I was very excited to test this futuristic game because I had been reading a lot about these sorts of games in the UK, especially in London, but I had not yet had the chance to play one. And now, on the biggest ship of the world not only was I one of the first passengers but I was also one of the first players of the game!
The game
Before entering the room we had to watch a short video which included some rules for the game.The team were very eager to enter the room to see what was going on inside it.
As soon as we entered the dark room, I was given the impression that I had been transported into a different dimension. We received the first clues to the puzzle through the computer screen and a recorded voice. We understood that we were trapped in our space ship because it broke down and we had to try the impossible to make it work again so we could come back home: we only had one hour to do it in.
This was the most intense hour of my life, we had to demonstrate our ability to cooperate and communicate with each other, get all the possible clues in the room and try to understand how to manipulate buttons and lockers to advance in our mission. It was hard and brain draining, a rush against time, an unexpected test to our cognitive skills but most importantly a big test on our ability to listen and let other people influence us.
The time went run very fast, we went through all the tasks swiftly and often we split into various teams to work more efficiently, we were reminded that we needed to communicate more and to listen to everyone. Anyway, do you want to know if we managed to escape the room?
We did finish the game successfully but 2 minutes after the official time run over.
What I have learnt from the most intense hour of my life?
- Escape the room type games are phenomenal
- If you want to forget about your problems or thoughts engaging in a brain draining activity is ideal
- Team work is always wins over individual work
- Communication is key
- Letting others' opinions influence you is not always a bad idea
- Harmony of the Seas is an even more unique ship thanks to the presence of this amazing puzzle game.
