A Massage and a Trip to RCCL’S “Naughty Room”
How often can you put both of those events in one sentence; massage, and naughty?
Before boarding Royal Caribbean Cruise Line‘s Rhapsody of the Seas for a recent Cruise Dive, I had booked a massage for early afternoon. I had anticipated that the strain of rolling both my clothing luggage and my diving luggage – twice what any cruiser would normally drag around – would result in some pretty sore shoulders.
Also, sometimes you can book the unusual time slots in advance at a huge savings. My onboard massage would be only slightly more expensive than onshore, and with that view of the Tampa drydocks… pure heaven and a great way to start a diving cruise loose and ready to get in the water.
After the massage, I headed to the cabin. There was my clothing luggage, my dive partner’s clothing luggage, my dive bag… wait… we’re missing something… my dive partner’s dive bag! Missing? No way.
In the cabin, there was a telltale message. A tiny card instructing us to proceed to Deck 4. Yup. We were summoned to the “Naughty Room” to explain something in the luggage.
We knew better than to bring any calf-length dive knives. We knew better than to bring any smaller dive knives.
We knew there was at least one line cutter installed on our Zeagle Ranger BCD. However, it was the safety scissors that had gotten themselves flagged.
The room attendant wanted to know what was in the bag that might be questionable. That really felt like that scene in the movie “Liar Liar” when the police officer stops Jim Cary. “You know why I pulled you over?” the policeman asks. “Depends on how long you were following me! says Carey. And then he dives into a litany of past violations.
“Um… uh… my EMT SAFETY scissors?!! my dive partner asks, tentatively and hopefully. “Yes, yes, that must be it,” the room attendant says. The blunt-tipped scissors are displayed, the crew member is satisfied, and out we go – past the stack of irons (Just who comes on a cruise vacation to do any ironing?), bootlegged liquor, heating pads, and hookas.
Later in the cruise, we did learn that a couple’s battery-operated candles were confiscated as well. Turns out the battery part was not the problem – the candles were wax, possibly flammable, so seized and impounded.
What We Learned: Line cutters make it through luggage checks. I’ve linked some really good ones below.
Safety scissors might cause a slight delay, but no one seemed too upset. They were checked a few more times when coming back from dives. None of the authorities got very excited about them – after the last dive, the security officer saw us and went ahead and flagged us through the metal detector and said we didn’t need to show him the scissors again.
Details:
EMT Shears With Sheath by Zeagle
Line Cutter by Zeagle
Cruise on Rhapsody of the Seas by RCCL
Zeagle Ranger BCD
Dive Rite Line Cutter
What items have landed you in the Naughty Room?
What to read next: 7 Items for Dive Boat Survival – The Prepared Diver
Updated: May 20, 2019
