Attempting the Matthew Marquardt Cruise Ship Challenge

It has been a whirlwind summer for me and my family. We just recently relocated from Slowtwitch’s Tundra Division outpost in New Hampshire to the Pacific Northwest. We sold a house; we bought one. And then we recently returned from a European vacation that saw us fly to London, spend a few days in town around the T100 race date, and then board a Disney Cruise Line ship and head up the Norwegian fjords.

It also just so happened to be my 40th birthday. Hooray for new age groups, I guess? On the plus side, I get another five minutes on my Boston Marathon qualifying time. On the negative, well, let’s see how Kona stuff shakes out.

At any rate — with our cross-country move, plus the lengthy recovery from breaking my pelvis last summer, it blew up any ideas of returning to triathlon again this year. But now that we were settled in, the start of our European vacation seemed as good a time as any to get back into the athletic swing of things. Plus with that whole birthday thing…it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I, admittedly, was also somewhat inspired by Matthew Marquardt’s triathlon training while on board a cruise ship this spring.

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However, unlike Marquardt, I also was very much not going to be bringing a triathlon bike with me on the ship — with roughly 300 square feet of floating hotel room to work with for the three of us, that was simply not in the cards. I also wasn’t going to bring a swim tether. And, well, with the North Sea at a balmy 57 degrees near Bergen, it wasn’t conducive to a swim. So we’d have to make do with what tools Disney had on offer on board.

Here’s how that went.

The Equipment Available to Use

When it comes to recreation on board a Disney Cruise Line boat, as you can probably imagine, it caters towards families and their children. The main swimming pools, for instance, aren’t really meant for swimming; they’re meant for play. (Admission: the large waterslide, named the AquaDuck, is stupid fun. Yes, I am a child at heart.) The adults-only pools on board are also quiet zones, and shaped for relaxation. And their hours don’t exactly align to an athlete’s schedule, with most not opening until at least 9 AM (sometimes later, depending on whether you will be in port).

In other words: you’re outta luck. You’ll have to get some other type of swim training in.

In my experience as a coach, one of the best dryland exercises for swimming is to hop on a rowing machine. (It’s also quite a good builder for some cycling fitness, but that’s a story for another moment). On board both of our Disney cruises, there’s been at least one rower available for use. Luckily for the triathletes amongst us, I’ve also never found anyone else using them, regardless of the time of day you had to the gym.

Speaking of the gym on board — they are located in the Senses spa location on your respective ship. For the four original Disney ships, that means they are all the way forward on the 9th (Magic, Wonder) or 11th (Fantasy, Dream) floors. On the latest set of ships, they’re down on the 5th floor. The gyms aren’t large — we’re talking a few machines, some free weights, a dozen or so treadmills, a bike or two, and the aforementioned rower. That said, the gym opens at 6 AM every day and stays open until 10 PM at night. Going at 6 AM, there wasn’t much of a crowd. By the time I was done, though, the gym was filling fast.

The gym is free. The spa, meanwhile, offers just about every service you could ask for. One of the better “deals,” if you can call it that, is the Rainforest pass. It gets you a special series of saunas, heat rooms, and hot tubs that are only open to those who pay for the service. If you’re somebody who enjoys heat — it’s worth it. Also worth it: the quality of massage on board. Yes, it’s pricey — I paid just under $180 (including tip) for a 75 minute massage. On the flip side, my back and neck still feel vastly improved nearly a month after that massage, something I can’t say for my normal chiropractic / massage / ART care routine. There’s also acupuncture, a full scale salon / barber, and more. I told you: everything you could ask for is here.

There is also a running track on the open air deck, usually around 4-5 on the ship. Lengths of the track vary from 0.5 to 0.8 miles around, depending on the size of the ship. Unless you’re running on the ship during a day where you’re in port, GPS will be wildly inaccurate as, well, you’re still cruising. I opted for indoor running to track things on my Apple Watch and found it to be close enough at measuring distance for my purposes; I could at least count on it to give me a rough idea on the number of laps I had run. Others on board opted to run when we were in port on land; it seemed to be extremely popular in two of our stops: Bergen and Stavanger.

Outside of your swim / bike / run / recovery needs, there’s also yoga and strength training classes on offer. Additionally, there are basketball courts, golf / soccer simulators, and on some ships, a full miniature golf course.

Daily Training

As mentioned before, it’s pretty easy to find some time to get a workout in. None of the breakfast locations on board the ship open before 7 AM. Heck, the decent espresso bars (which cost extra — be prepared to bring the whole wallet on this trip) don’t open until 6:30 AM. If you’re going to be up early, you might as well go do something.

6 AM you’ll find a couple of early stragglers. All of the equipment is in good shape, and relatively new. The treadmills are the LifeFitness units that also will offer a virtual landscape of the terrain you’re running. They’re smooth, and I find pace aligns pretty well with what my various watches tell me I’m running at indoors. Just, don’t plan on being someone who bounces around from one machine to another, as by 6:45 rolls around, the gym will be pretty full, and it stays that way almost all day unless you’re in port.

Given that we had planned on heading off the ship with something structured to do every time in port, training was pretty limited to rowing and running. On our cruise, on our day at sea between Belgium and Norway, there was an untimed, loosely organized 5K event held; if you had pre-registered in one of the Facebook groups, you received a medal for your efforts (in part because the only Norway-specific merchandise on board the ship is re-purposed from the Epcot World Showcase Norway location; the rest of the Disney merch was either generic Cruise Line or branded for Europe).

Negatives? The lack of espresso before a workout. A man just wants some coffee sometimes! And the only offerings for re-hydration within the gym area are water or water with fruit in it. If you need something with calories in it, you’re headed to the 24 hour beverage station, which has Coke products (including, on one tap, Powerade).

In Conclusion

Yes, it’s possible to get some decent workouts in while on a vacation with Disney. It’s also possible to do so without it impacting the rest of your vacation; we got to tour across multiple fjords, went on a rip boat, made chocolate in Belgium, and more. We made friends, ate well, and even had an excellent visit to the medical center on board (with prices that were somehow less than what we would have paid for an urgent care visit here in the States). It may not have been as much training as a pro athlete would get in, but it’s certainly possible to keep the lights on and hit the ground running again when you get back from vacation.

And seriously. Ride the AquaDuck, at least once.