Happy Birthday to my sister out in LA.
Smooth ride but not much sleep – earplugs interfere with
my sleep.
I was up really early this morning – so early I could take a shower – wash out some things – and still make it to the Windjammer soon after it opened. I did not get a window seat but I did get a table across from the windows. It looks like another beautiful day at sea.
I had my waffle, cottage cheese, jams, and
scrambled eggs. They were all good but
the coffee had run out. It was back on
line in a few minutes. The biscuit was
better today than yesterday. Again, all
in all, a good breakfast.
I was also getting familiar with the location of items so
I put together a plate for Ellen – lox, cream cheese, fruit, and a chocolate
pastry. I carried them the half mile to
our cabin. Ellen ordered a hot tea,
which came in five minutes instead of the promised 30 minutes.
I picked up a Chai Latte and a White Chocolate Coffee on
my card along with a chocolate donut (which are very good) and we are enjoying those in the
incredibly welcome quiet of the library.
This ship is not that Christmas-y. They did have a gift giving event this
morning and while we were in the Library, two crew members walked in with
gifts. They told us they were for kids
that didn’t believe in Santa Claus (they might have come up with a better
description). Well, they decided to hold
that event outside of the library so the quiet continued in our little Fortress
of Solitude.
At 11:30 AM, we went to the Windjammer to see what lunch was like today. We did get a table near a window so that was
a plus. Ellen tried all sorts of things
including some breakfast item and I requested a veggie burger. This time out, I was told that it would take
five minutes – well it took a little longer than that but it was still pretty
good. It’s a huge patty so I can’t see
how it could be a standard Beyond or Impossible Burger. Yet, it does taste like the latter – maybe
RCL has their own source of veggie burgers.
It’s still noisy and hectic up there so tomorrow, we are going to try
something different.
We went back to the Solarium and found some people leaving their nice couches so we should be set for most of the afternoon.
We are, unfortunately, on the sunny side so
even though the UV doesn’t make through the windows, the heat does. I finally finished “Wanted” by Robert Crais –
it was a slow developing story but ended, boom boom boom, within the last dozen
pages. Out of books – will need to pick
one up tomorrow when we have phone service.
It got to be a little too much on the sunny side of the Solarium so we went downstairs to the Star Lounge (Deck 5 Forward). I used to lecture in that lounge on similar
RCL ships and on one of them, the venue was called “Cleopatra’s Needle”. There is a lot of Egyptian motif in that Lounge
as well as in the Library. This
afternoon the Lounge was hosting Bingo and also had a very loud techno sound
track going on in the back – we escaped, at that point, to our nice quiet room.
We went to our Table 350 right at 5:30 PM in Dining Room 3. I should mention that our two waiters, Tushar
and Gaurav, are excellent. Tonight is
Italian Night in the Dining Rooms so I had Minestrone Soup (was more like a
lentil soup but tasty), the Vegan Garden Salad (mostly baby spinach – not a big
fan), and the Crispy Parmesan Arancini (deep fried ball of mushrooms, rice, and
provolone – pretty good). For my entrée
I had the Vegan Meatless Spaghetti Bolognese (I asked them to hold the tofu but
the marinara sauce wasn’t very tomato-y.
The waiter brought me more of the sauce but the vegan version of the
sauce was just not my kind of marinara sauce).
Ellen had the Dover Sole. I had
the lemon tartlet for dessert and Ellen had the chocolate hazelnut cake. We were running late so we had to scarf down
our tea and coffee. This wasn’t the best
dinner of the cruise but the service was good.
Tonight’s headliners in the Royal Theater were juggler/comedians Wilde and James. We had never seen them before and hope to never see them again.
The theater was nearly full and a significant
percentage of attendees arrived after the show started. I had never seen so many late people. Wilde and James must have fancied themselves
as comedians but all of their jokes fell flat and some were simply
offensive. The show was just a little
over 45 minutes long and the juggling part of the show was less than 10
minutes. They were decent jugglers but
that clearly was not their focus. I
don’t know how they got this gig. I
wouldn’t give them a positive rating.
We got out of the theater as fast as we could. We wanted
to go to the Solarium but the elevators were slow and the crowd was big and
pushy so we walked up two flights of stairs and went to Guest Services. We wanted to know how to get from one
Terminal to another when we join our third ship – the associate didn’t know –
maybe a taxi. We also wanted to know
more about the port tomorrow but he didn’t have much information on that
either.
A
personal observation: The
ship just feels really crowded – always getting bumped into and feeling like
there is no place to walk or stand.
Maybe, it has something to do with the large number of kids on board and
the fact that the parents are not really keeping them in line. Why did so many people show up late to the
show and then make other people move so they could sit down? Who knows? This ship clearly has its positives and negatives.
After the theater experience and elevator experience we decided that the best place to end the evening would be in our cabin.
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