We had a much more pleasant start to our day today. There was much less wind last night, and we had turned in earlier (read….. less drinking) so we had a peaceful night’s rest. In addition, we had no change in time, so when we awoke at around 8:00 AM, we were not already behind from losing another hour.
We got ready and headed up to the buffet for breakfast, and afterward, while we were waiting for our cabin steward to clean the room, we headed to some of the shops and looked around. They were also having a T-shirt sale in the Atrium, and of course, it was full of (excuse me mom’s) older women fighting over sizes and colors. It was pretty fun to watch from above.
The wind was much better today, and it was a little warmer. We finally thought we could sit out in the sun without having to feel like we were getting blown away. We put on our sunscreen, and bathing suits and headed out to enjoy the nice weather. While we were in the room, we called the dining room passenger services to make some reservations for the three specialty restaurants, The Crab Shack, Sabatini’s and Crowne Grill. We were surprised how limited the availability was, we had a hard time getting reservations for times we wanted. Apparently, according to the staff person Stephanie was talking to, there were a lot of passengers with some type of vouchers to use in the specialty restaurants, probably free vouchers from travel agents given out to passengers as perks. We made several reservations for some of the sea days we have before we get to France.
We then went by the Outrigger Bar on the stern of the ship to have a wake up beverage, a Bellini for Stephanie and a Caesar Bloody Mary for me, before heading out to the lounge chairs for some sun. We like this bar because the bartender that is normally there, Rupi, is fun to talk with and makes us good drinks. While we were there, we met an older couple from Sarasota, Fl. and spent the next couple of hours talking with them about cruising, travel agents, and various ways to maximize our travel dollars with Princess. It was a lot of fun to discuss our past travels and adventures.
Before we knew it, it was 2:00 PM, and we had not yet eaten lunch, so Stephanie and I headed to the buffet, right inside the doors from the Outrigger Bar, and had lunch. Some of the buffet lines had already closed since it was so late in the day for lunch, but we found more than enough to eat, and it was not crowded at that hour.
After lunch, we finally made it out into the sun, and spent the next couple of hours relaxing on the lounge chairs. At 3:30 PM, there was a bartender “flare show” at the Seaview bar, and we were able to see how well these bartenders do as compared to our cruise on the Royal Princess. The bar tenders on both ships are friends, and we had to admit, Franze on this ship, who is best friends with Rommel from our last cruise, was really good.
After spending some time in the sunshine, we went back to the Outrigger Bar for a couple of bottled waters and ran into our friends from Sarasota again. We exchanged contact information so we would be able to get their travel agent information from them. They have been using the same travel agent for some time, and get a lot of extra benefits from him when they cruise. Of course, we had a couple of refreshments with them before we headed into the buffet area to look at the dining room menu they post there for each night’s dinner in the dining room.
The dining room menu looked good, there was a seared scallop dinner entree that looked really good, so we made the decision to eat in the dining room for the first time on this cruise. After spending some time in the sun, we headed back to get ready for dinner. We stopped by the Vines Bar for a pre-dinner glass of white wine while we were waiting for our dining room pager to go off, indicating our table was ready.
We got a decent table for two, and we immediately liked our waiter, Rebeca and Raul, her helper. She was very friendly and attentive, so we had a nice dinner and the food was also really good, we both got the scallops, and I even had a second helping.
After dinner, we headed back to Vines for some more wine, and then we went to the Crooners Bar for a night cap or two. Most of the bartenders there had come from the other bars they work at during the day, so we already knew them and had a lot of fun.
It was late, so we headed back to the room, we loose another hour tonight, so we did not want to stay out later, OK, any later than we already had.