Today was the second of five consecutive sea days we have crossing the Atlantic Ocean as we head to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Of course, we once again took the opportunity to sleep in, and we received another extra hour of time from setting the clocks back again last night. We are now just three hours ahead of the East Coast. I got ready and went downstairs to the International Café for our usual breakfast sandwiches. It is almost easier to do this than go to breakfast in the buffet and fight the crowds of people camping out there at the tables that are supposed to be for eating because of the cooler weather outside.
After eating in the room, we headed out so that Beth, our cabin steward, could clean the room. We wandered around the ship and went to the big “rummage” sale in one of the dining rooms. It is always funny to watch people at these events, they act like the items are being given away, but the prices are just fair in our opinion. We could barely get in the door, and the lines to check out were really long. Most of the items were for women, go figure, and most of the shoppers were women, go figure again. There was nothing we wanted, or wanted enough to fight the crowds to pay for, so we left and decided to head to the Outrigger Bar since it was much calmer outside today.
We made our way outside to the Outrigger Bar at the stern of the ship. It was quite nice outside there, it was protected from the wind that was also much calmer today than the past several days. We needed one extra layer to be comfortable, so Stephanie headed back to the cabin for our pull over jackets. We decided to have a morning beverage, and Stephanie had a Peach Bellini and I had a Bloody Caesar, the first morning drinks we have had on the cruise since the day after we got on in Rostock. We had another, this time both of us having a Peach Bellini, but the bartender that served the first round went on break, and a bar steward tried to make mine, and really had no clue how to make it. We should have rejected mine, way too much orange juice had been added to it, but we did not want to make her feel bad. The worst part was that the other bartender even commented on the excessive orange juice, but neither did anything about it. After that, we decided to leave, not wanting to have to struggle to get a proper drink made.
There was a special presentation being made by the Captain at 1:00 PM, the subject was on navigating through bad weather during an Atlantic crossing. We knew it would be well attended, and we would need to go at least thirty minutes early, so we decided to go ahead and eat lunch in the Buffet now. We discovered they were serving the oriental soup bowls today, the first time we have seen it for lunch. The soup was really good, but it was chaos to get through the line, most people did not know how it worked, and several were trying to get the uncooked dumplings just to eat. In addition, the various noodle choices were all stuck together and too long in length to get them out of the big serving bowls and into the small soup bowls without making a mess.
We finally got our soups made, and also enjoyed a plate of other oriental items that were actually warm, and quite good.
It was time to go to the show, so we walked forward to the Princess Theater and found some seats on the aisle. It was getting full, but seats were readily available when we arrived. By the time the presentation was scheduled to start, the theater was full. The presentation was really interesting. The Captain, Tim Stringer, always gives good briefings on our positions and weather forecasts at the daily noon updates over the loudspeaker, and is quite funny. We did not realize that there was so much to understand about the winds, currents and waves, and the effects on the ship, both at sea, and going in and out of ports. They strive to pick a safe route to cross the Atlantic, try to minimize exposure to bad weather, and also to maximize fuel efficiency. Overall, it was a great presentation and we learned a lot.
After the presentation, we went and looked through the stores on Deck 7, looking at some of the new sales they were having, but not buying anything. We headed back to the room to get our deck of cards, and then headed down to Vines to play cards and have some wine. Stephanie had diet cokes, needing a little caffeine perk from skipping her nap today.
I went upstairs to the buffet and made a cheese plate to bring back down to Vines for a snack. We played cards for a while, listening to some really good Spanish guitar music being performed by a lady in the Atrium. It was at a perfect volume, we could still talk and listen to her play without shouting across the table.
It was getting a little cooler, so we headed back to the room and put on long pants, but headed back to Vines afterward for another glass of wine and some tapas. We visited with a younger couple we had met on a previous night, and then headed up to the Horizon Court Buffet for Brazilian Night. They had a lot of meats to carve from skewers, just like going to a Brazilian restaurant at home, and it was really good.
After dinner, we decided to go back to the room, and make it an early evening. We watched a movie on the TV from the vast collection of on demand movies, and Stephanie decided to do some laundry since the laundromat was completely empty, and so close to the room, just a few doors down. We now will have enough white cloths, read underwear, to make it to the end of the cruise. After the movie finished, well we had to back it up a time or two because we kept falling asleep, we called it a night.