Sea Day 9

Today was another wonderful day at sea.  It was sunny and cooler this morning, and the seas were rougher, and forecast to be much rougher tonight.

I woke up at about 6:00 AM on the new time and after realizing I had not set my watch to the new time yet, went back to sleep.  We had set our clocks back one hour last night or at least we were supposed to have, obviously, I did not set my watch, and now we are on West Coast time.  The was no reason to get up that early, it was still 5:00 AM at the new time.

I eventually woke up again at a more reasonable time and got up to go to The Living Room for my usual coffee and muffin.  Today, I had a low-fat latte, and it was really good.

I started working on the post from yesterday’s excursion in Cabo San Lucas, it was going to be a long write-up to capture all of the details of our great camel adventure.  I sat near the coffee bar, at a small table.  Another couple came down to get coffee and sat at the table next to me.  They were quite dressed up for this early in the morning for some reason.  Everything was good until he started coughing.  He sounded terrible, and I wondered why they had not sat somewhere else farther away from people with a cough like that.   There were plenty of empty areas nearby.   I had hardly touched my coffee, and had not yet started on the muffin, and he kept coughing right behind me.  I decided I would just move to the other side of the ship which is what they should have done.  I initially was worried they might think something about it, but that was better than me being exposed to whatever he had.

I picked up all of my items and used my laptop as a tray to carry it over to the other side.  This was not the first time I had to move, and I was getting pretty good at carrying everything on my laptop.

I worked on the blog post and made quite a lot of progress but it had already been an hour and it was time for me to go back to the cabin to wake up Stephanie.  It was about 8:45 AM, and we did not need to eat breakfast too late.

At about 9:15 AM, we headed up to the World Cafe for our breakfast.  We were surprised at how crowded it was there, and we had a really hard time finding a table to sit at.  Eventually, we saw some people leaving, and we went over to their table and waited for it to be cleaned.  Since it was cooler outside today, and quite windy, it seemed like people just wanted to linger at breakfast, and that made it more crowded. 

We both ordered eggs to be cooked to order.  I ordered three over medium eggs and Stephanie ordered an omelet.  For some reason, the cooks taking the orders were having a hard time with them, and it took a while for them to get our eggs cooked.  I was getting some other things and Stephanie waited for the eggs to get cooked.  Somehow, they had folded my eggs over while flipping them, so Stephanie asked them to cook them again.  That took even longer, and the second batch did not get cooked to medium, more like easy over, but they were still good.  I think they tried to hurry them because of the issue with the first attempt.

After we finished eating, we stayed at our table for a while just like everyone else, but by this time, there were many open tables available since the buffet was not going to be open much longer.  We were trying to give our room steward enough time to get our room cleaned.   I did try the fancy automated coffee machine for the first time, and it was pretty interesting.  It would make all kinds of coffee by the cup, you just selected what you wanted and pressed a button.   The coffee was much stronger than the coffee that is on each table in a metal pitcher.  I had made a cup because my pitcher of coffee was not warm.  I did not want a whole cup since I had already drunk enough earlier, but at least the cool coffee had inspired me to use the automated machine.  Better late than never with only one more day before we end the cruise.

We headed back to the cabin to get my laptop since we wanted to find a quiet place to watch Sunday Mass through our church’s Facebook site.  Our room was not ready anyway, so we headed back out and found a quiet place on the pool deck.  We had figured out a way that we could watch the Mass without bothering anyone nearby with the sound.  We split my pair of Beats earbuds, each using one, and used the Bluetooth connection to listen on the earbuds.  It worked well and made it easier to find somewhere to watch the Mass without the worry of it being too loud.

After watching Mass we thought about heading to the Spa.  It was about 11:30 AM, and we were hoping it would not be too busy, maybe most people would be going to lunch.  We grabbed our bathing suits and dropped off the other gear in the cabin, and then headed down to the Spa in Deck 1.  We were correct, it was not that busy, and only about six other people were there.  

We sat in the large heated pool, and then I sat in the small powerful hot tub while Stephanie went into the steam room.  I joined her in there a little later, and then we both went into the polar Ice room to cool off.  We sat in the padded lounge chairs and Stephanie read her book while I just relaxed.  I did one more session in the hot tub and then we were ready to go and get our lunch.  We both used the showers in the Spa, their bath products are nice.  They sell them at the Spa, but they are pricey, about $30.00 for a medium-sized tube of product, either bath gel, shampoo, or conditioner.  We will just continue to enjoy them in the Spa showers.

I finished first so I headed out to wait in Stephanie.  A few minutes later, she came out of the ladies’ side.  We were both completely relaxed, it had been a nice spa experience, and we were glad it had not been crowded, which also usually means louder.

We took our suits back to the room and then headed to lunch at the World Cafe.  Once again, it was crowded even though it was close to 1:00 PM.  We had to make two laps through the entire buffet before we finally found a table at the very front in the corner.  We got our lunch and also ordered a couple of beers to go with it.  It was nice to have something other than wine with our lunch.  We stayed there until about 2:30 PM, just enjoying the view.  It was getting windier, and the Captain had said it was going to get very windy tonight, near gale force winds of about 35 knots.

Throughout the day, it was getting windier and rougher.  After lunch, we went back to the cabin to get my laptop and Stephanie’s book so we could try to sit by the main pool.  Once we got there, it was too hot and glarey with the glass roof closed for me to work on the computer.  

We headed back to the cabin to just relax there.  I was able to upload some of the pictures from our day in Cabo San Lucas to the Photo Album and finish the post from yesterday.   I was glad I was able to get it finished while it was still fresh in my mind.

We wanted to get out of the room, so I took the computer and Stephanie took her book up to the Explorer’s Lounge and we found a nice quiet table off to the side where we could work on the blog, read, and watch the now rough ocean pass by.  We could really see the ship moving up and down being this close tot he bow, and up on Deck 7.

Stephanie finished her book, so she headed back to the cabin to take a short nap while I processed photos from yesterday to try and add them to some of the blog posts.  However, with the rough seas, and now very cloudy skies, the internet was too slow for the pictures to upload.  I looked at the clock on my computer and it was 6:00 PM.  We have reservations for dinner in the Chef’s Table tonight at 7:30 PM, so I thought I should go back to the cabin to start getting ready.  In addition, it was now getting quite crowded in the Explorer’s Lounge, maybe people had come up for the sunset, not knowing it was getting cloudy, and now rainy outside.

I headed back to the cabin, and when I got there, I realized that I had not changed the time on my computer to account for the additional hour from last night.  It was really only 5:00 PM, so we had plenty of time before we needed to get ready for dinner.  It was now getting really windy outside, we were obviously passing through some type of front, and it was also raining.

We got ready for dinner a little while later, we just relaxed in the room listening to the wind and rain and watching the bow cam on the TV.  After we were showered and dressed, we headed to the Living Room Bar.  It was about 6:50 PM, so we did not have a long wait before our dinner reservation time.  We each had a glass of wine and then decided to go to dinner a little early.  there was no one else in line when we arrived, but there was also no receptionist outside to check us in.  We waited another ten minutes before someone came out.  They were obviously busy in the restaurant, and it must have meant that there were no available tables when we first got there, so no one was manning the reception.  We had seen about three couples leave while we were waiting, and that meant tables were opening.

We were seated at a table in the very back of the restaurant, next to a window.  It was a nice table, but the lights on the very back wall were very bright.  There was a single person seated at the table next to us, but we never talked to her.  It appeared that she was about halfway through her dinner when we arrived.  It soon became apparent that we were seated in a little bit of a “no man’s land” part of the restaurant.  It took a while for any of the dinner service to start, and then we obviously had a server in training, she was nice, but we could tell she was struggling to describe the dinner items she brought out.

There were now several open two person tables behind me.  We were not sure where the regular servers went to, only once or twice did our initial waiter come back to our table.  

The theme for this dinner was Asian, and it was good.  For a starter, we had some type of cold crab dish in a small bowl.  It was paired with a prosecco.  The next course was dumplings, and again they were good.  They were served with a type of dipping sauce, and what was unusual was that Stephanie’s sauce was very light in color compared to my dark sauce.  Plus, her sauce was really spicy, and mine was not spicy at all.  She kept saying how spicy her dipping sauce was and I finally dipped my fork into it and tasted it, and it was spicy.  We do not know why hers was so different from mine.  This dish was paired with a Sauvignon Blanc wine, which was not the best with the extra spicy sauce.

Next was the palate cleanser and it was a frozen icee dish with lemon grass, and was quite tasty, and did its job.

The main course was described as Peking Duck, and to some extent it was.  It was a dumpling stuffed with duck meat, and then some small thin slices of duck were placed on top of the dumpling.  We do not eat a lot of duck, it is not our favorite because it is such a dark meat.  This was not a bad dish, it was just not something we really liked.  This was paired with a Shiraz wine.

The best part of the meal was the dessert.  There were three items, a green tea cheesecake, a cream brulee, and a dessert “spring roll” with a banana filling.  The cheesecake was by far the best.  This was paired with a sweet white Moscato, which we did not like at all since we do not like sweet wines.  We asked for more of the red Shiraz instead.  Overall, the meal was good, but it was the least favorite of our three Chef’s Table experiences on this cruise.  We realized that we had eaten something similar last year and even had a picture of the same dessert.  We could not remember if everything else was the same or not.

After dinner, we went to the Living Room Bar for a drink.  Brandon and his mom were also eating at the Chef’s Table tonight and they came out a little after us and also came over to the Living Room Bar.  We visited with them for a bit.  Stephanie wanted to attend the Farewell Event in the theater at 9:00 PM, so she headed there while I ordered us another drink. 

I left shortly after she did and met her in the back of the theater.  There was a long line of staff outside when I arrived, they were lining up to go onto the stage as part of the Farewell.  I was able to work my way through that line of staff and found Stephanie inside.

The Captain was just finishing up his farewell speech, and then all of the staff outside was asked to come in by the Cruise Director.  Of course, it was not everyone on the ship, but probably at least 100 people were there, if not more.

We left there and went upstairs to the Explorer’s Lounge for another beverage.  It was pretty bumpy up there but we enjoyed listening to the guitar player.  His show ended and we went down to the Torshavn Bar.  We had not yet visited there on this trip.  The last time we were on this ship, that bar was just too loud.  We were surprised that the band on this cruise was not playing nearly that loud, and we could hear each other talk. 

Brandon was there as well as Andre and Andi.  We stayed for the last set of the band and danced to a couple of songs.  Once the band was done, we were done too, and headed back to the cabin, calling it a night.  It was really getting rough outside, and we could hear the ship banging on the waves in our cabin.  Luckily, it was not bothering us, but is also easier to deal with while sleeping.  We had stayed out late tonight knowing tomorrow is our last day on the ship, and we will need to get up early on Tuesday morning for the disembarkation.