Today is our third of four straight sea days as we head to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
The weather was once again beautiful when we woke up. I had a little trouble sleeping late, I was still not used to the extra hour from the other day, and we gained another hour last night.
I was up and dressed by about 7:00 AM, and, as usual, I headed down to The Living Room Bar for a cappuccino and Blueberry Muffin. I was letting Stephanie sleep in and I needed to catch up on yesterday’s blog post. Sea days are generally pretty easy as long as we keep up. Otherwise, sometimes the sea days can get fuzzy since we don’t do a lot of extraordinary things to make each day stand out.
At about 8:00 AM, Stephanie sent me a text about meeting her to walk on one of the upper decks, but since I had just had my coffee and a muffin, I did not want to walk on a full stomach. I worked on the blog a bit more and then we planned to meet back at the cabin so I could drop off the computer before we headed to the buffet for breakfast.
She did not walk on the upper deck long, it was hot, and there was soot coming from the ship’s engine exhaust, which dropped onto her white shirt. She headed down to the Promenade Deck, Deck 2, and completed her walking there where it was cooler, and not sooty. In the meantime, I had gone back to the cabin and waited there for her to finish.
We headed up to the buffet for breakfast a short time later and took our time eating. We just sat In the World Cafe watching the ocean pass by.
The ship conducted a practice emergency drill at about 10:00 AM, and we took that opportunity to go down to the spa to relax. We grabbed our suits from the room, we were just going to change in the locker rooms at the spa. Changing there was just easier, especially after we had remembered how to lock the lockers with our room key. We first checked out the Spa to see if it was crowded, and to our surprise, there were only about 3 people in the spa, at least that we could see outside of the steam room and the polar room.
We changed in our respective locker rooms and then headed inside. I enjoyed the hot tub first, it had not been operational when we were here the other day. Boy was it powerful, and it was hot. I almost thought it was going to wash off my suit the jets we so strong. It did feel wonderful on my back.
Stephanie headed into the large pool first and enjoyed it without bubbles until a man arrived and asked if we minded using the bubble jets. I don’t know what we needed to say other than it was OK since they were off, and that might have been our preference, but he turned them on. Then he proceeded to go into a separate corner of the pool and turn on the jets/bubbles there. He then moved to the middle on the side and did not sit in any of the bubbles at all after he wanted them all turned on, go figure.
A little while later we both headed into the steam room and stayed inside for about 10 minutes, if that long. We saw Brandon come into the spa through the glass window in the steam room and he got into the hot tub and then got into the polar room. He could not see us in the steamy steam room. Stephanie was getting hot, so we joined him in the polar room and had a good chat.
I got back into the hot tub and Stephanie headed into the woman’s locker to shower and change. I knew it would take her longer, especially since she was going to dry her hair, so I got back into the hot tub for a few minutes more.
Then I headed into the Men’s locker room and showered. They have some really nice bath gel and shampoo in the spas.
Once I was finished, I headed outside and waited about five minutes for Stephanie to finish. I was not sure if we were meeting there or going back to the room, but I sent her a text and she said she was finished and getting ready to leave the women’s locker room.
We headed back up to the cabin to drop off our suits and then we went to the Living Room Bar to get some glasses of water. We were a little dehydrated after the hot tub and steam room visits. Stephanie stopped off by Guest Services to tell them we still did not think our AC was working correctly and to confirm the time of our Bridge Tour tomorrow morning.
Next, we headed up to the Aquavit Bar in the World Cafe for Stephanie to have a Peach Bellini and for me to have a Bloody Caesar. We had not had one of our favorite morning drinks in several days, so we thought today was a good day to have them again. We each had two apiece, and then it was time for lunch.
We split a cheeseburger from the Pool Grill and supplemented that with some chicken wings and ribs from the buffet. It was a pretty good lunch. We did not want to eat too much because tonight we have 6:30 PM reservations at the Chef’s Table for a different menu than we had the other night. We just hope it is as good.
We went back to the cabin and saw they were working in the mechanical access panels near our room, trying to check out our AC. Stephanie and I put on sunscreen, and she headed up to the pool in the stern on Deck 7. I was doing a little computer work on some photos, and I wanted to see if they needed anything from us for the AC. I stayed about 30 minutes longer in the cabin and the repair person was still working in various mechanical access areas near our room. I figured he did not need anything from me if he had not said anything by now.
It was really windy out on the deck on the stern, the wind was blowing almost straight from the bow at about 12 knots, so the relative wind was pretty strong. It helped it to stay cool, but the wind was beating us up a little, and we did not stay long, opting to go back to the cabin and sit in the coolness. I was trying to get photos loaded into the albums on the blog site and Stephanei read. At about 5:00 PM, we started our showers to get ready for dinner at The Chef’s Table.
We headed down to The Living Room Bar to have a glass of wine before dinner. It was relatively crowded, but we were able to get two seats at the bar, but on the end near the large coffee maker, which sort of blocked access to the bar. We both had Pinot Grigio wine.
At 6:20 PM, we headed to the Chef’s Table Restaurant and were seated in the back room at a table for two, the second over from the window. It was out of any traffic lanes so it was a pleasant spot to eat dinner. Tonight’s theme is Asian, and there were four courses, plus a palate cleanser. The first course was a sour soup, which had several other ingredients in it. It was different and definitely sour.
The next course was what was described as fried prawns, but seemed way too small to be anything other than shrimp. The shrimp were coated with panko bread crumbs, and then some hot pepper pieces. It was good, but the panko overwhelmed the taste of the shrimp. There was a lot of excess breadcrumbs put onto the shrimp after they were cooked. It was good nonetheless and went well with the paired wine, a Reisling.
Next was the palate cleanser, which was called Coconut. It had some type of egg white whip on top of the shaved ice which had coconut and ginger in it, and was really good.
The main course was served next and was described as wok cooked beef. It was tenderloin tips that were seasoned with a schezwan pepper sauce, which was pretty spicy. There were also some peppers and water chesnuts in the large bowl it was served in. The wine paired with the beef was a Mabec and it went well with the spicy beef. It was a good-sized serving of beef tips and they were very tender. Stephanie could not eat all of hers, so I had to help her out. This time, I did not ask for more, it was just as good as the beef tenderloin tips we had at the last Chef’s Table meal, but since I helped Stephanie eat hers this time, I was full.
Next was the dessert, and it was one of the most creative desserts that I have ever seen. It was a large fluffy cake that had a layer of mango jelly injected into the center. However, it was the outside that was so creative, it looked exactly like a mango that had been picked off of a tree. The shape and most importantly the blended colors on the outside looked exactly like a mango, it was slightly green on one side and blended into a bright orangy yellow on the other side.
It had a great mango taste, the filling was just enough to give it a good mango flavor. It was served with some type of sparkling Asti wine.
The meal was really good overall, and most importantly, we did not eat too much tonight.
We stopped off at the Living room Bar for a drink and talked with a couple from Naples. They traveled a lot with Viking, they had done many River Cruises and several Ocean Cruises. Through our conversation with them, we could tell they were afraid to make many travel plans on their own. They told us about a bad experience they had on a train in Switzerland that was apparently very stressful, and they did not do any more trip planning on their own anymore because of that. All that had happened was that they did not get on their first-class car, but they made the train, they just did not get in the correct coach for what they had paid. They often did Viking extensions, which are really pricey. However, if someone wants to be taken care of and not worry about anything, that is the way to go.
Branden and his mom Charlotte arrived a little later and stopped by to talk for a bit before heading to the show in the Theater at 9:00 PM. We are not show people, especially not dancing and singing shows, so we did not attend. It was very quiet in the bar and everywhere else we could see once 9:00 PM arrived and the show started. We guessed that most of the people on the ship were at the show, and had left us free to enjoy an empty ship, which was nice.
We decided to head up to the Explorer’s Lounge, we had not been there for a few nights. Igor was the only bartender there, and that was not surprising since there were only the two of us and one other man in the entire bar area. The piano/violin duo were playing there and it was nice, Stephanie was able to request her favorite Italian song and also Hallelulia. It was like we were in a private concert, and we enjoyed that more than being in what was probably a packed theater.
The duo is from Hungry and does not speak a lot of English, but they were interacting with the three of us in the bar much more interactive than when they normally play in the Atrium.
We left the bar once they stopped playing at 10:00 PM, it was a perfect time to head home.
Stephanie wanted to get some photos of the Spa without poepe so we headed down to Deck 2 to get the photos before going back to the cabin. We were walking into the spa when we were stopped by a female officer who asked us where we were going. We told her, and she insisted on going into the spa with us. None of the doors were locked, but apparently, the spa is closed off to passengers after 10:00 PM, who knew? We went inside and got our photos.
We had a relaxing day today at sea.
Leave a Reply