Today was a much-needed sea day after two long days full of activities.
I was up at about 8:00 AM, but that was on our new time, we moved our clocks back one hour for the first time on the cruise, and we still need to make two more one-hour changes as we head to Los Angeles.
I went down to the Living Room Bar and had a fresh brewed coffee with a blueberry muffin. That hit the spot, other than the muffins are really hard to eat, they stick to the paper cups, and that makes them fall apart getting them mostly out of the paper. Then I can’t eat them without breaking them into smaller pieces, and by the time I do all of this, I usually make a little mess on the floor. Not my fault…..
I worked on a couple of the posts trying to catch up for the past two busy days of excursions and the canal transit.
I headed back to the cabin to wake Stephanie up, and once she was up, she got ready. We decided to go and walk before we had a real breakfast, so we went to Deck 2 to walk laps. After the first couple of laps, I thought about the time and thought we might need to try to go to breakfast before it closed. We quit walking and went up to Deck 7 to the buffet, but it was already closed, it was just past 10:00 AM, the time the buffet closed, oh well, back to walking.
We walked six laps and then headed to the Living Room Bar for another muffin for me and a croissant for Stephanie, just to tie us over until lunchtime.
There is not much available to eat between the time the breakfast buffet closes at 10:00 AM and lunchtime other than Mamsen’s, which stays open a little longer, but the main item it serves is waffles, along with some traditional Norwegian items, mostly fish dishes…yuck.
We thought we would just plan on going to lunch at the buffet right at noontime when it opens since we had not eaten a full breakfast.
Since it was Sunday, we decided to go ahead and watch Mass on the computer. We headed back to the room to watch the Mass there, but the room was still not yet cleaned. I guess we left so late that we were low on the priority list. We just went in and grabbed the computer and then headed up to the upper level of the Explorer’s Lounge and found a quiet couch off to the side.
We watched about half the recorded Mass from Saturday night since that is the normal time we go, and we often see people we know on the video.
About halfway through Mass, another couple sat on the couch right behind us and started talking, and they were a little loud. It was too distracting, so we thought we would head back to the cabin, hoping it was clean by now. It was finished, so we just watched the remainder of the Mass there.
After the Mass was over, we spent some time on the balcony. The seas were really calm, and there were a lot of birds flying near the bow of the ship, feeding on any flying fish that happened to be spooked by the ship. It was fun to watch. We even saw some dolphins swimming by the bow of the ship, and then one larger pod of dolphins a little later off to the side. The birds were funny, many of them got tired and just perched on the rail at the bow of the ship. There were about 20 there, and then we heard some type of bell ring to scare them off, it was funny to watch. A little later a few of them were back, perching on the bow again.
After watching Mass, and then the sea life, we headed back up to the World Cafe Buffet, it was just about time for it to open for lunch. We easily found a table and got our drinks. It only took about 15 minutes for the buffet to start to get crowded, so we went ahead and got our food while it was fresh.
After lunch, we decided to go ahead and put on some sunscreen and head to the deck chairs by the pool on the stern of the ship on Deck 7. We first checked out Deck 8 trying to find somewhere with some breeze. It was still hot there, so we found some chairs with some breeze by the pool on Deck 7 right up against the outside railing.
We sat out in the sunshine for about 90 minutes. It was pretty enjoyable, but started to get hot.
We went back to the cabin to go ahead and get showers for dinner. We planned to try and go to dinner a little earlier tonight in The Restaurant, they were serving lobster and also prime rib, as well as a couple of other items that sounded good. We thought if we went earlier, maybe it would not take as long as the other time we went there on Christmas Eve.
We were ready for dinner at about 5:45 PM, so we headed down to the Living Room Bar to have a drink before dinner. The ship’s staff had done a lot of decorating for New Year’s Eve at the bar and in the Atrium. We found two seats at the bar and enjoyed some wine before dinner. I ordered my normal Copola Zinfandel and Stephanie had a Pinot Grigio. We had brought some plastic glowing ice cubes with us, we have always had fun with them on past cruises, and since it was New Year’s, they fit right in with the decorations.
Some people next to us ordered a French Rose, and that sounded good, so I ordered one of those as my next wine. The glowing cubes work much better in lighter-colored or white wines versus the red wine I had first
We thought it would be a good idea to go to dinner before it was 6:30 PM, everyone usually seems to go on quarter hour increments, even without reservations. We were seated almost immediately, and as it seems to be usual for us getting seated in The restaurant, it was right next to the entryway for the servers coming out of the kitchen, and on the end of a row of three two-person tables. I was not happy, so we asked our waiter if we could move over to the center table, the innermost table next to the window was already occupied.
We moved over one table and not too long afterward another couple was seated in our original seats. We struck up a conversation with the couple by the window, they were from Missouri and were on the World Cruise. They were pleasant to talk to through dinner.
We had both ordered a scallop dish as our appetizer. It was really good, there were three large scallops served in what was described as an escargot butter sauce. They were really good.
We had brought our wines to the restaurant, and so the servers did not know what we were drinking. They asked Stephanie first since her glass was empty, and she told the girl it was the Pinot Grigio. The server came back out with her wine and poured her a glass. She then tried to fill mine up and I had to quickly stop her from pouring the wrong wine into my glass. I told her I was drinking a “French Rose”, I had not gotten the actual name of the wine at the Living Room Bar when I got the first glass. I guess since they were similar in color, and the glowing cubes did not help differentiate that, she had assumed we were drinking the same wine. She headed off to get the Rose wine for me.
We did see that The Restaurant was now getting extremely crowded. It was about 7:00 PM, and apparently, that was the favorite time for people to come and eat.
Our dinner was served in a reasonable time, but I still had no wine. I ordered the lobster tail and also ordered a side dish of the prime rib so I could have a surf and turf dinner. I also ordered a Caesar Salad to be served with my dinner. Stephanie ordered the Black Bass. The server had initially asked me if a half portion was acceptable for the side of prime rib when he took our order and I had said yes, but what he brought out was a regular-sized serving with all of the sides.
It had now been about 20 minutes and I still had no wine, and had to remind the server about it. I think she had thought someone else was getting it, who knows. About five more minutes, my wine finally came out, apparently they had to get it from another bar. My food was great. Stephanie did not like hers that much, but she also ate a little bit of my Prime Rib, which was excellent. Unfortunately, the waiter never came back until I was finished, and I had never been able to tell him that I had not gotten my Caesar Salad.
We both had to ask about more wine, it was funny that there were three or four large ice buckets for wine by the entryway to the kitchen, and there were all kinds of bottles of white wine crammed into them. Unfortunately, my Rose was not among the cold wines in the buckets, it had disappeared, so again, I was waiting for wine before we were served our desserts. The server was finally able to locate the bottle of Rose, it had been placed with other open bottles of red wine, and apparently, not in an ice bucket, it was no longer very cold.
They brought out our desserts, cheesecake for Stephanie and a piece of Boston Cream Cake for me. Both were good. About the time we finished desserts, our waiter came out and asked me if I had ever gotten my salad, I said no, and he wanted to know if I still wanted it…….really, a Caesar Salad for my extra dessert.
We left The Restuarant and were happy that at least the meal had not taken that long, about 75 minutes total. Unfortunately, the service was not good at all, and it reminded us of our experiences last year on this same ship. At least last year we knew the crew was new since the ship was just put into service
We had seen a lot of hats and other items to take to celebrate the New Year on a table when we first entered The Restaurant. We had not wanted to take them to dinner, but now we wanted to get them for later, so we had to go out through the entranceway. I took a hat and Stephanie picked out a Tiera, and we both got some noisemakers to blow.
We went back to the room to get our glitter 2024 New Year’s Cardboard Glasses so we would be fully decked out!
Now we had to wait until midnight to get here, which was still four hours away. We went to the Living Room Bar and had a plain Ginger Ale, not wanting to drink too much too early. The plain Ginger Ale did not last long, it had been served by someone at the bar we did not know. When our regular bartender came back from break, he noticed our empty glasses and made us our usual Segrams VO drinks without knowing we had only ordered plain ginger ale the first time. Oh well…..
Next, we headed up to the Pool Deck to see the festivities that were going on there, the ship’s band was there playing live music, so we stayed there for a while, sitting with a couple at their table. They were interesting, they had lived on various large boats for the past several years, but had sold them all and were now doing the World Cruise. It was both a little loud and warm out at the pool since the roof was open, so we headed to the Explorer’s Lounge to get cooled off.
It was now almost midnight, finally, and the big countdown was going to take place out at the pool, so we headed there. It was really crowded, but we found a place to stand off to the side and welcomed in the New Year. The band was really good, and everyone was having fun. About forty minutes later, everything shut down, and the celebration was over.
We headed back to the cabin, we have a 9:15 AM excursion in the morning, and it was already almost 1:00 AM before we finally went to sleep.
Happy New Year Everyone!
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