Sea Day 2

Today is our second Sea Day of the cruise.

We slept in this morning, neither of us budging until about 8:00 AM.   We had been tired from all of the walking in the hot, humid weather yesterday, and might have stayed out a little longer last night than we had planned celebrating Christmas.

By 9:00 AM, we were ready to head up to the buffet for breakfast.  We passed our Cabin Stewars in the hallway, so we were glad he knew we were leaving, maybe they would get to our room shortly to clean it.  We took my laptop and Stephanie’s book in our tote bag, knowing that after breakfast, we would find somewhere quiet to read and write the blog to give them more time to clean our cabin.

We ate a good breakfast, having our eggs fried to order.  Stephanie wanted to make an egg and cheese bagel sandwich, so while I waited for our eggs to cook, she got the rest of her sandwich items, including a freshly toasted bagel, which takes a while, they have an automated toasting machine, but for bagels, it takes two times through to get it toasted enough.

After breakfast, we walked outside on the stern of the ship and then eventually walked all the way to the bow and ended up in the upstairs area of the Explorer’s Lounge and found two quiet seats.

I was able to finish the blog post for last night and get today’s started.  Unfortunately, we have not been taking a lot of photos.  However, I was able to put some photos into the albums for the places we have visited so far since we are having a nice relaxing sea day.

We headed back to the cabin with the intention of putting on our bathing suits and sitting out by the pool.  However, Stephnie was looking to see what was going on in the Viking Daily and saw that there was a tour listed for “Behind The Scenes Operations” of the Ship.  It did not really list a time, just a “sign up” at the Guest Services Area.  We first tried to call to see when the tour was being held, but got cut off on the phone for some reason.  We decided to head down there to see about signing up for the tour and saw that they were actually getting ready to start the tour right then.  While Stephanie stayed there to make sure we could still be included, I had to quickly go back to the cabin to get the AudioVox boxes so we could hear the tour commentary.  

By the time I got back they were just getting ready to start the tour and there was enough room for us to go.  Apparently, this tour is routinely given on Sea Days, we just did not know.

The tour was very informative and was given by the ship’s General Manager, who is in charge of everything not related to the operation of the ship itself.  He heads up all of the food and beverage, as well as the hotel staff, and entertainment  We first started in the Galley and saw where all of the food was prepared and also where room service trays were put together for delivery.  We also saw where all of the provisions are kept and heard some stories about issues getting supplies during other cruises and how things were handled on the fly when there were problems.

We then saw where all of the dishes were cleaned and where all of the food scraps were handled for disposal.  Next was a tour and some stories about the provisions.  There were several large storage areas and one was opened for us to look into.  This one was refrigerated.  It was interesting to hear about how everything is handled, especially items packed in cardboard.  There is a lot of effort made to control bringing onboard any rodents or insects like roaches.

Then we headed to the Engine Control Room for a short tour.  We could see the engines on the closed-circuit TV monitoring screens,  There were several monitors for display of engine alarms and conditions and one large screen showing the current navigation and course information.

Next was a visit to the laundry and the washers and dryers were huge.  There was a special machine for folding and ironing the sheets, which came out at the back neatly folded.  There were smaller machines for doing the crew and passenger laundry in another area from the large washers and dryers for the sheets, towels and tablecloths.

We were given some insight into the crew working conditions and daily schedules.  It was interesting that Viking does not let the crew party much, they have strict alcohol limits for crew personnel, mainly because all crew members are required to be on some type of emergency response team, and having excessive drinking would not allow the crew to properly respond in an emergency.

Then we walked through the office areas of the HR personnel, as well as some of the other staff.  Overall, it was really informative, much more than the small amount of detail I have included here.

That tour ended at 12:30 PM, and we decided this might be a good time to visit the Spa for a soak in the large heated and aerated pool.  We put on our suits and headed down to Deck 1 to the Spa.  We relaxed in the heated pool and then for a time in the steam room. Unfortunately, the hot tub was out of service.  We went into the “snow” room to cool off after the time in the steam room and that felt good.  We each showered in our respective dressing areas and then met up outside to go back to the cabin and change into some clothes for lunch.

We had lunch in the Works Cafe buffet and then headed back to the cabin to relax a little and as usual, that meant a nap for Stephanie and blog time for me.  I was able to process some photos and add them to the albums as I had hoped.  We decided not to go to the pool and sit in the sun since we were clean, and did not want to put in sunscreen and then have to shower again.  We have 6:30 PM reservations for Manfredi’s Restaurant tonight

We were tired of just sitting in the cabin, so we headed to the stern of the ship and played cards outside of the World Cafe on tables they use for outside dining.  It was really pleasant, and calm enough for cards.  We played our usual Rummy card game, and I am proud to say I was the overall winner, just like at putt-putt a couple of days ago.  Of course, that can all change and I am sure I will not do as well next time, it just seems to work out that way.

We started back to the cabin and stopped off at the pool bar to drop off our plastic outside wine glasses.  We ran into a person we had met two nights ago before we went to dinner named Brandon.  He is pretty funny, but can be a bit loud after drinking, and he was a little loud already this evening.  However, we still enjoyed talking with him.  He is from San Diego, and in Real Estate, and traveling with his mom, or at least that is the story we heard the other night.  We have yet to see or meet his mom.

We had to go and get ready for dinner, but stopped by The Living Room Bar for a real “glass” of wine to take back to the room while we got ready.

Around 6:00 PM we headed back to the Living Room Bar to have a glass of Copolla Zinfandel before we headed to Manfredi’s for dinner.  The entrance to Manfredi’s is right by the Living Room Bar, so we did not have far to go.

At 6:30 PM, we headed over to Manfredi’s and checked in.  We were seated at a table for two one row over from the window, so we still had a nice view of the last of the setting sun.  Of course, after the sun went down there was nothing to see out the window!  The couple seated at the window hardly said a word during their whole dinner.  They had been there for some time before us so they had already ordered, but we don’t think they ever talked, which was strange.

Another couple was seated at the next table over in the other direction and they were from Norway, and were on the World Cruise.  We thought he might originally have been from the USA, he did not have an accent, but she was really hard to understand with her heavy accent.  We enjoyed talking with them between courses of our dinner.

We both ordered the fried Calamari appetizer.   Stephanie ordered a carbonara pasta for the pasta course, and then Mahi-Mahi for her main course.  I ordered gnocchi for my pasta and the ribeye Florentine for my main course.

By the time the main courses arrived, we were already full from the appetizer and pasta, and of course some of the fresh bread and parmesan cheese.  

Stephanie’s mahi was pretty good although it seemed to taste a little fishier than we were used to.  My steak was cooked the way I ordered it, medium rare, but it had a lot of fat in it, and I could hardly find a piece that was not too fatty for my taste.  Plus, it was really thin.  

We were too full for dessert, so we excused ourselves and headed out.  We stopped by the Living Room Bar for a Segrams VO drink. The bar manager for that bar had found us in Manfredi’s and had come to tell us he had set aside some Schweppes Ginger Ale, and had asked us where we wanted it to be taken, so we just told him the Living Room Bar since that was where we had initially met him and talked about the Ginger Ale differences.  We thought that was really nice of him to do that for us.

We sat at the bar and we talked with a couple already seated there, they were also on the world cruise, and we had met him in the hot pool in the spa earlier today.  They were nice and interesting to talk with, they had traveled to a lot of interesting places. Their names were Bill and Bobbi.

We enjoyed the piano player in the atrium while we had our beverages. The piano player was heading up to the Explorer’s Lounge, so we decided we would go there to listen to him play.  He had already started by the time we got there, so we only stayed about 30 minutes until he finished playing again.

We called it a night and headed back to the cabin, it had been a good day at sea.