Today s our third sea day since leaving Barcelona as we head toward the Azores. Tomorrow we will arrive in the Azores in Ponta Delgada.
Of course, we took the opportunity to sleep in once again. Unfortunately, Stephanie has caught the same head cold that I had, just about three days later. She did not sleep well, the congestion dried out her throat, and made breathing difficult, so she really needed the extra sleep this morning.
The weather was mostly sunny when we finally got ready and headed out to get some breakfast. After showering and getting moving, the colds we have sort of clear up, and are not bad to deal with during the day, only at night.
We headed to the breakfast buffet so we could get some warm grits for Stephanie’s sore throat. The grits are surprisingly good on this cruise. Someone actually knows how to make them to the correct consistency, not real runny like we normally find. Of course, they are not salty enough, but that is easily fixed. Being too runny is not. While we were eating, Scott and Deborah came through the area and sat with us for a while to eat.
After breakfast we headed to the stern of the ship to enjoy the sun, and for me to get one Bloody Caesar at the Outrigger Bar, which helps to clear my sinuses since they have a mixture of hot sauce in them, along with the Clamato juice and vodka. These are supposed to be a specialty of this bar, but we had noticed that the bartender here was not making them with the Elite Vodka, per the drink description, but was instead using the house vodka. I finally asked about this and he told me I was supposed to ask for the “premium Bloody Caesar” if I wasted the better vodka. If this was not a specialty bar for both bloody mary’s and for margaritas, I would understand, but on none of our previous cruises had this been necessary. They even have a special drink menu for this bar for these two types of drinks. Even more surprising was that we are on the beverage package, and cost is not really in the equation, and the default is normally the best brand of spirits within the limits of the package. We were told that there was a whopping $0.65 difference in the two drinks made with the house vodka or the premium Elite vodka. Now we know the drill, but it should not be the case.
We decided to head to the Seaview Bar to see if it was warm enough there to hang out with the bartenders we knew there. We asked about the Bloody Caesar at the Seaview Bar, and once they found out who the bartender was, they just laughed. Apparently, he is not that good.
Since we were at the Seaview Bar, Stephanie had a peach Bellini, made with peach schnapps and champagne, with a splash of orange juice. This was better than any over the counter medication for her cold. The only issue was that there was a little bit if the champagne left in the individual serving bottles that they use, so in order not to waste that, another Bellini was necessary. That used up the remainder of the first mini champagne bottle, but then left even more in the second bottle so that the proportions would be correct in the second drink. That required a third in order to make everything work out. I had another premium Bloody Caesar while I was waiting for this mixology dilemma to work itself out.
It was a little cool sitting here at the Seaview Bar, so we took our drinks up one level and found a protected area around the pool deck where we could sit in the sun loungers and not be cold. It was under an overhang, so there was not much direct sunlight. We still have not had really warm temperatures yet on this cruise. It has been about 69-70 degrees for the high each day, but with some clouds and wind, it feels cool. The steel drum player, Tyrone, was scheduled to play out by the pool, so we listened to him for his 45 minute show, and were eventually able to move our chairs out from under the overhang into the sunshine.
It was now about 1:00 PM, so we headed to the buffet for some lunch. After lunch, we grabbed my laptop from the room and headed to the Crooner’s Bar to sit and relax and work on the blog and photo albums. Stephanie left for a bit and visited some of the shops while I did the computer work.
It was getting time to be “happy hour” in the Crooners Bar, they serve buy one, get one for a dollar drinks, and it is very popular for anyone not on the beverage package, and really gets crowded. We did not need to be there while the happy hour was going on, we did not need to take advantage of the drink special.
We headed back to the cabin where I continued to do computer work and Stephanie took a nap. We then started to watch some TV and both fell asleep. I hate taking naps, so I was out of sorts when we woke up about an hour later. It is not something I enjoy.
We went ahead and got ready to go to dinner. We stopped off at Vines for a glass of wine and to decide where we wanted to go and eat. While we were in Vines, we met a group of three couples at the table next to ours who lived in Clemson, SC, and of course were avid Clemson Fans. All of them left except for one lady, Sharron, and we sat and talked with her for a while about traveling and also listened to the steel drum music in the Atrium.
We still were not sure where we would go tonight for dinner, other than we were not going to the dining room. Our options were Alfredo’s Pizzeria, or the buffet. We decided to walk through the buffet just to see what was being served. We discovered that it was Mongolian barbecue night, which is one of the best specialty buffet items that they have during a cruise. You select your vegetables, spices, and then your meats, and they cook each individual’s serving and deliver it to your table. It is always hot, and really tasty because of the spices. There were also spring rolls, and broiled shrimp as selections at the normal buffet, so it was a great dinner.
After dinner, we had a nightcap or two at Bellini’s before heading back to the cabin for the night. We did not want to stay out too late since tomorrow we are stopping in Ponta Delgada, Azores. We actually watched a show on the TV about things to do in Ponta Delgada, and discovered that there were quite a few things we had not seen in the city. We marked them on our port guide map, provided by the ship for each individual port. and called it an evening.