Report # 90 Day at Sea En Route to St. Maarten Thursday - March 17, 2022 Mostly cloudy and 78 degrees

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Our first day at sea after leaving Ft. Lauderdale presented itself with mostly cloudy skies, slightly rough seas, and temps in the 70's.  Rather cool, we never did see any rain, as it had been suggested.  Sailing in a southeasterly direction, we have the cooler side of the ship.  Those on the starboard side will get some sun on their decks.  According to the Captain, we can expect more of the same tomorrow.

Club Orange was quite busy today with the new guests that boarded yesterday.  We learned that about 38 people belong to the Club Orange group, as well as those in suites, and of course, us.  If this ship was at full capacity, we wonder where they would possibly seat so many people?  Maybe the overflow would go to the Pinnacle Grill, just thinking out loud.

Heading back to our room, we walked through the casino.  Truthfully, we squeezed through the casino, as it was crazy crowded.  And this was at 10am.  Once again, we could smell cigarette smoke, although no one we have asked seemed to know much about that.  We did wander around the many slot machines looking for smoking guests, but saw nothing.  Maybe we are dreaming about the smoke smell? More of a concern to us is the fact few people were wearing the masks.  There is not a chance there is 6 foot distancing here.

Many activities took place today. The Fitness Center offered some free classes, while some of their other things were at a charge.  That would be yoga and indoor cycling.  We prefer to walk the promenade where we can get a lot of fresh air.  Today the crew were busy scrubbing, hosing, vacuuming, caulking, and painting on this deck.  Finally, the "zambonie" we call the scrubber on wheels, was being filled to begin that job.  After doing three laps, we went inside when too many walkers came out.   There are areas on this deck that narrow down with room for one walker at a time.  And for some reason, there are people that choose to walk the opposite way.  This becomes a problem when you round the corner and have a possible head-on collision.  There are no directional arrows on this ship, showing the counter-clockwise pattern.

Sadly, we saw no decorations on the ship for St. Patrick's Day.  It would have been a bigger deal if this was a world cruise.   Many folks did come prepared with something green to wear.  And there were a handful of people really dressed for it.  We do have to say the dinner menu reflected some of the traditional items like corned beef and cabbage, and a pea soup (not Dutch pea). 

We had been invited to another complimentary wine tasting in the dining room at 2pm titled, "James Suckling Pacific Northwest Wine Tasting".   At $25 per person, we figured we saved them $450 for 9 events we missed.  Always nice to be invited, but we probably will never attend. 

Today we had a small salad in the Lido for lunch.  By 2:30pm, there were few people in there. We are trying to keep meals lighter so we can enjoy dinner.

And dinnertime was gala this evening.  We were surprised at how many people were already dining on deck three when we arrived at 8pm.  Then we asked Presty when the dining room opened up for fixed seating, and he said 7:30pm.  Technically, they open for the first seating at 5:15pm on deck 3.   However, with many guests requesting a table for two, they are bringing them upstairs from the open seating on deck two.  Sometimes there are no tables for them downstairs. When we come in at 8pm, there are many diners still eating from the anytime dining seating.  So it's not the same as totally fixed upstairs.

Tonight we ordered the same meal starting with the shrimp cocktail, Caesar salads, and rack of lamb with a baked potato.  It was a little slow in coming, but worth the wait.  A chocolate soufflé and a hot fudge sundae were sweet endings. 

Now the test…..we walked through the casino and finally saw one guest smoking with an ashtray next to his slot machine.  So we were not crazy….we did smell the smoke.  We have also heard from friends on other ships that smoking has been re-instated on select cruises.

Coming back to our room, we had a surprise.  There were two koozies left on the bed with a note from someone we do not know.  Now this is a mystery we will need to solve.  How thoughtful is that?   Obviously, someone has been reading this blog and realized the difficulty we had finding these useful items.  Many thanks to our secret gift-giver!

Bill & Mary Ann

A gift from a secret guest?