Life onboard carried on as usual starting with a nice breakfast, but missing the manager Endrian. Yuli, his most capable assistant has taken the reigns until San Diego. Last night we did not get The Daily newsletter, so we assumed that breakfast time was 7:30am. It was not, but the doors were opened for the early risers anyway. The dining room opened at 8am. There are always extra newsletters on the front desk along with the NY Times crossword puzzle and one Sudoku puzzle.
The weather had improved with mostly blue skies and the sun shining on the horizon. We have almost forgotten what a beautiful sunrise looks like. Unfortunately, it would not last long.
While we are thinking about it, here are a few things we noticed that are different in this A category room compared to the deck one room. There are four electric plugs on the desk area, three of which are 110. If you need more 110 plugs, bring a plug strip or borrow one from housekeeping. Our strip from home does not have a surge protector. They will not let you use the newer style. There is only one USB port located in the lamp on top of the refrigerator cabinet. The newer ships have many more ports. One is better than none, which is what we had in the deck one room. There are no felt hangers on this ship. We did have those on the Zuiderdam's world cruise this year. We did request wire hangers and got plenty of them. Lastly, there are laundry package options on this 56- day journey. Laundry by the bag (stuff it to the gills) is $35, while unlimited laundry (no dry cleaning) is $588. Unlimited pressing is $224. The blue cloth laundry bag is $15 and the laundry return garment bag is $10. If you happen to take these home with you (by accident?), expect a charge to your account. Same goes for the beach towels and the nice soft blankets for the veranda use. Now we are really appreciating the perk for complimentary laundry. By the way, so far the return on the laundry has been the same day.
Well it was great sitting on the veranda while the sun was shining. Little by little, the clouds appeared and by 1pm it was raining. Darn…. Oh well, it was time for another Mariner welcome onboard gathering in the Crow's Nest, which we thought was 11:30am. But really, it was 11am, and we went late anyway. No problem, the second gathering began at noon, so we stayed for that one. Instead of the sparkling wine, they served sangria and another sweet wine. Not big fans of sweet wine, we opted for the sparkling wine. The nice bartender poured us two bottomless glasses. Sitting at the bar, we scanned the room to look for our buddies Bill & Leta. Turned out they were buried in a group of folks sitting across the room at the windows. Eventually, they spotted us and came to join us. We all agreed the motion of the ocean was much more noticeable because the ship was doing 14.8 knots…too slow for the stabilizers to work well. This theory was confirmed by the food and beverage manager who took some time to work the crowd. We visited with our friends until 1pm, then figured it was time for lunch.
Once again, we had been invited to the Sommelier wine tasting at 1:50pm but did not attend. We do appreciate the invite anyway. The next time we see Hannah, the Sommelier, we shall ask if they are doing the light finger food pairing with the wine tasting. After Covid, many of these snack-type tasting were discontinued. And we had a reminder that we still had time to sign up for the Have-It-All perk for $60 per day per person. We had it once on a shorter cruise because it was a built-in perk. We never came close to utilizing its value.
A run to the Dive In was a good choice because there was no line at all by 2pm. We had a burger, hot dog and fries again and the order was filled in less than 10 minutes. It is nice sailing with only 700 guests. The walk to get here is further now that we have moved more midship. So perhaps that will help burn the calories of one French fry. Dream on…..
Taking another afternoon walk, we found the promenade deck to be deserted except for two other couples walking like us. Joining the three lanai room guests (bundled up like mummies) on their lounges, were a handful of crew members working. On our way back, we did find a crowd in the Explorer's Lounge and figured it was time for trivia, a most popular game for many folks.
This evening was "dressy" and for the most part, people were decked out nicely. What was missing was the Captain's Welcome in the World Stage. The official start of the Tales of the South Pacific will commence on October 2nd in San Diego and there will be a welcome then. From what we have been told, three hundred of us will continue forward, and the other 400 will disembark. In fact, there were flyers on several rooms to fill out that information on getting off. Ours will come November 20th or so before this trip ends.
Our dining room dinners were pretty good. Starters were a crab Louis and tomato soup. For the first time, a real surf and turf entrée was on the Gala menu. Turf was a tender filet, and the surf was lobster, with a little too many pieces of shell attached. Considered a "legendary" cruise, the menu format has gone back to what we have on a grand voyage. The best dessert was the strawberry shortcake, just the way we have it at home.
Showtime in the World Stage featured a comedian by the name of Simon B. Cotter. We thought the time was 9:30pm, but looking closer at the newsletter, it had changed back to 9pm now. Then at 9:45pm, a chocolate surprise was happening on deck 5.
On our way back from dinner, we checked out the activity in the Casino. It was barely occupied with guests mostly at the slots. And many were smoking. That is one thing we do not like, but then it is easy to avoid going through that part of the ship.
We have another day at sea on the way to San Francisco. Hope the rain goes away.
Bill & Mary Ann
