Two Glorious Sea Days

Captain Perrin with us at the Cruise Critic gathering

I have to say that as much as I love to travel and see the ports the best days are the sea days.  They say you are a true cruisers when you look at itineraries and pick the ones with more sea days. 

We have just had two port days and both were busy and now we have two days to relax, sleep in, read, enjoy coffee with friends, meals, drinks and overall just whatever we want.

We wake to beautiful hot weather, from now on we are in for hot temps and you have almost forgotten the colder temps at the bottom of the earth when we rounded the horn.

lots of turtles were seen from the ship

Bernie is up and he heads off to get me a latte and his tea and we relax in the cabin.  I head up around 9 am to get some fruit and a bagel.  Normally I love plain yoghurt on my mixed fruit but the yoghurt they are currently getting is from Chile and very runny.  So I only use a small amount on the fruit.

Today is our second meet and greet for cruise critic and the place is busy, I would estimate the numbers at around 200 and once again the officers attended.  It was nice to put faces to names and to reconnect with people we met on the first leg but haven’t seen much of. 

I decided to join Bernie’s team in the cruise long speed trivia contest, each sea day they will hold a session and for this ship it is usually at 12:15 in the Vista Lounge.  I feel we did very well (later found out we got 9 out of 10).

The sun is calling and we head back to the cabin to put on our swimsuits and lots of sunscreen – don’t forget the sunscreen, and make sure you slather it on everywhere and reapply cause a few people forgot and we had walking lobsters during formal night tonight.

I grab two slices of pizza and enjoy a little vitamin D.  It is warm, and the pool at the back up on deck 16 is very warm, almost like a Jacuzzi, so I head to the pool that is right down behind the Horizon Court on deck 14 and it is freezing.  No idea why such a different temperature for both, both are shaded because of skywalkers.

We last for about 2.5 hours and head back to the cabin where Bernie, Jerry and Craig are laughing on the deck and talking Vodka and the attributes of good Vodka so out come the glasses and they are sampling.  Us more civilized women head down to afternoon tea, which is the first one I have attended on board.  Love those scones!

Just as I am heading out of the dining room I run into Ernest and we sit out on the Promenade and chat, we had been chatting on facebook but we hadn’t had really met or chatted on board yet.  We had a great conversation and made arrangements for us all to have dinner together tomorrow.

Tonight we are heading back to Sabatinis for dinner.  Jan and Michael promised us dinner tonight we have a table for five at 8:30 but we work it out by heading for drinks in Alice’s cabin for 7:30.  Jan and Michael join us  and we have a great visit and we had a lovely view of the almost full moon shining down between the clouds onto the water, very pretty.

We arrive promptly at 8:30 and are sat rather quickly.  There are two other large tables and maybe two other tables of two and us.  We brought a bottle of champagne and a bottle of red wine but we have to wait as the staff are too busy.  We remind them about our bottles and wanting champagne first and I would estimate we got our glasses poured about 15 minutes after sitting down.

I went with the lobster again but just want the Risotto not the tail and they give a nice big bowl of lobster Risotto and I am happy.  The meal was very good, the company was great, but once again service in the specialty restaurants (our fourth time) is lacking.  They are just short staffed and they really need at least one more waiter.  We will not be going back to Sabatinis this voyage because of it.

We roll out of the restaurant feeling really no pain… and wander the ship for a bit.  There is a comedian but we are too late – his name is Al Brown.

We hit the hay.

Second Sea day and we both have a rough night, too much wine, too much food and this lovely cold but we don’t have to rush and we are slow to get moving.

I make it down to the Suduko Challenge at 9:30.  Meghan is hosting it, there are a lot more people participating this time and the puzzle she gives us is hard.  Only one person finished it.

I head off to find a quiet place to read and relax but seems every place I find ends up being noisy.  I end up outside Explorer’s Lounge with Bernie until he goes to trivia there.  I venture to the Vista Lounge and relax and finish my book and start another one – love my Kindle.

Speed Trivia again and we try our best will find out tonight how we are doing.

I want more sun so I head forward this time just above the Sanctuary Pool.  It is quiet but sadly one thing I dislike about this ship is the noise coming from the main pool spreads and forget about having tranquility in the Sanctuary cause all you hear is the band and the pool games.  But my Ipod gets rid of that and I enjoy the sun for about an hour and a half before heading back to the cabin with a light lunch and some more reading on the balcony.

But I can’t keep my eyes open, little sleep the night before is causing me to head in and take a nap and I now feel refreshed and ready to take on the night.

We are having dinner with friends tonight at 8 pm and we meet up in Vines prior for a glass of wine.  Dinner was very good, I had the strawberry cold soup with the scallops as my entrée with the grapefruit tart for dessert with a lovely Pinot Gringos to drink. 

After dinner we wander a bit and head to the show Los Gauchos that was shown last voyage but we didn’t get to see so we check out the 10:15 showing.  We have seen them before on a Caribbean voyage but didn’t see the whole act.  It was quite good, funny and loved the audience participation.

We are off to bed Lima is our stop tomorrow.