At Sea

March 7^th, 2024

Finally a sea day!

The first order of business was to find the launderette, or laundromat as it is called on this ship.

Luckily there is one on the same deck as our cabin, but it is right at the back of the ship.

I trundled down there with my bag of washing expecting to find a queue for a machine, but all 8 machines were empty and the sole person in the room was busy doing her ironing.

I was expecting that you would not have to pay for the machines, but no, you have to buy tokens in order to use them.

Luckily there is a vending machine in the laundry so you don’t have to go down to guest relations, and one touch of my medallion got me on the path to clean clothes. It’s $3 for washing, $3 for drying, $1.50 for washing powder, and $1;50 for a dryer sheet. Not that much in the grand scheme of things, but still annoying.

I placed my laundry in a machine and sprinkled the powder everywhere. I placed my token in the slot, and nothing happened. There did not seem to be any way to get the machine to jump into action. I pressed every knob I could see, but still nothing. I was getting quite annoyed.

At that moment a gentleman entered, and sensing my frustration volunteered to help. He was also unsuccessful, and declared that the machine was faulty and that I should use another machine. This was feeling like the Balmoral all over again. Am I cursed to be a launderette failure? Reluctantly I bought another token, and moved my washing to the adjacent machine, trying to retrieve as much of the washing powder as possible. I tried the cycle that I wanted, still no response. I tried several other cycles, no success. Then I tried the whites cycle. Yay! The door locked and the machine sprung into action. Now this really wasn’t the cycle I wanted for our definitely non white clothes, but hey, there was no choice now. With the door firmly locked, they were all about to enjoy a white wash. Feeling somewhat triumphant with my moderate success I headed towards Skywalkers for the Cruise Critic meet up.

Now Skywalkers isn’t that easy to find, but I persevered and found the meeting. I was just settling in to meet and greet when the timer on my phone let me know that my washing was almost done, so I found my way back down to deck 8 to see if having conquered washing machine 101 I could now pass dryer 101 as well.

It was lunch time by the time the washing was done, but I was pleased with the success of the morning.

We went to the Horizon Court, which is the buffet restaurant. It is such a pleasure that there is no queue and no guard at the door telling you where to sit. You simply walk in and find your table. They have nifty cutlery containers on the tables, so there is always cutlery there for you to use. Now I am not a fan of buffets at all, and this is not a great buffet, but it is OK, and there are always 2 options of pasta dishes so I am surviving.

There are plenty of activities going on on sea days. Although there is a plethora of talks from the shops, art gallery, casino, and spa, there are some that do not appear to be revenue generating. We went to a beginning Spanish lesson presented by a very perky member of the entertainment staff, Ampura from Chile. I’m not sure I learned much, but her enthusiasm and love of her language was a joy to watch.

We missed the Merengue class, pop choir rehearsal (I don’t think they will be singing Jerusalem or Cym Rhonda), arts and crafts (origami), and port presentation. There were several quizzes and sports challenges. For those of us with a lot of energy there was certainly a lot going on. I don’t know how anyone could get bored on board.

The highlight of the day was the Captain’s Champagne waterfall. I suppose this is the equivalent of the Captain’s welcome on board party.

It was our first formal night. We knew things were not going to be a formal as on Cunard or Fred Olsen, but were surprised by the anything goes approach to formal wear.

Brian and I dressed in our usual formal get up. We love dressing up, and we have the clothes with us so we might as well wear them. There were a few other couples on board in formal wear, but we were definitely in the minority. Even the gentlemen in suits and ladies in cocktail dresses were few and far between. Most people seemed to be in their very every day clothes. There were a few people in shorts and T shirts, but not that many. All in all it was quite a mixture. I suppose it was wear what you want to night.

Anyway, once we were all dressed up we went to join the throngs of people waiting for that moment when the champagne waterfall begins.

There were free glasses of ridiculously sweet sparkling wine to be consumed while we waited for the main event.

And then the champagne pour commenced, and took a ridiculously long time with passengers helping out to fill all of the glasses.

The waterfall completed, the captain gave a brief speech, and then all the excitement was over and we headed off for a predinner drink in the Wheelhouse bar. I was in need of some real bubbly.

The dinner menu looked wonderful – duck a l’orange, roast leg of lamb, fillet mignon. It was hard to decide. I went for the duck, Brian for the fillet. They were both OK, but not spectacular.. Even the flambéed bananas Foster was a bit of a let down. It was tasty but not what I was expecting – a cold banana in a sugary syrup. I guess we have just been spoiled by the food on other cruise lines.

However, we were blown away by the production show, Bravo. It was a mixture of well loved songs including music from opera, musicals, films, and pop music. It was hard to fathom a theme, except they were all well known pieces, and the singers and dancers did a splendid job. It really was most enjoyable.

I went to bed dreaming of penguins – yay, our first penguin tour is tomorrow!