Chapter 10 – Have a drink-o for Cinco de Mayo
Tuesday May 5th
Today’s navigator:
Today was another day at sea. I woke up especially early this morning, having slept really badly due to my poorly sunburnt knees rubbing on the bed sheets. I got up, washed and dressed and headed up the stairs to deck 9 where I caught up some more of my journal. After dropping my bag and notebook back to the room, I joined the other ladies for our early morning deck 4 walk. We were down to five this morning – myself, Mari, Jayne, Kim and Andrea. We walked for about an hour, then Mari, Andrea and I went up to deck 9 for water. Andrea also got some fruit. We decided we would go and watch Clayton’s morning show, which started at 8.30 in Studio Sea. Today’s ‘special guest’ was Chuck Wagner, a Broadway star who had starred in musicals such as Into The Woods and Beauty And The Beast. There was something about him that I didn’t really like; he just seemed quite arrogant, although admittedly he was a very talented singer. Clayton announced that he and Ugo (the Hotel Director) would be having a cook-off later in the cruise. Leslie (the Assistant Cruise Director) asked what he cooked and he replied “I can cook, I can cook…burgers…um…leftovers…I can cook…Cheesecake Factory!) Leslie looked at the camera and said “Watch out Ugo, Clayton is coming to get you with his…uh…Cheesecake Factory leftovers”
After the show, I went back to the room to shower and change; then Gary and I went to breakfast at Beach Blanket Buffet. I tried to be a little healthy this morning and had some pink grapefruit with brown sugar, which was really very good. I then undid my healthy efforts with pastries and French toast.
Gary went to Captain Puckett’s talk and I sat in the shade and caught up on my journal. I was on my own this morning as Kim and Terry had gone to Palo brunch (I think) and there was no sign of Tony and Tee. But it was nice to have some alone time and I finally got all caught up on my trip notes. I was a bit peckish - OK, that’s a lie, I wasn’t hungry at all. I saw somebody nearby with a soft pretzel and decided I wanted one so went to Pinocchio’s Pizzeria to get one. They had two flavours – salted and cinnamon cream cheese. I got salted but hardly ate any as there was melted butter brushed on top and it was just far too buttery for me.
Shortly afterwards Tony and Tee arrived. Tony ordered the Drink of the Day, which was a Yellow Bird (white rum, Galliano, crème de banana and equal amounts of orange and pineapple juice).
Gary came back from Captain Puckett’s talk and we decided to go to Tritons for lunch. As we were sitting at our table, I noticed a whole bunch of people looking out of one of the portholes in the corridor outside. I wondered if it could be dolphins and, just as I was contemplating going out to look, our server came to take our order. I told him I was thinking of going out to look but he said it wouldn’t be dolphins, they were just probably looking at the big waves (it had been quite choppy this morning). So I stayed put and we placed our order. Just then Kim and Terry passed by and we waved. They came in and told us they had just seen dolphins outside. Our server apologised so I jokingly said “That’s OK, I can see dolphins any time I like in England”. I’m not sure he got my humour.
Lunch was really lovely. I had the smoked duck salad, which was fantastic, followed by the steak and cheese croissant sandwich and chocolate cake for dessert. I figured it was OK – after all, I had fruit for breakfast
Gary had some kind of soup (Mexican? Tortilla? Mexican tortilla?), followed by the curry and rhubarb crumble.
Gary said his was lovely, except the crumble was served cold, which was a little odd.
After such a big lunch, Tony was in need of a lie down.
Just kidding; actually, we had Mixology next so made our way to Cadillac Lounge after a quick stop back at the room to quickly change and grab my list of participants, so we could check everyone was there.
When we arrived, several from our group were already there – Joe and Andrea, Cindy, Mari and Jeff, Heather and her husband John. Mari passed out beads with Cinco de Mayo medallions that she had made for everybody. Before long the rest of the group arrived and we got started. We were missing a couple of people, who were feeling under the weather due to the movement of the ship (as I said earlier, it really was rocking today).
Pablo was our teacher for the afternoon and gave us a bit of background to mixology, explained some of the terms used and the equipment needed. The format of the class was a bit different to that which we had done on the Fantasy a couple of years ago. In that one, three or four people at a time made enough drinks for everybody. In this one, Pablo asked for three or four volunteers to make full sized versions of the sample drinks we all had in front of us.
The first drink (on the right) was some kind of horrible concoction, involving gin and cucumber. Pablo actually asked me to make the large version of this one, but I asked him if I could make something different since I really didn’t like it (I’d sneaked a sip of it before we started). It tasted like a glass of salad! I don’t think Joe was impressed either.
Gary quite liked it, so he volunteered to make one, as did David and Sally. Pablo seemed to have the opinion that people from the UK drank a lot so he poured quite a lot of gin into Gary’s glass.
Next up was a French Martini. I am not the biggest fan but, hey, it’s got vodka in it! And Chambord. I love this picture – Jeff and Joe both look as though they’re thinking “Woah, go easy girl”.
Cheers!
Next drink was the Yellow Bird, today’s Drink of the Day.
It was about this time that poor Vicky was looking a little green around the gills – not through drink but from the movement of the ship – and was not drinking much, bless her. I don’t recall who made the full size Yellow Bird drinks – I think Scott, Heather and Tony – it was about now that the French Martini was starting to kick in! The next drink was one which I really liked, despite it having whisky in it – the Triple Crowned (although I had always thought it was called the Double Crowned?)
After that, Kim and Jif made the shot drink, which was called a jellyfish.
All in all, it was a very successful – and fun – mixology class. We stuck around for a while afterwards and chatted. And took drunken pictures.
Kim and Terry had mentioned that they were taking a galley tour later in the week and persuaded us to join them (not that we needed much persuading) so we went to Guest Services to book it up. They also had another mixology class (organised by
DCL this time) booked on the 9th so we booked onto that too. While chatting to Cindy, I discovered that she was doing a mojito tasting on the 14th (our last day on the ship) so I decided I would join her for that also. I told Gary he could pack while Cindy and I drank.
I use factor 30 or even 50 as I only have to look at the sun and I burn!
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