Day 15
We actually had a bit of a lie in that day and woke up about 9:00. Neither of us felt like a proper breakfast that morning so we headed to Cafe Promenade for some coffee and pastries. Graham had a slice of Austrian Strietzel, a croissant and a raspberry Danish. I had a raspberry Danish and a chocolate donut. Graham then got another cup of coffee and I got a cup of mint tea and headed down to the Schooner Bar for morning trivia.
We got there about half an hour before morning trivia was due to start, but I was still surprised that nobody apart from us was there. Any kind of trivia on that cruise was very popular. We waited for a bit and still nobody turned up. There was a screen in the Schooner Bar with the daily program, but that seemed to be stuck on a page for later in the day. I headed out to the elevator lobby to check the screen there and realized that morning trivia was taking place in the Star Lounge that day, which is a much better venue. So I went back to collect Graham. Fortunately the Star Lounge was right above us and we still had some time to spare. We enjoyed the trivia again and scored yet another 11 out of 15.
After morning trivia, we collected our odds and ends and headed for the solarium. I spent the morning reading. We lost another hour at noon. After the Captain's announcement, we decided to get some lunch and headed for the Windjammer. Unfortunately everybody else on the ship seemed to have the same idea and there was nowhere to sit. We thought we could check out what was on offer at Cafe Promenade. They had set up a food station just outside of Cafe Promenade and were serving pie and mash. Graham was all for this. I did not really fancy any of the pie options and decided to worry about food after progressive trivia.
We did pretty well during progressive trivia. I did not stay for Battle of the Sexes that day as I wanted to get some food. Graham was still sitting where I had left him. I checked in with him and then I went up to the Windjammer to get some food. I ended up getting a hot dog and some steak fries and took them back to where Graham was sitting. This definitely hit the spot. We were sitting outside the pub and I was hoping that somebody would come by to take a drinks order, but this did not happen. There only seemed to be one person on duty. In the end, we just got some coffee from Cafe Promenade and then moved on.
We had somewhere to be. This afternoon was our allocated ice show. On some of their bigger ship, you can make reservations for the most popular production shows online. On the Voyager class ships this is not needed for most of the shows as they do not have big production shows. However, the ice shows are very popular and the capacity of Studio B is somewhat limited. So the low tech solution is that everybody on the ship has an assigned show based on their muster station. As our allocated muster station was one of the first, we got to go to the first performance of the ice show. When we got there, crew was organizing a standby line for people who had a different muster station. We got let in first and if there were still seats 10 minutes before the show started, people in the standby line would be allowed in. Everybody who wanted to see the show that day was able to get in and there were still seats to spare. That gave the idea that I potentially could see the show more than once.
The show was absolutely amazing. It was called Spirits of the Season and was loosely themed around the four seasons. Each season had 3 scenes. The show was a great mix of solos, pair performances and ensemble pieces as well as different styles of music. I loved everything, but my favourites were the Halloween scene during the fall segment and all the winter scenes. During one of them, two children from the audience in sleighs were part of the performance. The show was absolutely spectacular. I had really enjoyed the ice show on Navigator of the Seas, but this was in a different league.
Once the show was finished, we made a quick exit. I definitely did not want miss afternoon trivia that day. The topic for that afternoon was Disney trivia. When we got to the Schooner Bar, they were just wrapping up the previous event, which was logo trivia. I would have loved to do this, but given the choice of logo trivia and the ice show, logo trivia did not have a chance. When I saw the logos, I was kind of glad as there were some rather obscure ones on there. We ended up with a couple from Australia asking of they could join us for the trivia. We were happy to have company. I fell afoul of the names of Ariel’s sisters (which I still cannot remember) and of the only character in a feature length film that does not speak. I have to say my ego was a tiny bit dented after this. I figured before the trivia that I ought to be able to win Disney trivia on a
Royal Caribbean ship. Unfortunately for me, there were a couple of teams that got every question right. Oh well, it was still a bit of fun.
Opposite the Schooner Bar is one of the speciality restaurants and outside this, there is a screen were you can check the menus for all the specialty restaurants and also for the main dining room. I decided to check out the menu for that evening and I have to say, I was not inspired. There was nothing that evening that took my fancy. Graham came up behind me and suggested we could try dinner at the Windjammer. I quite liked that idea, but my one doubt was that it was formal night. Graham told me that we could still dress up and do the photos. That sounded good to me. So we decided to go up to the Windjammer to check out what the theme for dinner was that evening. This turned out to be a steakhouse menu, which sounded good to both of us.
We headed back to the cabin. When we came out of the lift, there was already a photographer about. Graham decided that he wanted a photo wearing his new t-shirt. I decided to join him. Then we headed across the Royal Promenade. They had a fashion jewellery sale that day. The brand that was featured mainly does Pandora-style bracelets, but they also had other jewellery on sale that day. A beautiful necklace and earring set caught my eye. At $20, I could not resist it. Up to that point, I had not made up my mind what gown I would wear that evening, but my new jewellery was the perfect match for my green gown. So that decision was made.
We headed back to the cabin to drop of our stuff and then went for dinner. I was not quite sure what to expect, but dinner was actually really nice. There were not many people up there and the selection of the food was nice. Graham had steak, lamb shank, prawns, fish, grilled tomato and steak fries. I had two different kinds of steak, chicken, steak fries and some kind of dough ball. Everything was nice. I could not resist the freshly made crêpes for dessert. I had mine with whipped cream, pecan nuts and chocolate ice cream. On the way out, I spotted a sign that made me laugh. One of the dinner offerings was vegetarian chicken.
After dinner, we went to get changed. We then headed back downstairs to the Schooner Bar. I had spotted music trivia on the Daily Compass and the theme was Songs with Colour. This sounded interesting. Well, we crashed and burned. There were 15 son snippets at for each you had to guess the song title and the artist. We got one completely right and the artist on another. Still, it was a a bit of fun. We then went to make use of the photo opportunities, but about half of them were closed as the photographers were taking photos in the dining room. We did the rounds of the ones that were open and then we headed back up to the pool deck to get some fresh air. They were showing Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them that evening. We both had watched this on the flight over, but decided we may as well watch until it was time to go back for the remaining photo opportunities. I think we both came to the conclusion that films on the pool deck can actually work. Once the time had come for all photo opportunities to open up again, we headed back downstairs. We completed our circuit around the photo opportunities and then retired to our cabin. We had another towel animal. We read for about half an hour and then got ready for bed.
