Day Two ~ At Sea

We woke up about 6:30 and were hoping to catch the sunrise.  It was too cloudy to see it, however.  It had rained in the night.  So instead we just opened the drape and laid in bed and watched the sea.  It was so calm and relaxing!

The first thing I did each morning was make a cup of coffee.  I have a pour over mug from Starbucks.  So I packed that, and half and half cups, a pound of coffee, and sandwich baggies to put my filter and grounds in so it wasn't messy for our room steward.  Doug would go to the Park Cafe or Windjammer (depending on what time it was) and get me 2 raspberry pastries.  I called this "Pre -Breakfast".  I needed pre-breakfast so that I could be nice at breakfast in the Windjammer or Park Cafe.  I am NOT a morning person.  I don't even want you to look at me, let alone talk to me, before coffee.  So pre-breakfast was really for the benefit of the other passengers!

We went to the Park Cafe for breakfast this morning.  It is one deck up on the aft.  There is a secret staircase that will take you right up through the spa and out to the Park Cafe.  Very convenient.  Doug really liked it. I thought the steps were a little steep and would often just walk down to the centrum stairs, up, and back down the hallway to the Cafe.  We had a very light breakfast before our workout.

After breakfast we went to work out.  Doug headed to the gym and I went up to deck 10 to walk the track.  I walked 8 laps before I saw Doug, and then stopped.  I had a grand plan to walk 20 laps by the end of the trip.  Sad to say that was the first and last time I walked the track!

After working out we went to the windjammer for a little bit more breakfast.  I needed some protein and fruit.  And a mimosa of course!  We purchased the drink packages.  Doug had the preferred package and I had the ultimate.  They both included bottled water, the soda package cup, and cocktails, wine, beer up to a certain limit in price (which we never exceeded and ordered whatever we wanted).  My package also included sparkling bottled water, Starbucks coffees and fresh squeezed juice.  So I'd have a mimosa every morning on my way out of the Windjammer :)

We headed back to the room and lounged on the balcony after getting ready for the day. We were making plans on what to do.  The seas were CALM and the skies CLEAR and it was about to be 70! What more could we want!!

We went to the photo gallery to collect our boarding pictures.  With the package all you need to do is collect your pictures every day and they will put them in a file behind the desk.  I went to Starbucks and got an Americano and we sat in the centrum on deck 6 and watched a little of the cooking demo before we headed out to the pool.

This day was even better than they said it would be.  Sunny and hot in the80s!  We settled in and had drinks and watched the corn hole competition.  Although they call it bean bag toss!  We took turns going into the WJ to grab lunch and brought it back out poolside to eat and drank some more.  Mudslides for dessert after lunch each day!  Also an assortment of other cocktails.  It is nice to be able to sample things you might not try, and if you didn't like it, could order something different.  It was also nice to not have to pay attention to what we were paying for cocktails.  The drink package, for us, was very worthwhile.  And we more than got our money's worth.  We lounged by the pool until it was time to get ready for dinner.  Tonight is the first formal night.

So mid-afternoon we headed back to the room with a mudslide to lounge on the balcony and nap until dinner.  About 4 we realized our toilet wouldn't flush.  We called guest relations and let them know.  It didn't flush for hours.  We had to use public restrooms on deck 9 while getting ready for dinner.  In fact, in the course of the next 24 hours, our toilet didn't flush 5 times.  Actually, it didn't work a lot of the time throughout the whole cruise.  It was like playing Russian Roulette whether or not it would flush.  Doug talked with Edger, the guest relations manager, about that.  I'll talk more about that later on.

So while getting ready for dinner, we called for room service and had mid-afternoon snacks.  I relaxed in the bath with a glass of wine...one of my favorite parts of having a tub on a cruise!  We also relaxed a while on the balcony after getting ready for dinner.  The sun was setting and the gentle breeze was cooler.  It was just gorgeous!!

So we finally headed out to have our pictures taken.  It was SO HOT in the centrum.  But we did stand in line and have our picture taken at several stations on decks 4 and 5.

I love this picture of Doug!

After pictures we had a bit of time before dinner, so we went and sat on the pool deck where it was much cooler.  We sat for about an hour talking and people watching and then headed to dinner.

Dinner tonight was great!  We had an awesome table for two next to the window with amazing waitstaff.  Robet was our waiter and Vikash was our assistant.  Stipe was the head waiter, and we saw him every night.  I don't remember ever seeing a head waiter before.  He was really good to us.  Robet and Vikash quickly learned our likes and habits and remembered those throughout the trip.  Vikash knew I wanted 2 savory bites every night, and coffee with dessert and Doug wanted sprite and I wanted Moscato and we liked the after dinner shots.

Tonight Doug had shrimp cocktail, beef tenderloin with mashed potatoes and mile high lemon meringue pie.  I had some kind of spinach salad, shrimp ravioli with lobster sauce (which was SO GOOD!) and strawberry cheesecake for dessert.  The dinner shot was an international kiss.  Yummy!

After dinner we went to the Viking Crown Lounge for drinks and dancing.  Our favorite bar server, Stephanie, works up here.  She made us an internationally kiss on the lips, which is peach, mango and passion fruit frozen drink. So yummy!  Doug didn't like it, so he went with mango lava flow next time.

They played some pre-recorded Motown music for awhile before the DJ came in to play.  We were able to dance.  And that night the DJ played a nice selection of music that we liked, so we danced some more until midnight.  Most nights after that, the music was loud and more ethnic than we like.  So we didn't stay after the DJ came in.

We left about midnight and stopped by the Park Cafe for snacks and took them back to the room with our drinks and relaxed on the balcony.  About 1:30 we headed to bed, but since we turned our clocks back this night, it was 12:30, right?  And for the record, time change is much easier to be accustomed to on a ship :)

We had our first towel animal this night.  Louis is our cabin steward.  He is the best cabin steward we have ever had.  He quickly filled whatever request we had of him, and he was so stealth cleaning up and turning down our room.  Only once did I ever go back to the room and he was in it.  He was perfect!

It was an amazing day with perfect weather!  Nov. 12th in the Atlantic ocean and we were sitting in the sun getting a tan and enjoying life with calm seas.  The weather for the majority of this trip was perfect!  The cruise compass says tomorrow will be even better!