Coral Canal Cruise - 12/15/2010 - Review/Details/Whatever

[GreySkies]

Hello Everyone,

 

I have returned from my 15 day Panama Canal cruise on the Coral Princess. It was a grand time with only a few exceptions. I love reading about other people's adventures on their cruises, so I thought I would post mine. It may take me longer to post each day's activities and review than it took to go on the cruise, but you can blame work for that. ;-)

 

One more quick note before I begin: Passenger names have been abbreviated to just the person's first initial to protect anonymity.

 

15 Dec 2010

 

It has been a long 48 hours for me. On Tuesday, I got called in to work to train someone on how to do an effective search using a piece of software that I had figured out. Never mind that I still needed to work on my packing. Luckily, I was able to get a neighbor to stick my clothes into the dryer and then into my laundry baskets. She was even nice enough to fold them for me. I went home and quickly put together everything I had to take. I'm glad that I started creating a list of items to pack several days before the cruise.

 

I went to the airport (LAX) without any problems. Good thing I had my work badge with me since there are now guards at the entrance to the parking lot I use for the airport shuttle. It's free parking for me since my company also uses it, and they're the ones that put the guards in place. Apparently people from another company have been sneaking in to use it.

 

When I got to the airport, I went to check in. I turned around while waiting for my turn in line and saw my travel companion, my mom, sitting on a bench. I thought that I wouldn't see her until I was at the gate, so it was a nice surprise that she was still down there. I checked my one large bag and didn't even need to show ID. That was a bit odd. After waiting for a short time, Mom and I headed up to our gate. We had a cart and decided to use the elevator to get to the upper floor. There was a huge line and a non-existant line. Mom led me to the non-existant one only to be told that we had to go back downstairs where the line began. There I am, trying to move around an unwieldy luggage cart, and now I have to go back down to where I was. After we got downstairs, I refused to take the cart any further. I carried my stuff, Mom carried her's at this point.

 

Then the fun really began: The screening checkpoint. First, I'm trying to get all of my electronics out of my bags and into the bins. There's the laptop, the Nintendo DSi, the DSLR camera, and the iPhone. All of those went into two separate bins. Then I had to take off my hiking shoes and put those into a bin. Off came the belt and anything in the pockets, along with my pager. I've been through the routine often enough to normally have a system. Too bad for me Mom was in front of me taking a little too much time. *laugh* Mom also took out anything she needed to. But when I looked up, one of her bags was being taken over to the side to be looked at. All of my stuff went through fine with the exception of the laptop. Apparently they wanted to rescan it with the power cable removed from the small case the laptop was in. That went through without a problem, and now I know for next time.

 

Meanwhile, Mom is still having her large purse investigated. Apparently, the one doing the screening did not tell the one doing the searching what was suspicious. The searcher took everything out and still couldn't figure it out. He ran the purse through with nothing in it, and that's when the screener said there was a "mesh" in the bag that was the problem. Mom had gotten this particular purse because it is supposed to be much harder to steal from. Now we also know that it is harder to get through security with it. Next time, I'll have to remind her to pack it with her regular checked in luggage and then transfer everything when we're at our destination.

 

While we were waiting at our gate, I asked if she had talked to anyone about upgrading again. She had not, but went to do so. She came back and handed me a ticket saying, "Happy Channukah". She had upgraded us to First Class! Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised. I boarded as one of the first passengers, she boarded as one of the last. Meagan the flight attendant was interesting. She had lots of personality when she spoke to a person individually. When she was on the PA system, she spoke as if she was recording one of the emergency instruction videos. Absolutely no emotion, a calm and monotone voice. It was very odd. Mom started complaining about things like the seat in front being too far for her to use the seat pocket, so I told her that was the last time she got to fly First Class. *grin* She slept through most of the flight. I, on the other hand, did not. I watched The Karate Kid (remake). It was an ok movie, but I won't go into that.

 

When we arrived at the airport in Fort Lauderdale, Mom got a call from her friend who was picking us up that they would be there in 40 to 45 minutes. Not what I wanted to hear since I was exhausted and cranky. I think her friend got there about 20 minutes later, though. Mom was literally going to charge her phone when she got a call that they were there. Her friend and friend's husband took myself and Mom to the drugstore to pick up some of the stuff we needed/wanted. I was able to get my mouthwash, suntan lotion, etc. I got a postcard for my nephew that I still need to fill out and send. (I'm starting a postcard collection for him.) We were then taken to a nice local restaurant that they eat at when they are in town and know the people there. It was a nice meal, but nothing to write home about.

 

After the meal, we were taken to their timeshare. It was quite nice, right on the beach. Mom and her friend were talking. I found myself trying not to nod off. Eventually, I found a break in the conversation and had Mom move over on the couch so I could put my head on the arm. About two minutes later, we had to go to the ship. So much for sleep.

 

At the dock, we gave the porter our two large suitcases. We were then taken over to the entrance to the terminal. Mom's friend took a few photographs of us in front of our cruise ship. Mom and I then headed inside. The first thing we did was show someone just outside the door our boarding pass and she gave each of us a card with a number. We received "7"s. We were then asked to wait in a seating area until our numbers were called. At the time our number was called, we were to go to the window that had the same letter as the first one of our deck. Since we are on the Caribe deck, we were to go to Window C. There were two lines, and we instinctively took a spot in each. I ended up speaking with a 10-year-old and her mother while waiting. The girl had been to Alaska twice on a cruise and had all kinds of information for me. She was extremely jealous when I told her I was going to get to swim with the dolphins. I figure we were even since I'm jealous she's been to Alaska. *laugh* Talking to them made the time seem to go much quicker than I expected. Mom got to the front of the line first and called me over. We showed our passports and a credit card, then we headed onboard the ship.

 

I had an agenda determined for several weeks (or was it months) because of reading CruiseCritic. The first thing I wanted to do was call the dine line and ask for the Chef's Table. Sure enough, as soon as we reached our cabin, I put my stuff down and called the dine line. The person on the other end took down my cabin and number in the party to attend, then told me to go to the Provence (prounounced "Province" by the crew) Dining Room and speak to someone there. Mom went to do something else and then met me at the dining room for lunch. I went directly to the dining room and talked with Adrian, the head waiter about the Chef's Table. He told me that he would make sure he told someone else that I wanted it.

 

A few minutes later, Mom showed up and we went in to have lunch. I wanted a sit down lunch instead of the buffet that I figured we could always go to. I ordered the fettucini (sp?) alfredo for an appetizer not expecting much. It was delicious! For those that are foodies, it was not quite as good as Italy, but it's definitely better than what you find in most Italian restaurants in the US. It was not drowning in sauce and had wonderful seasoning! I had another dish that I found quite nice, which was the cheese and spinach ravioli. Mom, on the other hand, was less than thrilled with her choices. She had chosen a soup and a salmon dish. The salmon lacked flavor. We chose a table with others, and were seated with two people that came from the same area we did. The man talked extensively while his wife sat there fairly quiet. Mom and I did get in a few words here and there, but we let him do the bulk of the talking.

 

After lunch, I headed to the Passenger Services desk to sign up for the Ultimate Ship Tour. I was the first one on the page, but I haven't heard if I've been selected to go. Mom and I then went around the ship to collect "stamps" from various areas for a raffle at the sail-away party. Once we had them all, we went to the deck for the party. There were 16 prizes that were given away, but neither of us won. There was also dancing, and I tried to dance for a song or two. Among the songs were The YMCA which I danced to in my lounge chair. Once the raffles were done (they did 8 one time and 8 another), Mom and I headed to our first dinner.

[LuAnn]

glad you are doing this...we did have a great cruise...especially the weather, ship and the CC group!! LuAnn

[naxos]

Hi LuAnn- Please tell Mr. Luann that I just googled "group of giraffe" and wiki and another site both give "herd" as an appropriate term. Glad you made it home safely.

 

Linda

[Whoo]

glad you are doing this...we did have a great cruise...especially the weather, ship and the CC group!! LuAnn

 

I was wondering how your cruise went. Looking forward to the rest of this review!:)

[vickie_bernie]

love reading your review so far, can't wait for more

[Coolmama_1]

Enjoying your review so far. Can't wait to hear more.

[Caribbean Sunsets]

We are looking at a PC cruise later this year. I'm looking forward to hearing about the ports and any excursions that you did.

[LuAnn]

Hi LuAnn- Please tell Mr. Luann that I just googled "group of giraffe" and wiki and another site both give "herd" as an appropriate term. Glad you made it home safely.

 

Linda

 

I guess we'll keep "Tower" on the side lines as an answer...just in case!! :D..yep...we are home and getting ready to go again!! Leave 1/11 for South America...yikes!! LuAnn

[LuAnn]

I was wondering how your cruise went. Looking forward to the rest of this review!:)

 

We did have fun!! Great to spend time with "the kid" over the holidays!! Happy New Year!!! LuAnn

[goingsailing]

It's very nice to get a play by play on your cruise experience! Your review is making me excited for our cruise on the same ship in April! Thank you. Looking forward to read more of the great details...

[GreySkies]

15 Dec 2010 (cont.)

 

For dinner, we were signed up for Anytime Dining (AD). I signed us up for this long before the cruise because my hours of eating change from day to day and I wanted the flexibility. Those that eat AD use the Bordeaux Dining Room for dinner service. Alex, Adrian, Jose, and one other person are the head waiters that take care of this area. The female that also handles the front is very good. (Too bad I forgot her name.) Everybody is extremely friendly and helpful. They even took a fondness for my stuffed mouse that looks like a teddy bear at first glance. (His name is Stowaway, and I took him everywhere except Chef's Table and Formal Dinners.)

 

We headed down to dinner at 5:30pm. There was no line to get in the door. Mom and I were seated at a table with others. We wanted to meet other travellers. For my meal, I ordered the Fettuccine Alfredo appetizer and the Cajun Spiced Crawfish Crockpot with Black Mussels and Tomatoes. Both of these were very good. The seasoning for each was just right, not too much salt, pepper, or anything else. My mother ordered the Shrimp Cocktail appetizer and found the sauce too spicy. (On a Taco Bell scale of spice, she has a hard time dealing with Mild, so take the "spicy" with a grain of salt.) In spite of the sauce, she enjoyed this appetizer and it would become her standard with the sauce on the side. She tried another soup and enjoyed this one, as opposed to the one at lunch. I want to say it was the Frozen Rum-Infused Pina Colada Soup, but I'm having a hard time remembering what I ordered with the menus sitting in front of me. For her main course, she ordered the Pan-Fried Barramundi Picada and found this fish to be much better than the one at lunch. No dinner is complete without some sort of dessert, so I ordered the Princess Love Boat Dream. This is a deliciously smooth pudding on top of a very thing brownie in the shape of a heart. The pudding has the consistency of flan. The dessert was the perfect way to end the meal.

 

Re: Drinks - At lunch, I had ordered myself the UKP (Ultimate Kid's Package) and would order a root beer, a strawberry daquiri mocktail, a pina colada mocktail, hot chocolate, or ask the waiter to surprise me with a mocktail depending on my mood and the meal. I had an average of three drinks per day, so I figure I got got my money's worth. If nothing else, it was much easier signing one receipt for the whole cruise than one each time I ordered a drink. Two things you get with the UKP are a 32-oz (my best guess) to-go container and a colored plastic straw with a cute animal on it. I will keep the container, but the straw will be going to my nephew.

 

After dinner, it was time for me to change into more comfortable clothes and head to the Explorer's Lounge for the Syndicate Team Trivia Challenge at 9:15pm. Blonde Mel was in charge of this game. (I'm sure my mother and I had one of our disagreements about how to organize the cabin in between.) In the beginning, I was a team of one when I signed up. I decided I would let anyone who wanted to join me do so. Soon, D came over and asked me if she could join, and I gladly welcomed the addition. We discussed the situation with other people joining us, and we were both on the same page. Apparently, she had been on a cruise previously that people told her to go away. A short while later, P & J came over and asked to join us. We were all rewarded that first night for being open-minded with a commanding win. Stowaway became the team mascot. The prize was a bottle of Brut champagne that P ended up taking since J and I don't drink and D didn't want it. The team agreed to meet the next morning for trivia. By the end of trivia, it was 10:30pm and I was exhausted from such a long day. I went back to the cabin and turned in for the night.

[Celandine]

I am really enjoying your review so far.

 

I cannot wait to read more!

[GreySkies]

16 Dec 2010

 

Today is the first full sea day of the cruise.

 

After waking up, it was time to try out the shower. The shower dimensions for the cabin we were in were about 3 ft x 3 ft x 10 ft. The 3 ft dimensions are based upon the standard width of a bathtub, such as in my condo. One thing that we did was put clothes pins at the bottom of the shower curtain. My mom had read on CC that this would prevent the curtain from trying to cling to our bodies as we showered. This worked very well! The main challenge for the shower was determining how it worked. I finally discovered that the top knob controlled turning the water on and the bottom one took care of the temperature. I still don't know what the long buttons on each knob are for.

 

The temperature of the shower held very well each time. I believe my mother would have liked it to go a little hotter than it did. I tend to take moderately heated showers, so it was perfect for me. Since I live in an area with hard water, I was fully expecting to have the filmy residue feeling after washing the soap off. This did not happen provided I rubbed a little more vigorously than usual. The eucalyptus shampoo and conditioner do not smell that significantly and did their jobs fairly well. I was able to run my brush through my hair without it hurting from being tangled.

 

The toilet does not use a lot of water, but flushes quite well, though not perfect. (Is any toilet perfect?) The lighting in the bathroom could have been stronger. My mother would often times do her make-up in front of the large mirror outside the bathroom because the lighting seemed to be better.

 

After I got ready, it was my mother's turn. Once she was ready, we headed to breakfast. I'm pretty sure that we did not get to eat in the Provence Dining Room for breakfast until later in the first week, so I'll discuss the buffet in Horizon Court at this time. The choices seemed like there were fewer here than on the RCL buffet, but that could be due to my not having been on RCL in about 14 months. The cooking station for omelettes was not obvious and was overlooked by myself and Mom the first few days.

 

The cold food choices: They had a number of breads and rolls out with a single sided toaster similar to the one found in Quiznos, only more vertical. There were several different types of Kellogg's or General Mills' single serving cereal boxes available. The fruit included watermelon, honeydew, cantaloupe, pineapple, and a mix of those already cut up. Unfortunately, December is not melon season and much of it lacked the taste or texture that either my mom or I like. The center islands were taken up with more bread and the doughnuts. The doughnuts included chocolate glazed, sugar coated, and filled with fruit jam or custard depending on the day and time.

 

The hot food choices: I'm definitely a hot breakfast person, preferring protein to get me started. The choices here were plain scrambled eggs, eggs with ham or peppers or some other addition, waffles, pancakes (plain or banana most days), Italian Sausage, English Sausage, regular pork sausage, bacon, oatmeal, and hash browns that are thick, round, and not very crunchy. I never tried the waffles or pancakes since I figured they would be too cold by the time I sat down. The eggs were average for mass production and the sausage were ok. There was nothing that I said I had to have more of next time. In future outings to the buffet, I would ask for eggs over easy and have those put over my hash browns. (Don't be shy about asking for what you want. The worst that can happen is they'll say, "no".)

 

Drinks were limited to coffee, milk, and juice in the morning. Because I had the UKP sticker, I opted for the hot chocolate. It tasted to me like the Swiss Miss individual packets were used. However, because I don't have hot chocolate often, I made sure I had my fill on this cruise. Service for the hot chocolate was a bit slow because it was not made in the Horizon Court from what I could tell, or at least it had to be made each time a guest asked for it. The other drinks were in pitchers and were delivered by the staff quite quickly. The staff also picked up plates very quickly once a person was finished eating on that dish. Some of the staff weren't perky or friendly, but I attribute that to their being on the ship a little too long. All were professional. The Horizon Court also had one of the Executive Chef's staff or a head waiter overseeing it any time I was up there.

 

After breakfast, it was time for the CC Meet & Greet in the Explorer's Lounge. By the time I got there, a significant portion of the left side was taken up. I believe there were around 40 people that showed up. Someone organized a gift exchange ($10 USD or less), so we all put our gifts from our home area onto a table and were given a number. We all went around and introduced ourselves to everyone and where we were from. Then it was time for the gifts. Someone pulled a number, and whomever had that number got to go up and choose whatever they wanted. I wanted something from Australia and asked if there was anything left from there when it was my turn. Not wanting to take long, I was told there was something from Alaska and took that. It turned out to be tea and smoked Alaska salmon in a very nice box. I'm not complaining. My mother decided she was going to take the nice, small, green bag thinking she could use it later. It turned out to be from Sacramento and had a shirt of "The Governator" on it. Needless to say, she gave the shirt to me.

 

It was nice meeting people from the roll call, but there were a number of drawbacks to the M&G. The first was there were no snacks or beverages, as others have reported having. More disappointing was that nobody from the ship's crew was there. Finally, the M&G lasted about 30 minutes, and that didn't give much of an opportunity to talk to other people about tours they were interested in or were hosting. I had several people come up to me, but I never got their cabin numbers. I did tell the M&G that I could be found at trivia, and some people tracked me down for the tour that I or my mom organized.

 

After the M&G, it was back to trivia for me. I met up with my group, D, P, & J and we decided that we were still going to allow others into our group until it was full. This time, we were joined by M and G. G's wife, V, would repeat the question in G's ear since he had a hard time hearing it. (This would cause problems for us later.) In all, the team had six people that gelled together quite well. We did fairly well again, but did not win. None of us were heartbroken, as we were all out to have a good time. I believe that Red Mel was leading this trivia competition. (Red Mel is quite sweet. Blonde Mel can give quite the snarky come back. Each is fun in her own way.)

[Mary Ellen]

Thank you for sharing your experience with us.

[Whoo]

Thanks for the detailed review! :)

[Whoo]

16 Dec 2010

 

 

Drinks were limited to coffee, milk, and juice in the morning. Because I had the UKP sticker, I opted for the hot chocolate. It tasted to me like the Swiss Miss individual packets were used. However, because I don't have hot chocolate often, I made sure I had my fill on this cruise. Service for the hot chocolate was a bit slow because it was not made in the Horizon Court from what I could tell, or at least it had to be made each time a guest asked for it.

 

You may be right about the hot chocolate. On the Sea Princess last June, I ordered hot chocolate at the patisserie (sp?) and that is exactly how they made hot chocolate! Opening up a packet and stirring hot water into it (I watched!).:cool:

[GreySkies]

I apologize for taking so long to write this up, but I am supposed to be working. I hope you keep enjoying the information.

 

16 Dec 2010 (cont.)

 

Now that I have the Princess Patter and dinner menu in front of me, I can fill you in on the rest of the day. In addition to the trivia and M&G, the two events that I went to were the Cruise Long Scavenger Hunt and the Scrapheap (Boat Building) Challenge. Each of these were to pass out the rules and answer any questions that the passengers may have had. Both would actually take place on the last sea day of the cruise.

 

The Cruise Long Scavenger Hunt was pretty self explanatory. It was a paper the same size as the Princess Patters and folded in half. The first section was the "Treasure Hunt" where you had to find/obtain a bunch of items. (Make sure you know the difference between a Casino Coin and a Casino Chip.) The second section was the "Signature Hunt" and had about 25 signatures to collect, including one on shore. The third, and final, section was an "Observation Hunt" which asked a number of trivia questions like "Who is the oldest Staff Member onboard?" (Make sure you get clarification on whether they are referring to the entire Cruise Ship Staff or the Cruise Director's Staff for things like this.) I took the paper around with me to most places, but didn't put everything in the laundry bag until the day it was all due. Do yourself a favor and start putting the items in immediately upon getting them. That way, you won't have to search all over the cabin to find any of it like I did or forget anything on the floor like a couple of kids did.

 

The Scrapheap (Boat Building) Challenge has a few basic rules. Nothing may be purchased for the sole purpose of building the boat. All items must be salvaged from the ship or on shore. No glass is allowed. And, the biggest rule of all, the ship must be able to hold and transport a cargo of six full cans of soda/beer. There are two winners for this competition: 1) The Best Looking Vessel (as determined by audience cheering) and 2) Fastest Time around the pool (main prize). I didn't begin gathering anything for this event until the second half of the cruise, but I was thinking about what I wanted to do quite a bit. (This perplexed my mother who hates my procrastinating.)

 

Among the events in the evening was the "Captain's Champagne Waterfall Party" which I only got a glimpse of. The Matre d'Hotel (Giuseppe) helped passengers pour some champagne onto the waterfall as a photo was taken. Since I don't drink, it wasn't of great interest to me.

 

Tonight's dinner was formal attire. I didn't notice very many people not dressed up for this. In fact, if I did, they were quickly put out of my mind as I was busy looking at all the tuxes, men's suits, and evening dresses that were being worn. We arrived at dinner around 5:30pm and encountered no waiting except for the host to return from seating the previous couple.

 

From the dinner menu, I opted for the Bow Tie Pasta with Veal Strips for an appetizer which was quite nice. For the soup, I had the Creamy Asparagus Soup with Salmon Dumplings and was very disappointed in this one. The soup portion didn't have the body I am accustomed to a creamy soup having. The salmon dumplings were just one large fish dumpling without a lot of good flavoring. Next time, I would skip this and try something else. For the main course, I had the Suteed Shrimp Newburg with Shellfish Cream. This had a good flavor and was nice and hot. It came in an 8 oz. (?) ramekin with a puff pastry topping. I liked it enough to consider ordering a second, but opted for the Princess Love Boat Dream dessert again. Dinner took an average of an hour and a half minimum.

 

After dinner and changing into comfortable clothes again, it was time to determine what to do for the night. The entertainment included a comedy show, Adrian Zmed whom we were told was quite good, and the "Majority Rules Challenge" that my trivia team agreed to go to. The Majority Rules Challenge is trivia with a twist. The twist being that whatever answer the majority of teams give is the answer that gets the points, regardless of whether it is right or wrong. This turned out to be quite a fun game. Again, my team was a contender, but in the end we lost by one or two points. By the time the game was over, I was quite tired and decided I would try to catch the comedy or Adrian Zmed the next day.

[windsor26]

Keep it coming please :eek:;)

[u2cruiser]

Keep it coming GreySkies. No procrastinating! :D

Your writing is funny without even trying. I'm really enjoying it. Thanks.

[GreySkies]

Thanks for the compliments.

 

I should be able to get several days typed up tomorrow since it's a day off for me.

 

And how do you know I'm not trying to be funny? :-P

[u2cruiser]

Thanks for the compliments.

 

I should be able to get several days typed up tomorrow since it's a day off for me.

 

And how do you know I'm not trying to be funny? :-P

 

Haha! Ok then, I think you are trying to be slightly serious but unable to help being very funny :cool:

[tarjudy]

What happened I didn't see anymore postings

[GreySkies]

I've only posted 4 long posts that cover the 15th and 16th of Dec.

[GreySkies]

17 Dec 2010

 

Today was another full day at sea. One thing I noticed about the breakfast buffet in Horizon Court is that they switch between Eggs Benedict and Eggs Florentine every other day. I much prefer the Eggs Benedict and decided I would go for the gastronomically pleasing doughnuts when it wasn't available. Then again, I decided I would go for the doughnuts even when they were, so I guess there wasn't much change to my breakfast in the HC.

 

Looking at the Princess Patter, the HC lunch buffet would have an Oriental Sushi Buffet from 11:30am - 1:30pm. I didn't make it to this because of the morning trivia conflict and wanting as many meals in the Dining Room, as possible. The reason I wanted the meals in the MDR is because when I went on my last cruise a year ago, my tongue had a sore that made it impossible to swallow without it hurting. I didn't get any relief until I only had another day or so on the ship, so I missed pretty much all of the good food that was offered.

 

That reminds me, one thing I didn't mention to Princess in how they can improve things is the room service menu. I didn't call down to the dining line for room service, but I think someone might have said something about how they didn't send the dining room menu to order from. Someone else will have to confirm this. The room service menu in the notebook in the room didn't seem very exciting to me. (Remember, I can get excited over doughnuts!) I did recall someone on CC mentioning that anything could be written in on the breakfast door hang, but never got around to actually trying that.

 

Activities for the day included getting registered for the "On Deck for the Cure" walk, a culinary demonstration, and many other activities. Unfortunately for me, the activities I wanted to partake in conflicted with my trivia challenges. Today's conflicts, included the aforementioned culinary demonstration and the space lecture series with Jim Kennedy (former NASA Director). How was I supposed to be in three places at the same time? It's not like I'm a starfish that could be cut into thirds and grow back as three completely new starfish! (See, now you have me trying to make stupid jokes.)

 

The "Bar Wars" was canceled for the day due to the motion of the ship. The natural harmonics of the ship rocking back and forth was so bad that the pools had to be closed. Watching the pool was literally like watching a giant wave machine. Very cool, but probably not very nice if slammed against one side or the other.

 

After finding out that "Bar Wars" had been canceled, I headed back to the cabin to wait for my mother who went to the port enhancement lecture for Cartagena. We eventually met up with each other, but I believe it might have been too late for lunch in the MDR. Either way, lunch wasn't anything memorable except that it ended up taking up part of the time of one of the movies ("Mother and Child") Leonard Maltin was on board to introduce. Once lunch was over, my mother and I headed back to the cabin where I took a nap and she went to the Jewish Sabbath Eve Service.

 

Her report from the service was that there were a lot of people there, but nobody knew the exact service. Somehow they all got through it. She also informed me that the challah served there was the best bread she'd had on the ship because it was warm and fresh. (Still not as good as her sister's, but quite nice.) Eventually she came back and we both got ready for dinner. As we were heading down to dinner, she ran into someone else who had been at the service. The other person's comment to my mother was, "Did you see the people that came in the bathing suits? Every cruise there is at least one that does that." My mother did not notice this. Mind you, one of the favorite activities at services (High Holy Days or otherwise) is to observe how others are dressed. (I assume this is true of most religions.)

 

We chose to eat alone for dinner, but ended up sitting at a table next to the person who had been at the services. I started out with the Braised Oxtail over Rotelle Pasta and could have had several more portions as my main course. Mom started with her Shrimp Cocktail. For the appetizer, I chose to go with the Fettuccine Alfredo. Mom chose two appetizers had the Duck Galantine and Frosted Three Melon Daiquiri Soup. I had a taste of the Galantine, and found that I just didn't care for the taste or the texture. It wasn't like the Pate de Foie Gras that I love. I don't think Mom cared much for the Galantine either. (Perhaps I'll see if I can get her to comment on her food choices later, but don't count on it.) She did enjoy the soup, although I belive this is one of the occasions she forgot what she had ordered and had to ask the waiter what it was. For the main course, I went with the Coq au Vin Braised in Burgundy Wine. I found that the sauce had a lot of flavor, but the meat and the garlic mashed potatoes needed more seasoning. I don't put salt on much of anything anymore, but I found that all of the meats were in need of some on the cruise. Mom went with the Grilled Tiger Shrimp Kebab and enjoyed that. (Can you tell that she likes shrimp?)

 

The after dinner entertainment included the comedy show that we missed the night before, a country and western trivia challenge that my entire team decided not to do, and The Passenger Feud followed by Adrian Zmed. My mom and I went to The Passenger Feud where we ended up as a team of two. According to Danny and (blonde) Mel, like with all other trivia, the teams were to be no less than one person and no more than six. Danny was the nice one and Mel had all the quick-witted retorts. At any rate, the way the game worked was that the question was asked by Mel. One person wrote down the answer the team thought was number one on the list and took it up to Danny. After all teams submitted their answers, the top five answers were shown. I never did find out who the questions were asked of, and swear some of the teams must have played the game before since some answers were so not what one would think of first. At any rate, my mother and I disagreed about what to answer for some of the things, and one answer she refused to write down since it was "so disgusting". Needless to say, that was the number one answer. I believe the question was, "Name something you pick." The game took a lot out of us, so we chose to go back to the room and go to sleep. Tomorrow would be our first port stop in Aruba.

[Everbest]

Hi GreySkies. This is your Mother. I am amazed at all the details you can remember! So glad we went on this together so you can remind me of all we did. BTW the duck galantine was very good. Keep writing (no procrastinating).;)