Pub Crawling and Time Travelling in the Gulf of St Lawrence – Brilliance Review 10/12

[nydiana]

My DH, Jon has written a review of our recent 10 day cruise. I shall post over the next few days.

 

Some introductory comments

 

About us – we’re not old, but we’re not terribly young either. We are diamond members, but just barely. We have 8 and 11 cruises respectively. We ran into a number of diamond plus and pinnacles on this cruise, so our status is not all that impressive. We favor odd itineraries and tend to avoid beaches. We live in the northeast and have extremely bad luck with airplanes (You don’t believe me? – Read either of my last 2 reviews). Given all that, this was the perfect itinerary for us. Neither of us had been to most of these ports. We could drive to the departure port. This cruise seemed ideal.

 

The ship – We are big fans of the Radiance class. All of the glass makes this an ideal vessel for sea travel. In the past, we have found that the number of elevators is adequate for the number of passengers that these ships hold. We have been on the Brilliance before, but when we last left it was a little worse for wear (the Captain had a bad encounter with a wave on 12/12/10). We were interested to see the improvements in the last 2 years. I can say this. The schooner bar, where there was still significant damage when last left the ship has been entirely redone. We noticed that the paneling seemed to be brand new darker color. The TV in our cabin was flat screen and bolted to the furniture. The only two major problems that we noticed were these: 1) There was some rust on our balcony. This started out as an issue, but about half way through the cruise the maintenance crew (without our saying anything) took care of this. 2) The chairs in the colony club very badly need to be reupholstered.

 

A short rant - The flow of information was a problem. The cruise was taking place during the MLB playoffs and in the middle of the NFL season, but TBS (which covered only 2 of the 4 baseball series that were contested during the trip) was the only station that showed any sports at all. Most of the time the sports bar showed music videos. Additionally, the news was limited to Fox and a seemingly abbreviated version of CNN. On all other cruises we at least had access to CNN international. As one of our Canadian friends complained, “We are spending the entire cruise in Canadian waters, but can get no information other than American election commentary.” After a while, this became bothersome.

 

The other passengers – This is the first time we have been on a cruise that was mostly non English speaking. 80% of the other passengers were Canadians and of these, the overwhelming majority of those were French Canadians. This led the ship to provide more visual entertainment (juggler, aerialist, magician, Tango Buenos Aries) and a bilingual singer from Montreal who appeared twice. The average age of the ship was also beyond 50. This led to larger crowds in the elevators than I have ever noticed on this class of ships. It also meant that when they advertised a volleyball tournament, I was the only one who appeared. I was awarded a gold medal for my “efforts”.

 

The itinerary – I will cover the stops in detail later, but let me say this now. Three of the stops (Saguenay, Corner Brook, and St. Pierre) were very strange choices for cruise ports. They are small towns with relatively little going on around them.

 

My DH, Jon

[CitygirlSF]

Looking forward to more!

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the review.

[foxesden1]

Saint Perrier and Miquelon is a wonderful with, with tons of history, and is in fact.. France.

 

can t wait to read your review!

[Mapleleafforever]

My parents were on this cruise and my Dad at 64 said the average age of the cruisers made him feel like he was on a Princess cruise (which he said he'd never go on again due to the "nursing home feel"). Can you confirm?

[Mar56]

My parents were on this cruise and my Dad at 64 said the average age of the cruisers made him feel like he was on a Princess cruise (which he said he'd never go on again due to the "nursing home feel"). Can you confirm?

 

My DH and I were also on this cruise, and yes, it skewed older but that older crowd had a great time. There were always people dancing in the centrum when the music was playing, etc. The ship did empty after the show at night, but keep in mind, this was a "cold" cruise so we couldn't really lay out around the pool or on the decks etc. Also, very port intensive. We are 56 and enjoyed this cruise immensely, including the pub crawl which hopefully Jon won't give too many details on. lol.

[cruisenfever]

The itinerary – I will cover the stops in detail later, but let me say this now. Three of the stops (Saguenay, Corner Brook, and St. Pierre) were very strange choices for cruise ports. They are small towns with relatively little going on around them.

 

My DH, Jon

Because this cruise was a R/T Quebec the itinerary had to include a "foreign port" in order to comply with the PVSA Act that is also observed when sailing in Canadian waters. St. Pierre is governed by the French and so a stop here complied with the rules and regulations needed to complete the trip.

[cruisenfever]

My parents were on this cruise and my Dad at 64 said the average age of the cruisers made him feel like he was on a Princess cruise (which he said he'd never go on again due to the "nursing home feel"). Can you confirm?

We were also on this cruise and can honestly say that we encountered all age groups.

[Mapleleafforever]

We were also on this cruise and can honestly say that we encountered all age groups.

 

That's good because I was wanting to try this cruise next year. I've yet to go to Newfoundland and would love to go.

[Mar56]

That's good because I was wanting to try this cruise next year. I've yet to go to Newfoundland and would love to go.

 

That's exactly why we booked this cruise - specifically for Newfoundland and it was wonderful!!! I don't think that this itinerary is being repeated next year - at least not exactly. It was a wonderful opportunity to see all Canadian ports (except for the little island) and leave and return from Quebec City.

[emilygrace]

We did the cruise right before yours (the 11 night) and had the same experience with the demographics on board. Other than an Alaskan cruise with 800+ Germans on board, this was our first experience with such a large number of non-English speaking people. Some of them were nice and made an attempt, and I gave it my best with my old high school French, but there were some awkward moments. By the end of the cruise I felt like I could almost carry on a conversation.

 

We booked this specifically for the unusual itinerary and enjoyed all the ports. In Saguenay (Le Baie) we did the HOHO bus so we saw quite a bit of the town and surrounding area. And since moose hunting season had just opened we got to see a fresh moose head in the back of a pickup truck (ewww). In Cornerbrook we just took the free shuttle into town and walked around. I like history and architecture, so I can always find something to look at.

 

St. Pierre was our only port with iffy weather. A lot of people didn't even get off the ship because it was misty and rainy all morning. But we walked into the town and looked around.

 

I enjoyed all the ports very much and would love to go back to Prince Edward Island.

[nydiana]

My DH and I were also on this cruise, and yes, it skewed older but that older crowd had a great time. There were always people dancing in the centrum when the music was playing, etc. The ship did empty after the show at night, but keep in mind, this was a "cold" cruise so we couldn't really lay out around the pool or on the decks etc. Also, very port intensive. We are 56 and enjoyed this cruise immensely, including the pub crawl which hopefully Jon won't give too many details on. lol.

 

Jon says not to worry he will not name names, for the pub crawl.;)

 

Diana

[nydiana]

We had initially discussed leaving on Tuesday evening and staying overnight in Montreal, before continuing on to Quebec City on Wednesday and, in fact, finished most of the packing on Monday, so we could have done this. Actually, we finished OVER packing on Monday. The freedom from airline restrictions led us to make the unfortunate choice of bringing everything that we owned and to pack for every conceivable type of weather. However, we decided to leave early Wednesday and make the entire drive in one day. After running a couple of last minute errands we were on the road by 9:30 AM.

 

Crossing the Canadian border proved to be quick and painless. This was a relief as the last time we crossed the border at this crossing (2008), it took over an hour. We waited until the Montreal suburbs to stop for lunch. There were two reasons for this: 1) If we’re going to French Canada, why have lunch in upstate NY? And 2) This was the point at which we needed to change roads – the directions we had from AAA had us going from NY 87 to Canada Rte 15 (87 becomes 15) then travelling a few KM on Rte 30 before picking up Rte 20 to Quebec. The navigator thought that this sounded complicated and wanted to make sure we found Rte 20 before breaking for lunch.

 

This proved unnecessary as the directions were not nearly as complicated as they seemed. The other downside of this is that we had to find food that did not take us too far off of the highway - or we would never find our way back on to it. It also meant that we had travelled far enough from the US border that the restaurant was French only. We ended up at what I gather is a chain restaurant (Scores) in the Town of St. Jolie, Qc. We survived the experience.

 

The rain started about the time we stopped for lunch. It poured for the rest of the drive. We reached Quebec City at what I can only guess was the height of rush hour. Since we tried to stick to the directions we had to the Hotel, rather than winging it. We ended up sitting in traffic. The upshot of all of this is that what should have taken (according to both AAA and MapQuest) 6.5 hours, instead took 9.

 

It was also still pouring. Therefore, we decided against exploring Quebec City by night. Instead we checked into our Hotel – Le Hotel St. Paul and ate dinner at the restaurant connected to the hotel – Le Verivan Bistro. The Hotel is perfectly adequate. The room was a decent size with free internet and Canadian television. I point this out because Canadian TV has two sports channels and very good coverage of the US baseball playoffs (see my rant about the ship, above). After dinner, we retired to the room and planned the next day.

 

My DH, Jon

[nydiana]

Being the driver for this trip I can say driving in pouring rain and very heavy traffic was kind of harry.

 

I really enjoyed really enjoyed the restaurant, Le Verivan Bistro, in the same building as our hotel. I had the Steak Tar Tar. It was something I was introduced to in Germany. For me it is a real treat. The Hotel Le Saint Paul was only a three star, but we found it very comfortable and clean. It also was in a convenient location.

 

Diana

[nydiana]

Having only 1 day in Quebec, rather than 1.5 days (as originally planned), we decided to concentrate on the old town. Actually, we lost another couple of hours as we dealt with the long term parking situation. We had looked into long term parking before the trip, but an email to “Vinci” the company which seems to run all parking lots in Quebec generated a response in both French and English the upshot of which was that we should be able to take care of this the morning of the cruise. Prudence seemed to dictate that we should check on this now, rather than have to worry about it the morning of the cruise. In retrospect, this was a wise course of action. We drove down to the port, only a few blocks away, and inquired at the two lots there. Not only did the attendants at these lots, not know what we were talking about (as far as making reservations) but they quoted us prices that were considerably higher than those that we had been quoted on line. We headed back to the hotel to regroup. With the help of the attendant of the parking lot across the street from the Hotel (who spoke even less English than I speak French) and a waitress at little café on the corner (who acted as translator) we managed to contact Vinci’s home office. Now we were able to make our long term arrangements and learn where the long term lot is located. This lot is actually behind the old port and Vinci provides a free shuttle to the ship (more on this story later).

 

Mission accomplished, we set out to explore old town. We drove up the hill and found perfect on street parking right next to the Dufferin. This is a boardwalk area that overlooks the harbor. It offers spectacular views. The Frontenac Hotel fronts the Dufferin. While normally, I would not consider a hotel, no matter how fancy, to be a tourist attraction the Frontenac houses many interesting shops and several (almost museum worthy) art exhibits. One of the guidebooks recommended the Musee Des Ursulines which is around the corner from the Frontenac. So we headed there next. This museum is dedicated to the nuns who came to Quebec and established a convent/girl’s school in the City. As a museum, this was somewhat of a disappointment as it includes only 5 rather modest rooms most of which are devoted to displays of life at an all-girls school. However, some of the displays are worth seeing, specifically several 19th century tapestries created by one of the nuns who was a tapestry specialist. On the block between the hotel and the museum we passed a restaurant – Le petit Chateau. We headed there for lunch. I recommend the onion soup (especially if it is a blustery day) and the dessert crepes.

 

It was now late afternoon. So, we drove up the hill to the Citadel. We got to the Citadel just in time to catch the last English speaking tour. If you are going to the Citadel, you need a tour, since it is still an active military base and they don’t take kindly to strangers just wandering around. This message was repeated multiple times. The Quebec citadel closely resembles to other, similar forts but has some nice exhibits and offers some of the best views of Quebec.

 

After the Citadel we returned to the Hotel to prepare for Dinner. We had agreed to meet some other Cruise Critic couples at their Hotel. Someone had come up with the idea of showing up in the Hotel Lobby wearing Mardi Gras beads. We have no authentic such beads, but returned from a relative’s child’s party some years ago with some plastic beads – I always knew they would come in handy. Eventually, two other couples appeared and we adjourned to a local restaurant. Despite both the husband and wife from one of the couples spilling nearly fill beers on the other husband, a good time seem to be had by all (except perhaps poor Jim who was now wearing two beers …)

 

After dinner and a short walk around the port area (which looked pretty all lit up at night), we returned to our Hotel where both the baseball and Thursday night football games were televised.

 

My DH, Jon

[reney313]

The freedom from airline restrictions led us to make the unfortunate choice of bringing everything that we owned and to pack for every conceivable type of weather. .

 

This made me laugh. We are driving to our cruise this month for the first time and not flying. Considering how much we pack when we have restrictions, I am afraid we'll have the whole house along on this upcoming trip!

 

Enjoying your review and can't wait to read it all. NE/Canada is on my list of possibilities for next summer/fall and I'll need to decide soon because in 3 weeks, I'll no longer have a future cruise booked. EEK!

[nydiana]

We awoke on Friday ready for the cruise. However, it seemed too early to head over to the ship quite yet. Instead, we stopped at the café on the corner (where the waitress had been so kind as to act as translator on the previous day) and had some tea. Next, we strolled around the “old port” area which was conveniently across the street from our Hotel. If we had realized how nice the food selection was a day or two earlier, we might have spent more time here before now. Oh well, lesson learned.

 

Sometime after 11 AM, we headed for the parking lot and shuttle to the ship. The searching and phone calls from the day before came in handy as we now knew exactly where to go, who to see, and they were expecting us. After checking in and parking the car we dragged the luggage over to where a group of people were waiting for the shuttle. Actually, cruisers from two different ships (Carnival Constellation was also boarding in Quebec that day) were waiting for the shuttle.

 

It took a good half hour for the first shuttle to appear. This shuttle accommodated only about a third of the crowd. This might not have been so bad if it had been more than 40 degrees outside or there had been any shelter. (Nobody wanted to sit in their cars and lose their place in line). Some of those waiting grew impatient and tried to walk or call a private cab. After another 20 minutes we handed our luggage to a driver and boarded a shuttle. In fairness to Vinci, as we were leaving I thought I saw another shuttle pull into the lot. So, I have the impression that the closer to last boarding time that you arrive the more often the shuttles appear.

 

After waiting through what seemed like a major traffic jam around the port (the terminal at Quebec is not at all conducive to traffic flow) the shuttle dropped us off at the pier. Now, I had expected the shuttle driver to give the luggage to a porter or for porters to meet the shuttle, but that is not what happened. Instead, we and our luggage were left stranded at the curbside and the shuttle departed. No porters whatsoever appeared. After a few minutes someone from inside the terminal told us to form a line against the wall (fortunately it was neither a mass arrest nor a firing squad). This person had no helpful advice for what to do with the luggage. I decided to leave it with a mass pile of other luggage that was sitting elsewhere on the sidewalk and to cross my fingers that this pile was entering rather than leaving the ship.

 

The line now moved into the terminal building. In the 8 cruises I have now taken, I have never seen anything like the system I now encountered in the Quebec terminal. There was a long snaking line that led to several rows of chairs. After waiting long enough in the line, you would eventually reach the chairs. Then after another short wait, you would be called to ascend the escalator to wait in another line which eventually led to the various categories of line for check-in. This is where it helps to have 2 replaced knees. After surveying this scene for a few minutes, we arrived at the conclusion that NYDiana’s knees would never handle the lines. According we grabbed the next RCI worker who appeared and requested a wheelchair. Not only does a wheelchair allow the person with bad knees to sit rather than stand in line, it allows you to cut the line entirely. The cruise line (or airlines for that matter) cannot afford to tie up the wheelchair pushers standing in line, so they are given priority to jump the line. This got us to the actual check-in maybe 10 minutes later. We finally boarded about 2 PM.

 

The one advantage to boarding this late was that we could go straight to the cabin. The disadvantage was that we had arranged a get together with the Cruise Critic group for 2:30 PM. This meant that there was no time for lunch before this get together. This came off well 15 or 20 people attended and all seemed festive. Sometime after three, we left the group to sneak over to the Windjammer for lunch – a tea and biscuit at 10 AM just wasn’t cutting it. We found that while the outside air temperature was cold, the outdoor table that were still covered and near the door (those of you who know radiance class ships will know which I mean) were plenty warm for sitting and eating.

 

This brings us to the muster drill. Our muster station was in the Schooner bar. We were not required to bring life jackets. I don’t know if being in the bar is likely to save us in the event of emergency, but as long as there is a bartender on duty, we won’t mind so much … After the drill we returned to our cabin. Our luggage had arrived – so I guess I had left it in an appropriate pile. The first show took place at 6:00 PM. We noticed that the ship’s singers were decent (much better than those we heard on the Vision on our last cruise). The main attraction was a juggler. He was all right, I guess. But, I am not really a fan.

 

Eventually, we went to dinner. There was only one other couple at our table for 8. Eventually, another couple (from the Cruise Critic family) appeared and announced that they were at our table, but had eaten at Portofino’s that night. After dinner, we ran into another couple from Cruise Critic who had been seated at our table but had requested a move to the middle of the main dinning room. They had been reassigned to the middle, but were sitting alone. They were considering moving back to our table. After dinner, there was the “Flags of the World” Game show. This was not well attended. We discovered that a lot of the late night “English” entertainment was not well attended. I believe that this was due to the makeup of the passengers. The entertainment staff also had all kinds of technical issues with the game. RCI has bought new machines that allow contestants to key the number into a central computer so that the computer can track each person’s score. Unfortunately, the computer was not doing so. It took about 15 minutes to fix this problem. During that time some of the audience just gave up …

 

When this show was over we went to bed. This leads me to a quick note on the cabin – 9078. This is a hump cabin with an extra large balcony (at least 20' deep with three lounge chairs). The extra large balcony is nice, but on an itinerary featuring such cold weather it is not best utilized. The downside of the cabin is that it is the first cabin off the Centrum. This means that the music can be readily heard within the cabin. We don’t usually go to bed before midnight, so this was not really a problem for us; however, if you do go to bed early this cabin might be a problem for you.

 

My DH Jon

[nydiana]

We did not dock in Saguenay until noon, which left time for breakfast and morning trivia. It also meant that we were treated beautiful view as the ship slowly made its way up the Saguenay River. It’s a place like this where the advantages of Radiance class ship are really felt. We walked off the ship and were greeted by snow flurries. This was not the most promising way to begin a cruise. The snow also signaled that it was cold. So, we ducked into a restaurant conveniently near to the port.

 

One of the things we like to do is have lunches in local restaurants featuring local cuisine. Here it was the Poutine. This consists of meat, cheese and gravy served over fries. One tour guide in Halifax referred to this dish as a cardiologist’s dream. After lunch, we returned to the port and awaited a two hour bus tour of the area. This was affective for seeing such sights exist locally (which are spread out of 7 towns) but had the limitations such bus tours always do, mainly too much time on the bus and too little time outside of it seeing the attractions. I should add that a couple of couples to whom we spoke who took boat tours along the river seemed to be much more impressed with Saguenay as a port than we were.

 

My DH, Jon

[nydiana]

Somewhere overnight, we lost an hour and a half!? An hour and a half?? It seems Newfoundland is such a special place that it has its very own time zone. Thus, clocks were set forward 1.5 hours. This means that we didn’t get moving until 10 AM. The “Meet and Mingle” was scheduled for 11 AM, so we got moving slowly and headed straight to it. The ship’s crew organized “cruising bingo“ which took up the bulk of the M & M. (Find someone with brown eyes, one child, etc …) This has both positives and negatives. On the one hand, it forces you to have conversations with almost everyone else in the room. On the other hand, it severely limits the scope of those conversations.

 

We hung out until close to 1 PM, chatting with CC people, then headed for lunch. I mention this because it was at this meal that we had the one truly bad offering from the kitchen. Virtually everyone at the table ordered the pumpkin soup. Everybody hated it. It had virtually no taste. No matter what you added, to it would just disappear. There was no way to give it taste. The amazing thing is that a similar soup appeared on the dinner menu on the cruise’s final night (we avoided it).

 

Late in the afternoon we wandered over to the card room in a search for contract bridge players. Having bridge as a hobby means that you share your hobby with opponents all over the world. Last year in the Baltic we played with Danes and used Danish cards. This time it was French Canadians. On this day we spoke to them (actually we only spoke to the two of them who spoke English) and sat in for a couple of hands. Another American couple came in to watch and we made arrangements to play with them later in the week.

 

This evening was the Captain’s reception and the first formal night. RCI did something strange with this reception. On all of our other trips there had been two such receptions – one for early and one for late dining passengers. This led to a fairly crowded reception, although it was not as crowded as we were prepared for it to be. This was also the evening of the first major production show. This was the only full scale (singing/dancing) show put on by the entertainment staff.

 

My DH, Jon

[wolfcathorse]

Jon says not to worry he will not name names, for the pub crawl.;)

 

Diana

 

 

Hehehehehe....I might! (JK, there's too many photos floating around as incriminating evidence...but it was the highlight of my cruise!).

[romnan]

I hope RCCL offers this in the future. We are from New England but live in Florida. It would be really nice to go to a place we frequented when we were younger:)

[Mar56]

Hehehehehe....I might! (JK, there's too many photos floating around as incriminating evidence...but it was the highlight of my cruise!).

 

Karen, it was definitely the highlight for us as well Great fun!

 

Marion

[nydiana]

There is not much in the town of Corner Brook. It might be the second largest municipality in Newfoundland, but that does not make it an exciting place. The AAA guide lists it largely as a spot from which to access the rest of the province. On the bright site, the town provided a free shuttle with five drop off points around the town. Unfortunately, the driver of the shuttle on which we rode into town whizzed through the stops and did not point out which stop we were at as we passed them. Before we knew it, we were at our planned stop (being only the third of the five at which he stopped).

 

One thing Corner Brook does have is extensive parks/walking trails. The “stream trail” takes up a large percentage of the area in town. Had it been much warmer, we probably would have spent all day wandering around here. As it was, we only walked a small portion of the trail before heading over to the town’s museum. An interesting museum it was. It featured such “ancient artifacts” as an 8 track tape player and a wedding dress dating all the way back to the mid 1960’s. I’ve never felt quite so old. The museum did have a nice natural history floor and an on-going slide show about the town’s history on another floor.

 

At the recommendation of two people at the library we headed to a local restaurant for authentic Newfoundland cuisine. I had Cod Tongue and Crispins. Until this point, I was unaware the cods have tongues. If a poutine is a cardiologist’s dream, this meal must be his wet dream. Cod Tongues come deep fried (they taste similar to other fried sea food) with Crispins, which are pieces of diced pork, lightly fried – picture barely cooked bacon. For her part nydiana had fish chowder. After lunch, we searched for the nearest shuttle stop. In this endeavor, we were lucky to encounter some folks who had just left the shuttle and could point to the stop.

 

This brings us to the pub crawl …

 

To explain this, I need to go back to the CC thread for this cruise. About a month before sail-date, Wolfcathorse had invited anyone interested to join in a pub-crawl on the evening of the Corner Brook stop. This day was chosen because the next day was a sea day and anyone involved would have recovery time. I am not sure exactly what I was expecting, but when someone whose handle begins with “Wolf” and whose avatar is a picture of a wolf invites you for a pub-crawl you form a picture in your mind of a male in his mid-20’s looking to relive his college days. Anyone who has had the distinct pleasure of sailing with Wolfcathorse knows that the exact opposite is the case. As it was, 3 distinctly middle aged couples met outside the Viking Crown Lounge for our tour of the ships drinking venues. To be honest we cheated some. The sky bar was closed. We did not go to the show, so we missed the theater bar service. We only partook at one of the 2 bars in the colony club. In addition, most of us took the drinks we bought at the pool bar into the Solarium and the drinks from the sports bar into the casino. Bearing all that in mind, we partook in 7 different drinks (including a shot and one dessert drink) bought in 7 different bars and consumed in 9 different bars. The experience concluded in the Centrum where the 70’s after-party was going on - - and music from the 50’s was playing.

 

My DH, Jon

[nydiana]

We had each received a schedule for our Pub Crawl from Wolfcathorse. Unfortunately, she had planned to start at the Viking Crown Lounge (which was call Stardust on this ship). At the appointed time we meet outside the lounge and found it was entirely reserved for the Diamond nightly event. Since one couple in our party was new to cruising RCI they could not go into this lounge during the Diamond event.

 

I said this was unfortunate because another couple planned to join us but when they arrived to join a happy little party we had already adjusted our schedule to skip this bar for now and return later in the evening. So we missed them, having already left for the next bar on our schedule.

 

We sure had a lot of fun and laughs. I am not much of a drinker, so as Jon said we did cheat and sometimes take our drink from one bar to another. We also broke for dinner so that helped too.

 

When we went to the pool bar we found it opened but deserted due to the cold weather. So we bought our first drinks there and took them into the Solarium. I must say I had never considered drinking there, but it is very nice. The Solarium is an adults only area of the ship with a pool and hot tub. It is decorated very nice and we found it a relaxing start to our Pub Crawl.

 

We happily went from bar to bar. Many of RCI's bar tenders are very nice and lots of fun to joke with. I have to give a special shout out to the ones in the Colony Club and the Schooner Bar. This Pub Crawl group likes trivia, so we made it to the Schooner Bar intentionally in time for Trivia. As I recall under the influence of alcohol we did not do as well as usual. Oh well, one less set of luggage tags.

 

We did learn an interesting bit of trivia later in our wanderings. When we returned to the Viking Crown Lounge it was lit with black lights. We found that some diamond jewelry lights up under black light and some does not.

 

 

Note: Later in the cruise they sectioned off the Viking Crown Lounge bar so non-diamonds could use part of it and the rest was reserved for Diamonds during the nightly diamond event. I like this change, even though I am a Diamond. Over my years of cruising I have found I like the view from there. I enjoy watching the sun set. I think the other passengers should be able to enjoy this too.

 

Diana

[nydiana]

Not much really happened today. Highlights included the theater tour and the “welcome back” party. The production show was Tango Buenos Aries who not only danced but featured songs (Tango Ballads) in both English and Spanish. Strangely, this was one of two nights in which foreign language songs were song in Spanish instead of French. By now the other couple from CC had rejoined our table, but alas we lost the non CC couple, so the table was still only 6 people.

 

The late night entertainment was the Love and Marriage show, which was held in two different languages (guess which) in two different venues. The English language version was only sparsely attended and the CD had to beg audience members to participate (the “newlywed couple” had been married for 14 years.) I think that this underscores the large percentage of French speakers on the cruise. However, I am not sure what the attendance at the French version was.

 

My DH, Jon