Day 8: Sea Day (Sunday, 31 August 2025)

Cruise Compass

Dinner Menu: Izumi    (MDR Menu: Taste of Mexico)

Today’s Weather

Location at Start of Day

Location at End of Day

 Captain’s Corner was hampered a bit by the occasional mis-understanding of questions by the captain (Captain Juan).

New desserts tried at lunch: Pistachio Apricot Cake (not bad, just a bit one-note, not enough apricot) and Praline Chocolate Crème Puffs (ditto) and Churros (good).

We started playing a new campaign of The Crew using the special JARVIS 3^rd player rules.  We would ultimately complete all 50 missions during the cruise in 83 attempts, as the game is much simpler with only 2 players.  It did, however, still manage to “feel” like a perfectly cromulent playthrough, so we were very pleased we’d brought it along.

I tried one of Schooner’s specialty drinks: Peanut Butter Tropic.  Would not normally order a whiskey-based drink, but the novelty won me over.  I had spoken yesterday to a woman at the bar who’d asked the bartender to make it for her, but “make it more like a PB&J”.  The bartender had apparently added something like strawberry puree and Frangelico and created a winner.

I was incorrect about our trivia performance: we actually tied for 1^st today on one of the puzzle games where you had to come up with two-word phrases starting the “R” and “C” that matched the clues given.  We tied with 25/30…but didn’t try to assert our claim on another keychain.

Dinner at Izumi was disappointing.  There’s just not enough choices to satisfy E, so unless/until we find a Izumi Hibachi/teppanyaki there’s no point in going again.  We didn’t know the optimal pathway to Izumi (via a staircase in the Windjammer) so had made the mistake of going up to Deck 13 and having to work our way aft in blustery, wet winds.  When we left we did find the stairs down to WJ and had intended to get our dessert there, but the options were uninspiring so we went dessert-less this night.

The Headliner tonight, comedy juggler Steve Rawlings, was excellent.  His act was quite funny and he did some unique skills we’d not seen before.