Day 3: Sea Day
Saturday, March 8, 2025

Cruise Compass
MDR Menu: A Taste of France
Today’s Weather: About 60, w/16 mph winds from the N, waves of 8-9’
Internet Speed: 9.74 Mbps down, 0.08 Mbps up, 24 ms, connection out of Los Angeles
Location at Start of Day: around 8:00A

Slept really well overnight.  Although we’d started with the bathroom light on a nightlight, it turned out there was a motion-sensitive light just outside the bathroom door that would glow nicely when you got close to it, so was able to turn off the bathroom light and keep the cabin in darkness.

Breakfast at WJ.  The variety here was much better than yesterday’s lunch.  I had a couple of Eggs Benedicts (which were pre-prepped and available at the cooking station), bacon, and a hash brown.  E had the challah-like bread with some fruit.  Post breakfast  we walked out to the pool deck to locate the various food and drink places, passed through the Solarium (that already had several people in the hot tub at 8:45A) and then wandered over to Schooner – but our first even wasn’t until 9:30A, so realizing we had more time we went back to the room to grab our tablets so we could return and do our morning games.  We’ll likely bring our tablets with us to breakfast from now on so we can find a quiet place to sit post-food before morning trivia.

Back down to the Schooner to get in our tablet games before doing the morning Schooner puzzles (a word search and crossword puzzle used as an excuse to give everyone keychains), followed by cartoon music trivia (16 of 26, which seemed to place us in the top 25% - winner had 20), and finally movie quote trivia (19 of 20, winner with 20).  LOTS of folks playing at all events.  It was like Harry Potter trivia for everything.  Speaking (obliquely) about kids, there’s a ton of them onboard.  Clearly must be Spring Break in a lot of places, because the ~3200 pax include roughly 700 kids.

Post-trivia it was noon and time to head to WJ for lunch.  This confirms the whole new approach to reducing variety to reduce costs and food waste.  I ended up having a thin (and tough) pork chop with BBQ sauce plus potatoes and gravy, while E, not finding much to her liking, constructed a small sandwich to go with a bean and corn salad she built.  We polished off with a sampling of chocolate bar (OK, but the chocolate cream portion was quite gelatinous), red velvet cake (pretty good), and an oatmeal raisin cook that I thought was excellent. 

We decided to head back for our balcony for some post-lunch reading with the thought our returning to Deck 11’s pool at 1:00P for the belly flop competition.  We first poked out head out to the pool area and walked by the now bustling El Loco Fresh, which frankly looked really tasty.  We’re DEFINITELY going to be trying that, probably tomorrow.  Once at the room we decided that the belly flop wasn’t a “must see”, however, so we spent about 15 on the balcony before deciding it was just a touch too chilly, even in our fleeces, so we came back inside to read and naps.  Around 2:30P we headed down to Deck 5’s Star Lounge, catching the end of Next Cruise’s trivia re: Royal’s fleet.  We grabbed a couple of drinks (today’s drink of the day: Blue Wave) and then settled in for The Yes No Game….which is stupid.  Pairs of players face off for timed conversations and try to avoid saying “yes” or “no”.  Probably better when everyone is drunk, but mostly a snoozefest.

Stopped at Café Prom at 3:30P on the way back to the room for snacks.  We each had a jerk chicken wrap that was pretty good.  I added a slice of cheese pizza (since the pepperoni was five minutes from completion) while E tried their turkey club (boring) and had a pear.  We relaxed with our tablets until 5:00P when it was time for afternoon general trivia at Schooner followed by a cocktail and then Big Bang trivia back at Star Lounge at 6:00P for Big Bang trivia…at which we sucked. 

Then over to the MDR for dinner.  The Taste of France menu turned out to be kind MEH.  I had the iceberg wedge salad (fine), beef tenderloin with mashed potatoes in some kind of green peppercorn sauce (the meat was flavorless and tenderized to within an inch of its life) and the apple crisp with ice cream (MEH).  E had the French Onion soup (which she once again said wasn’t very oniony), the spring peas w/risotto (pretty good), and the crème brule (more like flan).

Our busy night continued by popping over to Studio B for the Battle of the Sexes game.  Two teams of six men/six women competed in 5 tasks, with the women ultimately winning three to two.  Boo hoo!  Finally, over to the theater for their big “Showgirls: Past, Present, and Future” show.  It was pretty good, with tremendously strong dancing and some many complex costume quick changes that E was getting distracted thinking through all the work they had been doing backstage.

Finally, back to the cabin at 10:00P to unwind a bit before hitting bed.  Last task to take care of before lights out was changing our watches – DST was kicking in at 2:00A and we were moving ahead one hour.