Day 8: At Sea
Thursday, March 13, 2025

Cruise Compass
MDR Menu: Bon Voyage
Today’s Weather: Sunny, highs in 60s, winds 10-15mph out of NNW, waves 2-6’
Internet Speed: 9.04 Mbps down, 3.76 Mbps up, connecting out of Los Angeles – at one point in the afternoon I was experiencing 0.14 Mbps down, 0.13 Mbps up!
Location at Start of Day: about 9:00A

Location at End of Day

E wins today contest of “who has the soupiest cold”, as mine is in the waning stages while hers is waxing.  We both slept pretty well – mine aided by NyQuil, hers by simple exhaustion.  A quick WJ breakfast this morning, and then we spent about 30 minutes sitting at Schooner while we caught up on our daily tablet games.  This time, however, we skipped the 10:00A general trivia and instead went to the theater for Captain’s Corner, which took us through 11:00A.  During the event I managed to get us checked into our flight for the following day. The "best" question of the event: the woman who, being forced to pick only ONE of her two questions, decided on...wait for it..."Where's the popcorn?"  So glad she used her time in the spotlight for something so edifying for all of us.  (Idiot.)

The captain’s parting recommendation was “stay inside – its going to be cold and rainy”.  Sure enough, as we exited the theater and looked outside it was foggy and someone said “it’s starting to rain”.  We decided to hole up in our cabin until lunch time.  It was certainly much more crowded on the Promenade as we made our way to the elevators.

Lunch was at the WJ and was as unremarkable as usual.  There’s been endless posts of CC re: how much food quality has declined in the last several years and we have to agree with that.  Combined with the reduction in variety it can make it tough to not fall into patterns when selecting foods.  Sigh.

After lunch we camped out in the Star Lounge while the art auction concluded.  Having never seen that in action it was interesting.  Folks just have too much money and too little taste.  Although not everything sold, there were several things on offer in the $3-5000 range, and a few items that they opened the bidding at something like $11K!  The auctioneer’s patter was pretty polished, and clearly tried to play up how spectacular the art was and how lucky you’d be to own “this amazing work by famed artist Peter Max” or “this bronze eagle, sculpted by the first western artist to have a piece displayed at the Kremlin”.

Finally, the room turned over and we took part in the Harry Potter quiz.  As expected, particularly with all these kids on board, a packed room – and the only one where we were asked to swap papers, indicating that they wanted hard grading.  Since we weren’t competing for the prize we just kept our paper, but still scored it as rigorously as another team might have.  There were a total of 24 points available (20 question with up to 4 bonus points) and we got 19.  As expected two teams tied at 24 points and entered a playoff with the question being “What was the original publication year of Philosoher’s Stone”, to which the answer was either 1997 or 1998 – don’t recall.  The team that said 1994 was closest so took home…another key chain.

We then stay for the “This or That” game show, where participants simply had to decide which side of the dance floor to stand on to indicate whether the clue fell into category A or B.  For example, was “Innocent” the name of a pope, or the name of a Britteny Spears song?  Stupid and mindless (which described most contestants).  When completed, we decided that the upcoming ABBA Name That Tune at the Schooner, being the only active event at 4:00P, was going to be madness so we returned to the cabin for reading and naps before our 5:30P reservation at Izumi.

Izumi was…OK.  Certainly FAR better than the MDR, but not as good as Hooked or Jamie’s.  On a newer ship with a teppanyaki grills it might be a bigger attraction for the “show” aspect, but probably no difference in the food.  I did try their sirarchi-based sake martini, which was kind fun.  On the food side, we shared Chicken Kara-age and Pork Gyoza small plates - both were good.  Additionally, I had the Spicy Crispy Shrimp Roll, which had a nice texture but little flavor unless dipped in soy and wasabi.  We both had a teriyaki bowl: chicken for me, beef for E, which was a healthy portion in both cases.  A large bed of rice topped with 1/2 side of mixed veggies and 1/2 side of protein in a decent teriyaki sauce.  I prefer a bit more sweetness, but it was fine. We skipped dessert, however, because nothing really appealed to us.

On our way to the final show in the theater we sample the Chocolate Fondant from Café Prom (and everywhere else).  It was really poor – basically, bad chocolate pudding.  Might even have been sugar-free.  We each tried a small spoonful and set it aside in favor of oatmeal raisin cookies.

The final show was the comic from opening night.  It remained a kid-friendly show – perhaps the 9:00P show would be fully adult-oriented?  Anyway, pretty boring, followed by the normal farewell song along with the “surprise” return of the Royal singers and dancers plus the usual parade of parts of the staff on-stage. 

James (the cruise director, not James, the ship captain) has been a pretty uninspiring CD.  He’s managed to spout off the necessary platitudes but he seems kinda robotic to me, like he’s not fully engaged with his work.  He’s certainly not a CD I’d try to follow around, like some apparently did with Mark Walker (from our Enchantment cruise years ago).

So, finally, at around 7:45P we were back in our cabin doing the packing.  Still a lot to do when we get up (i.e. toilet kits, electronics, tonight’s clothes), but we plan to set the alarm for 7:00A so we can hopefully be off the ship around 7:45A.  Until then, just reading and sleep to accomplish!