Live Blogging Anthem of the Seas July 18 sailing!

Wonderland Dinner Review

I have to admit some skepticism way back when the Quantum class was first announced about Wonderland. Because I’m a huge dork, and love cruising, I had paid attention to the big press release about all the new restaurants. The Wonderland stuff seemed interesting, but in many ways like they were almost trying too hard. I had liked Park 150 on the Oasis class as it seemed to deliver quality food without being too froo froo. Nonetheless, Wonderland was going to be a stop and I went in with an open mind and enthusiasm, even if it was tempered by some skepticism.

While much has been made (correctly) about the Alice in Wonderland theme, what I haven’t read as much was how far the theming went. The hostess is dressed like Alice, and the servers like mad hatters. Also somewhat interesting, for Wonderland, the staff do NOT have to wear their nametags. As you may know, that’s one of those strict RC rules, and outside of dancers in shows while on stage (fun insider fact, many of the theater talents – i.e., the leads of the shows -- are actually exempt from the nametag rule as well. Others, like the ice skaters and divers, however, have to wear them).

Anyhow, on to the food. While there is an extensive menu, the staff will offer (somewhat strongly) to order for you, after asking for your allergy/food restrictions. We went with this plan, which made sense since the portion sizes varied wildly. Many were single bites, others larger. Because this menu was so large, I’ll go by the pictures and what we thought.

Top left: liquid lobster (DW and I liked this one quite a bit). Second from the top on the left - a duck liver fritter (also an excellent bite, I would have eaten 6 more – DW also liked that one a lot even though she’s not typically a fan of liver). Third from the top left side – liquid manzinilla olive - this weird liquid thing that they had you “press up against the roof of your mouth,” releasing its contents in a “pop of olive oil.” Since this is a family blog I’m not going to describe how DW and I felt about this “texture food.” Suffice to say I don’t need any “pops of olive oil” released in my mouth during dinner. Bottom left corner - slow cooked beat salad with srichaca yogurt - it was good but not as good as some of the root vegetable dishes/beat dishes on Park 150.

Top middle – tuna tartar in a scooped out lime with yuzu sorbet. Not bad, but not one of my favorites on the menu. Perhaps a bit too ambitious. We both thought it was the weakest of the starters, which is saying something since we both love tartar. Dead center – eggs that were then infused in a smoked dish (we think it was buffalo smoked) – they lift the dish with a flourish of smoke, which I caught on camera. Also a great dish, although I liked it more than DW.

Bottom - kimchi tempura with melon. Eat the kimchi and sauce, and then the melon to cool it down. This was another of our favorites, although the portion size was huge considering all the other food.

Finally – right side - crispy crab cones, which were excellent, and we could have eaten another 10 of those as well. That had to be taken as a single bite, because the bottom had wasabi – DW made the mistake of eating in two, and her second bite was all wasabi. See kids, when you’re in a weird restaurant, follow the instructions of the funnily dressed people!

So to sum that round up – big winners – crab cones, liquid lobster, fritter. Odd – liquid olive.

My only critique is that the food came in a blitzkrieg. We weren’t in a rush, but all of those dishes came out in about 10 minutes of each other, overfilling the table. At that point we couldn’t really say “slow down”, although our waitress noted that the appetizers came fast, then a break, then mains, and another break before dessert.

So on the entrees – chicken with crispy skin, some sort of weird carrot/beet thing, bok choi and mashed potatoes. Usually I don’t order chicken out, but this was a fantastic dish, the skin was nice and crackly/crispy. Next dish - short rib with “river rocks” which were potatoes painted in squid ink (you can pick those out easily in the picture) which had an odd “Shell” from the ink, but were otherwise normal and good. The meat was great as well. Finally branzino with this crispy bread attached, which was the weakest of this round. The texture combo just didn’t work, which is a shame because the branzino itself was quite good. One thing I’ll note somewhat retroactively – while the starters were quite ‘whimsical’ and creative, the mains were a little more grounded. Not a critique, just an observation.

Then – dessert. At this point, we were waving the white flag. Nonetheless, we had to do our duty and avoid the cruise terrorist watch list. We went with the boston crème pie maze (far left) – which was these nice white cake, filled with boston crème, with certain sides having chocolate. Excellent balance. Key lime lollipops were the middle, not much to say beyond the fact they were wonderful, and then another molten lava cake with pistachio ice cream. They were all excellent, the boston crème pie and the lollipops stood out the most, but none were super amazing.

In conclusion – an excellent meal. I would rate it a hair under park 150, but I would absolutely do it again. I also should note that there is no wine pairing offered, but there are a variety of specialty cocktails. I got two – one was a strawberry balsamic martini – which was a nice balance of sweet and acidity, and I got some sort of Collins which had some clever name which was also a nice drink. The fact that the martini was served in a goblet was also a nice plus.

Following dinner, we went off to the Love and Marriage game show. We were a bit late, so we were not able to get there to try to be picked, which wasn’t happening anyway. As I told DW, “Do you really want ME up there DRUNK? No matter what I say or do, you’re the one who married me.” As the questions went on, she decided it really was for the best we weren’t up there. Not much to say other than it was quite fun to have the Brits up there, as the dry British humor of both the contestants and the cruise director Joff were fantastic. On a funny aside, one of the contestants (husband) tends to say random words like “eggs.” Joff said he would say that at the end of his announcements for the entire following day. And he actually did! Which was awesome. I guess you had to be there, but we were cracking up.

This evening had one of the outdoor solarium parties that we always enjoy in the Caribbean. Unfortunately, what was billed as an "Ibiza" party was just relatively weak techno blasting and a whole lot of people drinking at the bar -- no one dancing at all. I was rather disappointed, but as discussed by many, the dance scene just isn't there on these cruises. Which is probably for the best for the sake of international peace, if people see my bad white person dancing they're likely to riot. I got away with it on Silent Disco night because everyone was too busy playing with their headphones to notice me, but I don't want to push my luck.

Anyway - that concluded a busy day 9. More coming up to catch you all up. We just completed an awesome day in Lisbon but are contemplating a serious audible in nixing our Vigo excursion simply to relax before leaving this lovely ship.

Day 10 Dinner – Izumi

Izumi is like Chops to me, in that I know it’s there, I don’t have anything against it, but I eat enough sushi at home to not be interested in doing it at sea, since their selection is a bit limited. I’ve wanted to try the lava rock cooking available on Oasis class (and now Oasis class has hibachi too), but sadly none of those were at Izumi. Nonetheless, the Eat the Anthem mission demanded we go for Izumi.

One of the first bizarre things about Izumi was that they were advertising an “omakase” special (which was not Omakase at all, but just a four course meal) – but that our waitress strongly dissuaded us from it. We were a bit taken aback, as usually they try to upsell you, but decided to trust her since she was so firm.

We ended up with our lightest meal – two orders of Carpaccio/sashimi (albacore top left, Hamachi top right), the special futomaki roll (basically every fish they had stuffed into a roll on top of fried crabmeat), and then the dessert sampler (fresh fruit, green tea mouse with some sort of cake in it, flan). The sashimi dishes were pretty yummy, the roll was fine. The desserts were also fine, nothing special. We enjoyed the meal, but for the cost, it didn’t really stand out. On the up side, it may have been our lightest meal on board, so that’s a plus. It did, however, reaffirm that outside of trying the cooked stuff on the Oasis class, much like Chops, I wouldn’t be rushing back. Maybe for a quick lunch.

Following Izumi, we were off to Name that Tune, which is a relatively recent addition to RC. Excellent production, lots of fun. Not a whole lot to say beyond that, except to suggest you make some time for it when you’re on your cruise.

We called it quits thereafter –again, there may have been some casino donations. They haven’t really paid my tuition much this trip but one of the past few nights DW got smoking hot at roulette and nailed 6/7 numbers. It was either that night or last night, not sure. We had a morning date with Cadiz and some sherry tasting.

Also sailing on 15th August and was so excited until I read the negative reviews so pleased to be reading a positive one.

I'm really enjoying your review, thank you! Are the all specialty restaurants or are they included because of the new dynamic dining?

I'm really enjoying your review, thank you! Are the all specialty restaurants or are they included because of the new dynamic dining?

6 are free - American icon, chic, silk, grande, coastal kitchen (for suite guests), and devinly decadence. The rest were pay.

One more thing I neglected to mention. On day 10 we gave Johnny Rockets a try - we split a burger and fries. No onion rings on ship (gasp). It is now a la carte with a small seating area and take away options. Good enough food. The burger was better than the windjammer ones that are over cooked. The fries were good but actually on this ship they have been doing a good job with the fries in the windjammer all things considered.

I have heard there are no longer midnight buffets? Is there a Captain's reception on Anthem when everyone gets a glass of champagne and everyone has to dress formally? Are there any parties we need to dress up in a theme eg the 70's night usually happens?

I have heard there are no longer midnight buffets? Is there a Captain's reception on Anthem when everyone gets a glass of champagne and everyone has to dress formally? Are there any parties we need to dress up in a theme eg the 70's night usually happens?

There are no shipwide formal nights on ships with Dynamic Dining.

I have heard there are no longer midnight buffets? Were eliminated many years ago.

 

Is there a Captain's reception on Anthem when everyone gets a glass of champagne and everyone has to dress formally? Yes and no, yes there's usually a reception but folks don't dress up. Other than going to Grande, you are unlikely to see anyone dress up for anything.

 

Are there any parties we need to dress up in a theme eg the 70's night usually happens? Yes, but it varries with the CD.

See answers above.

There are no shipwide formal nights on ships with Dynamic Dining.

However there are now "Royal nights" where you should "dress your best". Ours were on days 2 (at sea), 5 (at sea) and bizarrely 12 (Lisbon). I thought day 10 at sea would be our third royal night. The first two there was also a special menu, but not the third.

However there are now "Royal nights" where you should "dress your best". Ours were on days 2 (at sea), 5 (at sea) and bizarrely 12 (Lisbon). I thought day 10 at sea would be our third royal night. The first two there was also a special menu, but not the third.

It will be interesting to see if that is kept as is once the Anthem gets across the pond.

However there are now "Royal nights" where you should "dress your best". Ours were on days 2 (at sea), 5 (at sea) and bizarrely 12 (Lisbon). I thought day 10 at sea would be our third royal night. The first two there was also a special menu, but not the third.

They had the same menu in all restaurants on two first Royal nights?

It will be interesting to see if that is kept as is once the Anthem gets across the pond.

Hopefully not - want to eat from proper menu in the restaurant.

Hopefully not - want to eat from proper menu in the restaurant.

I agree. We're on the Anthem TA in October, and I've booked our dining with the intent and expectation of sampling the various "included" venues and a couple of specialty restaurants.

What is the point of having "Dynamic Dining" with four (or more) included venues and different menus if you are just going to hijack the menus on one or more nights? :rolleyes:

I agree. We're on the Anthem TA in October, and I've booked our dining with the intent and expectation of sampling the various "included" venues and a couple of specialty restaurants.

 

What is the point of having "Dynamic Dining" with four (or more) included venues and different menus if you are just going to hijack the menus on one or more nights? :rolleyes:

They offered both the standard menu for that restaurant and an insert for royal night. This was not the "taste of anthem" others mentioned that had a standard menu for all.

We were relieved that we could order off the menu as normal!

They offered both the standard menu for that restaurant and an insert for royal night. This was not the "taste of anthem" others mentioned that had a standard menu for all.

 

We were relieved that we could order off the menu as normal!

Thanks for that additional info; very happy to hear it. And huge thanks again for this terrific thread. Enjoy the rest of your trip!

Good afternoon everyone! We are wrapping up our afternoon on Day 14, doing the dreaded packing. I have not abandoned posting, just been busy, you know, enjoying the end of my honeymoon! Anyhow, let me get some content up for you. DW has pic stitched the remainder of the trip, so it's on me to type. I'll also continue to post through day 14 of course even if it takes me a few days. We're in the UK until Sunday and then flying home, so I have plenty of time to write.

To those of you embarking tomorrow, I hate you and am jealous, although truthfully we've hit a food and drink wall -- after 14 days, there isn't much left to eat or drink on an RC ship. Anyhow, on to Day 11!

Day 11 – Cadiz

Cadiz, as a fun fact, is where there is a major dry dock where the Allure of the Seas was recently refurbished. That’s your RC fun fact of the day, maybe they can sponsor me or something.

Anyhow, we pulled into Cadiz, which was a later docking and excursion time (10:15). We watched the ship pull in and noticed the North Star line was rather short, so we quickly ran up and hopped on for a nice view of the city. It was our second trip up the North Star, and very cool. As a fun pro tip, since it usually opens up at 9 AM, and several port stops don’t get going until 10, you can check the lines and ride while everyone else is eating their weight in bacon, sausage, and bangers (those are british sausage for those of you who have not sailed from the UK. They are delicious).

Anyhow, our excursion today was Jerez, Tapas and Tradicion Cellars. It included a bit of a bus tour of nearby Jerez (if the name didn’t give it away) and accompanying walking tour. It was a cute town, much as all of the cities we’ve stopped at. It included stops at one of their churches, a Moorish fort, and a former mosque. It was pretty typical stuff, but nice to get at least a snapshot of the history of the town. The weather was warm, but not has brutal as some of the other days.

Now, on to the fun part, sherry tasting! Sherry only comes from Jerez and the surrounds, and this isnt’ the super sweet stuff you’re used to, but rather dry sherries which have periodically been in vogue in drinking culture (they are making a resurgence lately). Tradicion cellars is relatively new, but only makes high end sherries, so I was intrigued by the tour offering. DW went for the tapas.

We did a nice tour of the bodega, learned how sherry was made, etc etc. It was actually a fun tour, I enjoy learning how alcohol is made (I’ve done Napa, the Bourbon Trail, etc), so this was a nice feather in my alcoholic cap. We also did a quick walk through of the owner’s super ridiculous private art gallery, which had several famous Spanish painters (who I am now blanking on the names of, likely because of the sherry).

(top left, in the tasting room at Tradicion, top right, streets of Jerez, middle, panorama from the ship, yes, they have a suspension bridge there too in Cadiz although it's not done yet, bottom left, one wing of the private collection at Tradicion, bottom right, area near the ship, snapped from the solarium when we were back on board)

After our tour, we came out to this beautiful room we had entered in – it was a courtyard but the ceiling was a “living ceiling” from a manicured fruit tree of some sort (it looked like currants but not sure that’s correct). They had a very nice spread out of local cheese, ham, olives, bread, crackers, and Spanish omelets. I will confess, I expected a bit more “hot” tapas, but the food was great. We then went on to a 5 drink tasting – 2 dry sherries, 1 cream sherry, 1 sweet sherry, and a brandy. Everything was excellent – I ended up buying a bottle of the oloroso sherry, even though I knew it would be a pain to bring back (I usually bring wrapping for drinks but didn’t this trip). DW was a trooper and tried everything, even though she really doesn’t care for liquor in most cases.

Anyhow, a great excursion – I highly recommend it if you’re into sherry or alcohol. You get enough culture to check the box, and more than enough sherry and tapas to enjoy.

Day 11 Dinner Review – Coastal Kitchen

Day 11 had us back at Coastal Kitchen for dinner. We had the “other” menu here, I can’t recall the name offhand. However, this dinner ended up being one of our best at a complementary restaurant all cruise, so we were quite pleased at round 2.

We started with an onion, mushroom and ricotta flatbread (top right). Delicious. Very thin crust, so not super filling, but still a little big for a dinner appetizer. Top left – the “prawn cocktail” which is on the classic menu. You’ll note this isn’t a cocktail so much as a salad. Way too much mayo for my taste – I had a few bites and that was enough. I’m not sure if it’s a bad dish or more aimed at the UK palette (from what I understand, and a UK poster feel free to flame me if I’m wrong – the UK tends to be heavier on the mayo in their salad dishes than the US). One first world problem critique of coastal kitchen – their appetizers are very salad focused. They have only a few non-salad starters beyond the flatbread, including the zucchini we got last time.

On to entrees – excellent seared scallops (middle right) for DW, and a fisherman’s stew (middle left) for me. The scallops were good quality seafood and properly cooked, which is always the two challenges of getting scallops right (well, technically any dish of course, but scallops can be particularly unforgiving). Similarly, the stew had good seafood, including the mussels, and the broth had a nice spice to it. Both were delightful dishes, and even better, not particularly heavy. At this point in the cruise, light was a major bonus.

Finally, on to dessert, which had been weak at coastal kitchen before. We went with the final two items we hadn’t tried yet – the “wine and cheese” (bottom left) which was a wine poached tart with ricotta and pastry , and the café con leche (bottom right). The tart was a very nice surprise – the pastry was the weakest link, but the red wine pear and cheese paired beautifully and was a nice changeup after the 20 or so lava cakes we’d consumed. The café con leche was one of DW’s favorite desserts all cruise, and for her, chocolate usually is guaranteed a win place or show position, so this was quite an upset.

All in all – a wonderful meal. Coastal Kitchen was growing nicely on me, which would be later cemented by breakfast on Day 14 (more in time!). I still think Royal has to put a bit more “oomph” behind it if they really want to give their suite guests something memorable, but this concept is an excellent start in my opinion.

Following dinner, we putzed around some. We had an early wake up time for Lisbon, so we popped our head into another Solarium party, found it dead, and decided to call it early. I’m old.

Day 12 – Lisbon

The time zone changed in Lisbon, except we didn’t, so I was awake quite “early” and able to watch the ship sail into the port in the darkness, which was awesome (top right in the pic stitch for one of my early morning shots DW deemed acceptable for posting). The ship goes under the 25 de Abril Bridge (formerly the Salazar Bridge, but part of getting deposed as a dictator is that people rename the stuff you built after they boot you out). Anyway, it is a tight fit and a fun experience. I’ve not been on a boat of this size going under a bridge of that size.

Lisbon is a city that has always interested me, maybe because it was one of those random country capitals you learn about in elementary school geography and wonder what it’s like there but never really think “Gee, I’ll fly there for vacation.” So I have to say, of our stops, it was one of the highest on my list besides Gibraltar as far as “Places I’d probably never go to on their own.” We were doing the Lisbon, Cascais, and Sintra tour, which was an all day extravaganza.

I should of course start by mentioning the bus (I failed to do this in Cadiz. That bus was fine). The Lisbon bus ranked a close #2 to the French bus, it was clean but the AC wasn’t as good. We started out swinging by one of the many forts, the Belem Tower, for a quick photo shoot on the water. My mandatory picture is of course in the top left of the pic stitch. From here, we ventured out of the city and up to Cascais, a cool little port town. We were given 45 minutes to roam, which we spent taking pictures (central panorama is the marina there), looking for free wifi, and, after being prompted by our tour guide that the Portuguese love their pastries, we of course bought a pastry. Because we needed more food. I’m looking down at my gut and sighing as I write this because it’s the three “S’s” of post cruise weight loss for me when I get home – salad, stir fry, and shame. And also a healthy dose of the gym.

Anyhow, now is a good time to note it was rather cloudy and misty. This was a relief after days of tromping in the heat, but would shortly play a villainous role. We next were on our way to Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point of continental Europe with spectacular cliff views. We got there… and the fog was so bad there was, I kid you not, 15 foot visibility. So you get a picture of the monument where you can see the fog in the background (bottom middle). We could vaguely see the outlines of the ocean far below. I haven’t yet googled it to see what we missed, but anyway, on to the next stop!

This tour included lunch, which is always a dice roll. We actually skipped some of the other tours in Rome because we didn’t trust the food, and many reviewers had noted that they ended up at crappy restaurants. They took us to “Curral dos Caprinos,” which I believe translates to goat corral. I surreptitiously decided to spend some roaming data to look the place up, and found to my delight that it had 4.5 stars on Trip Advisor, so that was a positive sign. I’d later notice they had proudly posted their Trip Advisor commendations of being a good place for tourists. Getting to the point, the food was actually quite good. They had good house wine and red wine (also included), tapas, and then the typical rice/French fries/skewered meats (pork and beef). For those who were vegetarians, they made omelets, and when I told them DW didn’t eat pork, they brought her an extra hunk of flank steak. Excellent stop, high marks for not shoving us somewhere that sucked just because they could.

Trekking along, we hit Sintra next, another cute mountain town (bottom left, a view shot there, top right, a street). Not much to say other than it was another one of those “oh this place is so cool” stops, a bit of walking, and then back on the bus. I would have had a glass of wine or something but we just had lunch so I had had enough wine. There was port for sale (and port tastings) everywhere, since it is a big local product and all that. Finally, we went back to visit the Jeronimos Monastery (a huge local church that didn’t make the pic stitch cut – we actually were very rushed so I didn’t have any great pictures of it) for a quick run through before getting back to the ship before it left.

So overall – I would give this tour a strong A. It wasn’t cheap, but it was a great way to see a lot of the city and the region, the food stop was great, the tour guide was great—it delivered. Given how much they crammed in, short of hiring a driver or getting a rental car, I think they did a nice job of providing good value. I’d also like to note that based on our quick trip, we definitely plan on visiting Lisbon one day. Very cool city and nice surrounding area. We’ll have to spend more time at it in the future.

To end the day’s report, when we got back to the ship, there was a massive line of people going through security. Lisbon was running everyone through security, complete with taking off your shoes TSA style, and they only had 3 or so security lanes. To Royal Caribbean’s credit, they had staff out giving out cold towels, because the line was long and the shade was minimal. I’m not sure if we were in a bad mooring spot (i.e., insufficient facilities for a ship of our size) or what, but it was pretty unusual – the other ports either let RC screen us or had larger facilities. It took us over a half hour to get on, and we were one of the last groups back, so the ship ended up leaving a bit late. Not too bad though, and the cold towels helped quite a bit.

More coming soon as always of course- still a few more days and reviews to catch you all up on.

I’ll opine further at the real end (i.e., post day 14 posting), but as I sit here the last night (don’t you hate that feeling?) – I’ve enjoyed writing this out, particularly because it serves as a nice narrative for us to remember our honeymoon by too.

Good night everyone!

Fabulous as always!

THANK YOU!

Good morning everyone! After an incredibly painless debarkation process that took us all of 10 minutes using self walk off, followed by a 5 minute cab ride, we were at the train station. The hardest part, no joke, was trucking down to the lift and across the bridge at Southampton Central. I’m currently spitting out content for you as fast as my fingers can fly as we ride the Southwest Train back to London. I love the UK, they even given you free WiFi on the train (sometimes). DW is not yet sleeping, but given her track record on this trip of sleeping in every plane, train, and bus we’ve taken, my guess is she’ll nod off shortly. So, let us continue with the great journey!

Day 12 Dinner – The Grande Round 2

For whatever reason, Day 12 was a Royal Night. Why they would put a Royal night in the middle of a 3 port stop stretch, at the longest stop, is beyond me. Presumably, you would want these sorts of things after sea days so people can freshen up and all that. But what do I know.

We had originally been scheduled for Devinly Decadence (with the Grand on Day 13), but with the Royal night, we swapped, so we didn’t have to dress up twice. Let me note one thing, which I will expound upon later – while we as a couple who tends to eat “early” (by Europe standards – meaning 8 PM) – had no problem swapping around at will, I could see it being much more problematic with a group of 4 or more. It was easy for them to squeeze us in whenever, but as the evenings got later and things were packed, I could see it being more problematic.

We chose to return to the Grande because of our superb experience the first time. We also wanted to try the second menu, thinking that since we were now in the second week, we’d get the second menu. But no! We were wrong. Apparently they did some odd order like 7, 4, 4 or something weird like that (DW thinks they said it was alternating every 4 days). I guess the point is – we had the first menu, again. This irked me a bit, as I’d have liked to try the other. This is another area where, while DD has strong aspirations, it ends up having too many moving parts and thus gets confusing. While we really liked DD, it is easy to see how it is, in some ways, overly complicating and confusing. The ideas are good, but it introduces multiple variables in a process which used to have just one in the MDR, which was “Show up at the same time, same place, and we’ll feed your face.” I digress.

Making the best of this tragedy of a repeat menu, we changed a bit up in our ordering. We started with escargot for me, French onion soup for DW, and we shared the true shrimp cocktail. The pics should be fairly self-explanatory on this course.

Entrees were lamb shank for me (and MDR staple, seems to be the same receipe), and the pasta alfredo for DW. DW was paralyzed by the menu options, and our incredibly helpful waiter Darby helped her lock in on it. Both dishes were good – the lamb shank was, as it always is, a solid choice. Nothing spectacular, but a decent shank properly slow cooked. The alfredo was a pleasant surprise, properly sauced (not overly creamy), good fresh peas (or at least really good frozen peas), and bits of pancetta.

Closing it out, we went with the key lime tart and another lava cake. The lava cake remained a strong chocolate dessert, the tart was good but nothing special. All told – another excellent meal cementing the Grande as our favorite of the standard complementary restaurants.

Following the Grande, we were off to “The Gift” which was one of the RC in house productions, this time in the Royal Theater. I should note that the boat was rocking pretty hard tonight, so I was curious if they would make any of the changes to the show that they noted during our tour (flats instead of heels, less throwing people around in the dance moves). However, our intrepid performers wore heels and still seemed to be lifting each other up, so I guess it wasn’t rocky by their standards. Anyway, the Gift was sort of the usual RC type production. It had more of a plot than many of their revue type shows, and then otherwise featured a number of songs ranging from older to newer rock, pop, etc. We enjoyed it quite a bit for an in-house show. I’d say I liked it more than Spectra’s as far as the music, although Spectra’s was cool because of all the 270 stuff (the robo arms and all that).

Keeping the night going strong, we headed off to “Club Red” at 270, which apparently was SO awesome they had to leave a flyer in our door for it. Allow me to rant, because, well, that’s what I do. Around day 10, we had wondered “What happened to the Diamond party?” We figured maybe the invitation went to the wrong room (we had done a room switch after final payment, we had been below Fuel, the kid room, and found a junior suite that was sandwiched between other cabin-only floors and figured it would be quieter). A lot of our stuff got screwed up with the switch – our travel agency’s OBC disappeared (we’ll be getting it back via credit card refund), and several of our restaurant reservations were under our old room (but not lost, fortunately). However, in the Compass, we were told that the Diamond party invite was “virtual” through the stateroom TV system because they want to “save the waves.” That’s great, except for the fact I received two park west paper mail spam items, a club red spam item, and of course on the last night, 10 pages of stateroom charges printed. I appreciate them “saving the waves” but my guess is that skipping the Diamond invite didn’t save much more than a six inch swell. Anyway… oh yeah, we never made it to the Diamond party either.

Club Red was the 270 set up in night club format, except that they had various performers doing random stuff in addition to music and dancing. Many of you may recall the weird white dressed performers in the Solarium parties who dance and generally just look like creepy mannequins. This time they actually had trapeze artists, dancers, and even this giant bubble that a dancer was inside of dancing. They made good use of the 270 venue’s performance capabilities, although they didn’t do anything with the robo arms or the vistarama.

Allow a brief interruption. DW has fallen asleep, and even better, there are sheep in the countryside as we go by. Perhaps she was counting them?

Ok, back to Club 270. As you know, I’ve noted this wasn’t a huge dancing cruise. One of the funny effects of the performances is people got confused, they didn’t know whether to dance or stop and watch. For those of you who have ever been to clubs that have performances, you’ll know they tend to be more like movie scenes where you have live performers doing there thing and regular people partying down. Nope, on this cruise we all stood around like the lame people we were on the dance floor going “ooooh” and “ahhhh” to the dancers. Anyway, it was still pretty fun.

At this point it was about 1 AM and we decided to call it quits. We also decided we’d call an audible and skip our Vigo tour because we were pretty toured out and wanted an extra pool day. We left an asterisk that if the weather was crappy we’d see how we felt.

Did we make it? Did we skip it? Stay tuned!

Can't... stop... posting! Must... write!

Last post before we get in to London.

Day 13 – Vigo

Vigo, Vigo. Northwestern part of Spain, bordering the Atlantic. Home to a large seafood industry and chilly weather. Yes, chilly weather. Cloudy, overcast, and cool. So… we thought about it, and since our excursion would be back by 2, and we couldn’t cancel the day prior, we decided what the hell, one more tour. Honestly as cold as it was, we weren’t going to get much out of sitting at the pool.

We did the “Gardens of Vigo” tour. Probably because I like gardens (good photography options) and there weren’t a whole lot of other excursions that looked appealing (although there was some “border country” one that took you back to Portugal that I’m not sure was on there when we first booked). That reminds me, make sure you check back when you book excursions far out. We saw a lot of new ones pop up, as well as the package deals they offer. I’m a crazy over planner (honestly that’s half the fun of the cruise to me), so we tend to book far in advance, but it is worth checking back to see what else pops up.

I don’t have a whole lot to say about this tour. Not that it was bad, but we were toured out, the weather was meh. I’m glad we did it, there were two stops – one at a public garden downtown that was rather nice, and then a quick stop on the water, followed by Castle Sotomoior. Actually the castle was pretty cool. You could climb up the battlements at multiple levels and the gardens around it were pretty. The tour guide was good, the bus was good. But Vigo is a bit of a weaker port as far as excursions. I would consider walking around the downtown area in the future and checking that out, it may be better than an excursion. Plus if you’re like we were, after tromping around port after port, by now you’ll be exhausted.

(top left, manor by the public gardens, top right, beach panorama. Middle left, random picture of the estuary. Bottom left, mountains by the castle. Bottom right, castle wall, flowers, mountains).

When we got back on the ship, we were off to our second to last new food stop – Michael’s Pub for lunch. We went with the venison and onion pie, another round of pickled vegetables, and then the peanut butter pie in a jar. Excellent across the board. The venison pie was fantastic, excellent filling and good crispy crust. Pickled vegetables remained nice and spicy. And the peanut butter pie guilted me into the gym that day (not that I need much guilting). The price tag was a bit steep - $12.50 for the main, $3 for the pickles, and I think $6 for the pie. So not cheap at all. But given our great food experiences there, I’m not surprised it is always packed with people eating and drinking.

(I will assume you can figure out which pie was venison and which pie was dessert)

Anyhow, that wrapped up the afternoon. I think we swung by the pool for a bit despite the fact it never warmed up before cleaning up for dinner. More on that later or tomorrow.

Many thanks again for taking the time to write these. Have a safe journey home :)

We are so enjoying your blog - one of the best we've read. Will you be adding a photo of you and your DW (congratulations on your wedding) it would be great to put a face to the fab blog. We are doing the same cruise in two weeks and you're comments, especially re your excursions have been enormously helpful. Thank you :)

Wishing you both a safe journey home and best wishes for the future.

Thank you for your review. Perhaps I missed it, but how did the Puzzle Break Room go? :)