Where do those stairs go? Don't go

This was our first of two final sea days, and the first time that we could sleep in a bit since San Juan. We grabbed a late breakfast, and during breakfast heard the days announcements. Up at 11:30 was the Great Equinox cook off - a, what top Chef would call a Quick Fire, cooking challenge between two Marine officers and two hotel officers. We decided to attend that.

Before that, though, we headed to future cruise sales to figure out next year’s trip. Beth has limited time to travel based on her kids schedule and other things, so we worked with the representative to find the perfect cruise - same ship, a week earlier and Western Caribbean.

Then, on to the Cook-off. Each team had similar ingredients, but a different protein - they first introduced the hotel team. They walked over to station 1, and then switched to station 2. Apparently station 1 had salmon and 2 steak - and they decided Marine should do Salmon.

The teams had 15 minutes to make and plate a dish (two plates each). The judge was the food and beverage manager. The clock started and Sara (cruise director) and hotel guy (forget his name) entertained the crowd with jokes and comments about the food and beverage department. They did point out that on the ship, none of the chefs cook, so are probably very out of practice. The marine team had Nina, a security officer from Romania, who apparently cooks a lot at home. They made a salmon with a garlic aioli, with a side of veggies. The hotel team made a steak with veggies and fingerling potatoes. I’m not exactly sure what their preparation was, since the dishes were never described.

The first comment about the steak dish by hotel guy was that the one dish had one extra carrot and the other one extra piece of steak. The hotel team responded by eating them. The tasting was pretty even (and pronounced delicious) but the Marine team won because they had the better plating. As we walked out we could inspect the dishes. We took advantage of that, and spent a few minutes chatting with Sara. We suggested maybe more commentary on what they were making and we also found out about her background. She’s from the Basque part of Spain, and was given English lessons as a child, so that’s why a non-native-English speaker can be a CD. (Every other one I’ve ever has has been from an English speaking country, usually Canada or the UK). She actually has been one of the better ones - spending about 5 minutes each morning explaining the days activities but leaving us alone to do them after that.

Today, we decided to go to the Gastro Bar for lunch. They have a la carte pub menu that looked good. We both decided to order burgers and maybe a side. We thought about truffled fries, but Beth doesn’t like truffles. We agreed that the Cheddar soup sounded good, so we decided to split one although not perhaps, the most obvious choice with burgers. The waiter did warn us that it could take a little while and asked if we wanted the soup first. He also offered to bring the soup first.

After a time (I don’t remember how long it took - not long enough for me to worry about it) he brought two bowls of soup and two burgers. The burgers came with the truffled fries, so he said he’d bring Beth some plain ones. The soup was absolutely delicious - and the burgers were good, but the burgers and the fries, were not very warm. I think the problem is that the food comes from the dining room galley, which is at the back of the dining room. So in addition to the time it takes for the waiter to walk the food through the dining room to the bar, he/she has to go back to check for it. I’d probably do it again, but maybe just get soup and eat the rest of lunch elsewhere.

We then wandered around the shops for a bit, and then got ready for our evening. Since this was Friday night, somebody had set up a Friday night service (Jewish). I know they are passenger hosted, and have always been curious so we decided to go. It was led by a young man from London, and he seemed to know what he was doing. Because there were people from different branches of Judaism, the service was a little different - but I don’t go very often so I can’t be very specific as to what was what. The ship (I assume) provided wine (Manachevitz) and Challah (bread). They only set out about 6 wine glasses, and somebody suggested we all share, but we weren’t exactly up for sharing with strangers. Someone found a stash of wine glasses, so Beth and I shared a bit, and we all shared the bread. Apparently some people dip it in honey so there was exactly one individual package of honey (the size you get with the sugar for coffee and tea). We did speak to the leader afterwards, and it turns out he’s a cantor (singer in the synagogue) and on his honeymoon. There were also prayer books, so I’m thinking the ship has them, since I doubt people bring 10 identical hardcover books on board.

We had about 40 minutes after it ended before dinner, so we decide to walk around for a bit. And at the nearest bar we ran into our stablemates Steve and Manny, so we sat and had a drink with them, and then headed to the dining room for a fun dinner.

Since this was supposed to be the start of the annual meteor shower, we headed up to the rear of the ship to watch for meteors for a while. We hung out there for a while, and then gave up. Terry and Claude (our other stablemates) went to bed, and the rest of us went to the casino. Manny played a bit of slots, with us taking turns pushing the button. It took about 10 minutes to lose 20.00. He played a second game while we watched. Next it was roulette, and Steve talked Beth into playing some roulette.

At this point, I decided that I wanted to change my shoes from heels to sneakers. I went up from the casino on 4 to our room on 10, carrying a bottle of water, a glass of ginger ale and my shoes. Got to the room, and my key had stopped working. So back down to Guest Relations on 3, new key, back up to 10, back down to 4. Did I mention I did all this via stairs? When I returned, Steve was still there with Beth, who’d already played and lost her small chip set. Then we watched Steve play 3 card poker for a bit. Finally, we decided to go back up to the top to see if the meteors had shown up. I’d brought my phone so I could Face Time Glen, so I decided to text since it was getting late his time, and I wanted to let him know I’d try to call. The message didn’t go through, because it was text - I was on the wifi, so I thought it would go through as iMessage. I then tried FaceTime and it said it was awaiting activation. After about 10 minutes of trying, I got a text from Glen (via iMessage) asking if I’m seeing (or saw) the Carnival Magic behind us. I did, and figuring that iMessage, and FaceTime would work, I called him for a bit.

By this time, it was getting on 2:30 am, so we decided to go to bed. Steve decided he was hungry, so we stopped by the buffet. On the way, we noticed a crew door open with stairs. Steve suggested that we go down and find the crew bar. Beth and I said no. On arriving at the buffet, we found nothing there. This surprised me, since it was a cruise ship, you’d think there would be food 24x7. Apparently you could order from room service, but after 11pm, there’s a delivery charge. We gave up and went to bed.