THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 23 - AT SEA

DAY 6

Dick is up at 7:00AM and discovers the fancy coffee machine in the Neptune Lounge. It will make espresso, black coffee, Cappuccino and a Latte at the touch of a button. We head down to the dining room for breakfast at 8:30AM and, upon showing our room cards, are steered to the King’s Room where the Veranda Suite passengers are served breakfast. It is nice and low key...we enjoy a leisurely meal and visit with Sally/Bob and David Coquille, whom Dick had helped with his computer last evening.

Dick goes to Team Trivia and is less than thrilled with the playing style on this ship. They insist teams of no more than four and that makes for a dozen or more teams. Dick attends the talk by the guest lecturer and learns some things about the Hawaiian Islands but the speaker is not really to his liking and is overly impressed with himself. Carolyn goes to the Shore Excursion Overview then the Culinary Arts Center...a full kitchen set up in the Theater where the Pinnacle Grill Chef Kartik from India show us how to fix Steak Dianne. We are all given a small medallion sample which is a nice touch.

We meet up at the main dinning room for lunch at about 12;40. There is a very long line that is not moving. Dick as usual becomes impatient. Unfortunately at about 12:50 a waiter announces that there are only 6 more places and, of course we, can all see that there are many empty tables...Dick and several others get fed up and leave, but since Carolyn has to see the Dinning Room Captain, she waits with most of the others, maybe 20 people. There is a loud mutiny in the line and the head waiter comes out a tell everyone that we will have to share tables, but then seats everyone very fast as the waiters are setting up more tables...poor planning on the staff part. This is an older crowd and most seem to like to be served just like we always have. The lunch is good, and Carolyn talks with the Dinning Room Captain and gets a new table for two. It is the only other two top and has some of the same issues as our first one, but she agrees to try it and the head waiter says he will check with us at dinner. We both go to the lecture on the Polynesians as Navigators and Carolyn agrees the speaker is not that good..the material is interesting, but his speaking style is the pits! Later Carolyn goes to another food demonstration on how to make Chilled Raspberry Soup, this time done by the Party planner Kat. Otherwise the day passes quietly with nothing going on in the sea around us. We have not seen any shipping since we sailed.

The newly arranged for table is no better than our first one. Once again, the servers are fine but the table locations have been undesirable. Dick has sole and Carolyn has pork tenderloin. The food is good so far, but the servings are much smaller than what we have had on other lines, but we will not go hungry! As we are fijishing our desert, the Dining Room Captain checks on us and he agrees to let us have a table for four if we will accept the occasional table guests if the dining room becomes very crowded on a given evening due to late tours. Our new table is on the edge, overlooking the lower dining room and we can finally see more than just each other.