Where are the Mimosas? - October 28

I'm sitting here contemplating my breakfast of cheerios with blueberries and wishing it was breakfast at Sabatinis. I mentioned it in earlier posts, but as I'm missing it I thought I'd elaborate more. Sabatinis is the alternative Italian restaurant up on Deck 16. It's open every night for dinner for everyone. In the morning it's only open for breakfast for passengers in specific categories. The menu is not the same as the dining room and the service most certainly isn't either.

To start we were offered Mimosas (champagne and orange juice) every morning. Great way to get your vitamins! Next we had cappucinos every morning. The menu as written is great but essentially the kitchen will fix you whatever you like. There are freshly-baked pastries and doughnuts. The little apple turnovers and chocolate croissants were my favorites. If they weren't enough, there was an assortment of fresh muffins. There is a selection of fresh fruit - berries, melon, citrus - and juices. For those who are being health conscious the menu includes cereals and a yogurt and granola parfait with raspberries and blueberries to die for. After being healthy, you can make a choice from Eggs Benedict, Poached Eggs on parsleyed new potatoes, or eggs prepared any other way you would like them. There are Belgian waffles with whipped cream and French Toast. For those who like smoked salmon, there are bagels and smoked salmon with the trimmings. I know I haven't remembered everything, but you get the picture. Breakfast with Marius, the restaurant supervisor, and his excellent crew, is an experience.

Well, my cheerios are calling me. I miss the Mimosas!

Home Safely - October 25

Well, we arrived home around 8:30 PM, a little late due to a mechanical problem with the plane, but none the worse for wear. We were stunned when we walked in and saw the house. The men we had hired had finished the wallpaper stripping and painting project and even cleaned everything. It looks beautiful! I can see that for future projects whenever possible we'll have to try to have them done when we're not here.

We were too tired to do anything more than bring the luggage upstairs, have a drink and something to eat and then go to bed.

It was a wonderful cruise! We traveled nearly 12,000 miles total and saw so many lovely things. We ate lots of good food and drank lots of good wine. We had great times with some good friends. What more can you ask for?

Last Day - October 24

Rainbows at the end of our voyage. What could be more perfect?

Well, we’re packed and all that’s left to do is have one last round of drinks with friends and dinner at Sabatinis again. We’ve had a lazy day. We began with our last round at trivia. Two of our teammates brought a bottle of white wine from Orvieto, Italy, which we drank as we played. We thought it might sharpen our skills. Mind you, trivia was at 10:00 AM. The wine didn’t help! We’re going backwards on our correct answers.

Just a few minutes ago Al was on our balcony as I was dressing for dinner and we passed a rain squall to port. Suddenly a beautiful double rainbow appeared. We’re just about to enter the Northeast Providence Channel south of Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas. Every cruise that we’ve taken for the last several years we’ve seen a rainbow. I like to think it’s good luck.

We're back from a splendid dinner in Sabatinis. Marius and his staff outdid themselves. We ate things not on the menu tonight and they were all superb. How will we ever survive at home?

It has been an absolutely wonderful cruise!

Anyway, signing off for now. Be well everyone.

Water, water everywhere - October 23

Another day at sea, our fifth. No pictures tonight. I’m tired and we didn’t take any today. Aside from a couple of passing ships, all we saw was lots of ocean. Around five o’clock this evening we were sitting on our balcony being mesmerized by the wake and pondering where the day went. The only different thing today was the last gathering of our Cruise Critic group. We had a nice meeting in one of the bars and even met some people we hadn’t before. The Cruise Director sent down a bunch of stuff for door prizes. Out of 40 or so people there we were among the seven or eight who didn’t win anything. Perhaps we should go to the Casino. Maybe it’s a sign that it’s our lucky night. On second thought, probably not, so we’ll just say “Good Night.”

A Busy Sea Day - October 22

The entrance to Sabatinis Restaurant
A beautiful calm day heading west
The Sanctuary on Deck 17 forward
The 8th and 9th Holes on the Ruby International Course. The greens were fast!

Today we were busy all day. We began with our usual Mimosas for breakfast but we ate quickly because morning trivia was earlier today. Unfortunately we let our victory from yesterday go to our heads and we did pretty badly. We decided we tend to overthink the answers and need to stop doing that.

Next we played a round of golf (okay, it’s putt-putt) up on deck 19. I may be one of the world’s worst golfers! But I did win 6 holes to 3. The funny thing was that after we finished , there was a Ryder Cup tournament and Al stayed to watch the “pros” who turned out to be as bad as we were.

Since it was such a beautiful, sunny day we headed to the Sanctuary and spent a few hours playing scrabble and relaxing on the super comfortable lounge chairs. At four we headed to a party in the cabin of some of our Tidewater friends. We had delicious cheese from Montserrat, a variety of interesting wines, fruit, chips and guacamole. The best part was the company though! (You may notice a theme on these sea days – there’s an awful lot of eating and wine-tasting going on. Monday morning reality will set in!)

Tonight was the last formal night, so when we had polished off the wine, we adjourned to our respective cabins to get dressed for dinner at Sabatinis with our fellow wine tasters. The Tidewater Six met for a lovely Italian dinner. We had eaten a few nights ago in the other restaurant, the Crown Grill, and had such a good time we decided to do it again. Our reservation was for 8:30 PM and we closed the restaurant down at 11:45. Thank goodness we’ve been turning back the clock most nights. These 25 hour days are pretty good for letting us catch up on our sleep!

Mid-Atlantic - October 21

A mostly cloudy day

We're halfway across.

Today has been a mainly cloudy day which kept everyone inside. There was a long line in the afternoon for a movie in the Princess Theater. I have no clue what was playing. We haven’t seen a movie or a show yet. We did not much of anything. We did play trivia in the morning with some W&M friends and a Scots couple. We won!

This evening we had dinner again at the Crown Grill. We were seated at a table close to the open kitchen and were entertained by the activity there. It can best be described as “controlled chaos” with waiters racing back with orders, various classifications of chef’s fixing main courses and side dishes, and things being held in waiting under heat lamps. The food has been uniformly good in our opinion. When we consider that the galleys are cooking for more than 4000 people (including crew) it's amazing that the food is so good.

Still Heading West - October 20

May I say, I have a great photographer taking my pictures!

Another calm day with comfortable temperatures. We didn’t do much of anything. We played trivia and scrabble. This afternoon we had a wine and munchies gathering of people from our Cruise Critic group. We had an interesting assortment of wines and goodies that people had picked up along the way. Some of the wines tasted very good; others not so good but after having several glasses it didn’t seem to matter anymore.

We’ve been eating breakfast in Sabatini’s Restaurant every morning . Essentially they will fix anything you like for you. We begin breakfast with a Mimosa. I don’t know how we’ll get back to reality next week! We’ve been eating dinner there a lot too. It’s an Italian alternative restaurant onboard. You know you’ve been there too often when the chef comes out to greet you and all the staff know you by name. Tonight they fixed us food not on the menu. We had a pasta dish to die for and a mixed seafood grill with huge langostinos, scampi, lobster and scallops. It was Molto Bene!

Tonight the Earth is supposed to begin its pass through the Orionid Meteor shower. I hoped to be able to stay up and see some shooting stars, but I’m way too tired. Perhaps tomorrow night. Out here in the ocean with relatively little ambient light it should be spectacular.

Tonight's photos are just two I liked. One is of an ambulance roaring by in Venice on the Grand Canal. The other is a photo Al shot from our balcony tonight close to sunset. I thought the cloud bank looked beautiful. All this hard work today has done me in.