Monday 1/14/11 – Day at Sea (and first “Cruise Elegant”)

Scott was up at 6am and the gym was crowded. I however, had no qualms about sleeping in until 8, and after a lackluster Lido buffet breakfast (cold eggs and toast. Meh!), it was relaxing (reading for him, knitting for me!) on the nearly empty Serenity deck.

We had our Meet & Greet at 10am in the Ivory Piano Bar. Dave and Nancy (NLBarry) asked John Heald to reserve the room, and it was in the FunTimes as such, but when we got there, the spa was having a detox class at the same time. The first thing I noticed about the piano bar (other than the gaggle of people) was the lack of a smoky smell. I was pleasantly surprised. I’d previously avoided the piano bars because I’d always get a headache, but it wasn’t noticable at all. Our group was rather large, and we were relegated to a corner, so we didn’t stick around very long, maybe about half an hour. Because we were crammed in the corner, and the size of our group, there were some who, I felt, didn’t really get to participate in the conversations. It seemed to be a huge oversight. The spa could have held that detox class ANYWHERE, but they had to double book the piano bar. In all, our roll call was a great group of people and I’m glad to say we hung around with some for the rest of the week.

After our M&G, I went around taking pictures of the ship.

Mid-ship staircase on deck 2/3.

Fountain under said staircase:

It did have water in it at some points during the week. There were benches around the staircase and the sushi station was to the left, the coffee place to the right.

The center atrium, up view:

The glass staircase up to David’s (deck 9/10):

The sports bar:

Starry Night Jazz club:

The casino bar has a horse-racing theme, and Scott was in Heaven. He’s really into horse racing, and even plays at simhorseracing.com.

After my picture taking expedition, we had lunch in the dining room. He had burritos and I tried the spaghetti and meatballs, which was horrible. The meatballs were great, but the pasta was mushy and the sauce really had no taste to it.

We decided to go back to our cabin to nap for a bit, after stopping at the atrium bar for a Coke, and a Raspberry Mojito that was OMG YUMMY!!

We’d purchased the “Bottomless Bubbles” soda card, as we had previously, and I don’t really think we got our money’s worth on this sailing. The bar service in the dining room was really lacking all week. I tried to nap on the balcony, but our upstairs neighbors were younger kids (I say “kids” but they were probably in their early 20s, all guys) who, even though the chairs were light and could be picked up, felt the need to drag them around. It sounded like they were having competitions on who could drag them the furthest at the highest velocity. I gave up and went inside.

Napping need satisfied, Scott wanted to play some Craps so I took my knitting and my Nook and sat in the lounging area on Promenade deck. Natalie, the FCC specialist, and I had a great conversation. She was looking for an e-reader and was wondering if she should get a Kindle, a Nook, or an iPad. As we have a Nook and an iPad, I let her play around with both, and gave her what I felt were the pros and cons of each.

Around 7, the “table turned cold” or something like that, so Scott and I went up to get ready for dinner. It was the first Cruise Elegant evening and he was eager to try some lobster. The only word that would describe tonight’s dinner was “awkward”. I didn’t get any pictures because I didn’t want it to be moreso. The couple we were seated with seemed nice enough, until we got a lecture about drinking ice water instead of hot water. The next complaint was that the food was never hot enough and the service was too slow. It was their first cruise, and by the looks of it, it would be their last. It made it even more awkward when they talked amongst themselves in a foreign language. They spoke English perfectly fine, thank you, and he did rave about the barbecue when he heard we lived in North Carolina. She was wearing jeans on formal night, yet I was the one who was being lectured because I drank ice water. Personally, I was glad they ducked out before dessert, because I really needed that Warm Chocolate Melting Cake!

Being boring people, we walked around after dinner, went back to our cabin and found:
; and

Then we watched Something Borrowed until falling asleep.