Cruise Day 2: At Sea

Fancy brunch, wine tasting, stateroom crawl, board games, a Disney show and formal dinner, ending with the comedy club and a poolside movie! Today is the first full day at sea.
Mediterranean Cruise Day 2: First day at Sea (May 16, 2010)

Today was a long, busy day. We started out by waking up at 7:15 and getting to the gym by 8, even though we'd been up late last night (I was ironing our dress shirts until 12:30 am). After a moderate workout at the gym, we tried out the steam rooms, which were nice (I like the aromatic steam room), but a little too hot while the dry room was a little cool. There's a nifty full-around shower but there was a problem with the cold water and the lowest setting was scalding, so we skipped that because we didn't have time to wait for it to get better. Instead, we headed to Palo's where we had a brunch reservation.

Palo's is the fancy, exclusive (as in "by reservation only") restaurant that costs a $15 surcharge on top of the cruise ticket. It's supposedly well worth it and we went to see for ourselves. We dressed up fancy for our fancy brunch (I wore some smart white trousers with a bright blue shirt, a white tie and a white hat. Ryan wore dark blue trousers with a magenta shirt, but no tie. When we were seated, the server took away Ryan's white napkin and brought him a black one so he wouldn't get white lint on his dark pants.

Dressed up for Palo's, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

We started with Chambord mimosas (Chambord and champagne), and then our server introduced us to the buffets. There were six or so different buffet sections: Sea food, danishes, hot breakfasts, hot lunches, cheese and salads. From the sea food area we grabbed black caviar, rock crab claws, king crab legs, scallops and sea food bloody mary shots. I had a slice of German stolen with blackberry jam, cream and mixed berries, and also a piece of sweet Danish bread. Ryan had some berries and cream, too. We got eggs (benedict for Ryan, with added spinach, and Florentine for me) and I had a short stack of pancakes from the breakfast section. The pancake syrup had orange zest in it and was very good, but the pancakes themselves weren't so awesome because they were pale and of a manner I think is too fluffy. We skipped the chicken parmesan and veal lunch options and the intriguing gorgonzola and grape pizza as well. (The Italian sausage pizza looked pretty good, but one has to make choices and some things inevitably get left out, so no pizza for us.) I tossed together an arugula salad with grilled vegetables while Ryan got his berries and cream, and then we hit the dessert table. We picked out four desserts to share and try and decided unanimously that the tiramisu was the best of the bunch. The two chocolate petit fours weren't that spectacular, and Ryan enjoyed his sherry trifle.

Part of the seafood section of the Palo buffet, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

Palo dessert buffet, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

After brunch it was time to meet the DISBoard folks for a wine tasting. We sampled two whites (a Riesling and a Sauvignon Blanc), three reds (a Bordeaux blend, a Merlot and a Shiraz), and finally a champagne. We liked the Riesling, and I also liked the Sauv. Blanc, but neither of us liked the Australian Shiraz for some reason, because I ordinarily like those. Ryan didn't like the Merlot either, nor, I suppose, the meritage (the Bordeaux blend). We had small chocolates to pair with the wines just to see the effect, and I guess that Disney cruisers like chocolate? We also got souvenir pins, which I immediately ruined the Ebay value of by opening it. Oh well. (What am I going to do with a Disney wine tasting souvenir pin? Ryan says I should take it to a pin trading session. If you don't know about pin trading, believe it's a religion for some folks.)

When the wine tasting was over, we met up with even more DISBoard people for a stateroom crawl, meaning we visit the elite staterooms of those DISBoard members with elite staterooms who don't mind showing them off. I checked out only the first two rooms because the rank 4 one (1 is the best; we're in 12 or something) was almost identical to ours but with a veranda. The rank 3 room was pretty impressive, though, and fun to visit. However, I wanted to swim, so I left Ryan (who had been elected the leader of our tour group) and headed back to change into my swim suit. I got distracted, however, when I realized that we were organizing the board game session in a couple hours and I hadn't finished fixing the minor problems with our Luna Llena pieces yet. Luna Llena is a werewolf RPG that probably is fun to play with 4 or more players, but was pretty dull when Ryan and I gave it a two-player test run.

By the time I finished fixing the pieces, Ryan was back from the stateroom crawl and so we both went to the pool for a short while until it was time to play board games. We met in a lounge and two other people showed up: Adrian and Margaret. We played Modern Art, and Ryan won by about 5 kiloeuros). Margaret came in second.

We had a short amount of time before the evening show, which we squandered faking a nap and then realized the time and rushed off to see the big nightly production. We forgot the camera, so there are no pictures forthcoming.

The show tonight was called "Twice Charmed," and in it Cinderella's Wicked Stepmother turns out to have her own fairy godfather (who is also wicked) who sends the stepmother and her daughters back in time to ruin Cinderella's engagement to the prince. They break her matching glass slipper, and the one that the footman's got for girls to try on, and so the Prince is going to be forced to choose either Esmeralda or Drusilla. Instead, he flees the kingdom in search of the girl he met at the ball. He searches for a long time, then gives up. Cinderella also gives up and worries that she's lost so much already and doesn't want to risk losing anymore. This is a terrible flaw in their characters, but it's necessary to drive the moral, which is that true love never dies (though it does give up, apparently).

The main theater seats 900, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

The story is thin, sure, but the production is best appreciated for its costumes and dance numbers. The singing is also excellent, if the songs are a little stock musical in character. At any rate, we thoroughly enjoyed the whole show. There were wicked spells cast by the fairy godfather (a demoniac magician who doesn't care if the stepmother gets hers in the end because he's just, well, wicked. He seems modeled on the villain from the new Disney movie, "The Princess and the Frog"), dance numbers, tap dancing, amazing voices (I can easily imagine Cornelia taking this as a dream job), pretty dresses and handsome men in Renaissance suits, pyrotechnics, special effects, and even a dream sequence with a look-alike of Cinderella.

Main Lobby, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

We had a brief amount of time to change into our formalwear for dinner at Lumiere's. It's fun to have occasion to wear nice clothes so often, especially when I can keep them nice and I don't have to worry about street dirt or bad weather. I wore a grey suit with a pale purple shirt and a blue and silver striped tie. Ryan had on a brown pinstripe suit with a bold blue and purple striped shirt and a white tie. We tried to get a picture of our snappy looks, but I don't think we have a good one.

For supper we had a cheese soufflé, soup for Ryan (potato and sausage, but was missing the sausage) and salad for me (mixed greens, apple, gorgonzola, and candied walnuts), and then the main course. Ryan had a rack of New Zealand lamb (it was good, though the lamb actually in New Zealand was better, he says) and I had some portobello mushroom ravioli in a sauce of butternut squash. Dessert wasn't that great: the lemon cheesecake needed more lemon flavor and the black cherry compote was actually only three cherries in a spoonful of sauce.

After dinner, we split up to check out various nighttime entertainment options. Because I'd run into the comedian from last night's show in the launderette while ironing our dress clothes for today, I'd promised him I'd be at his show. There was no need to attend just for the sake of filling the audience, however, as the room filled up and entry was closed a short while after I arrived. The comedy was funny at times, though some jokes fell flat for me. Meanwhile, Ryan went up to see what the poolside movie watching was like. The film was High School Musical, which held no interest for me, but Ryan hadn't seen it yet so he didn't know better yet. Still, he had a good time. He had the pool to himself when he arrived (I guess everyone else has the same idea about HSM) so he swam laps while watching the movie. Then later some kids arrived and joined him in the hot tub, which is where I found them chatting when I arrived after the comedy routine ended. We talked a while (they've been planning this cruise for two years and can't believe they're on it at last, whereas we decided to get aboard only three weeks ago), and then the movie was over and they pool was closing at midnight. We headed back to our room and spent some time writing down our journal notes, etc., and then finally got some sleep. Malta comes tomorrow!

Our first towel animal, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat