Friday, February 17, 2012.
A Perfect Sea Day.
Mary Ann might like cruising more than she does if only the ship stopped somewhere every day. She despises sea days. But she also doesn't care much for relaxing. I'm glad she understands that with a schedule like mine the opportunity to do nearly nothing all day is a great pleasure.
She got started long before I did. Then we had to look for one another, which is not an easy thing to do aboard a ship. I'd already had breakfast by the time we linked up. To be with her, I had a second breakfast, although both put together still amounted to a light meal.
I pushed out an edition of the New Orleans Menu Daily from the espresso counter, one of the few places on the ship where wireless internet is available. Then, believe it or not, it was time to eat again. The pool area had the grills going again, but Mary Ann eschewed it in favor of lunch in the main dining room. Once again we had an interesting group of strangers coming together in a good conversation.
The eating was better than average, too. I started with a clear beef broth with a few chips of onion floating around. It has been my experience that clear beef broths and consommes on cruise ships are always good. This ship does need to work on getting the soup out hot, however.
The entree was described as lamb skewers, which I'll be disappoint many people. They image suggested by the menu is of chunks of grilled lamb. In fact, this is a kofta kebab, made of ground lamb with seasonings, onions, and cracked wheat. Yogurt sauce on the side. This is a dish I very much like, so the surprise was pleasant.
Mary Ann and I spent the rest of the day together. The first half of the afternoon was on chaise longues above the pool. The second half was out on the balcony of our stateroom, looking out into the magnificence of the sunset, with an array of unusual clouds and colors. We'd hardly been out there at all on this trip, but the weather was nice. We spent two hours talking about life and the future. I was hoping we would do this at some point on the trip, and that we could get into the big issues without angering one another. It worked, and by dinnertime we'd covered a lot of issues that we've been avoiding lately.
I'd like to make this meeting of the minds a tradition on the last day of every cruise. But Mary Ann has declared that this is her last cruise, and that if I want to take another one I will have to find some friends with which to do it.
We met up with our New York tablemates for our last dinner together. It seemed to me that we'd seen everything on the menu before (or something a lot like it). Exceptions: the garlic soup and the lamb shank. The soup was thick and creamy-looking, but I think that was from the pureed, roasted garlic.
I thought about getting the lamb shank, but I wanted to sample a special I noticed a few days ago. The last time we were aboard a Royal Caribbean ship, they had two special restaurants: a Portofino (like the one on this ship) and a steakhouse called Chops Grille, whose presence on our ship was limited to a ten-ounce filet mignon on the main dining room menu, with a $15 upcharge. I thought I'd try it. It was indeed better than the other steaks in the dining room, and served with good sides and bearnaise sauce. Lukewarm, of course, but we were used to that by now.
Mary Ann is not a dessert eater. But the pastry shop on the ship has addicted her to a rich chocolate tart with raspberries. She ordered her second one today one and said it was for me. She would, in reality, bring it back to the stateroom. Isn't that a shame?
Karaoke wouldn't begin tonight until ten-thirty, but our New York friends insisted we go for farewell cocktails and one last song. I blew it. My attempt at Johnny Mathis's "When Sunny Gets Blue" tripped on background music in a different key from that of the record. That's where my lack of vocal training gets me into trouble. I could have sung in that key, but once I start on the wrong one I never find my way back. I asked the host to just turn the music off, and I did the rest a cappella. The only way I saved face was with my imitation of the ship's foghorn, which got a good laugh.
The foghorn was blowing often. It was pea soup before we even arrived at Southwest Pass, after weaving through the astonishing number of offshore oil platforms. Their lights and occasional gas flares lit the way while the ship went "beeeeeeeee-yoe."
I had packed between dinner and cocktails and went right to bed afterwards. Mary Ann had a mountain of crap to jam into plastic bags--her standard end-of-trip load. She wants to get off the ship first thing in the morning. No wistful end-of-the cruise emotions for her. She's itching to disembark.
It's over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
