Two More Sea Days

NCL Getaway Transatlantic, Day 10 and 11

May 9, 2017 - At Sea 

Two more sea days before our next port of call, Brest. We missed breakfast again because the guys did not want to get up so we waited until 11:30 to go up to the buffet for some lunch. To my surprise, it was quite crowded but we were able to still grab a big table for our group. We had reservations for Moderno again tonight, so I did not want to stuff myself too much at lunch.

We received another plate of chocolate covered strawberries. From the Head Chef, probably because we were on the "Behind the Scene" tour yesterday. Nice!

The ocean has been calming down since last night.I was glad that we did this transatlantic on a big ship, it made a difference with less rocking and rolling. 

Moderno, Second Time Around

At 6:15, we went down to Moderno for another Brazillian BBQ dinner. Everything went well except the hostess who was like a drill master. She questioned us about who was there and who wasn't there from each cabin, in a not so courteous manner. That was the only time that had happened with all the specialty restaurants we visited on this trip. Our Indian waiter was very good and the manager even recognized ChC for coming back again. 

Lobster Bisque again.

That was the 'drill master', A----- from St. Thomas.

Loved those cheese bread...

and the salad bar.

Bacon wrapped filet

I had another refreshing papaya cream for dessert.

MOR had the rice pudding.

ChC had the chocolate cake.

After dinner, we went up to the buffet and had a cup of tea. It was very noisy at the buffet that evening with big groups of people talking loud.

Then we went down to the store on deck 8 because MOR wanted to buy one of those $10 leather wallet.

We received our new tour tickets for London with a notice that we will go through the UK Immigration check together as a group on that day. We felt lucked out to be on the NCL tour here. Because of the missed port causing the UK immigration officials not being able to get on board the ship, they had to wait til we dock at Southampton to process the passport check. This threw everything off and the new schedule did not look pretty. They were doing one deck at a time starting from the top deck and it took almost all day for everyone, even those who were not getting off the ship, to go through that process. With a 12pm arrival instead of 8:00am, travel plans for many people were disrupted causing much uproars later on. I doubt that we will even be able to go to London or anywhere else if we were not on this NCL tour because of the scheduled time for the passport check.

No time change tonight.

May 10, 2017 - At Sea

As we were getting close to the end of this cruise, we figured that we should try breakfast at the main dining room at least once. 

MOR had the baked beans, sausage with poached eggs casserole. Lots of beans!

I had the waffle, bacon and poached eggs. Both from the daily features menu. Something different.

Service was a little slow at breakfast and I think the waiter probably made a mistake in the orders. We waited for a long, long time for our juices to come and we had to remind the wait staff twice of our orders. While others coming in later than us have left the restaurant, we were the last ones still inside. The maitre d came to ask how our breakfast went and whether it was taking too long. I said everything was OK since we had no where else to go anyway. The waiter nearby heard our conversation and he was pleased with our answer. He then turned around and talked to us about his life on the cruising industry. Apparently he had been in this business for many years because he said he did a similar itinerary in 2004. 

After breakfast, our morning was basically watching the news on TV about the firing of the FBI chief which was the biggest news of the day, I am sure. Then we went up to the buffet for lunch. As we were having lunch, I saw water sprays a couple of times but I wasn't sure of what I saw. Was that whales? And then another woman nearby also noticed something unusual. Before long more people stood up around the windows trying to see if there were whales. Yep! There were whales out there!

While resting in the cabin this afternoon, I happened to go outside and saw water spouts again. Sure enough, as soon as I alerted the guys and rushing out to the balcony we saw more spouts and then one that was really close to the back of the ship near us. A whale was actually breaching a couple of times near the stern! Unfortunately, I did not get a good picture of it. I believe ChC did with his good camera. That was so cool!

Whales out there!

Looking up from our aft balcony.

Cagney's Again

Dinner reservation for Cagney's was for 7:45 this evening. Just so Ashok can clean our room before his day is over, we left the room early. We went down to Cruise Next desk to purchase more future cruise credit. What happened in the next few days caused me to regret that decision and almost tempted to get a refund.

Our dinner tonight was for the four of us using the platinum vouchers. To use the platinum vouchers, we were to order one appetizer, one soup or salad, one main, and one side (if your main is under $19). Our waitress was OK with us ordering the sides even though the prime ribs were $20 each. With the platinum voucher, we could only choose mains that are under $20.

Waiting area for Cagney's and Moderno.

Entrance

Pretty bad, fuzzy pictures.

We were able to choose one bottle of wine with each voucher so we chose two bottles and saved them for later.

We picked these from the list. What do we know about wine?!

Oyster Rockefeller

Lobster Bisque

Kitchen

Prime rib. I believe this was a queen cut.

My sea bass.

Our waitress, she was very efficient and friendly.

As for dessert, we were too full to have any so Mary Ann suggested that we order the seven-layer cake to go.

Enjoyed the cake back in our cabin later that evening.

By the time we finished dinner, it was close to 10:00 but I wanted to see the Million Dollar Quartet show at 10:15. I did not realize that I need to make reservation so I got in the 'standby' line and they let us in five minutes before the show. It was a good show, especially if you like Johnny Cash, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and Perkins. The show lasted for 90 minutes, by the time I was back in the cabin it was almost midnight. A good time to enjoy the cake. Another sea day was over. Tomorrow we should be in Brest, France. Can't wait to be on land again. No time change tonight.