Day 15
After a very busy first part of the trip and three early mornings in a row, we were finally able to have a lie in. We did not get up much before 10:00 and got ready. Because it was so late and we were on a bit of a time table regarding lunch, we decided to head down to Café Promenade for a coffee and some cake. Graham had a banana muffin and a vanilla donut. I had a morning muffin and a chocolate donut. Once we had finished our breakfast, I filled up my souvenir cup with some Fanta orange and then I arranged with Graham where and when we would meet. I then headed off to a Pamper Party, which was taking place pretty much opposite in the Bolero’s Lounge.
The Pamper Party was organized by the spa staff. I have done this kind of thing before on the Disney ships and it is usually a lot of fun. Some of the elements were present here as well. Essentially we were taken through a whole skincare routine and got to try out the products ourselves. However, this was more of a sales pitch with them trying to sell us various treatments, some of which I do think are really going a bit far for a ship. You can actually get non-surgical face lift on the ship where they inject all kinds of fillers. The idea to have invasive treatment like this done on a ship gives me the shivers. They ended up doing some business with me though. They offered a special that included a full body massage with an upgrade to hot stones, a full body exfoliation, a facial, a scalp massage and a collagen eye treatment for $99. I thought that was very fair. The only caveat was that it had to be booked by the end of the day, but then it could be used any time during the cruise. For the time being I decided to think about this. Part of the pamper party was also a Sunglow make up application, but the line for that was pretty long and I had to meet up with Graham in the not too distant future. So I decided to cut my losses and went to find Graham.
He had staked out a nice spot at the solarium again and had set up his telescope. We briefly went back to the cabin to drop off the telescope and then we went to the Windjammer for some lunch. It was pretty busy when we got there, but they have some raised tables near the entrance and we managed to get a couple of seats at one of those. Graham had some ice tea, salad with seafood and beef curry with rice. I got some strawberry Sprite and salad and then made good use of the pasta station again. I had penne with olives, sausage, salami, mushrooms and tomato sauce. I added some beef and chicken strips again. Lunch hit the spot.
After lunch we quickly used the bathroom and then we headed up to the SeaPlex. We had a 13:30 reservation for the escape room. I was really excited about this, but Graham was not too keen. However, he was willing to humour me. When we got there, the door for the area where this was due to take place was closed. We went inside the SeaPlex as I thought that maybe we had to check in there. One of the crew members there got on the radio and advised that somebody would be along shortly. We headed back towards the room and the crew member who was supposed to run this arrived at the same time. He unlocked the door and asked us to come in. He advised that this may well not be happening as we would need to minimum of 6 people to play. So we sat and waited and had a nice chat with him. He was from Canada. A short while later, another couple arrived, but then nobody else turned up. So the crew member took down our cabin numbers and would advise that he would check when there would be a session that would go ahead and book us for this. He reassured us that once we were through the Suez Canal and the temperatures were rising there would be sessions that would go ahead. We said goodbye and headed back to our cabin to pick up our stuff. Graham got his telescope back and I picked up my iPad as I fancied reading for a bit.
Graham found himself a spot right by the picture windows and initially I joined him there, but this quickly got too warm for my liking. So I moved to the back of the solarium where I still had a decent view, but was not under the glass roof and therefore it was cooler. I enjoyed just relaxing and reading my book. After a while we had enough of doing very little and decided to go and check out what was going on at the SeaPlex. We took our stuff back to the cabin first and on the way got an ice cream. I had a chocolate swirl and Graham had vanilla. Once we finished our ice cream, we dropped off the stuff we no longer needed and I picked up my cup and then we went upstairs to the SeaPlex. They were just setting up for bumper cars. So we both got something to drink and sat down.
Again, this was a bonus session as the trapeze was still out of order so it was not particularly busy, but it was busier than it had been a couple of days before. Part of the issue was that this time they had a professional photographer there that went around all the cars every time people got on and that delayed things somewhat. It was nice to get some professional photos though. I met a gentleman and his 5 year old daughter from Germany and ended up chatting to them while we were in line. They were raising her multi-lingual and we kind of switched back and forth between English and German. Again we managed to ride a fair few times. There was only one irritation. There was a boy about 9 or 10, who loved his bumper cars as much as we did. However, his approach was somewhat different. I know that the name of the game is bumper cars and I knew that therefore I may get bumped into. Indeed, that happened quite frequently and it was no problem. However, this particular sunshine liked to engineer frontal collisions and this did hurt, I actually ended up with a cut on my neck where the seatbelt had dug in. So I spent the rest of the session keeping out of his way as much as I could. There would however be some fun in that respect later in the cruise.
At some stage I had to leave as this was finally the evening when there would be professional photos with DreamWorks characters on the Via and I did not want to miss this. So I said goodbye to Graham and headed downstairs. It did not specify which character would be out, but I did not really mind. I found King Julien from Madagascar with an escort and a photographer and again nobody else. I got my photo and then I got chatting with his escort. Laura is from Scotland and really nice. We got quite friendly over the course of the cruise. Eventually somebody else came to see King Julien and before I left, Laura told me that Alex the lion and Gloria the hippo would be out in a bit and let me know when each of their sessions would start. I thanked her and told her that I would be back.
I used the time that I had to check the photos out. I was pondering getting the photo package, but figured that it would only be worth my while if I had more than 150 photos. At that stage I was just short of 100, but it was still early in the cruise and I figured that I would not be far off 150 photos by the end of the day. So I purchased the package. I then figured I better make it worth my while and used the time until the next character set to get some solo photos. There was quite a good variety. The white backdrop was up as per usual and they also had photographers by the red sculpture on the Via and by the Wonderland Chair. On top of this they had a backdrop with Sagrada Familia and also with a railing and the moon. I had timed this perfectly and finished my round of the photo opportunities just at the end of Alex’s session so I managed to see him and then did not have to wait long until Gloria came out.
With this done, I went to the spa to book my treatment using the special from the Pamper Party for later in the cruise. I then went off to find Graham. I did find him in the outdoor pool again. I told him that I fancied some hot tub time and went to get changed. When I came back, he had done enough lengths and decided to join me. The hot tubs by the indoor family pool looked pretty full so we decided to head to the solarium. For some reason those hot tubs had been drained. Still we were quite happy to hang out in the solarium pool instead. When we had enough, we got some towels and sat on a couple of loungers by the windows enjoying the view while we dried off a little. Once we were no longer dripping, we headed back to the cabin to get showered and changed.
When we were done, we headed downstairs and got some photos together. Then it was time for dinner. This night we were back at Chic. We had a different menu that night, although I learned at this stage that every restaurant has some signature dishes that are always on the menu. I had heard great things about the cold green pea soup at Chic. I love chilled fruit soups, but had up to that point given chilled vegetable soups I wide berth. I was surprised that Graham decided to go for the same. It turned out that he had misread this and expected a hot soup. I have to say this was not for me. It was not bad, but it was just not something I would choose to eat again. My starter was a different matter. From the menu I did not really know what to expect. It just stated Crostini. This was consisted of grilled bread drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar that was topped with thinly sliced vegetables and grated parmesan cheese. I was absolutely blown away by the flavours. For his main course, Graham had cottage pie, which he said was OK. I had the onion crusted chicken with smoked bacon, caramelized onion, potatoes and honey-Dijon mustard jus, which was very nice. I had the Crème brûlée. The custard was lovely, but something had gone wrong with the topic.
After dinner, we headed back to our cabin. Graham noticed that not far from our cabin on the opposite side, there was a door open. Now Graham would not be Graham if he did not have a look. There were some stairs and a number of lifts in that area. What a shame that we could not use them to get around the ship. When we got to the cabin, we got ready for bed and after I set the alarm for the following morning, we called it a night.
