July 22, 2024 - Canadian Cruise Vacation Day 3 - Sea Day 1

I was so tired that I had no trouble sleeping through the night without any interruptions.  I would never have imagined that a ship in motion in the ocean could be so silent and stable.  The only time, so far, that I’ve had any physical sense of motion is when walking around.  Even then it’s so subtle that it just feels like I’m slightly light-headed or something, not really like the ship is moving around.

I had breakfast with my father and we left Brian and step-mother asleep in the rooms.  I was impressed that there is a person who just wanders around handing out muffins and pastries.   I tried one of the daily specials, Spinach Florentine. This is a familiar sounding dish but not something I’d ever tried in a Benedict type dish and it was so delicious I was honestly surprised.  They served a Swiss cheese sauce with it that was amazing.  So many components of the food here are made in house that the triangle of fried hash brown seemed out of character.

After breakfast I went to the casino for a while with my father.  He enjoyed getting a few bonuses on a game he’d never played before.  Pretty soon I heard from Brian and Judee both and they went to a different place for breakfast and we joined them there to start the day together.  We took a look at our boarding day photos which were displayed in the huge gallery along one of the main corridors on deck 7.  We played Bingo at 11, my first time playing a commercial Bingo game.  There is a lot of technology and production that goes into these seemingly simple activities.  Our Bingo package included 4 sets of 6 traditional Bingo cards as well as   Tablet that played about a dozen bingo cards for each of the 4 rounds.  Other than 10 dollars from the scratch ticket that was included, we didn’t win anything but it was a fun experience. When we got back to our rooms there were chocolate covered strawberries waiting and the room had been cleaned already.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty low-key.  We had lunch on an upper deck near the main pool.  Everybody else walked a lap around the ship’s outdoor walking path but I found a quiet place to relax alone and play some Railroad Tycoon 3 just to have a break from constant social activity.  After that I did laundry which was (when it came to drying in particular) an awkward slow process because the dryers aren’t very powerful and there probably should be more dryers than washers since it takes longer to dry than to wash.  Still, by going down 1 deck I was able to get that chore over with so we had just enough time to get dressed for our first formal night.

Neither Brian nor I wear even the slightest formal clothing even once a year in our normal lives.  In fact, we both bought sport coats and other components to even be able to passable participate in formal night on this trip.  Coincidentally, this was the night my father choose for us to dine out at the specialty steak house instead of the normal dining room.  The Crown Grill was a phenomenal dining experience.  My multi-course meal consisted of shrimp bisque, a scallop and caviar appetizer, prawns and a delicious onion rice for a main course, family style shared sides including 3 kinds of potatoes, sautéed mushrooms, creamed spinach and grilled asparagus.  I loved my prawns and especially the rice but the intense meaty flavor of the filet mignon Brian had was amazing and tempting.  The desert didn’t sound super amazing when I ordered it.  It was described as 2 warm chocolate mousses served with a spiced cake, ice cream and grapefruit segments.  I’m not sure what component they considered to be warm exactly (none of the pieces were obviously heated) but the combination of the torn pieces of spiced cake and the 2 contrasting milk and dark chocolate mousses along with.but if a crumbled topping at the bottom of the bowl was, without a doubt, one of the most amazing special deserts I’ve ever had.  I was floating out of my chair it was so good.

Dinner at the specialty restaurant was a very long affair.  It was about 8 pm by the time we got back to our rooms.  I was a little tired already and also wanted to be well rested before our first port in the morning, Halifax Nova Scotia.  So I was kind of the party pooper when I said I really didn’t feel any desire to go back out after dinner.  I’m absolutely enjoying my first cruise and very grateful we were able to put this together and all get here safely to enjoy it together.  It does feel like a lot of time spent focusing on just leisure.  Even on other vacations there is a lot of time spent driving or taking transit or whatever that makes even a full day of fun really something like 8 hours of fun and a few hours of logistics getting to and from the fun etc.  On this ship it’s almost like there are 14 hours a day or more when you are eating or doing one of the many activities or just relaxing in your room.  In some bizarre way I almost want a break from having a break.  Being entirely self-focused all day just feels weird and a little uncomfortable.