Guy Gadwa

I ran into some Royal Caribbean Blog readers including @cookingyo and @Big Dawg Ron in the Wonderland restaurant.

With some time to kill before the Halloween party in the promenade I went to the Wonderland Bar.  A lot people don't know you can visit the bar like any other bar on the ship.  You don't have to eat at Wonderland to visit the bar.  They have some unique concoctions in the Wonderland theme.

They have a table in the bar area that serves as a waiting area.

Like the restaurant the bar menu is also unique and backlit.

Down the Rabbit Hole:

The Smoke Rings cocktail is made with real smoke.


Mmmm.  Good.  With a hint of oak wood smoke.

Day 4 - Dinner
My Time Dining

Caesar Salad

Moroccan Spiced Ahi Tuna Steak

Baked Alaska

I had the Moroccan Spiced Ahi Tuna Steak on another ship recently and it was much better both in presentation and in flavor.
New section tonight but same great service.

Walking around the ship I noticed the Halloween decorations are up including balloons for the party later tonight.






In the afternoon hours I saw several people beginning to appear in costumes.  At least I think they were costumes.

Day 4 - Sea Day
Finally out of the rain (for the most part).  A little bit of 'motion in the ocean' in approximately 14' seas.  This is the first morning I didn't sleep in past 9:30am.

Time for breakfast at Johnny Rockets.

Included in the cruise fare for breakfast only, it's a great breakfast venue and since I can see it from my cabin, it was calling me this morning.



Cooked to order Omelette 

Plus some french toast

Yum.

Noted some new screens on the cabin TV.

Our progress up to this point:

Day 5 continued
We hopped off the ship around 11:30 and walked around the port area a bit.  Pirate Republic Brewing company is just a short walk down the street, right before the straw market. 


 
 They offer a 3 beer flight for 8 dollars (You can only choose from the first 4 beers).  I had the Captain Kidd’s Kolsch, the Gold & Haze of Piracy and the Island Pirate Ale - all were very good. 

Afterwards, I had a pint of the coconut porter which I remember from last time we visited was my favorite, and it certainly didn’t disappoint this time.
A little more walking around, and we were ready to get back on the ship and hop in the Solarium pool which thankfully wasn’t very crowded.  After the pool, my wife and I had Johnny Rockets for lunch - it was very good, and the milkshakes included in the refreshment package and above were a nice treat.
Dinner tonight was in Jamie’s Italian. The food and service was excellent!  The waiter suggested that he bring out all the appetizers including a hybrid veggie and meat board for all of us to share. 

For entrees, the ladies both had the lasagna, I had the carbonara and G had the salmon.  The waiter even brought out an additional pasta entree for us to try. There was no way we were possibly finishing everything, especially since we knew dessert was coming.  Again, the waiter brought out a board filled with everything, and again everything was out of this world delicious. 

We couldn’t possibly finish it all, and the waiter boxed up my wife’s favorite, the cheesecake with meringue for her to take back to the room.
After dinner, I put my halloween costume on, and we headed down to the haunted house that they had set up in the Music hall.  The crew did a great job - they got a jump and little scream out of my wife, so job well done!
The halloween party was in 270 at 10 PM so we made our way over. They had a halloween themed projection on the screens at 270 which was really cool.

The party started out with a costume contest with three categories - scariest (which I entered), most creative, and funniest costumes.  So many people dressed up for tonight, I was surprised to see so much participation.  I was a finalist in the costume contest, so that was pretty cool!  My costume was a take on the plague doctor.

It was starting to get super crowded, so I decided to head up to the room change clothes and find a bar that was still open and not crowded.  G and I ended up at the Schooner bar until they closed.  We then found that the party had moved to the Music Hall where a DJ was performing club music.  G and I hung around there until about 3 in the morning getting the most out of our drink packages - ahh vacation.
Today is the first of two sea days, so I'm thinking we're just going to take it easy and relax.

I saw some questions about ship motion in his highness' blog so instead of seizing the amazing bot's blog I'll give you my 2 cents on it.
We're currently experiencing  a lot of motion - as in 4m (~14 feet) waves, all pools empty, postponing of Hairspray, solarium closed motion... our cabin is the first inside stateroom from the front on deck 8 so it's especially noticeable in here. Luckily, we don't mind - no sea sickness or anything up to now - hope it stays that way.
The view from the running track (yes, you can get wet in the open spaces): 
 
VID_20181031_151925.mp4

Day 2 (Sea Day)
We knew from multiple announcements the night before that we needed to set our clocks ahead one hour, but decided to see if maybe we'd cross the time zone boundary overnight so that our phones would just auto-update. No such luck. I woke up at what my phone said was around 7:00, and briefly turned on the TV to check the ship time.
8:00. Ugh. That definitely would eat into our free time before we had to be at North Star for our reserved slot. I manually updated my phone to the new time, and made sure my Fitbit got synced up as well so we had one watch that would have the correct time for our appointments.
I told Cathy, and we agreed to wait another half hour before doing anything since she wanted a bit more sleep. Since I was wide awake, I decided to hang out on the balcony for a bit. I was greeted by a heavily cloudy sky that the sun was trying mightily to break through.

I saw another ship not far off from us, but the overcast made it impossible to make out any markings. But the skies soon started to clear, and as the light improved I could just make out a set of mickeys on the stacks. I pulled up the Marine Traffic app and figured out it was the Disney Magic.

We headed down for breakfast a little after 8:30, and decided to avoid the Windjammer crowd and just go to Cafe Two70 again. We took the stairs down (a whopping two flights) and walked down the Royal Esplanade, actually taking in the decor this time.


This part of the ship was completely empty. I got the feeling that we weren't the only ones who didn't bother to set our clocks ahead before we went to bed. Guess we wouldn't have had any crowds in the Windjammer after all...
Cafe Two70 offers a fixed selection of breakfast items each morning -- breakfast burritos, mini-croissant sandwiches, bacon and sausage links, yogurt parfaits, cups of sliced fruit and whole fresh fruit options, a nice selection of bagels, and a pot of oatmeal if that's more your morning jam. In addition, the coffee area has a nice selection of pastries. We grabbed what caught our eyes, got a couple of cappuccinos, and made our way all the way to the back of Two70 to enjoy the wake view while we ate.


I was curious how the VOOM was measuring up here in Two70 with it so empty, so I ran a speed test. More or less the best possible results for Surf & Stream, but of course the room was empty and not under any load.

After breakfast, we split up for a bit and agreed to meet at North Star at 11. Cathy went to the gym for a quick workout, while I decided to just head over to the Solarium and check out the observation deck I knew was there. On the way, I took a couple more pictures of the Esplanade, including a different angle of what I call "the weird tuba sculpture".



I could probably have spent an hour just in that part of the Esplanade, looking at all the art on display and taking in the general design. When it's not jammed with a big crowd, it really is a very nice space. But, I didn't have an hour, and I had a couple of goals I wanted to clear before we went up in the big glass bubble.
As soon as I got up to the Solarium, I walked down to the bottom level, hung a right to walk past the hot tubs, and found the door that leads out to the observation wing. The view from there, both forward and aft, is really nice.


While I was enjoying the view, I noticed that there were some crew members taking a break in the recess at the bow where the winch is located. Given the three sets of tables and chairs, I figured it must be a regularly-used spot for anyone off-duty or on break to take advantage of if they didn't want to mingle with the passengers while still getting outside.

I still had a bit of time to kill, and I realized that in the previous day's rush to get so many things taken care of before muster, I never had a chance to just sit and the pool and enjoy a start-of-vacation Lava Flow. I went over to the Solarium bar and quickly remedied that, making it a Kraken Lava Flow when I saw the tell-tale bottle sitting on the shelf. It is definitely tastier with Kraken than the one I had on Freedom, with whatever default rum they chose to put in it!

While I enjoyed by belated "vacation is now officially ON" beverage, I chatted with a younger couple who were already there, enjoying mimosas and some other tropical beverages. When it was time for my North Star reservation, I headed on over to get in line and wait my turn. I needn't have rushed, they were actually doing two rides for the 11:00 to 11:30 slot, rather than having separate 11 and 11:15 reservations. Not sure why they did it that way, but it was fine since Cathy hadn't yet gotten back from her workout. I put us down for the second slot and waited for her to arrive, enjoying the view of the still-empty pool deck.

Cathy arrived not long after I'd settled down, and soon enough it was our turn to go up with Willy Wonka in the Great Glass Elevat... sorry, wrong story. We got into the pod along with the others who'd made reservations, several of them first-timers like us, and in short order we were enjoying the view from 300 feet above the ship. Which, given we were in the middle of the ocean, wasn't much besides the ship itself. It was kind of cool, though, to get our picture taken all the way up there.


 We asked the attendant if the North Star was available while in port, and when she confirmed it was we resolved to ride on it again on our second day in Bermuda.
Our ride done, we decided to head aft and check out the Sea Plex. We got there while the bumper cars were in full swing, but it was almost the end of the session and we didn't think we'd get a chance with the line that was still there.

At this point, we decided it was a good time to visit the thermal spa. We went back to our rooms to get our bathing suits (which you're advised to wear while using the spa), then back up to deck 15. Plenty of spots available at that time, so checkin was no problem. And the steam room was working again, so we'd have a chance to try that out. We started off with the heated loungers, just relaxing for a while and reading.

I tried out the other features of the spa, and apart from the steam room (way too hot!) I thought everything was good and worth the purchase. The rain shower chamber is interesting, as it has three modes that not only change how the water is sprayed down but also the temperature. Going with the coolest option right after a hot session in the dry sauna is bracing, to say the least!
After a little over an hour, we went back to the room and showered, then up to the Windjammer for a late lunch. I was glad the inside area was so crowded, because in searching for a table I found the outdoor seating area all the way aft! I don't know if I just forgot Anthem's WJ had this, or if I missed it in all the live blogs I've read, but it was a nice surprise now that the weather was warmer. The food was good but not great, but I'm as much a buffet denier as I am an Oasis class denier and I'm giving them a pass on this one. The fact I was enjoying a Blue Moon with my meal certainly didn't hurt the final evaluation. ? Cathy always finds the offerings in the Windjammer to be more than fine, and had no problems with her lunch.
Our bellies full, we made our way back to the Solarium and actually managed to score a pair of loungers by the side windows.

Cathy was tired and needed a nap, but the loungers were making me really uncomfortable (my feet and legs just aren't up for stretching out on hard flat surfaces any more), so I decided to head over to the Schooner Bar and actually played my first-ever trivia game. It was 70s trivia, which while a little bit early for me (born in 1970) I thought I could still manage OK with. Well, let me tell you, even after finding a couple to play along with so we'd have a better shot, I still only solidly knew the answer to two of the questions. My teammates weren't having any better luck, and we ended up with a final score of 6 out of 18. The best team got 15, so we were solidly trounced.
After that, I wandered by the Music Hall and remembered seeing the pool tables there. The tables were empty, and I played a couple of solo practice games. It was... an interesting lesson. Considering I hadn't played pool since college, I did a lot better than I thought I had any right to. I guess maybe there's still some residual muscle memory at work there. But I'm going to claim a bit of a mulligan as well, because those pool tables are not at all self-leveling. Two separate times I felt the ship lurch really strongly, and both times I saw the balls at one side of the table roll away to the other side or into the pocket they were next to.
After one round each of practice 8-ball and 9-ball, I headed back to the room to meet up with Cathy and get ready for dinner in Coastal Kitchen. While it was formal night, neither of us brought our formal wear for this trip. We dressed business casual nice and it was Good Enough. While I was in the room and waiting for Cathy to finish getting changed, I took another speed test. The result was really surprising, because our room had an access point mounted dead center in the ceiling!

Yes, that's a good 23% slower on download vs. Two70, in a much smaller room where the access point is maybe 3 feet from my phone.
We still had some time to kill since our reservation wasn't until 7, and my weather app said sunset was around 6:15, so we walked down to Deck 5 where Cathy had seen a couple of nice viewing nooks outside by the life boats. As we walked all the way aft to see what the different spots were, we unknowingly passed by @Broons77 and his wife, who were in the smoking area on the walking deck.
We settled on a spot to watch and I got a really nice photo, but the sun was still oddly high for a sunset that was supposed to be happening in just a few minutes.

You may have already figured it out, but it took me until a bit after 6:30 before I did. My weather app that reported the sunset time was still going off of New York and Eastern Time. So sunset where I was wouldn't actually be until 7:15-ish, by which time we'd be having dinner. So we headed up to deck 14 and Coastal Kitchen.
For the second time, CK had a menu item that I'd had at my Chef's Table dinner back on Freedom -- the Maine lobster salad. I had that along with escargots, while Cathy started off with the Caesar salad again after really liking the one she'd had the prior night. While we ate our appetizers, we also worked out the answer to the evening's riddle from Amar:
"I travel all around the world, but I stay in the corner."
Cathy looked it up and then gave me a very subtle hint, but it was enough to let me puzzle it out. When Amar arrived with our entrees, we told him the answer. Since Cathy looked it up, she got no chocolate, but I was allowed to get the piece since I'd only been given a very small hint. And then we got a second challenge, this one another stick-based puzzle.
You have nine sticks placed side by side, like so: |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
Rearrange the sticks so instead of nine, they make ten.
 
Our entrees were the pappardelle with veal ragout for me, and the zucchini spaghetti for Cathy. My entree was accompanied by a glass of the Chianti Ruffina that I like so much. For dessert, I got the Valrhona Chocolate Bar, which I found to just be OK, along with another Bailey's and coffee on ice; Cathy tried the sugar free chocolate ice cream and said it was really good. Neither one of us could figure out the second puzzle challenge, and gave up after dessert. Amar showed us the answer and I face-palmed. Thinking outside the box really isn't my strong suit.
 
After dinner we went to the Schooner Bar, where we were due to meet up with @ellcee and @Broons77. Only Ellcee showed up, as Broons was still dealing with an interesting situation at his Chefs Table dinner. The three of us had to relocate in short order; the piano player had started, and his instrument and mic were amped so loudly over the Schooner Bar's speakers that you couldn't even think about having a conversation with someone. We ended up going to the Bionic Bar, just because it was the quietest and least crowded place on the deck. Didn't order anything (hey, when everyone here says all of the drinks at that place are awful, I listen!!), we just found a table there with a few chairs and spent the next hour or so chatting and getting to know each other. It was a really nice meet-up, and I hope we'll have the chance to get together again on another sailing. (2020 CA/NE group cruise?)
We called it a night around 10:30 and went our separate ways, as we all wanted to be up early for our arrival in Bermuda. When Cathy and I got back to the room, we found someone had snuck in and was still trying to find something good on the TV.

Day 6 – Sept 21 – Labadee
[not many photos from today since I didn't really have my phone out much on Labadee]
We had a bit of a lie in which was a treat since we didn’t dock in Labadee until 9.30am.  R however was up a bit earlier than I was so she headed to the gym for a bit.  I on the other hand was banking on the stairs continuing to provide my daily workout.
Once we gathered our things we headed to the WJ for breakfast.  We had a snorkelling excursion booked for 10am so we got off the ship and headed straight for the meeting spot.  The excursion involved going out on a boat for about 15 minutes to a reef.  They then provided all the equipment for you to get in the water.  The group then followed a guide along the edges of the reef where he would point out various things he spotted.  It was a bit manic at times with people not looking where they were going and either swimming right in front of you or swimming up behind you and in to your fins.  I also had to tap a lady to point out that she was about to swim headfirst in to a jellyfish – you’re welcome!  After a while I just hung back to avoid the crush.  The snorkelling was good and more fun than just swimming about off a beach.  On the way back they provided some rum punch that wasn’t very strong.

Once we got back it was about 11.45am so we headed straight to the lunch buffet.  We weren’t too hungry after breakfast but our waiter had given us the tip that it was best to go when it first came out rather than get the old stuff later on.
We had a second excursion, kayaking, at 3pm leaving from Columbus Cove so we headed round that way to the beach there.  We got a couple of drinks and I went in the water while R lounged.  She did come in later on though and we threw a ball about in the water. The water was nice however it seems there were quite a lot of jellyfish around.  I didn’t see any myself at the beach but everyone was talking about them and I overheard a guy talking about something being closed because of them.  We did notice that no one was on the water park inflatables so perhaps it was that.  Either that or no one paid to use them but that seemed unlikely with up to 6,000 passengers.
Next we met our guide for the kayaking.  It turned out that only the two of us had booked the 3pm kayaking trip so we were essentially getting a private tour!  It involved kayaking out a fair distance to just off the coast of the proper Labadie town where the guide was from.  He said that that way we could see some of real Haiti.   We then sat in our kayaks in the water just off the coast while he gave some commentary.  He talked about life in the town and how much things had improved since the arrival of RCL.  Before RCL he said the town was made up of 700 people and now it is 6,000.  Now they have running water, electricity for 15 hours a day, 2 elementary schools and a small hospital.  He said that RCL employs at least one person from every household in Labadie.  It was good to hear him talk quite genuinely about the positive impact that RCL’s arrival has had on the town.  I guess the impact on Haiti as a whole would be relatively small but for this one small town the impact has been huge.
Once we were back I had to down a bottle of water.  It certainly wasn’t a leisurely paddle around.  I don’t know how the tour would have differed with more people, but as it was it was a fairly strenuous paddle across to the town.  We started to wandered back towards the ship.  I wanted to get a Christmas tree decoration so we went through the markets.  R went on ahead since she didn’t really fancy the haggling.  I’m not a big fan of it myself but mostly because I’m a bit of a softy when it comes to these local markets.  I get my Christmas tree decoration but to be honest it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.  When I asked someone if they had Christmas tree decorations he was of course like “oh, yes, yes” and led me to someone else’s stall.  What they had wasn’t too great and they didn’t even say ‘Labadee’ or ‘Haiti’ on them.  Of course being a softy I didn’t want to look at what they had then say no and leave.  When I asked if they had any that had ‘Labadee’ or ‘Haiti’ on them they were of course like “oh, yes, yes”.  He then left and promptly came back with a Sharpie.  Apparently they could make it so that they had any words I wanted on them!  Anyway, so now we have a pretty ‘rough and ready’ Christmas tree decoration with a story behind it and ‘Labadee’ written on it in Sharpie!
I managed to escape the market with only buying one other item (a wooden shot glass I didn’t need - big softy).  From there it was back to the ship to get all the salt showered off.
We headed down to the promenade for a bit and R got an iced coffee while I had a cocktail.  We decided to have dinner in the WJ tonight.  Firstly it was Indian night in the WJ which is up our street, and secondly it was the second formal night in the MDR which is not so much up our street.  We don’t mind it and make the effort when we go but our preference would always be casual.  So we headed up and it was very good. Very nice butter chicken and a made-to-order stir fry section.

We headed down to the theatre after dinner.  We had the Blue Planet show booked for 10pm but the way the week has been going so far I knew that there was no way R would have been up for a show starting that late.  So we headed down to be on standby for the 8pm show and we got in no problem.  It was good and the trampoline acrobatics especially were impressive but the singing and dancing was a little traditional.  A bit too Eurovision maybe for our tastes!
After the show we walked through the casino.  R saw that twinkle in my eye when I passed the craps table so she said she was going back to the room.  I hung about and watched for a bit before deciding ‘what the heck’ and playing for a while.  I don’t go to casinos often although there are plenty casinos back home if I was so inclined but not many have craps so that is generally the game I go for when I’m in Vegas or elsewhere.  Unfortunately, when I say I played for ‘a while’ that is probably being a bit generous – it didn’t go well.  I burned through my own budgeted allocation pretty dang quick not helped by a bad mojo croupier who I must have offended somehow since she spoke to me like I was a disobedient child.  In hindsight I should have taken a note of her name but in the moment I forgot I was on a customer service oriented cruise and not a cut throat casino.  Not wanting to chase my losses, I called it a night.  After burning through the cash and muttering about the nameless croupier on my way up the stairs, I headed back to the room. 

Day 5
Happy Halloween! Today is Nassau.  We don't really have any plans except to walk around the port area a bit and grab a flight of beer at Pirate Republic Brewing.  Tonight is Jamies Italian for Dinner.  
My view of Atlantis from the balcony this morning.

We may try the MDR for breakfast this morning if we can get there in time. 

Day 4 - Coco Cay
We woke up early and decided to skip conventional breakfast today. The cruise director stated the previous night that the Captain should have  us ready to tender early, and he did. After donning our swim gear and grabbing a cup of coffee, we were in line for the tenders.  On Anthem there are two tender locations, one aft, and one forward.  We were in the aft line when a crew member suggested we go forward as the first tender was there and it had plenty of space.  So we heeded his advice and headed on up.
We were indeed the first tender to make it to the island.  We immediately hopped on the cart to head to the bungalow area.  Once there, we checked in with the concierge and into our assigned bungalow by 9:15 AM.


You can tell I need some sun...

At this time in the morning, even though the sun was shining down, the water was freezing!  Once you "ripped the bandaid off" it wasn't horrible - just get everything wet at once.
On day 3, my wife noticed in the cruise compass that they offer a Swimming with the Pigs excursion. The excursion said that it lasted an hour and a half and left at 12:30. Even though we already had a bungalow, we all agreed that this was an experience we couldn't pass up. I never saw this excursion online in the cruise planner.  Come to think of it, a lot of excursions offered on board were never offered in the pre-cruise planner online... 
Our lunch was scheduled to be delivered to our bungalow between 11:30 and 12:00 so we knew we'd need to scarf it down pretty quickly to make our swimming pig excursion. Lunch arrived at about ten minutes til noon.  My wife had the chicken tacos, and the rest of us had jerk burgers.
With that, we headed back to the excursion desk to meet up for our swimming pigs tour.
We took a quick 5 minute boat ride to "Treasure Island" where we saw the crew coaxing pigs down the ramp to the beach area.

The swimming area was fenced in, and there were about 8 pigs that were willing to swim with us for apples.  After some brief instructions on how to hold the apples away from your body (pigs do bite) we were able to get down in the water.  Side note - if you do this excursion, I HIGHLY recommend water shoes - the area down to the beach was solid rock and it killed my tender bare feet.



We swam with the pigs for about 45 minutes when one of the crew members who was snorkeling came up with a small sea turtle!  They called him flappy.

The crew was very funny and entertaining.  All in all, it was a neat experience and we all had fun.
We were back to our bungalows around 2:15 and spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and relaxing.
The last tender back was at 4:45 and we opted to come back around 4.
Pier Progress:

 


After swimming with pigs, we decided to quickly shower and hop in the solarium pool - since pigs sometimes have accidents (which the crew quickly attends to) we figured the extra chlorine from the pool won't hurt ?
After yet another shower, we headed to Izumi fro dinner at 6 since my brother in law really wanted sushi.  The rest of us got ramen. After dinner we sat in the Schooner bar for some entertainment.  It was a long, fun day in the sun and we were all pretty wiped out so we retired to the room by 10 PM
 

It’s nasty out, but we made it!  

Our contact really hooked us up and Moved us straight through security and sat us in the suite area. We’ll also get a personal escort onboard when it’s time. It pays to know people! 

 

Jamie’s Italian
Welcome to speciality dining part 2 – this time not on the 5 night package because it would’ve left us one venue short and Jamie’s was the cheapest to book individually. Our original reservation was for 8 pm but that clashed with our entertainment plans. So we changed the dining reservation to 7 pm but it never showed up in the cruise planner. I emailed Royal and got the answer that they’d forward it to Symphony but when we boarded and did our package reservations, Jamie’s was still at 8. Luckily, booking dining was the first thing we did on board, so they were able to change the time.
 
Unfortunately no table mates this evening – in fact not even neighbours. Our waiter was Juan Carlos (no, not the former king of Spain!) and he was brilliant. We always went with his recommendations (might have added a dessert choice of our own) and were never disappointed – quite the contrary. I’ll have to write down the names of the crew who impressed us the most for WOW recommendations, currently on the list are Juan Carlos and Baptiste (MDR).
 
Onwards to the real reason you’re here for: the food. We wisely chose to have a meat plank for only 1 person and share that. Good thinking with the portion sizes coming later. The plank was good but nothing out of the ordinary. Our other choice was the Ultimate Garlic Bread which was really tasty and – by recommendation – the Crispy Squid. If you ever find yourself at Jamie’s, get the squid! Best dish we’ve tried the whole cruise up to now – it was so good that hubby had to get a second serving.


 

For entrees we only went with Juan Carlos‘ recommendations: Lamb Chops Scottadito for Michael, Genaro’s Tagliatelle Bolognese for me. For sides we both chose a Caprese Salad and hubby added Crispy Polenta Chips. Hubby’s verdict: best lamb chops he ever had and he really enjoyed the polenta chips. Bolognese was also really good, though I also love my Maggi Fix glutamate and curry ketchup version ?


 
We decided to share desserts because we both couldn’t decide between the same 3 choices: Epic Brownie, Amalfi Lemon Meringue Cheesecake and Tiramisu. We didn’t care for the cheesecake (guess there’s a first time for everything) but loved the tiramisu – it tasted really light with all the orange cests (I no it isn’t light J). Our favourite was the Brownie which really deserved the Epic.

Verdict: although seemingly more ordinary than Hooked, we prefered Jamie’s. Might’ve been because we had less expectations and were truly surprised, but I can’t give a real reason. Food just sometimes is subjective.

Day 3
Today is our last port before the crossing – Malaga. Due to the abysmal weather, we aren’t venturing out. It’s just not worth catching a cold with still more than 3 weeks of vacation in front of us. We’ve already got a trip to Spain on our list, we’ll visit Malaga then. We estimated many people would be on excursions today, so we thought we might give Windjammer a try for breakfast. Brilliant idea, now I’m really sold on Royal Caribbean – they have English bacon! Best breakfast item in the world.
 
While trying to flee from the rain by using the corridors to get from aft to fore, we noticed a lot of halloween decorations on cabin doors. Kind of strange to us, but we really love it. Really looking forward to Halloween with so many Americans – it’s not a big thing in Germany. By the way, I’ve kept my promise – Schooner Bar is my new blogging spot to facilitate hubby’s use of the drinking package. Not that it would be necessary, a quick calculation showed we’d already made up for half of what we paid by the end of day 3. Even if drink fatigue starts some time in the future, we’ll have made the packages pay already (and I’m certain drink fatigue won’t be an issue for hubby ?).
 
After our depressing first try with trivia on day 1(Michael Jackson music quiz – we hadn’t planned on participating but were late finishing our drinks in Boleros and just thought why the h*** not), we gave visual trivia national flags a go. Luckily we teamed up with a couple from Belgium and got 13 out of 15 right –we didn’t even come close to winning. Apparently some people know the flags by heart, including Tonga and Aruba. This was followed by an impromptu surprise trivia – scored 3 out of 15 – no worries, best score was 8 or something. On to the pub quiz where we scored 14 out of 21. At least we’ve learned to take the provided answers with a grain of salt, we’re still not able to prove some of them no matter how much research we do. Guess the use of unsourced wikipedia articles is at an all time high with the cruise director’s team ? Trivia isn’t really a thing on German ships but we like it – even though we sometimes have to resort to leo.org for translation purposes. Doesn’t help much to write down the German answer if the team checking your sheet doesn’t speak the language ?
 
As trivia makes hungry (it’s a sport after all), we headed to Park Café for a light lunch. We really love this venue, especially the create your own salad option and the Kummelweck. With all the heavy rain it was easy to get a seat and you had no lines at all. On to the next trivia in Schooner Bar – unfortunately just the two of us as the venue was packed and we couldn’t find our teammates. I don’t recall our score but short answer is we didn’t win. Schooner still was packed afterwards so we moved to Playmakers for more games of Connect 4 and some IPA. The goal is to try out each IPA available – current favourite is Stone IPA. Fast forward to dinner which was at Jamie’s and will be discussed in its own post.
 
Spoiler alert: dinner again was quite big portions, so we decided to walk some of it off on the running track. Looks like our torture devices handle walking on a moving ship completely differently. We both use Garmin vivoactive3 for torture devices (aka fitness watches) – still hubby’s device recorded not only his movements but also added the ship’s movement – while mine did subtract part of the ship’s movement! Quite unfair if you ask me… looks as if Royal isn’t the only company with a questionable IT department.

 
Highlight of the evening was 1977, our first Royal production show. And wow, we were so amazed. As Twangster already said, it’s difficult to give it the credit it deserves in words or pictures. The drones were so cool, especially from a technical standpoint. Brilliant costumes and stage design and impressive ice skaters if you factor in the movement of the ship. The show might be lacking a storyline, but we didn’t mind one bit!






That's a quick change!







 
The end of the show coincided with our passage through the strait of Gibraltar so off we went all the way to the aft on the running track. We were quite surprised that nobody seemed to care but well, each to their own. It was quite a sentimental moment to me as it marks the moment I’m leaving Europe for the first time (if you don’t count one day in Agadir, Morocco on a shore excursion). With that it was time for bed.
Spain/GIbraltar

Morocco


Not sure if it wanted to catch a ride or chase us away?

 
Side note:
13k steps
Hubby might have spotted the elusive Twangster bot – we’ll have to wait for his day 3 blog post to be sure. We didn’t want to disturb a few hundred people by shouting across the venue for confirmation ?
PS: Was finally so annoyed with the way this board handles uploaded images that I switched to using imgur. At least I can now decide on the correct order of things.

Here is our position as we approached the Strait of Gibraltar:


I tried to venture up top but found the upper decks closed due to high winds so I headed to deck 5, the running track.

That pyramid looking object is the rock of Gibraltar. 

At this point we were in the Strait of Gibraltar and you could see lights on both sides.
Africa on the port side:

Spain and the rock of Gibraltar on the starboard side:

Walking a few steps, Africa on the port side:

Day 3 - Hairspray
Let me start by saying I'm not into musicals.  In the past if I were asked to go to a musical I would rank it right there with "Go to the hair salon with me" or "Help me pick out a dress".  When Hairspray was first announced for Symphony of the Seas I paid it little attention because I had somewhat already decided to pass.
Since that time I have be able to go on a number of back stage entertainment tours on various Royal ships.  On those I learned a lot of technical details and the level of effort that Royal Caribbean puts into its shows.   When Symphony first started sailing earlier this, Hairspray was getting pretty great reviews.  Consequently I settled on taking in this show, after all, we have 12 nights on this sailing so why not?
I'll let the pictures tell the story.





























The music was good, the vocals were strong and the cast did a great job.  I never found it dragging or felt the need to come up with an excuse to leave.  It was a great performance and I highly recommend it, even for the non-musical types. 
If you've sailed Harmony and you couldn't find an excuse to book Symphony this just may be it.

With sail away approaching I realized I needed to get ready for my Hairspray reservation so I ventured up to the Solarium bridge wings to see what I might be able to see of Malaga.  The rain had almost stopped so I snapped the best photos of Malaga that I would get on this visit.  




A local fishing boat was returning to port.  They must have been tossing the remainder of their bait because the birds loved this boat.

With that I ventured down to the theater to line up for Hairspray.  I had a specific part of the theater in mind and I would need to be near the front of the line when they opened the doors.

Since I had my fish eye lens on I was wondering how a round scrunched up car in the shape a sphere would look with a fish eye at close range.  It pretty much looks like it does in person.

Time for lunch and with Sorrento's right there...

Barbecue Chicken on the menu today.  This was actually pretty good on Adventure recently.  
I found Symphony's variation a little too cheesy for my liking.

I thought I might as well take some more ships photos instead of walking in the rain.
MDR Entrance

MDR


I ran into some friend's and one drink led to another, so...

Day 3 - Malaga
After a visit to the Thermal Spa I had this great idea to walk down along the pier and get some pictures of the ship.  As I stepped off the ship and on to the gangway the skies opened up and the rain came down.  
Normally with a fish eye lens I can capture most ships at this range.  Not so with the largest cruise ship in the world.

I had to at least check out the terminal.

There are a series of shops including duty free liquor and wine.

I didn't feel like taking another shower today so I headed back to the ship. This would be as close as I came to Malaga on this day.

There was a 40' truck with supplies that were being transferred to the ship.  St. Francis and Decoy wine among other supplies.  I think we'll be fine making it across.

As things started to wind down on the final day one cruise highlight had to watched, The Quest.
Helped out where I could, helpful having a gold colored card and first name Michael. Always fun listening to the explanation that a blue card with the word gold is not the same as a gold card. 
Once The Quest ended headed over to the Schooner Bar to enjoy some music and a few final beverages.
Have to say again, love the Schooner Bar on the Radiance class ships.



Time around no closing down the casino bar. But can say I got the last two slices of pizza offered on this cruise. 

Sunday's Windjammer recon mission
Tonight was USA and Filipino Corner, dessert was cake and donuts, action station was fresh made crepes .
 
USA Corner


Filipino Corner

Other hot items

Cakes (Staring a new one for @Sweety, Green Velvet Cake)

Donuts (Yes @Sweety ,that is a Red Velvet Donut)

Finally the crepe action station

Jumping back in time and trying my best to wrap up this series...
Earlier in the day I happened to notice some of the state of the art equipment for reporting current weather conditions.

Sunset tonight wasn't the most spectacular. Still, any sunset at sea is spectacular when it is in first person.



Also happened to notice that Majesty had been following along side.

 
Figured I'd grab a quick shot of the very nice indoor Solarium. Entire sailing it was cool inside. Overall a great place to lay and relax.

Quick photo of the pool deck. 

Day 2 - Ice Skating Show "1977"
No cruise is complete without checking out the ice skating show.  Royal has put a lot effort incorporating technology into entertainment and "1977" benefits from this trend.  They've amped up the projection technology on Symphony.

The show starts out with dozens of drones hovering over the ice and flying in formation as each changes color independently at times and as a formation.  You can't capture this in still images, you have to see it live.

All the little purple and blue lights are individual drones.













A very memorable part involves fast wardrobe changes for one skater incorporated into the routine almost before our eyes. 
Impossible to display in still photos, another thing best viewed live. 
While the storyline strays a little at times when taken in it's entirety it is a great show to watch.  Oh yeah, they made it snow during one part of the show.  Amazing. 

Day 2 Miscellaneous 
Pop up Piano player appeared outside the Main Dining room

Pub beers

Sorrento's Pizza options tonight

Dazzle's during happy hours

Our progress...

Day 2 - My Time Dinner

Tomato, Watermelon and Feta

Duck A L'Orange

Peach Shortcake

All very good.  Excellent service again.