I’ll start with dinner in Prego. Clay loved it. Said it was
his best meal of the trip. He had frito misto (combination fried seafood)
followed by lamb chops and the cheese plate. Prego delivered a small petit
fours-type plate with 2 chocolates, 2 orange jellies and 4 pistachio biscotti.
I had caprese salad followed by gnocchi with marinara and white peach sorbet.
Mine was not great, not even very good. They also had breads and olive oil, sea
salt and garlic dips. Those were good.
The ship evidently doesn’t have straight herbal teas. The
chamomile has citron. The mint has verbena. This morning we went to the main
dining room and the herbal tea menu on the menu had Peppermint listed last.
Since I actually wanted caffeine this morning I didn’t try for it, but I will
make sure to ask this evening in the main dining room. So why were we in the
formal dining room on Thursday?
We sailed at about 6pm on schedule last night. The further
we traveled from Kodiak the bigger the swells got and the rougher the ride. We
did not make it to the 8:30pm movie. We made it back to the cabin and I went
straight to bed. Clay was not far behind me. Clay got us up at 8am. That was a
long night’s sleep! It was rough all night and there was a loud resounding
ship-rattling bang/boom about every 3 swells. No idea what it was but it did
not make for a long and restful sleep. So we missed all the morning activities
and went to breakfast at the lowest point. I had eggs benedict and Clay had
eggs with corned beef hash. We got seated at a large single table set for 2
between the kitchen door and a window. We liked it. It was private and quiet. It
is not clear how the reservation vs fixed dining works and whether we’ll always
be seated at the same table we were at the first night. I think we’ll just
always be somewhere in that vicinity. I guess it doesn’t matter and we’ll find
out how it works as we go. Tonight is one of 2 formal nights and we will eat in
the main dining room again for that.
When we came out of breakfast, we found a long line of
people and beyond a crush of a mob scene. It looked like eve of Black Friday
shopping at Wal-Mart! We figured out that it was the NWP 16 logo shopping event
that I had noticed a small mention of in the Daily Reflections. We had
forgotten all about. As we tried to get near the t-shirts, a man in front of me
told me that all that was left was small and medium and they had just opened 15
minutes earlier. There were a lot of people milling farther from the table with
piles of clothes trying things on, so I milled waiting for them to bring things
back. I grabbed an XXL white shirt from a man returning it to the table. Clay
didn’t like it. It was silky performance material with the ports listed on the
back. You could read through from the front; it was see through! $35. Clay
didn’t want it. They had big coffee mugs and only 4 left when I grabbed one.
Clay got in the 30 or so person payment line with it. I kept watch on the
t-shirts. I talked to a worker who said either they didn’t ship them XXLs or
else they’d been stored somewhere else because they couldn’t find them, but
that the largest men’s sizes of the navy blue cotton with the map on the back
should be coming up from storage. I went to tell Clay as he progressed and he
pointed out the mug was only $4.85 and a great deal. I said I should see if I
can get another because I was thinking if I ever broke it I’d be sick about it.
I went back to the table again and there were about 8 mugs there now. I turned
over everyone and they all had the price sticker torn off. It didn’t matter
because I had one with a sticker. Clay decided he wanted to leave at 10:45am to
go to the first expedition lecture. I offered to stay and buy my own mugs. It
was so frenetic with 3 people at a time being checked out that I didn’t get to
see the slip I had signed until I walked away and looked in my bag. $29.90! By
this time, I had heard a bunch of people in the back of the line talking about
XL and they had blue shirts so I went to the back side under the stairs where a
woman was squatted with a new box. I asked and she had men’s XL blue cotton
shirts. I asked her about XXL and she said they couldn’t find them. I had her
open it and it looked pretty big to me so I took it and got back at the end of
the 20-30 people in the payment line. It was quieter and 1 at a time at the
register this time so I asked about the mugs and showed them the price sticker.
2 of the checked it consulted and thought that price was too low. I agreed it
was a great deal and said that was why I got 2 instead of one and that was the
price I had expected to be charged. They agreed with that last part and
refunded my $29.90 and charged me $9.70 for 2 plus Clay’s $35 t-shirt. The
t-shirt fit Clay fine and we’ll hope it doesn’t shrink.
Clay couldn’t get a seat for the lecture so went back to the
cabin and watched it on TV. I watched it an hour later on TV. They had
needlepoint kit giveaways at 10:45am. I got one and when I found Clay in the
cabin I sent him back to get his allowed one. Now it is lunch time. It is a
rocky sea. I expect it will get rougher before it gets calmer and that is not a
happy thought!
We went to the main dining room again for lunch as it is the
lowest spot to eat. Clay had fish & chips and a Newcastle draft. He said it
was nice. I ordered a grilled chicken breast with natural gravy, brown rice and
steamed vegetables from the light menu. It tasted like it came from the light
menu. I wasn’t really hungry anyway. Seasickness just seems to go easier on a
stomach constantly a little full rather than an empty one, so that’s my goal. I
should say right now that I used the scales in the Fitness Room yesterday and
according to it I had gained a full even 10 pounds since we left home only a
week again. I can only pray that they have an equipment calibration problem and
it has nothing to do with me. For dessert, Clay had a Key lime sundae that he
really liked and I had a fat-free frozen peach yogurt. It was soft-serve
swirled into a margarita glass. It was ok. I also took the opportunity to order
a Peppermint tea since it was on this restaurant’s menu at breakfast. I got
Verbena Mint. Tomorrow a stop on our free HOHO shuttle of Dutch Harbor is
supposed to be across the street from a Safeway. If I want to have any herbal
tea (without citrus!) for the next month, I will need to buy some tomorrow.
Tonight is formal night. It is 5:10pm. Clay just returned
from the Excursions Desk to report that the lobby is full of people in tuxs. He
did not bring a tux. He did not even bring a suit as when we packed he said he
could barely close the trousers and after a week of restaurant food he wouldn’t
be able to wear it. So the dressiest he has is a sports coat and slacks and a
tie. Hopefully that is going to suffice.
We went to see the movie we skipped last night at 2:30pm. We
enjoyed it and they served everyone who wanted a small tub of popcorn. You had
to bring your own drink! Thankfully Clay had brought a bottle of water.
Here is a link to Crystal’s official blog of the NWP 16
trip. Hopefully, if you remove the last bit it will always take you to the
latest entry. I don’t have enough Internet time to experiment with it. Sorry. http://blog.crystalcruises.com/kodiak-whale/
Here is a link to what I think today’s excursion lecturer
was referring as a signal from the beacon they installed atop Serenity to track
us in real time. Tim Soper called it an expedition tracker. http://10.3.16.6/cruiseshow/
Ah, no the newsletter they delivered tonight has the link he
was referring to in his lecture. This is better than the link I posted above that
we have onboard without Internet. https://my.yb.tl/crystalserenity
So, back from dinner we found a Crystal pin and 2 Crystal
tote bags on the bed. I think that might have been a mistake as it was
welcoming us back and that seems excessive since we only left the cabin for
meals, a movie and shopping all day. They are nice tote bags!
Dinner was alright. It was much busier tonight than our
first night. I guess that was because there was caviar, oysters and lobster on the
menu. We both ordered the oysters appetizer so Clay got 6. Clay had Alaskan
Rock Fish which the guy sitting at the table beside Clay had caught fishing out
of Seward before. He showed him a photo of a large orange fish on his phone. I
had beef tenderloin. I should have ordered sides with it since I got 2 slices of
beef, 6 green peas on the half pod, 3 daubs of pureed carrots and a small
puddle of what the menu called potato mousseline. We both drank a French
Chablis tonight. I have failed to mention but we have liked all the wines they
have poured so far. All are better than what we pour at home! Clay had
flourless chocolate cake and I had Valrhona Chocolate and raspberry gateau
which was actually a kind of chocolate mousse atop a ladyfinger type crust with
raspberry jelly down the middle. It was good. We also ordered petit fours since
we didn’t see them or get offered them the first night in the dining room. We
had a chocolate covered strawberry, a chocolate coated cluster of hazelnuts, a
white chocolate covered cluster of almonds and a little green frosted thing the
waiter called an éclair that had a ladyfinger type inside with marzipan (maybe)
filling. They were all good I guess. I ate the strawberry.
The seas have calmed down! Yeah! Tomorrow we are in Dutch
Harbor. The itinerary says we are at anchor. The complimentary tour information
here says we are docked. Tomorrow’s Reflections says we’ll be docked. I guess
we’ll find out tomorrow. We had pre-reserved a space on a complimentary tour
here for tomorrow. We got a letter and tickets entering our cabin on day one that
said they could not arrange enough transportation so they were running a HOHO
bus for ALL passengers and providing all passengers with free tickets to the 2
museums where the shuttle bus will stop. The forecast is for no rain! It didn’t
rain on the ship all afternoon so fingers crossed. So, we expect 55F and
overcast tomorrow. That sounds pretty good.
photos
photos
