Final Sea Day of this Segment

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We were up around 7am today to try to catch the sunrise's green flash. According to Currents, sunrise would be at 7:14 am. Also, it should be on our starboard side as we skirt Cuba heading northeast. We saw the sunrise but there was a thick cloud layer at the horizon so no chance of a flash.

We are still in heavy winds. The top decks are closed due to it. We had breakfast about 7:30 am in Terrace. I finally had an Egg Benedict and a chocolate croissant. After, we split up and Clay went to walk above the pool deck which was still open. I walked across the pool deck to get forward to Horizons and got blown back a step or two. I don't know how they were walking on that upper more open deck except it had to be an extra workout half the track as they went into the wind. I arrived in Horizons at 8:20 am. There were no other passengers in there when I arrived, only workers. I sat with my tablet at the table where Lisa lays out her needlepoint kits after 9:30 am. Maybe 3 people came in the next 20 minutes and ate and left. One woman came in about 8:40 am and sat where the previous sea day's woman had appointed herself #1 for needlepoint. Everyone who came in and she waved over walked by me and I made eye contact with and spoke to. That included the woman who said she was #1. When Lisa came, I ceded the table to make way and told her I had been there since 8:20 am. She said she thought the others by the window might say they were first and she went and got them and they did. Lisa told #1 I said I arrived at 8:20 am. She looked at me and at Lisa and said she arrived at 8 and the woman next to her was also there before 8:20 am. I couldn't believe she'd LIE about such a thing. Enough. After I picked up my dropped jaw, I told her she was no where near 8 am but 8:40 am as she'd walked past me and I'd greeted her. The woman she called #2 stepped in and said that she'd walked past me and I'd greeted her. I agreed that all of them who'd just pushed in front of me had walked past me and I'd greeted them all. #2 agreed that was so as she'd seen me do it except for the first woman who'd claimed #1 and #1 moved aside and said she didn't care. She cared enough about to endanger her mortal soul. Anyway, she's #2 today. How annoying. If Lisa isn't going to arrive early to check and she knows this happens and she runs out of kits pretty quickly, she needs to set out a signup sheet to thwart liars and pushy people. I just how #2 won't be on the next 2 segments!

They are showing the movie "Joker" at 3 pm in Riviera Lounge on the big screen with popcorn. We haven't seen it but after the morning in Horizons, I can say it is a much rougher ride up front and I'm not sure we'll go. After checking the Grand Dining Room menu on TV every day it has been on we've finally seen the Croque Monsieur sandwich appear today! We'll go down to the Jacques at GCR for lunch today. The menu also said they had skinny fries available today. I hope so. They have an ice cream menu at dessert that includes Humphry Slocombe toast & jam. It is a real flavor! Here is a link to the announcement about the Humphry Slocombe/Oceania partnership. I assume we'll have to try that. Back from lunch and the Croque Monsieur was served in crustless fingers and was delicious and worth the wait. The Humphry Slocombe toast & jam ice cream was very good and interesting. First flavor was salt and I reckoned salted butter on the toast because there were crunchy crouton-like bits in there with swirls of raspberry jam and the ice cream was buttery. We also each had a 2nd scoop of our previous favorite flavor of cinnamon for me and pistachio for Clay. They both failed in quality side-by-side as they were not rich and creamy quality but more like sugar-free ice milk. So we realized how badly we'd been settling for O's ice cream but thumbs up to them for the new quality partnership.

We have a 6:30 pm reservation for dinner tonight at Red Ginger. I hope we really like it because our first dinner of the next cruise segment is tomorrow same place, same time!

So tomorrow is turnaround day in Miami. We'll assume breakfast will start at 6 or 6:30 am. Our letter says in red ink, we meet at 9 am in Red Ginger from where we'll be escorted to the US Customs inspection with passports and keycards in hand and be advised when we may return onboard. It states it is not necessary to follow any check-in formalities and our onboard account will continue until the end of our cruise. Our keycards now say February 26, 2020. Oceania has already charged my CC for this segment's $288 dollars in tips so hopefully those will be disbursed tomorrow. The following 2 segments are our 10th and 11th Oceania cruises and should include our tips as a status perk. We'll see.

We have some loose plans for a 1/2 or so day in Miami to take the free Coral Way Trolley from the port of Miami to Bayside Market Place and back. I argued for a laundry day onboard instead but in the past we've often found the guest laundries closed for maintenance on turnaround day and have learned the hard way you can't count on it being available. Sad because that would be the most likely day to find availability if it were open. Again, we'll see. Fingers crossed that we could do both!

After lunch we located the guest laundry room on deck 8. It is forward of the forward elevators on the port side. You have to go through 2 doors to get to it. A signed door off the passenger hall into a crew area with 3 doors, 1 of which is to the guest laundry. Inside the very small space (and no one had an ironing board down!) were 3 stacked washer/dryers. The machines had token slots on them. The signage was contradictory. One sign said the guest laundries were complimentary (like Crystal!). The more detailed instruction sign said to use tokens in the machine's slots. Our last Oceania cruise suffered a laundry token shortage of crisis proportions. We went to Reception in case both signs were correct. The receptionist informed us that the laundry machines are self-service and complimentary and no longer use tokens. Huge thumbs up to Oceania for that improvement. Next we asked sweet Melissa if the guest laundry was expected to be open on turnaround day. She and her assistant both said they'd heard nothing about closing them for maintenance and thought they should all be open at 7:30 am.

This morning we got a new restaurant reservations card. It only had the 2 reservations we'd made online before boarding, not the 2 we made a few days ago. Clay went and asked and was told about the 08073 number being attached to our cards and not 8073. But today the guy told him not to worry about it or try to get our keycards fixed, that all the reservations are there. They just have to enter the cabin number 2 different ways to see them all. OK.

This afternoon we got a new Important Customs letter regarding our instructions for the day the next cruise begins. It looks identical to the first letter except for the yellow highlighted 9:30 am in Red Ginger instead of 9 am. Good to know since we'd have been annoyed if we'd shown up a half hour early!

Just received an email from our TA, tomorrow's Port of Miami Terminal has been changed from J to E again for 2/4/2020 turnaround day. It would be nice if we could expect the same heads up when we terminate on 2/26/2020. Since we only got this notice as embarking passengers and not as disembarking passengers I fear a cluster cuss on 2/26 when we'd like to give our transportation a correct address! Just saying.

In related news, the CD announced after 5 pm that disembarkation tomorrow had been delayed by a half-hour due to operational considerations. My cruise docs stated disembark was 7 am originally, btw. The earliest one can depart now is 8 am and then only if they carry their own luggage off the ship without any assistance. If you need or want to put your luggage out the night before then you can't depart the ship until after 8:30 am. Presumably none of this schedule shuffling affects our 9:30 am meeting in Red Ginger. We'll see.

The Currents for the last night said we sailed 2,023 nautical miles on this cruise. I don't know if there is some kind of odometer on Riviera and that's actually what we sailed. Because we covered a lot more sea than was necessary between a few of our many ports! In summary, this was a 9 night cruise and cost us $6492 for a category B1 balcony without air.

There were at least 2 notices in Currents for this last night and tomorrow's stating the Terminal E change in Miami tomorrow. So that is good news.

In bad news, we had NO ice tonight. I ran out in bare feet with our ice bucket to catch Melissa. She said there is no ice because the last night before Miami. In the morning they have US health inspectors onboard and the ice machines have to be empty and clean for that. That doesn't sound right. Shouldn't they be clean anyway? I must have made a bad face because she snatched the bucket from me and said she'd go try to find a bar that still had ice. She was back pretty quick with what she pointed out was bigger than normal cubes and hoped it was alright. It was perfect. We won't be too happy about NO ice in the morning though!

Speaking of which, we are surprised that Oceania's Destination Services never offered any tours for continuing guests. I know we're not the only ones. I've heard several people say they're on for multiple cruises.

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