Since a day or two at sea is not the most exciting thing to write about, we thought we would also include a small tour of the ship, or our view of it, at least. We are also condensing the last two days into one post because two days at sea is not really twice as exciting as one day at sea.

Yesterday we slept late and found that it was sunny and reasonably calm as we steamed along, making us wonder why we couldn’t go to Bar Harbor. But then the navigator came on and told us that we were now about 250 miles offshore as they had skirted the bad weather. The seas were a bit choppy, but not bad, but there was certainly no land in sight. Later we did hear a rumor that the cruise often has to miss Bar Harbor because the shallow waters amplify the wave action where there is any kind of weather.

We actually skipped a meal yesterday (!!!) and started the day with lunch at the buffet line. They had deep fried prawns, which were quite good, but were also very popular. We saw one woman who had a plate with nothing on it but a huge pile of prawns. It is amusing watching what people put on their plates. You do see the occasional plate piled very high, but most people actually take fairly reasonable portions.

There are several options for meals on board. There are the more formal dining rooms, where you are waited on like in a restaurant (but no charge for the food, just for drinks). There are also a couple of more upscale smaller restaurants – one a steak house and one Italian. They have a $25 per person surcharge. We have not found reason to try them, as the food in the main dining rooms is quite good.

If the restaurant experience doesn’t float your duck on a particular day (and sometimes sounds like too much bother to us), there are the buffets up on the Lido deck, the deck where the swimming pools are. These are also very popular. There is a larger choice of food, though more indifferently prepared. Most of the time there are some Asian options available too, which makes a nice change. Mike has gotten into fried rice with scrambled eggs and sausage for breakfast. Sometimes there is congee as well. Tami has hardly skipped the smoked salmon a single day.

If that doesn’t sound casual enough for you, there are several outdoor stands by the pools with burgers, pizza, dogs, and soft ice cream. Tami has been better than Mike at passing up the ice cream.

After lunch we went to the theater and watched “The Second Best Marigold Hotel”. It was quite an enjoyable movie and what a great cast it had. Highly recommended if you haven’t seen it. It involved a somewhat derelict hotel in India, somewhat like many of its occupants. But a feast of aging actors like Richard Gere, Maggie Smith, Judie Dench, etc. The theater is fairly large and just one floor down from our room. It is where they do anything from lectures, to movies, to the larger evening shows (musicals, comedians, etc.).

We next faced reality and went and did some laundry. They have a couple of self-serve laundry stations on the ship which are very nice to have, and quick to use. They will do your laundry for you, but it costs several dollars for each article of clothing. We certainly saved some money doing our own!

We also spent a while just reading in a nice quiet area outside the theater. You can often find areas that are quite deserted if you want to get away from others, and there is frequently some kind of live music being performed in the afternoon and evening in either the central plaza area or one of the lounges. One of the singers plays good songs from the 60’s and 70’s. The new oldies? Our equivalent now of Lawrence Welk?

Last night was the final Formal night and we decided to dress up again, mainly because the menu looked so good. Before dinner we stopped into one of the bars for Manhattans, then headed down to the dining room. Dinner included lobster along with some wonderful appetizers. Mike had escargots and Tami had the seafood mousse with three kinds of caviar to start, and then we both went for the lobster. Truly delicious.

By this time we were hitting some pretty choppy water so we took a quick spin on the promenade deck where there was a lot of spray in the air, but it was amazingly warm. Back in the cabin we were lulled to sleep by some nice rocking and rolling action from ship.

This morning was yet more windy and choppy weather, but by midday it was calming considerably. Today our biggest chore has been packing for our flights tomorrow. We are required to have any bags that we want moved by them outside our door by dinnertime, so that means packing up the bikes. We tackled that early and got it out of the way. It gets easier with practice! We got both bikes broken down and packed in less than an hour. Tami wants to time us assembling them again in DC!

At one point today Tami decided to take a picture out our cabin window of the choppy seas. She pointed the camera out and focused on the water only to see a porpoise leaping through the viewfinder! She also claims to have seen a whale. (I DID see a whale and spout! I did!)

We also went to another wine tasting this afternoon. The wine tastings are nice, but also a bit exasperating. To make it take up some time (they try to stretch each wine tasting of 5-6 wines out over an hour), they talk a LOT about each wine while you’re just sitting there thinking “can I just taste it already?” But it’s a way to spend some time, and they do serve some nice wines.

There really are a lot of things to do on the ship, particularly during a day at sea, but not necessarily things we find interesting. This afternoon for instance the options included an art auction, a Bridge players get together, a Waltzing class, a beginning German phrases class, “relaxing melodies” in the main atrium, an ice carving demonstration, a 5K Susan G. Komen walk around the deck (we figured it must take about 8 laps), bocce on the top deck, an “Effy Special Event and Raffle” (Effy seems to be a line of jewelry they are pushing very hard on this cruise), a seminar on foot pain (likely also trying to sell you something), a movie in the theater, and a poker game in the casino. And those are just the things listed at 1:00, 1:30, and 2:00.

At about 5 pm this evening we noticed that we could finally see some land in the distance and Mike realized that it is Long Island that we are sailing along, slowly. Very slowly. Since we are basically covering one day of travel distance over the space of two days, we are just putzing along.

We finished off the day with another Movie Under the Stars – Woman in Gold with Helen Mirren. Another movie we would highly recommend!

If you have read this far, we apologize – we did not realize we would have so much to say about two days of nothing.