After arising Saturday morning we climbed up to the roof of our building to see if we could spot our ship. We did, and unfortunately it was not down at the docks below Old Town where we could have walked, but rather across the water over by the municipal airport, which meant a taxi ride. Since we couldn’t board until 1:00, we wandered a bit, had a tapas lunch at a Spanish restaurant, lugged our bags back down the four flights of stairs, and then caught said taxi over to the terminal.

It was fun exploring a ship we were NOT familiar with (we’ve been on several Princess ships, and they all seemed to be laid out exactly the same), and then we settled into our room for a bit. It was not long before Tami noticed a party boat sailing by. The La Rumba was blasting a salsa version of Santa is Coming to Town, flashing Christmas lights, and full of dancing, singing partyers. Soon it had turned around at the head of the small cove we were in and came back out leading a Christmas parade of boats that went on for the next hour or so. Looking right and left, we realized everyone from all our neighboring cabins were all out enjoying the parade just like us. There were some great light displays, and some good music as well.

Salsa Christmas party!

Rowing Santas

Returning from the parade

After the standard but boring life jacket drill down in one of the lounges (which we got to listen to in both English and German, but NOT Spanish), we headed up for dinner just as the ship was preparing to pull out. We had decided to try out one of the premium, i.e. upcharged, restaurants for our first dinner. It was called Qzine, and was much more adventuresome than anything we have seen on a ship before. It was solidly aimed at foodies, with creative small plates based on a number of different cultures. To push the “modern and trendy” concept further, the food was all ordered on iPads (you could even watch short videos of some offerings to get a better idea of what they were).

We started out with a trio of ceviches, of which the salmon was our favorite. That was followed by Vietnamese spring rolls. The best was the pork spring roll served with BBQ sauce. Next came the soup and soufflé pairing. There were small tastes of three different soups in test tubes with straws, alongside three different tiny soufflés. This time our favorite was the sweet corn soup with the cheddar cheese soufflé. This was followed by a “lava crab cake” – basically a soft crab cake center wrapped up in a crunchy coating of something that seemed like very fine noodles, with the whole thing rolled in a wonderful sauce. That was probably the best of all the items we had. However, we were not done yet – we next were served with very small filet mignon steaks, served with large thimble-fulls of five accompaniments – mushrooms, red wine sauce, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, and creamed garlicy spinach. The next course arrived and we both inwardly groaned as it was much larger than the others had been. It was a visit to India and included samples of chicken tikka, lamb curry, vindaloo shrimp, spinach and chickpea dishes, with basmati rice and pappadoms just in case we were still hungry.

For dessert we were brought some little folding box puzzles that we had to play with a bit to find the descriptions of the different dessert options. Mike had berries with fruit and coconut gelato, while Tami had a cake with chocolate and nutella mousse layered between a crispy hazelnut layer and a ganache topping, with a sugar and butter “Q” tombstone (the dessert was called the “chocolate tombstone”). The also brought us some small dessert amuse bouches (sp?) of a chocolate and sprinkle covered strawberry and a very small strawberry mouse served in a porcelain egg shell. Both were presented from a platter of grass with the egg shells nestled down in the grass.

Sunday we slept in as the day would be spent at sea, sailing south to Barbados. It was a quiet day, with really not very much to write about. We attended a talk on the upcoming ports, had lunch, and did a little shopping. Mike was nerdily pleased to find a USB power cord in the onboard Apple store that very cleverly will work with both our apple devices and many of our other devices as well (we normally have to carry two separate cords to handle all of those).

Tami was very amused with some of the artwork in the shopping area, which I will have to let her tell you about: Sprinkled on the walls amongst all of the fancy shops with watches, jewelry, and handbags and such, there were photo portraits of some very elegant people. All of the women had the same name, which was Barbie. And in one photo, Barbie had a gentleman accompanying her, Ken. They were great photos of old classic Barbies dressed in elegant evening wear and I had a great time checking them all out. There was one with my bubble-haired Barbie, and another with Deb’s pony-tailed Barbie. I must say, she hasn’t aged a bit.

From our balcony

Rainbow from our balcony