Tuesday, January 18, 2002  --  At Sea

We followed the sea day routine again today -- breakfast in the MDR, reading, trivia, eat, eat, eat.  Taking a cruise is like flying across an ocean: you literally eat your way around the world.

We were lazy this morning.  For some reason, we were both tired and took a nap before lunch instead of in the afternoon. So, we ate breakfast, read, napped and then went to the Lido Deck for lunch at 1 pm [by which time the dining room was closed].  Lunch was hot dog with onion straws [MA] and a brat with curry sauce [D] and French fries all around washed down with Diet Cokes.  [This part of the entry was for Jon]

By the time we finished dessert [ice cream[, it was too late to attend the classical program, but D wasn't too distressed -- a program of Schumann's music for string quartets wasn't high on his list.  We returned to the room and read.  We also spent some rime sitting on the balcony just watching the wake and the sky. 

At breakfast this morning we were surprised by the appearance of Roy, our dining room steward from 2016.  Not only had he served us then, we were able to have him most mornings for breakfast on a different cruise in 2017.  He may not have remembered our names, but remembered MA was known as the Basil Lady because the kitchen consistently mis-made her basil and goat cheese omelettes.  Now that we know he is here, we will ask to seated in his section for breakfast until we get to San Diego where he will leave the ship.

Afternoon trivia was again crowded.  It's hard to imagine what it would be if the ship were not less than half full.  According to one of the girls at the front desk, there are only 835 passengers on this two-week leg of the cruise.  When the ship sailed from San Diego to Ft. Lauderdale, there were about 900.   

As for trivia, we had a good time.  No right answers were ignored for a change but we ended up in third place today based on the self-congratulatory applause at the end.  We went back to the room after talking more with our partners and caught up on internet stuff, read and shared an apple.

More Living in the Past --  As recently as 2019, at the time of our last cruise, it was customary for cabin stewards [or someone] to place a fruit bowl in each cabin, replenished as necessary.  We usually told the stewards to remove the fruit so it would not go to waste.  This year, there was no fruit in the cabin upon our arrival, so we asked the steward to bring some apples.  Nothing,  Nada.  Zip.  When we inquired, he asked if we wanted red or green apples, Red, we said.  Nothing happened.  The apples finally arrived today in time for our afternoon snack.  Planning ahead, we had brought cinnamon and peanut butter to have with them. 

Dinner tonight was at the Caneletto, HAL's Italian themed restaurant.  The food was excellent and we were quite full when we waddled out.  Since the restaurant is close to the pointy end of the ship, we decided to visit the casino for a few minutes.  Once we had spent our limit, we trekked back the practically the entire length of the ship to the elevators nearest our cabin.  We found the laundry we sent out this morning had been returned, so we put it away before MA got ready for bed and D cranked out today's journal

Tomorrow -- Another Sea Day and a Discussion of Laundry