Key Largo, Montego, Baby Why Don’t We Go (Or, a Week on The World’s Largest Cruise Ship): Part Twelvefeatured

In between our port days in Jamaica and Cozumel, we had another sea day to kind of recharge our batteries. But good poolside loungers wait for no one and we were up bright and early at 8:30 am.

After a quick consultation with the dining boards, we decided on a breakfast at Wipeout Café. We were originally planning on breakfast in the Windjammer, but the dining boards said it was at capacity. Wipeout Café was a solid choice – it had what I imagine were the same offerings as the Windjammer (traditional breakfast buffet kind of stuff – eggs, meats, pancakes, etc), but they also had made to order omelets, which we all opted for and agreed that they were excellent. And it wasn’t crowded by any means, so we felt good about our choice.

After breakfast, we headed towards the main pool. Unlike our first sea day, we didn’t have it to ourselves. There were quite a few people already in the pool and lounging poolside. Still, we found loungers quickly and had plenty of room to swim.

We swam for an hour before heading to find some shade. In 14 cruises, I don’t think we’ve ever sought out shade on a sea day. There’s a first time for everything, I guess, and since we stopped tanning before our cruises, we were burning more easily (even with heavy and frequent applications of sunscreen).

Once we had our fill of sea air, we headed back to the room. Along the way, we passed through the Promenade, where Ken Rush was holding a live talk show.

We spent some time in the room watching movies and hanging out on the balcony. We noticed the Variety channel on the TV switched between various channels – a Rachael Ray travel show from the Food Network was followed by a renovation show from the DIY Network. I know what everyone’s thinking: “Why are you sitting in your room watching TV when you have an entire ship to explore?!” Because we’re on vacation! That hour on sea days where we laid in our beds and watched mindless shows about the best places to eat in Italy and a hair salon in New Jersey was probably the most relaxing part of our entire trip.

For a late lunch, we decided to head out to the Solarium Bistro. The Solarium Bistro features lighter, healthier fare, but we found that light also carried over to light on flavor. I had some gazpacho that was decent but, by and large, everything we tasted was incredibly under-seasoned.

Since cold soup wasn’t really cutting it for lunch and Mom and Stephanie were equally as unenthused with the samplings they tried, we headed out in search of more flavorful fare. We passed through the Solarium pool area and it was incredibly packed. I guess everyone who wasn’t at the main pool was packing in at the Solarium pool.

We ended up at Café Promenade for sandwiches, but nothing there really sounded good – they’re all pre-made and nearly all of them had mayo on them (a big no no in my book).

With Solarium Bistro not cutting it and Café Promenade not faring much better, we ended up…at the Cupcake Cupboard. And ding ding ding – we found a winner. The cake was moist and light (though not incredibly flavorful) and the icing was dense and buttery without being overbearingly sweet. And the price was right at $2.75 a cupcake.

Stephanie had the makings of a killer migraine, so we headed back to the room and napped so we could re-charge for formal night. And I spent some more time out on the balcony zoning out and staring at the water.

We took turns getting glammed up before taking our obligatory formal night balcony shots and heading to dinner.

Tonight’s dinner was pretty solid. Mom’s lobster was pretty large (John took it out of the shell for her and both he and Daniel offered to get her a second one completely unprompted) and the mushroom appetizer was out of this world. The real standout, though? The poblano pepper and corn soup. Probably the tastiest soup I’ve ever had on any ship!

Escargots Bourguignonne

Creamed Wild Mushrooms

Roasted Poblano Pepper and Corn Soup

House Salad

Simple and Classic Caesar Salad

Fisherman’s Plate

Three-Cheese Tortelloni

Slow Roasted Prime Rib

Baked Alaska

We headed out to the Promenade after dinner to peruse the shops and take in everyone else’s formal fashions.

We didn’t partake, but they were doing made to order margaritas out in the Promenade, too.

After a quick stop back to the room to change out of our dresses, we headed out to Central Park and wandered around a bit.

We walked around the ship a bit more, but ultimately ended up back in Central Park for the sangria special at Vintages.

The sangria was a solid A. We ordered a few tapas to go along with our drinks had some mixed reactions. The guacamole and stuffed peppers were amazing, but Stephanie ordered some chicken croquettes that she really didn’t have anything good to say about.

Pan Amb Tomaquet

Croquetas de Pollo con Revuelto de Cebollinas

Guacamole

Cheese Stuffed Pequillo Peppers, Grilled Artichokes, Eggplants and Caper Berries

After our sangria and tapas fiesta, we headed down to Studio B for the Ice Games show. We all agreed the show was excellent and the level of skill and talent was high, but there was such a discord in the sets. One set would have an incredibly elaborate set while the next would have cheep, cheesy computer graphics.

After the show, we headed back to the Promenade. We had an outdoor excursion planned for Cozumel, so Mom wanted to buy a t-shirt to cover her shoulders in the sun and I wanted to buy a bottle of water. I headed to Starbucks since most of their prices seemed in line with US Starbucks and at US Starbucks, water bottles are less than $2. Not here. While your iced coffee or coffee cake slice will generally be in the same ball park as what you’d pay on land, the price of water bottles is, predictably, marked up. I think my bottle of water was $4+ and they charged an automatic gratuity on any Starbucks purchase.

We wandered around the ship a bit more before heading back to the room to get our bags packed for the next day and head to bed. I shed a silent tear as I set my alarm – in order to meet our excursion on time, our wakeup call had to be hours earlier than I wake up for work. So much for a restful vacation!