Day 12 Tuesday 11th October 2016
I wake up at
8.00am and Tam is already on the balcony. Today is an ‘at
sea’ day and we have no plans other than to relax before our
meal at Murano tonight.
We go to Blu for breakfast. Tam orders the parfait, but the
server brings her muesli instead. ‘I didn’t order that,
I ordered parfait’ says Tam. ‘That is parfait
madam’ says the server. No it isn’t’ says Tam
‘It’s muesli’. And so it goes back and forth for a
while. Eventually it gets sorted out to an irate Tam's
satisfaction. I need to get the girl some anger management
classes (although she was right, it was muesli).
I have an omelette and toast and we are ready to face the rigours
of a day doing absolutely nothing.
Our first stop
is the Persian Gardens. With our Aqua class stateroom we get
cruise long access to this area. It has heated ceramic beds that
look hard and uncomfortable, but are actually really nice to
relax on as is shown by the light snoring coming from the chap a
couple of beds along from me. There are two sauna rooms and
showers as well, although we don’t make use of them on this
visit.
After 90 minutes we leave and go to another indoor part of the
ship that nobody seems to know about, as it’s always empty.
It’s on deck 11 at the very front of the ship, the pointy
end for those of a nautical nature.
It has big wide beds. Literally beds, not the sunbed type
thingies and a large panoramic window facing out to sea.
It’s so quiet and peaceful, even the raging brute that is
Tam is stilled for a brief while.
I’m not
sure we can do sitting still for too long as 30 minutes later we
move to the Solarium (the adults only indoor pool area), where we
stay for a couple of hours.
It’s now lunchtime and we both fancy a Caesar Salad, so we
go to the main dining room. Unfortunately they don’t do
Caesar Salad at lunchtime, so Tam has a small bowl of mushroom
soup and I have a Brik. This is a Tunisian dish that we last had
on our honeymoon 30 years ago. I don’t remember being like
this in Tunisia. There it was a crispy pancake with a whole
soft-boiled egg in the middle. The thing I have on the ship has
bits of seafood in it including some very chewy squid. Ah well,
never mind. You’re never far from the next meal when
cruising.
Up to the Solstice deck, which is again beautifully quiet. I must
say I have seen very little evidence of sun bed hogging. When
most people leave they pack up their things and leave the sun
beds and chairs for others to use.
Tam makes sure she uses plenty of sun cream this time as we
bought a factor 50 in Brisbane for her red bits. I call in a team
of 5 maintenance staff and she’s oiled up and ready to go
after only 10 minutes.
Another period
of time passes where we do nothing except read, listen to music,
doze and stare out to sea. Come to think of it, that’s quite
a few things.
It becomes apparent at this point in time that there is a
drawback to the Solstice Deck – the basketball court is
right in front of it. When the ball hits the backboard, as it
does frequently, there is a loud ‘thwack’. What sort of
genius ship designer thought to them selves ‘Hmmm,
there’s this large spare area just in front of one of the
quietest, most relaxing areas of the ship – what shall we do
with it? I know, we’ll stick in a basketball court’.
The man (or woman) is a complete fool.
We go back to the Solarium for a dip in the pool and sit to dry off in a two person wicker round chair next to the window and stare out at the vast nothingness of the ocean. It’s quite a spiritual experience until the woman in the hot tub next to us starts telling her hot tub companion rather loudly about her constipated dog. Spoils the moment somewhat.
Back to the stateroom for showers and we’re out again at 6.00pm to go to the Sunset Bar where there’s a man playing a guitar and singing. We have a Bahama Mama each while listening. It’s quite breezy, but the evenings are starting to get warmer as we move further north.
We head to
Cellar Masters next, where we I have a glass of Australian
Chardonnay and Tam has a sparkling Rose.
I decide to get an Old Fashioned from the World Class Bar to take
with me to Murano, but this is a little different as it has a
slice of lemon in it. Whether this is deliberate or not, I
don’t know, but it tastes good anyway.
We go to Murano
just a little before our 8.00pm reservation, but are seated
straight away. Murano is the most expensive and best (in my
opinion) restaurant on the Celebrity ships.
After an amuse bouche, Tam has the Lobster Bisque and I start
with the Crab Parfait with Salmon – both are very nice. We
have the Chateaubriand for two as our main. The meat is tender
and succulent, just as it should be. Tam has the Dark Chocolate
Sorbet for dessert, while I have the cheese course.
It’s a more leisurely dining experience than the other
restaurants and we leave at 9.45pm.
Just outside
Murano is the Ensemble Lounge and this is the place for our last
drink of the night. I have a Woodford Reserve Bourbon and Tam has
a Tia Maria and Coke. The same guy from the Sunset Bar earlier is
playing, so we enjoy our drinks in the darkened atmosphere of the
Ensemble Lounge listening to acoustic guitar music.
We have a lot of ‘at sea’ days on this cruise, so there
will inevitably a lot of ‘did nothing, did some more
nothing, ended up doing nothing’ type reports for these
days. My apologies for that, but I guess that’s the nature
of a relaxing cruise. The good news is that the next two days are
port stops. It’s the Great Barrier Reef next, so expect
Jacques Cousteau style rampaging adventures battling Tiger Sharks
and Moray Eels. In truth it’s more likely to be me
struggling to snorkel and coughing and spluttering on a mouthful
of saltwater. That’s about the full extent of my marine
adventuring.