Day 7, May 10, 2015, Serenity Crossing – Fourth Day at Sea (Mother’s Day)

It was a tough night of sleep for both of us.  Not that the seas were rough (they weren’t), but neither of us seems to be sleeping well.  Bob thinks that he may still be jetlagged from the China trip that he went to the week before we left on the cruise (he left on Monday, got there on Tuesday, had two days of meetings, and flew home on Friday, where we left the next morning for Miami).  So, it might be the jetlag (we are 4 hours later than Park City too).

We got up a bit before 8am and the seas were medium, with a few white caps.  The skies were partly cloudy, but it was 10 degrees colder – 61 degrees.  We decided to walk for a full hour.  Bob ended up with 9.2K steps and just under 5 miles. 

We got ready and went to the first talk of the day at 10am by Glenn Rosenblum.  He is a theatre-pile and performer.  He spoke about growing up in New York, playing the piano at 3 years old, and loving theatre at the earliest of ages.  He spoke about the musical theatre on Broadway from 1959 to 1973 and talked about its evolution showing clips of various shows.  He was extremely entertaining and it was a nice talk.

After that, they had “Fan Tan Fannie” with Sandra Allen (the star of Flower Drum Song on Broadway).  It was an audience participation thing where she teaches those that wanted to join in, her famous fan dance from the play Flower Drum Song.  We watched a bit (they were struggling to do the moves with the ship rocking a bit) and then bailed.

After a short stint in the Bistro catching up on a little computer work, we headed up to team trivia in the Palm Court.  After some false starts getting organized, we got our team together and gave it another go.  There must be 20 teams playing.  We did ok, but this time one team got all 15 questions right (and three more got 14).  We were in the middle of the pack again.

BTW - an interesting factoid from the Captain, we were closer to Canada than any other land (although shortly after noon, we were going to be closer to the Azores).

We then checked out the various dining options and settled on trying the pizza from Tastes for lunch.  That was a huge mistake as it was excellent.  Julie started with a glass of Merlot and half of a “Deconstructed Grilled Shrimp Caeser Salad” (heart of romaine lettuce with Styrian pumpkin seed dressing, sprinkled with parmesean cheese and green tea croutons – it was topped with grilled garlic shrimp).  She loved the shrimp, but felt that it was over dressed.  Maybe next time she will think to ask for the dressing on the side.  Bob had a Sam Adams and a half of a Chinoise Chicken Salad (shredded roasted chicken with julienne of napa cabbage, lettuce, snow peas, carrots, celery, onions, peanuts, and sesame seeds – it was tossed with a Chinese mustard dressing and garnished with crisp won ton skins and fresh cilantro).  It reminded Bob of a cole slaw with chicken, but better.  He thought it was great.  The margherita pizza that we split had a nice thin crust with fresh basil, oregano, garlic, house-made tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese.  We also added salami, mushrooms, and olives.  As we said, it was great.  After that, in honor of Mom’s day, Julie had the Coffee Buzz Buzz ice cream with fudge topping and Bob had frozen vanilla yogurt.

We relaxed and Bob ended up going to see the movie: Kingsman: The Secret Service.  He had seen it is San Francisco, but decided to go and see it again.  It is not one of Julie’s kinds of movies, so he went alone.  It was still crazy as before.

At 4:30pm celebrity photographer Tim Courtney did a talk on the behind-the-scenes of a celebrity photo shoot.  He attempted to educate the crowd about the importance of lighting in photo shots.  He made his point, but belabored it too much, spending nearly the entire time going over shots and asking where the lighting was coming from.  It would have been better to hit a few more topics.

We then headed back to get ready for the second formal night.  At 5:30pm William Squire – the Hollywood stylist was in the Crystal Cove helping people to get the perfect red carpet photo.  So, we were all dressed up, so we did both a regular photo session and the one on the red carpet with William Squire posing us.  We will see how they turn out.  Julie is hoping to look exactly like Nicole Kidman and Bob is hoping the expert posing will have him looking like Tom Cruise.

We then hung out in the Crystal Cove area as dinner was at 6:15pm, again Dining by Reservation.  We had arranged to have dinner with Les – our new friend from Vancouver Island.  We really enjoy Les’ company.  Outside of the dining room was a wonderful flower arrangement for Mother's Day.

The food was terrific as always.  We both had our starters from the Modern Cuisine side of the menu.  Bob began with Roast Butternut Squash Soup with almond milk foam and cinnamon croutons.  The cinnamon croutons were different, but added a great taste to the soup.

Julie had the Sautéed Shrimp with chili fig jam.  She really liked them.

Upon recommendation of our waiter, we both had the Assorted Mixed Greens tossed in ranch dressing with radish, crisp pancetta and herb croutons.  We both thought it was good.  Not the best that we have had, but good.

For his entrée, Bob had the Veal a la Cordon Bleu – breaded and golden fried veal escalope, filled with country ham and emmentaler cheese served with parisienne potatoes, vichy carrots, and natural gravy.  Bob thought that it was good, but could have used more gravy. 

Julie had the Duo of Salmon – which had two pieces of salmon, one pan-fried and the other olive oil poached.  With it was purple potatoes, fava beans and lemon sauce.

For dessert, we both had the “Lutece” – Grand Marnier Souffle with sauce negresco. 

The show after dinner started at 8:45pm and was “Across the Pond” from the UK to the USA.  We had seen the show before.  It was singing and dancing a lot of songs from the 60’s and 70’s.  It was quite a show, with a ton of great music.

After the show we stopped by the Bistro and sampled some of the cheeses.  We also tried port and felt that it worked great with the cheese.  After that we hit the sack.  Today we did 16,000 steps and not quite 8 miles.