Missives from the 6th Floor

The dock ride was quick - 10/15 minutes tops - and we could see the ship as we approached - it looked like an office building rising out of the water. As we got closer the sheer scale of the thing kept striking me - it's really big. Bigger than you think. Check-in was painless, and after a momentary hesitation at the gangway, Dawnise walked aboard like she owned the place. Not bad for someone with a deep irrational fear of drowning.

We dodged the cruise line employees hawking the $30 unlimited soda plan, found our stateroom and dropped off our carry-on's. The room was compact, but not small - probably 10'x15', excluding entry way and balcony. After divesting of our baggage, we set off to explore the boat a bit.

We had a brief taste of the onboard food when we wandered through a buffet and saw some folks we knew.

None of the food was remarkable, and the beverages were remarkable for their badness. The iced tea was powdered, and the "coffee" smelled and tasted of fruity chocolate. Turns out it's not coffee at all - it's some beverage made with "coffee starter syrup." Blech.

At half-past four we had the compulsory emergency drill - grabbed our life jackets, mustered at the mustard (sic) station, and listened (intently, at least on Dawnises part, I assure you) to the safety briefing.

We dropped our life jackets back in the room and headed up to the "party" on the pool deck where the social staff convinced a bunch of folks to line dance, and even one guy (from Valve no less) to jump in the pool fully clothed in return for a bottle of champagne.

Our entire group has late seating reservations, so around 7:30 we went back to the room to change for dinner and headed down to the dining room.

Dinner started out ok - my appetizer (seafood and lobster terrine) was OK, Dawnise's (crispy egg rolls) a bit less so - crispy but bland. The Cesar salad was fine (hard, but not impossible, to screw up), and the soup was nondescript but edible. The mains, however, were slightly better than Denny's quality - the prime rib tasteless and the sweet whipped horseradish unpalatable.

Desert was a total fiasco - the chocolate sauce over the dry chocolate cake had the consistency of water (and the coffee had more chocolate flavor) and the angel food cake with sabayon creme was similarly disappointing. The ice cream was edible, but not exceptional.

After dinner we went up to the "nightclub" at the back of the boat with some friends - and promptly fled from the noise back to their cabin with games, which we enjoyed playing 'till around 1am.

We got back to our room and hit the sack on possibly the least comfortable bed I've had the displeasure of spending 7 nights in. It was two abused twin mattresses shoved together - with a ridge in the middle and depressions on each side.