Missives from the 6th Floor

Breakfast was just as disappointing as dinner. We just missed seating in the dining room, so we hit the buffet. The selection was reasonable, I suppose, but the best thing was the cheese and fruit selection. It's hard to screw up cheddar, swiss, pepper jack, and smoked gouda.

Tonight is one of the two "formal" evenings - tux or dark suit and cocktail dresses - but really, the food's not worth getting dolled up for. Perhaps I'm just a snob - quality means infinitely more to me than quantity at this point - and being able to order three of each course is pointless if none of them are worth eating.

We ran into some friends just finishing breakfast and joined them at their table. At 10:30 we went to a private (for our group) galley tour with the head chef. He was a nice fellow - articulate, Indian.

Made me more willing to try the vegetarian fare - hopefully it'll be better than the rest. The galley
(we saw one of the two main galleys) was impressive. Some 4700 square feet of kitchen space, 16,000 square feet of dry storage, 18,000 square feet of refrigerated storage, and 7,000 square feet of butcher space. The use nearly a ton of flour a day, and similarly sized quantities of other raw food-stuffs.

After the galley tour we wandered around a bit on the sun decks. I brewed some real iced tea (much better than the ready-made, and well worth the extra bit of effort and wait) and we sat aft and watched our wake disappear into the distance.

We wandered through the mid-day buffet hoping to find the one thing they do really well and, well, we didn't. Though the curried veggie pastry and sliced pastrami were both edible. It pains me to say that breakfast at IHOP tops everything we've had on ship so far.

Since tonight is formal night, I swung back to the room to press my shirts in the laundry room before the "oh crap, we need to iron" rush. Dawnise is off at some "bar battle of the sexes." I'm going to wander up and find her...

Turns out the battle of the sexes was an audience participation game - two of the ships bartenders demonstrated the making of 6 drinks, and then a passenger (one male, one female) had to recreate one of them. Judging was on appearance, taste, garnish, and technique. The women won - which should be no surprise given a man's typical ability to follow simple directions, but neither side really did well. As Dawnise pointed out - all the ingredients were laid out for them, all they had to do was remember the pour count for each and which garnish to use.

We ended up watching bits of the Valve Texas Hold'em poker tournament - the beginning, and the end of the final table. Pretty fun to watch, even if I have no interest in playing.

We got dressed for the captains welcome party (with free cocktails) and formal dinner. Turns out "free cocktails" means watered down martinis made with chip gin, watered down Manhattans made with something vaguely resembling bourbon, and a couple of rum-drinks.

It was definitely cool to see co-workers in something other than jeans and t-shirts, though.

Dinner was a mixed bag - the smoked duck appetizer was quite good, as was the beef we both had. The lobster bisque was gawd-awful - the wrong color, runny, and mostly flavorless. I think I counted 3 or 4 grape-sized bits of lobster. Desert was a huge step up from last night, but the soufflé was too eggy and not going to win any awards.

We saw a comedic magic show, which was a light on the comedy and magic, and heavy on the cheese, before retiring for the night. Tomorrow (today, as I type this) - Costa Maya.