Coastal Cruise - At Sea, at last!

We were up early because that’s what we do, and I had my usual breakfast in the Lido (Josh, Jen and Dave had a slightly more leisurely version shortly after) and headed to the gym for a quick workout. The instructor I did the bootcamp with gave me a huge smile when I came in and set up my laptop and didn’t make me move when it was time to set up the exercise bikes. After a nice session (well, productive) of upper body resistance it was off to the “Coffee with the Cruise Director” feature. Today it was our Simon our cruise director and Capatain Eric Van der Wal, who was LATE. We’d be sure he wasn’t Dutch except when he talks it’s very clear that he is. He was entertaining, and very focused on the HR side of his job – creating a strong team to give customers a great cruise. Dave was able to ask him to explain a little more about why we had to change our San Francisco arrival time, and we now understand the combination of booking error, currents, and narrow docking area. We also got a chance to ask Simon how many people are on board. The answer surprised us – the ship is pretty much full, but it doesn’t feel crowded.

Next for me was on the port talk about Astoria and Victoria, which seems to have been attended by most of the folks on board. In Astoria there are 2 taxis (not taxi companies. Taxis), 6 Uber drivers, 1 rental car company, and a single trolley car that shuttles from the port to the Maritime Museum on the other side of town. Fortunately there is not much to do, so most of the 2,100 passengers on the ship will not all be trying to get the aforementioned taxis and Ubers. There are several shore excursions, including one that does the Cannon Beach/Tillamook loop that Dave and I did last month. I had to leave about halfway through the Victoria talk because we had our Pinnacle lunch.

The Pinnacle is another of the specialty restaurants on board, and way back when we took our family cruise in 2009 we took the boys there and we all thought it was amazing. It hasn’t been as amazing since, and the lunch experience isn’t as good as dinner, so now we know. Jen’s hamburger was the standout. Jen and Dave had leave early to go to the Premium wine tasting, so Josh and I stayed and ate their desserts.

Next up for me was the Lido Fair, where I played the games but didn’t win any raffle items. I did have a moment where I was trying to knock over things by throwing balls at them and hit 3 out of 3, which made people clap and give me fist bumps. I will remember that as a triumph of hand-eye coordination, perhaps never to be repeated.

Then I went down to the cabin and slept for two hours. Cruising is exhausting! After I woke up I blogged for a bit, then headed to the Billboard Lounge to meet Jen for some live music trivia. It was a good time – our assistant cruse director Lauren teamed up with the piano bar performer for a colors-themed trivia session. We joined in with a couple sitting next to us and did way better than we would have by ourselves, but not well enough to be in the 4-way tie for first place which was too bad because Jen knew the answer. It was fun sitting in the bar watching people go by in their orange (it was Orange night), and our teammate had a particularly good deely bobber headband with orange cindy-lou who pigtails.

We went from there to dinner in the dining room. Arta our server was apparently overjoyed to see us again, and was even more pleased when Dave asked if the Bami Goreng was spicy. It wasn’t, but he managed to get some Sambal from the crew mess, which turned out to be delicious and enhanced many of our dishes. He was so overjoyed to see us that he kept bringing us extra food – 2 extra appetizers, 2 extra entrees, and an extra dessert. I have to mention the dessert, which was on the menu as a “molded Lindt chocolate tulip” and looked like a cross between a tulip and two lips and had a very strange almost rubbery consistency, but was delicious.

Because we have late seating (which I need to remember is called main seating) it’s almost 9:00 by the time we get done with dinner, so last night we got done and it was time to head to the Orange Party line dance, which was an absolute ZOO but of course I have to do the line dancing. Then as soon as it was over it was bedtime because the next day would be an early one to CROSS THE BAR.