Regal Princess Baltic Cruise Day 3 - At Sea

Our first sea day and surprisingly not our first formal night at dinner! Spent most of the day bouncing between trivia games and activities. One of the things I found interesting is that the front page of the patter usually featured some nice historical information about the port (on the non sea days of course) along the right side. Each day of this trip featured rules for conduct on board with the exception of safety information for the port. I've been told by cruise activity staff in the past that it's up to the Cruise Director for final say on what activities are scheduled and what goes into the Patters.

But first, to start our day off right with a filling breakfast it's off to Sabatinni's. Delicious fresh fruit plate and a cheese omelet. I've been working to lose weight since January so I hadn't gotten to indulge in my favorite powdered cream filled donuts in over a year thanks to there being no International Café on last year's Island Princess cruise! Alas, today did not break that streak as the ones they offered on the delightful pastry tray was jam filled.

After breakfast, I decided to try out the frozen whipped coffees from the International Café that several of my fellow Princess cruisers told me about on Facebook. Not normally a coffee drinker but I like the flavored Frappuccino Starbucks offers. Ordered a frozen vanilla Frappuccino and what I got made me worry what I'd have gotten if I hadn't said vanilla flavored. It tasted like I was sucking up a whipped up cup of coffee beans. We had traded in our second free cabin mini bar for being Elite in order to get 2 coffee cards. I did enjoy a few hot chocolates from the International Café throughout the cruise that were included in our Soda and more drink packages.

We resorted after this to just use the coffee cards towards gelato which charged us 1 punch for every scoop. Each time we went and each got 2 scoops took away 4 punches. I, after not having ice cream for so long at home, found the gelato to be super rich and often regretted getting more than 1 scoop. The gelateria has taken away the pricing signs, leaving only the menus listing flavors. I could have sworn in the past that the coffee card use was equivalent to the 3 scoop charge - 1 punch for 3 scoops and 2 punches for alcoholic sundae orders?

We love the suite perk of using the Concierge Lounge on the Regal Princess. Only once did we actually require the use of the friendly concierge Anna when the shore excursion desk refused to deal with end of cruise transfers until the last couple days. We asked Anna about it and by the next day we had a form for requesting transfers in our cabin mailbox. The lounge was a great spot to stop in and relax while we viewed the day's menus and had a snack or two. Breakfast time they had donuts and pastries, lunch was finger sandwiches and cheese and crackers. Once dinnertime rolled around, they removed everything but the bowl of fruit and cookies.

Dispensers for water, orange juice, and apple juice were always full. The coffee machine however kept repeatedly breaking down. We talked to a very frustrated crew supervisor who was in the lounge one day fighting with the machine. He explained that since it was electronic, it required being hooked up to someone's laptop to reset and fix the system which of course was not something easily done while at sea. Dad loved talking tech with this guy so much that the crew supervisor was ready to send for coffee just for us but we of course politely turned down the offer. As we grabbed glasses of water instead, he made a quick phone call and someone was at the lounge in minutes bringing more glasses.

Being a sea day, the dining room was open for brunch/lunch. Club Class dining for breakfast and/or lunch was held in the Allegro dining room while dinners were always in Concerto. We got to enjoy the same wait staff as we'd had last night at dinner. At first Dad had been given a menu that had the wrong page listed and the wait staff didn't notice until they'd gone to put in his order for something they weren't really offering. Note the cereal coated French toast offering like Carnival includes in their Sea Day Brunch. On Princess they call it James Beard's French Toast so it sounds classier. :)

Blogger is being a pain with arranging pictures next to each other.

Here's some random text to entice you to scroll further. :) 

I'm the only one in my family who loves fried calamari. I tried calamari steak in an entrée on my last Princess cruise, fried is definitely much better! I rank the dish pictured below as possibly my second favorite cruise line calamari. Sabatini's old dinnertime menu takes the top spot!

Dad got an appetizer portion of the meat tortellini and couldn't stop raving about it the rest of the meal. I don't eat veal or lamb personally (seek out last year's Panama Canal review on Cruise Critic for when I almost ate a meatball no one bothered to list as having veal in it) or I might have tried the tortellini too. Since Dad's original order of a steak sandwich got nixed, we both went for the Parmesan Chicken as an entrée: 

The two sets of broccoli & cauliflower garnish pictured on my plate are because my father reacts as if any vegetable other than corn, peas, potatoes, and the occasional carrot are evil and should be avoided at all costs. Was a pleasant surprise to find the honeydew frozen yogurt listed for dessert as I'd read that it was only available on embarkation night. Unless that's technically a sorbet versus today's frozen yogurt? It tasted good but wasn't as sweet as eating straight honeydew melon.

Tonight's addition to the Princess burger - Stilton cheese and sautéed mushrooms. Sounded super yummy but nothing could deter me from my favorite entrée on tonight's menu!

One of the tips I learned on my last Princess cruise is that you don't have to settle for the hard crusty bread they always put on the tables. I asked about softer bread and our waiter not only brought a basket of soft rolls from the buffet but he remembered I preferred them whenever we made it back to his table. Tonight I asked for the soft rolls and had to explain "like in the buffet" as the waitress looked at me like I had three heads. She brought out the right stuff but never remembered on future evenings. On evenings when there was a little variety in the normal bread basket I didn't feel like making a fuss for the softer rolls.

Went with an always available to start tonight - Classic Caesar Salad:

And the entrée that makes me feel like the heavens parted and light shone down on my life for just that dinner hour - spaghetti carbonara! Chef July came by for his usual nightly visit and offered to switch out my entrée order so I could partake of his orange roughy special seafood dish. Sorry Chef July, nobody messes with spaghetti carbonara night! Several cruises back, I ordered this dish and the waiter decided after bringing it that the kitchen didn't give me enough sauce. I assured him it was great as is but he insisted on pouring so much sauce into my bowl that it became more of a spaghetti soup! Nowadays, I would have been more insistent on being brought a fresh soup less bowl. This Italian gal loves her spaghetti carbonara as it should be - with just enough sauce to coat the noodles.

The only drawback was the stark contrast between the huge bowl and the small portion of pasta:

Tonight's dessert choices: Frozen Chocolate Praline Torte for Dad and the Traditional New York Cheesecake for me with a side of cookies and cream ice cream though I was super tempted to try that apple cider sorbet. Goal for next time?