Regal Princess Baltic Cruise Day 11 - Sea Day

Today is our final full day of the cruise - a sea day to get us back to Copenhagen. Our day was filled with a mix of our usual sea day activities and activities required of the day before disembarkation. We bid goodbye to many of our new trivia friends as the bulk of them continued on for the full transatlantic voyage.

The captain seemed to be trying to make up for lost time or perhaps had entered into a race with a nearby ship because the whole day felt like we'd swapped one of Princess' largest cruise ships with a speed boat. We were sailing so fast that everyone was getting pitched around when trying to walk. We certainly felt it in our aft cabin. At one point when we were doing the dreaded last day packing session and moving around the cabin holding on to the furniture as we went, a loud thud and bump was heard. No clue whether it was a big wave from our increased speed or our neighbors on the deck above suddenly deciding to become sumo wrestlers.

As usual, we started this sea day with breakfast in Sabatini's. Finally got to where they stopped asking for our suite cabin number each day but still got asked about coffee. Service anywhere can be hit or miss, great on some days and worse on others even with the same exact wait staff and we had no issue this cruise that couldn't be fixed with an explanation and a kind no thank you. But it does add to the luxury of it all when you can walk in after the first couple days and the staff remembers your preferences. Ordered my eggs over medium this morning - so happy to finally have a way to describe exactly what I want. I've also taken to saying no midway through this cruise when "fresh pepper" is routinely offered.

After breakfast we headed to the Internet Café to check email and Dad needed to check and choose seats for our flights home exactly 24 hours in advance. The Internet Café was mobbed with people because a lot of passengers became desperate to change their flights home thanks to Hurricane Irma. I heard after being home for a couple weeks that by the time the Regal Princess finished its transatlantic portion, it was Hurricane Jose that caused them to miss some ports.

I left Dad to deal with the flights and joined my new friends for morning trivia. We managed to earn a perfect 20/20 score and Oskar gave us each the choice of prizes between notebooks, water bottles, backpacks, or the big foam "I'm a Winner" hand. Our group was evenly split between choosing water bottles and backpacks. I thought that foam hand was just a novelty prop when I first saw Marcus use it but I've now seen it on other cruiser's photos. Guess that's Princess' answer to new trivia prizes?

After hanging out in the Concierge Lounge listening to the broken coffee machine randomly squirt out steam and water without ever being touched for a little while, we headed down to noon trivia. We only missed one answer, a question asking for the name of the river Tweed.

Dad and our new trivia friend Howard wanted to go listen to the Navigation talk so Priscilla and I broke off from our respective fellows to have lunch together in the buffet. We soon found quite the long line at one station and it turns out the reason was because they were handing out lobster tails and shrimp cocktail. These lobster tails definitely looked like they were from the bottom of the proverbial barrel and one of mine didn't even have meat I could pull away from the shell. They were limiting each person to two tails and I did witness them not even bother to answer a guy in front of me in line who asked for more than two.

The highlight of the lunch buffet though was the addition of several large cake varieties and news of their arrival soon spread. Priscilla and I made our way back through the buffet to sample the already dwindling supply of cake. Once we'd had our own little wedding cake tasting session, I grabbed a couple of the more chocolate on chocolate on chocolate based cakes so Dad wouldn't miss out on one of his favorite desserts. It turns out we ran into our guys halfway to where they'd been listening to the talk. We each headed back to our own cabins to relax and let Dad eat his cake.

After a packed afternoon trivia because of the cold weather outside, we walked away with more backpacks. Dad returned to the cabin to take a shower. In the process of reaching up to get something off the little shower shelf, Dad noticed it was loose just in time for it to come cleanly off the mounts. Thankfully he was able to catch the glass shelf before it dropped and left it sitting out on the bathroom sink counter while he finished his shower.

We reported the issue to Ronaldo and when we came back after evening turndown tonight, he'd left a note that the issue had been reported to maintenance. I suppose it's a fitting way to end our cruise considering we started it on embarkation day with a tray falling resulting in a shower of beer and orange soda.

We headed down for our final evening of our first club class dining experience. Tons of passengers had the same idea at the same time as the place was packed more than I'd seen it all cruise. We didn't get our usual bench seat table for two this time because they'd already made those 2 top tables into 4 top tables. Instead, we took one of the 3 sets of 2 top tables in the middle and were soon joined by a foursome who had the other two 2 top tables pushed together. It's true when a lot of people refer to a 2 top table for just themselves not being all that private since there's usually several two top tables within inches of each other. You get used to sitting so close, just like how it can come with the territory on crowded bus ship excursions or the plane ride to get to the cruise itself.

I guess Princess decided the last night wasn't worth being fancy in their toppings. Is it wrong though that it made me seriously consider this option tonight even more?

Notice the classic last night menu offering of "All-American Meatloaf." We've made this mistake once or twice. "All-American" translates to "Here's all the leftover meat we had from previous night's beef dishes." An amalgam of beef, what could be wrong with that? When mushed together it loses all flavor it may have had in its original dishes. Not even ketchup can save this one!

Not really finding much in the choices of appetizers all that enticing, we both went with the standby of Princess' Fettucine Alfredo. Classic but simple to appeal to every palette. Still don't know why they seemed to have automatically added pepper to the pasta on this trip but it wasn't enough to alter the taste. I routinely find that I'd be happy with a lot of menu choices if only they didn't add some extra item (i.e. Watermelon and Feta Cheese, yay, toasted pumpkin seeds, no thanks) or combine it with something else (i.e. Pan Roasted Filet of Kingflip, okay, with Mild Curry Sauce, no thanks). 

Dad would joke throughout this cruise that we kept picking the same items, an oddity when I'd happily take almost anything with seafood and/or pasta and if it doesn't have some sort of meat, he doesn't believe it should exist on the menu. Tonight fit the bill as we both chose the Grilled New York Cut Strip Steak. Every once in a blue moon, I do desire some red meat. I know, stop the presses, but it's true! But wait you say, you haven't told us what Chef July's "told to cook seafood" special dish is for tonight. Hold on to your keyboards readers because tonight's special dish is...drum roll please...a different sauce for your steak than the green peppercorn sauce listed. I don't even remember what it was but we both chose it since I didn't expect to like green peppercorn sauce. 

Shout out here to Royal Caribbean who would always put these little stuffed tomatoes as garnish on our dinner plates too! Kind of a let down that the great special dish was "other sauce" but it was tasty and the steak was cooked perfectly.

In all my cruises, I've never had the stars align in such a way to be having dinner in the main dining room when the Baked Alaska parade starts. That is, until this trip! I must admit that I've been on cruises with momentary power issues so when I saw the lights dim tonight my thoughts went right to that instead. It was fun to watch the parade and how much the wait staff really gets into it. And yes, they did weave their way through the club class section so you won't miss it if you're dining in that area. We in turn had a great front row view having been randomly seated at the outside end of the center row of tables.

I did enjoy Princess' Baked Alaska better than Celebrity's Baked Alaska as theirs tasted more like somebody piled a bunch of Easter Peeps on top of ice cream. This one had a much more balanced flavor throughout. 

I also wanted to try the Deep Dish Apple Pie as it's the dessert I would have chosen from the list if it wasn't Baked Alaska night. Surprisingly disappointing and it gave me the impression that they didn't expect anyone to not choose the Baked Alaska for dessert. I gave up after a couple bites but happily polished off the Baked Alaska.

After dinner we headed to our favorite activity - trivia and/or gameshows! Tonight's schedule featured the Buzzword Family Gameshow and Are You Smarter than the Cruise Staff. There was some debate during Buzzword about whether some answers should have counted which would have tied us for the win. We didn't feel bad for long though since the winning team not only won shampoo, oh I mean champagne, but they immediately came over and tried to give the prize to us instead!

After the latter game, we wandered around for our usual evening snack to take back to the cabin and finished packing the last of our things. It was a little sad walking down the hall noticing that most cabins had a regular Patter in their mailboxes and only a few of us had the "Thanks for coming, don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya!" log of the cruise end Patter. I sat up for another hour or so making notes and drinking the last of our minibar sodas. I remember on our British Isles cruise being so enamored that the Coke Lights in our minibar were labeled as a product of Denmark. And now here I sit several years later finishing a dream cruise roundtrip from Copenhagen drinking our last Sprite can with a label written in Danish: