Oasis of the Seas - Day 5 - St. Maarten (Part 2)

Once back on board, we went straight to Tri-Bond Trivia in the Schooner Bar run by Dominic. Tri-Bond Trivia is a fun logic based game where you are given 3 items and you have to find the one thing they have in common. Slightly different than your average answer and question style trivia. A good amount of passengers had come back from port so we had a decent sized group of teams. Several times when going over the answers, Dominic granted 1/2 points to other teams for having an answer that was close and fit the criteria. He was one of the few entertainment staff willing to let you argue a trivia answer. We also enjoyed that he'd take time to chat before and after and we gave him a few logic puzzles to use when he next needed a tie breaker. This round, Dominic feared that he'd given out so many 1/2 points that he'd end up having to do a tie breaker but breathed a sigh of relief when we revealed that our team had gotten 20/20 - a perfect score! Highlighters for everyone!

We had decided earlier in the day to give Johnny Rockets a try for lunch but on this port day, they didn't open until 2:30PM. They were only open until 6:00PM this evening which to me sounds a little off to end right before most people's dinnertime. To kill time waiting for them to open, we parked ourselves in the back row of aquatheater seats that weren't blocked off like the ones you have to go down the stairs to get to. We watched the loop of viral videos portrayed during the day on the big screens and was soon joined by another couple. It was almost as funny watching the videos as it was hearing "ooo" and "ohhh" reactions from the couple that had joined us. 

Right at 2:30PM we headed over to Johnny Rockets and appreciated that they insisted you sanitize at the Purell dispenser before entering. There is a cover charge for this restaurant albeit significantly cheaper than the other specialty restaurants. And just like the other specialty restaurants, the cover charge was waived for us. We opted for eating inside since we'd been feeling the mist sitting outside and feared it was close to raining. We were seated quickly and automatically had a plate of onion rings and fries. Our waiter, Bhim, took the time to outline a smiley face in ketchup on another plate for us but then left us for the longest time.

 

Mushroom burger

Finally he comes back to take our order. Dad ordered a Rocket Double as he didn't like the chili sauce or pickles that came with a #12. He also went for a grilled cheese; an item he seems obsessed with finding on a ship. "I finally found a grilled cheese on a ship!" Umm, you know Dad, you could have made one at any time at home? I ordered the Route 66; once again being the sole guinea pig on this trip that would try any dish that had mushrooms. I'd heard the sandwiches are on the smaller side plus, you can order as much as you want so I also went with the BBQ Chicken Bacon Melt so I could have a variety of one burger and one chicken sandwich. The random moments I get fast food at home, I usually have to at least have some water too if I order a shake so I ordered a diet coke in addition to a vanilla milkshake.

Dad simply ordered a chocolate malt to drink. Bhim cautioned that the shakes would cost extra but I replied that they are included with Star Class. He looked slightly confused but said okay and walked away. He came back a short while later with my soda and to question which cheese Dad wanted on his grilled cheese. 

BBQ chicken

It seemed to take a long time for our food to show up and extraordinarily too long for our shakes which didn't come for a while after our food. Were they trying to make the ice cream from scratch back there? Dad was stuck without any drink whatsoever until they finally brought them. There were a few other tables in use but it seemed our waiter was in the mood to do anything but actually tend to our table. We had to stop other waiters passing by a couple times to go get our waiter. My mushroom burger was okay but the chicken sandwich was pretty bad. I had to pick it apart just to eat some of the chicken and left the rest. We saw a waiter walk by with a fresh ice cream sundae and I suggested Dad ask for that for his late night snack.

Rocket Double

When it came time to have our card scanned, we had to have someone fetch our waiter again. I watched him take my card over to the machine to scan it and then get completely confused about how to change the setting for Star Class. He eventually called over another waitress and she showed him how to do it. When we saw our receipt it shows our four sandwiches each costing $0 and a $0 total. I guess their answer to how to avoid charging for our shakes is to not put them on our order at all? While we were dining, we watched not only one passenger come in and just get a couple shakes to go (which clued us in to where the room service shakes were coming from), but an actual room service waitress wheeled her cart in to order two shakes to go and took the time to scoop out a bowl of cheese sauce normally meant for the chilli cheese fries to add to her cart as well. I feel like having that glimpse into where our "queso" came from was like how you never want to find out how the sausage is made! 

Dad and I split up so he could enjoy some relaxing time in the cabin reading while I went to Famous Actors and Movies Visual Trivia. Dominic was once again hosting and he spent the entire time running through the movie stills via the projector touting how he had a cooler prize we were all playing for. He wouldn't share what it was until the end but admitted that he had only one so the winning team would have to decide who was their MVP to get the prize. It was sweet that my teammates started right away insisting that I would be their MVP and everyone seemed pretty confident that we had a strong chance to win. We ended up losing again by one point and the winning team had that ringer Sydney helping them. :) The special prize turned out to be a tiny trophy shaped like a star at the top. Dominic thought it would be cute for a movie themed trivia. I guess Sydney cared more about balloons than trophies because they let a different lady on their team get the prize. Dad came back down to join our group at 5PM for regular afternoon trivia.

Tonight's original evening plan was to go to Giovanni's Table at 6:30PM for dinner and then Smitha had reserved the Headliner Show at 8:15PM. Once we found out the headliner was a vocal group called Uptown, we opted out of attending that show at all. Instead, we asked Smitha to change our reservations to the 10:30PM adult comedy show with Joe Yanetty and Jim Colliton. No problem doing that. 

Headed to Giovanni's Table for our reservation and were seated quickly. We soon had a visit by Giovanni's manager who wanted to introduce himself and assure us that our waiter Piyus would treat us well. Guess someone forgot to pass along the kiss up memo to Johnny Rockets' staff. Piyus was the first crew member we encountered on this trip that took the time to give us the "please give me a good report on your survey" speech. I was also surprised when the end of the cruise survey specifically asked if any crew member had pushed for you to rate them well on the survey. Guess they are trying to crack down on crew members doing that. 

Dad ordered the Italian Cheese and Cured Meat Plank and got a half portion of the Pasta Del Giorno or "pasta of the day." I don't remember exactly what it was but it looks like it was ribbon pasta with chicken strips.

I opted out of an actual appetizer and instead ordered Tagliatelle Alla Carbonara (bacon and egg pasta - a favorite of mine) and Gnocchi Al Gorgonzola. This one looked closer to the one I'd enjoyed on Celebrity and was certainly tastier than the gnocchi we got at 150 Central Park. I was a little surprised to see that this carbonara actually had a poached egg sitting on top that you broke open to spill over your pasta. Usually it's just the rich egg and cream sauce that gets poured over the pasta. 

Gnocchi

Carbonara

For an entrée I went with Gamberetti Alla Ligure (aka shrimp on top of mashed potato) and Dad got the Filetto Di Manzo Rustico (aka filet mignon). He once again had them butterfly it to cook quicker.

For dessert, our old friend "allergies" came back but this time they actually got it right as to who had what restriction. Piyus came back with the dessert menu and cautioned me that even the cannoli shells are made from nuts plus one of the pies or cakes had a hazelnut crust. I had already ruled out a lot of the other choices because they were either coated or topped with nuts so I ended up with an overflowing cup of vanilla ice cream. Dad went with a chocolate cake sounding option and was quite pleased with his choice. 

After dinner we headed to Music Trivia because it was TV themes, - a favorite topic of mine. I may not be able to tell you which King George ruled when but I can tell you all the words to the Three's Company theme song. Priorities right? This was a very popular trivia as most teams ended up sitting amongst each other anyway. We spotted our new friends Braidyn and Jafet had come to play but they opted to be their own team when the only seats left were ones at the piano behind us. Kudos to the guy playing as a team of him and his wife next to us. Once we switched papers with him and I saw that he'd come up with so many of the answers I missed I was kicking myself. The answer is so obvious after you hear it, right? 

We decided after the trivia to join Braidyn and Jafet at the Battle of the Sexes Game Show. They'd never seen it before so we were telling them about the different versions we'd seen on other cruises as we walked to Studio B. We've seen them do straight trivia questions and comparing scores over multiple sessions to having one session and we're asked to do physical tasks mostly in a relay race fashion. This time was the latter and I had flashbacks to the bruises I received on the Grandeur being that woman who had to get every other woman to pop balloons against my body. None of us participated but enjoyed laughing at everyone who did. The last task had the guys enlisting every other guy they could to form the longest conga line possible. They did fairly well but when it was the ladies turn Braidyn encouraged me to come up with her to help and the ladies' line wrapped around the ice rink a couple times. 

Thankfully Studio B was next to the comedy club so we didn't have to travel far for our 10:30PM comedy show. The ice rink turned into an 80's Dance Party next so we sat at the top watching the host beg people to come down and dance with her. A small line had formed outside the comedy club of people waiting to get in. We soon spotted Smitha and she led us to the side door so that we wouldn't have to walk past the people in line. She had heeded our request of sitting near the back and we ended up with seats to the side of the stage and in the 3rd of 4 rows. I heard the couple who were already in the seats behind us make some derogatory comments about our Star Class treatment but pretended that I didn't. We had a bar waiter standing by ready to take our order so I got my first and only official Lava Flow of the trip. The trend of strong drinks continued and by the time I got to the middle of the small glass it tasted like I was downing 5 straight shots. Is that the new description of a Lava Flow? Extra liquor flows right out of the bottle to the bottom of your glass?

Joe Yannetty's set was first and he barely got a couple sentences out before a woman in the front row started yelling out her objections to his references. She talked back so much during his set that he just gave up his planned storyline and started asking her questions. We learned all about how the guy next to her was her boyfriend but she didn't like him right now because they'd had a fight. Joe turned his entire set into trying to be their comedic therapist enlisting advice from other audience members who were older and he figured would have been married for a while. Turns out they had their own sordid tables about multiple relationships and having only just gotten married to each other. The entertainment staff member hosting the comedy shows was Eric and when he walked up to end Joe's set, Joe exclaimed "What? My time is up? But I haven't fixed their problem yet!" Jim Colliton had been hanging out in the back listening to Joe's set so when he came up he finally got to see the woman in the front who had been giving Joe such a hard time. Jim started out his set mocking the woman but she didn't seem to care and still had her own comments to share. He tried to continue with his planned jokes and every so often she'd chime in. By the time he finally got through his story about the steward always putting his cabin trash can back under the desk where it got in his way, he added that he'd like to bury that trash can with a certain woman.

Back to the cabin where we found that the trouble with not returning to your cabin until 90 minutes after your standing room service evening delivery is that Dad's first chance to try the ice cream sundae had long since melted. Oddly enough, the whipped topping was so thick, it just deflated and sunk down onto the top of the glass. We were also concerned about the cartons of milk being left sitting out. Instead we devoured the chocolate cake slices and washed it down with one of our mini bar's large Evian water bottles. 

While we enjoyed the comedy show, our new towel friends Mr. Stingray and Droid Penguin decided to invite the Playboy bunny and it looks like things got a little weird on our couch: