After General Trivia in the Schooner Bar, we hopped on our broomsticks and flew down to On Air for Harry Potter trivia. One of the few times where activities that were not only of an interest to us but also of the same type of activity were scheduled almost overlapping each other. The rain had forced a lot of people inside to do the trivia sessions and both spots had seating at a premium. A little tip for those who love to play trivia on cruises - take a moment to learn the correct answer to any question you get wrong. Not only is there a good chance it will show up in a future trivia during the same sailing but I just had one repeat itself on a totally different cruise line's sailing.
We next took a leisurely walk through the Solarium, a spot we hadn't yet seen much of during the daytime. We checked out the Solarium Café offerings and decided to refuel with a chocolate éclair.
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We ended up keeping our final dinner reservation as planned and returned to Chops tonight. We were seated by the great Fred rather quickly but this time we were stuck at a two top table on the other side sandwiched between many other two top tables. Shortly after we were seated, I noticed the man at the table next to me lean over to his wife to say something all while motioning at me. After checking to make sure I'd remembered to put pants on, I gave him a questioning look. He explained that he recognized me from the trivia games and was jealous of how well we'd done. I assured him we hadn't done as well as we used to this trip as many trivia winners beat us out by 1 or 2 points. He had been especially stumped by a question asking about what animal's name means "Tyrannical King." I recalled that Rex meant King and pulled the answer of Tyrannosaurs Rex out of the deep recesses that is my warped mind. When Dad shared how I'd come up with the right answer, the guy jokingly rolled his eyes and said "Oh I hate you!"
Our service wasn't as great this time around but not as drastically bad as our night in 150 Central Park. The restaurant was quite busy with tons of cruisers most likely using up their last night in a dining package so the waiters were kept running. Smitha stopped by to check in as we were eating and she nearly panicked when Dad mentioned how it shouldn't have taken so long today. She thought we were having another bad dinner meal but Dad explained that he was referring to how long it took to receive our luggage valet information. I'm neurotic about cruise details, he's neurotic about having the details of flights and transfers settled. He'd been worried that we wouldn't have time to fix anything if needed with getting the paperwork so late. Thankfully everything was correct with our tickets.
One side note: We asked pre-cruise to be included in any tours offered. It turns out on a ship this size with the various suite classes, they have scheduled times set aside to bring all their Star Class guests on a bridge tour and then another time to have them all do a galley tour together. Between doing the paid "Behind the Fun" tour on Carnival and many galley tours on other cruises, we had no interest in the scheduled galley tour and spaced on bothering to tell Smitha we declined. When we met in the afternoon to go over our account, she questioned us about missing the galley tour held this morning like we were kids playing hooky from school. I've heard also that if you ask, your genie can arrange a backstage tour and meet the cast of the production show. That's also an option for a paid activity for anyone in your cruise planner so I'm not sure if you'd be expected to pay extra. From what I've read in other reviews, I think if your genie arranges it, it's more of a private cast meeting than just signing you up to be with the big group. We never tried the Flowrider but if that's your thing, your genie can also arrange a private session (at an extra cost) or lessons.
The real reason we expected that Smitha wanted to make sure to check in with us again tonight was to receive her tip so we brought it to dinner with us. Tipping in general is a hotly debated subject so I will not share how much we chose to tip. My only suggestion here is that you first decide how much you can afford to tip and your personal beliefs on what is right to tip someone who does all the work your genie will do. Then by the end of the cruise, discuss amongst your cabin mates whether your experience has lived up to your expectations. Then you can decide how and whether you wish to split the tip cost amongst the others in your cabin and whether your original decided amount is still valid. With the Star Class suite, we had complimentary gratuities but that does not include the genie. Even though it does include your stateroom steward, we still opted to leave an envelope for Ann Marie when she came to clean our room this morning.
I digress, I know some of you have read this far and are now shouting at the screen "you mentioned dinner, where's the food porn?" Have no fear, our dinner photos are here!
Dad took the waiter's suggestion of the Crispy Goat Cheese Salad and liked it.
I went with the Colossal Shrimp Cocktail. Not much in way of shrimp but it was cool to see that they'd chilled the entire cup.
We both went for the 12 oz. Prime NY Strip Steak and it was cooked to my medium well specifications. Just as we were about to dig in, an assistant waiter comes over to offer sauces. Part of me (my eyes) thought it cute that he purposely poured my sauce in the groove of the plate. The other part of me (my stomach) was wishing he'd not been so skimpy on the amount. He gave Dad much more of a serving. We kept it simple with sides getting mashed potatoes and truffled French fries.
Not liking much on the dessert menu, I settled on the apple pie. It's not really a favorite dessert of mine in general so I didn't eat much of it tonight. Dad went with the waiter's suggestion again of the chocolate cake and loved it. The couple who replaced the trivia players next to us halfway through our meal barely acknowledged our attempt to say hello in between the husband ordering everything for his wife and not letting her speak to the waiter. As we got up to leave, the husband finally responded by asking Dad what he had ordered for dessert because it looked really good. My guess is that he ordered the chocolate cake for dessert for his wife too.
 
With no show reservation tonight, we gladly headed to the theater to attend the All Ages comedy show with the same comics as before, Joe Yanetty & Jim Colliton. The theater was a much better venue to host this popular show especially since it's open seating with no option for reservations. Joe Yanetty came out first and was able to do a much more story centric set without our front row friend around to heckle him. At one point he hinted around how horrible one of his other cruise ship performance bookings went because of how he hated the ship. It became obvious in the references he was using that he was talking about a Carnival ship and I heard someone behind me yell out "Walmart of the Seas!" I've heard that joke used quite often on RCL fan groups but isn't it derogatory back on RCL since they are the line that names everything "of the Seas?" Jim Colliton's set was a little disappointing in that 1/3rd of the way into his set, he started repeating the same bit I'd seen online when I looked up the performers for this sailing when they were announced pre-cruise. Perhaps the real laughs of the night came when someone had parked their electric wheelchair off to the side near our seats. Anytime someone walked by it, it triggered a sensor on the wheelchair to make an audible comment in a human voice. A group in the front row had the best time shocking their friends by making them walk by the chair before sitting down.
We decided to return to the cabin to hang out and finish packing before deciding whether we wanted to bother going back for the 10:30PM Adult Comedy Show. When we arrived, we discovered that Smitha had left us a little gift on the coffee table. I'd read of so many genies doing these nice gifts based on what you list in your surveys so I really kept that in mind when answering the questions. Instead, we were gifted Curve for men cologne and a beauty kit from L'Occitane. Reminds me of when you get stuck buying for some woman you don't know in a gift exchange and you end up choosing a necklace because everyone has a neck! Unfortunately, I avoid all perfume because strong smells trigger migraines. Maybe I can auction off the gifts to feed my cruise fund?
I discovered that my platinum pin had been finally delivered and left on my bed. Our last evening snack had been delivered while we were at the comedy show and had now morphed into milk, popcorn, Dad's sundae, and 3 slices of chocolate cake. At least there wasn't any sign of a fruit plate! The sundae had already settled so much it looked like the fake plastic food they put in children's toys. Even the next morning, all the drips were in the same place!
Once we were in the cabin we were too tired to bother going to the other comedy show. We stuck our luggage out to be picked up for the luggage valet program. Make sure you use the tags the program provides as they've already done the steps of checking you in and you won't see your luggage again until your home airport. Don't use the red ones I pictured earlier that the cruise line gives all of their suite/pinnacle guests otherwise you'll be sitting at your home airport while your luggage sits in the Port Canaveral terminal waiting on you to pick it up. Debarkation would come early for us with an excursion to Kennedy Space Center to kill time before our late flight so it was off to bed.
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