Grandeur of the Seas - Day 4 - Sea Day (Part 1)

I woke up earlier than the alarm this morning so I got to enjoy a little quiet time alone on the balcony before having to wake Dad.

Once we were both up and dressed, it was back down to Chops for breakfast. This time I ordered a mushroom and cheese omelet and after waiting a longer than usual time, I overheard Dmytro correcting the chef via the open serving window that the omelet was supposed to be mushroom AND cheese. I guess the delay this morning was the result of miscommunication and having to redo my order. Dad liked the sausages better this morning with his sunny side up eggs but my omelet was very dry.

Guess this is where the mushrooms ended up instead of in my omelet at first

Met back up with Bob and now his wife for our last Progressive trivia session for the next several days since it's only held on sea days. Multiple teams tried to argue with Melissa about her answer to a question. One member of "The Troublemakers" insisted that Melissa's answer was right because "That's what you said it was last week!" before heading out to hold down their personal booth for 10AM trivia in Schooner. After that, the trend started where the cruise staff (who will always work to fix things without passenger confrontation) would give prizes out to 1st and 2nd place teams during trivia games. Bob and his wife came over to Schooner with us and joined Cori and Allan for the 10AM trivia. Everyone stuck around for Tribond trivia (done on sheets of pre-printed paper). I recognized some answers from previous cruises and had one question that had a valid answer but not the right one. I chose not to fight over it even though it would have had us tie with the other three teams with the same highest score. The three teams were called upon to send a representative over to sit around the piano and give an answer to an extra question. I wouldn't have been able to answer that question but 2 of the three tied teams got it correct. Another tie breaker question to those 2 teams until finally we had a single winner. Guess whose team that person was from?

Spotted at the Community board on the way from Chops this morning:

I guess the Viking Crown Lounge isn't only hopping in the evening!

During Progressive trivia, the lounge was set up for the art auction. Dad happened to notice that right behind our seats, the paintings displayed were signed by an artist with our last name! Thankfully this long lost family member was a much better painter/drawer than I ever was.

Even though it was a sea day and this time all three specialty restaurants were listed in the Compass as open for lunch, I really wanted to have a Tutti Salad. I missed this on Oasis so it was important to me to have lunch in the dining room one of the sea days. For those who have never sailed RCL or heard of the Tutti Salad bar, it is a pop up style salad bar available at lunch within the main dining room. You can always order something off the menu as well or just tell your waiter that you'll be going for the Tutti Salad. Once your order has been taken, you head over to the back part of the dining room where everyone lines up (2 sided salad bar so they move you through the line quickly) and you move along the salad bar telling one crew member what you'd like in your salad. They start with multiple kinds of lettuce to choose from and then you can add anything from eggs, chicken, and shrimp to tomatoes, cucumbers, and corn. They do tend to only put a little in at first but if you want a big salad, just ask them to add more of each item. Once you've chosen everything you would like to add, you choose a salad dressing. Then they take your bowl's worth of contents to stand at the small table behind the bar and use a mashing tool to mix everything together and chop it up into small pieces. Once mixed, the crew member hands you your freshly made designed by you salad to take back to your table. Pro tip - The best sliced bread the dining room offers sits in a basket right in front of this salad bar.

Iceberg, tomato, shrimp, chicken, and feta cheese in creamy Italian dressing.

The only catch with visiting the main dining room for lunch versus dinner is that everyone shares a table unless you luck out and get your party of 2 seated before they fill up the few tables for 2 that are all parked near each other. This could be great for meeting new friends and interesting conversation but you're stuck being served at the same rate as the slowest person at your table. If you're ready for your main dish but someone at your table ordered 5 appetizers or is taking 20 minutes to eat their one appetizer, then you're stuck sitting and waiting awkwardly while they finish eating. I only wanted the salad so I was able to eat all of my meal while several others at my table ate their appetizers. Dad had also chosen to get a salad but wanted dessert as well so we sat there trying not to stare down the slower eaters until everyone was ready for dessert.

After lunch we headed back to the Schooner Bar to try out the Dingbats Challenge. Turns out it's a fancy name for those brainteaser puzzles where it shows a picture and you have to figure out the word or phrase the picture is depicting. For example, one of the questions would look like "oholene" and the answer would be "Hole in one." This paper Mark gave every team to figure out had all the puzzles centered around a wedding theme. Some we got, some we got answers that fit the theme but were wrong, and some we had no clue. I'm amazed that someone actually figured out 2/3rds of the page! We stuck around to play the Top 5 Game which was an answer sheet with topics like "Top 5 female artist music videos" or "Top 5 best selling books" and blanks to fill in under each topic. Not sure if we just got super lucky on our educated guesses or everyone else just got totally confused but we won another round of highlighters. At this point we had such a pile of keychains and highlighters on the counter in our cabin, I was tempted to re-enact an 80's/90's drug prevention PSA by standing outside the theater and going "Psst, hey kid, come here! Wanna have some fun with some keychains and highlighters?" That or start my own version of Find the Rubber Ducks.

Most of the time we got served our sodas without any straw as part of their "Save the Waves" conservation effort which was fine with us. This afternoon, the waiter automatically brought me my soda with a paper straw in it. I tried using it but it tasted like I sucked on a wad of paper before taking a drink. From then on, I either never used it when they brought me a straw still wrapped or I just took it right out before taking the first sip.

We split up because Dad wanted some down time to rest only to run into each other at the Windjammer now that those salads had been burned off. I pointed out to him the nearby table I was heading for only for him to take his food back to the cabin.

From salad to hot dog, pizza, couscous, chicken cordon bleu, and pulled pork. Best thing was the pulled pork, worst was the hot dog of all things. We ended up visiting the Windjammer for a lot of lunches this sailing and there was rarely a plate worth that we liked at least 50% of our choices. Most of the time I threw on pizza and fries as "acceptable" choices.