Grandeur of the Seas - Day 11 - Sea Day (Part 1)

I've joked in the past that sea days in a row can be like the old children's song that goes "second verse, same as the first." But that wouldn't make for a very entertaining blog post now would it?

As usual, our day started off with breakfast at Chops. Surprisingly slow service even though we were one of only a few tables in use. I ordered a cheese omelet and it really looked like they were rationing the remainder of the cheese on board.

Then it was off to our second to last round of Progressive Trivia. Jeff revealed that Melissa had left without bothering to give him the scores so he had to wait until she got back to him. Then it was off to the 10AM Morning trivia where half our new group had to leave for the galley tour. Unfortunately, Cori and Allan never showed now that we had room to include them. 

I headed down to the shops because here it is, the magic day 11 all of the Royal Shops crew had been telling me would be the day my desired shirt was to be out for sale. I get there and there is nothing out but the usual items. I ask again and now the answer is "Oh we won't be selling those till day 12." At this point I'm wondering whether showing up tomorrow is going to get an answer of day 13 with plans to sell it on the gangway as they kick you off the ship.

We'd been having a little bit of rough sailing these last couple sea days but apparently it was too much for one unfortunate passenger who was heading down the stairs when they got sick and couldn't get to a bathroom in time. The stairs were cordoned off for a while as they were cleaned. I'm thankful I didn't see the act. Dad told me later about how he had to take a big detour to meet back up with me since he couldn't use those stairs.

We, and about 500 of our closest passengers, stopped at the Centrum railing on deck 5 to watch the egg drop competition. If you're ever stuck at a crowded railing, find a spot on the side to stand and look down through the glass to get a nice view of what's going on in the Centrum. No need to crane around someone's head. The egg drop creations were quite creative and some turned out to work really well. I'm sure the housekeeping staff appreciated the change of putting each raw egg into a sealed plastic baggie before it's loaded into the contraption. No more covering the Centrum floor with plastic tarps. Some of the best moments were out of the mouths of babes. Katrina asked a little girl about the thought behind their design. Her response was "I don't know, Daddy made it!" She asked a little boy submitting his own design where he was from. "From the Phillipines" he replies. "Oh you've come a really long way for this cruise then!" "Well we live in Virginia now!" 

We were really interested in checking out the Royal Mystery Game held at 11:30AM in the South Pacific Lounge. Mark and Jeff ran the game and had set up several clue stations throughout the lounge. We were encouraged to form groups of at least 4 to play so we teamed up with another couple. Some clues and a timer was displayed on the screen as well. We were given a packet full of things that were supposed to help figure out the right suspect. It was super confusing being given all this random stuff at once in the packet. It was a highly attended activity and it was like a free for all with kids running back and forth between the clues. Some of the stuff in the packet wouldn't make sense until you had whatever you learned from the other items. The game was designed to give out a new clue on the screen after a certain amount of time had passed but those made no sense to us either. It was also tough to concentrate when Mark and Jeff kept making comments over the microphone. By process of elimination, we finally got the right answer on the first part which prompted being handed another sheet of paper. I was just starting to make sense of the footprint patterns in the clue by the stage when we ran low on time and had to make a blanket guess to turn in an answer. I thought lots of other teams were getting the answers easily because of how much they were running back and forth but in the end, Mark and Jeff declared that no team got the right answer. They used the screen to reveal the answer to each step and I still couldn't make sense of the explanation. This activity definitely would have been better run by having Mark or Jeff hold on to each team's envelope of stuff and only hand them the single next piece to focus on after they come show the correct answer to the previous piece. 

Dad wanted to check out the Windjammer for lunch but here's what I found appealing in today's offerings:

So instead he carried his small findings over to the Park Café with me where I picked out a grilled cheese and a Cubano sandwich. I found where they'd put all my cheese from the omelet this morning.

I tried to ask a wandering pool deck bar waiter about getting root beer and he was at first confused thinking I was asking for an alcoholic beer. I showed him the soda package logo printed on my card and asked if it included root beer. His response was "No, you'd have to pay extra" so I took that to mean that it is available as cans but our package only counts toward fountain gun sodas. I didn't want to have to pay extra for what I could get in the Freestyle machine so I asked for a coke instead. 

With nothing else enticing to do this afternoon on the schedule, Dad tried to seek out a lounger for relaxing and reading but was unsuccessful. Instead he returned to the cabin and fell asleep. Leaving him to rest, I headed down to the theater to finally attend John Blair's Neil Diamond tribute show. I only recognized 2-3 songs in the show but it was quite the performance. 

I took some time while it was sunny to try and get some nice pictures on the promenade deck. This may seem like a silly question - but isn't there something missing at the bottom of this picture:

Our suite treat plate for today has arrived - a repeat of our breakfast pastries with some sort of almond loaf stick instead of a croissant: