Feeling a little dejavu seeing that it's not only our second boarding day but our second experience with this menu. Running around a grocery store works up an appetite so I added back the old standby of Mixed Green Salad.
I had forgotten what the Poached Atlantic Seafood Salad was and wished that I'd gotten the Muffuletta Style Roast Beef Po Boy like Dad.
I've never been a fan of apple pie in general and it rarely looks all that great when I've settled for it on a cruise's dessert menu. Today's offering didn't look appetizing but it was one of the best I've ever had on a cruise.
Another first was being comfortably seated at lunch during muster drill. Everyone did quiet down respectfully to listen to the Captain's safety announcement but that was the full extent of it.
Round 2 of our meeting with everyone in the Chesapeake Lounge for an Excursion Overview and Officer Introduction. For this sailing, we had a different dining room manager and the brand new appearance of a housekeeping manager. I would be hard pressed to believe that our mid cruise suverys and my email brought about the extra help more so for the fact that this was the first of their many repeated Historic South/Golden Isles runs. Wasn't a fan of the new dining room manager as his response later to my reporting being late for an activity due to slow breakfast service was "Yeah, so?" I was quite impressed though with the new housekeeping manager. She ran around non stop it seemed checking to make sure things were done, helping get things done, and filling in wherever needed even if it was out of her job description. When it came to talk of the excursions, it was pretty much same as last week with Ali trying her best to talk on ports she'd never visited and Rachel offering her first hand knowledge as much as possible. At least this time they thought ahead and gave us two copies of the excursion list. Everyone seemed to turn in their form right after the talk.
Heading back down the hall I noticed that my fellow cruisers had been hard at work while we were out exploring and nicely left the finished puzzle out on the table for me to see the finished product.
While I was admiring the puzzle, Robert and Stephanie (our singers on board) brought over some crew members into the lounge and started pointing out areas of the carpet and wall that seemed wet. They questioned whether the deck 3 lounge above us could be leaking from somewhere. The crew members seemed concerned and rushed off. A short while later when I came back out of our cabin to try and use the internet in the deck 3 lounge, I discovered that the large fire door to the lounge was closed for the first time all trip and signs had been put up claiming maintenance in progress.
I say claiming because I soon learned the real reason for the closed door. In favor of selling a cabin to a cruiser at the last minute (Or to move a company rep named John to a new cabin. I heard differing reports on how long this rep had been sailing with us but did overhear one of the officers today on the phone saying "John, good news, we have a cabin for you"), they sold Robert and Stephanie's cabin out from under them. They had initially been booked to be onboard for the entire two weeks but found out today that their cabin was sold and they'd have to get off the ship when we arrived in Beaufort, SC late tonight. With still one more show to perform tonight, they had moved all of their stuff into the lounge. I heard them warming up their voices in there as well shortly before the show.
By now, we were a little Cocktail Hour burned out and opted for an earlier dinner time.
I've only really met one lobster bisque on a cruise I didn't like and despite the skin visible on top of this one, it was still tasty.
I asked our waiter Kevin how spicy the Cajun Spiced Jumbo Sea Scallops was and he didn't think it was very spicy. I decided to give it a try as well. Verdict - slightly spicy but not very good at all. One good note however is it was the biggest sea scallop I'd ever been served. So much so, I kept trying to figure out if this picture was from Dad's Pork Tenderloin entrée.
This is actually Dad's Pork Tenderloin:
My entrée was the Crab Stuffed Shrimp. The shrimp was butterflied and nestled on top was the equivalent of a mini crab cake. Once you touched a fork to them, it may have well been two separate dishes. The risotto was fine, thankfully not too lemony. The broccolini however was tough and not really edible.
And by now hopefully my readers know my main weakness when it shows up on the dessert menu, cheesecake! As long as it's not buried in berry based sauces, of course. It's a good thing the Cheesecake Factory is a bit of a drive from home or I'd be the first restaurant dessert menu's season pass holder. This New York Style Chocolate Cheesecake, while tasty, seemed more like a chocolate mousse cake to me.
With a theme of hits from Broadway and a promise that tonight's show wouldn't be a repeat of the first night, we decided to attend Robert and Stephanie's performance. They did repeat a couple songs from the first night but it was otherwise a new set. They revealed during the show, as now we wouldn't be getting in to Beaufort until midnight, that they had a car booked to take them on the multi hour drive to the bigger city of Savannah, GA so they could catch a plane back to New York in the morning. By the time we got up again the next morning, Robert and Stephanie had left and the deck 3 lounge was no longer "under maintenance."
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