Grandeur of the Seas - Day 10 - Sea Day (Part 2)

Returning to the Schooner Bar, we were interested in checking out the Who in the World Challenge. Due to being down one cruise activities staff member with Melissa being gone, Katrina came to run the trivia herself. Except that when she arrived, she announced that the trivia was candy themed. She read clues like "chuckles to one self" and the answer was Snickers. It was a fun trivia and a walk down memory lane as several of the candy answers were ones we haven't seen since childhood. Dad thought it was the best trivia of the whole trip but I think his judgement was based more on the candy aspect than the fun of the challenge. Despite many passenger requests, candy was not one of the prizes either. The Troublemakers team won but gave us the prizes as second place.

During this trivia time, a passenger spotted a whale breaching through the large bar windows. Several of us turned to stare out the windows trying to see it for ourselves. Nothing turns cruisers into little kids on Christmas morning like spotting marine life from the ship. The game playing was put on hold while we all watched this whale breach a few more times as the creature moved further in the opposite direction of the ship. One of those unexpected moments that you cherish.

When someone asked about the Who in the World Challenge, Katrina realized her mistake and offered to run this trivia as a bonus. This trivia required little slips of paper and numbered teams where you had to have someone run your team's paper slip back up to Katrina to be checked. You got the most points if your answer was correct after the first clue, slightly less if you need the second clue to get it right, etc. Spending the extra time at this bonus trivia had us sitting there already when it was time for the usual 4PM trivia which Bitty came back to host.

Back to the cabin to change for happy hour and dinner and discovered that we'd already been delivered the prize package from John and Katrina - a wonderful treat bag full of 2 backpacks, 2 pens, 2 highlighters, 2 water bottles, 2 hats and 2 keychains. Thank you to the Blairs for your continued kindness and generosity.

Our suite treat plate of the day was a repeat of our embarkation day fruit plate. I think the brilliant minds that come up with these daily plates could use a new think tank.

Up to the packed Concierge lounge and more fun with Pinnacles. I decided this time since we were able to get cans of soda and bottles of water when up here versus fountain sodas at bars, that I'd ask about getting root beer. Who knew such a request would thoroughly confuse so many. Tonight's bar waitress responded by asking if I wanted wine? No, I'd like a root beer please. Oh you want a beer? No, a root beer, like the soda. Oh you want soda, we have coke, sprite... No I meant that root beer is another kind of soda. Do you know the brand name because we have O'Doul's? The root beer brand is Barq's (not my favorite but it's Coke's root beer brand so I figured that's what they'd have.) She still couldn't understand and asked me to write it down on a napkin so she could show it to the bartender. I wrote out "Barq's Root Beer" on the napkin and she took it before moving on to get other people's orders. She came back a few minutes later and reported that they don't have any but could bring me ginger beer. I threw in the proverbial towel at that point and changed my order to Fanta. Another point in favor of Princess - root beer is the only soda they have that is not in the fountain guns so they will give you the can poured into a glass when you have the soda package.

Fancy snacks tonight with spring rolls and some sort of strip steak bites

Tonight's dinner was at Chops and it was like everybody and their brother and their second cousin twice removed's long lost relatives' next door neighbors picked this restaurant to dine in. They did have more staff than usual to accommodate the busy time but they still were seriously lacking in keeping up with demand. After enjoying Alberto's level of service, Dad asked to have him be our waiter tonight as we were seated. The employee who seated us said that was fine and he'd go get him. A short time passes and another waiter notices that we haven't been tended to so he steps up. He asks if we'd been to Chops before and even though we said yes, he proceeded to go on this long winded explanation of the menu options and what courses we can order. He fills our water glasses but then leaves. So we sit, and sit, and sit. Next our old friend Dmytro comes over announcing that he's our waiter tonight and takes our order. I had been hesitant to try the Crispy Goat Cheese Salad because it had walnuts and cranberries but when I asked, Dmytro said I could get it without those ingredients. We both ordered the 16 oz Prime Bone-In Ribeye, the only steak I hadn't yet tried. Dmytro rushes off to put in our order and tend to his other tables. So we sit, and sit, and sit. At this point we haven't gotten bread yet, our water glasses need to be refilled, and we normally would have had our appetizers by now. I tried to wave over a manager when he came nearby but he responded by directing a totally different waiter to come to our table. All I was able to say to the new waiter was that we haven't gotten any bread yet before he announces "I'll get your waiter" and runs off. Good luck with that sir, let me know when you figure out which one it is.

A minute later, a plate of bread and the anchovy butter arrives at our table but it's different than the nice semi soft bread we usually get so I don't eat any. I guess they couldn't keep up with the Chops specific bread loaf baking. Dmytro returns with my salad and while it doesn't have the items I specifically asked to have without, it also looks like they're re-using the same lettuce from day 1.

I tried a few bites but it tasted as bad as it looked. I fell in love with goat cheese during Princess' version of happy hour but this goat cheese just tasted off. Dmytro did offer to bring me something else but I said no because I had such a big steak coming.

Both our ribeye steaks come out and Dad's is cooked medium rare when he asked for medium to medium well. Dmytro takes it back to be "cooked for a couple more minutes." It comes back and it is only slightly better. Dad agrees to eat the steak as is but the further into it he gets, the more obviously medium rare it gets. He ends up leaving about half the steak on the plate. Mine came cooked to order but after eating about 1/3rd, it started looking off and I was finding a ton of fat. I too left a good portion of the entrée on my plate uneaten. 

This steak gave monster size Chops fork a run for its money

Dmytro again offered to get something else but we didn't want to wait even more asking to move on to dessert. I asked to have the Royal Chocolate Cake from the dining room as I'd had my fill of Chops desserts at this point. Of course we can do that says Dmytro and off he goes. And we sit, and we sit. Dmytro comes back to tell me that our dessert is going to take some extra time because it is coming from the dining room. I could have gone downstairs, got the cake, and brought it back 3 times over in the time it took him to bring us Dad's ice cream and my cake. 

I think the Royal Chocolate Cake lost some weight in the time it took to arrive from the dining room. No wonder they put it down in front of you as the above picture and not as below.

When he comes back to get our cruise card, I point out how the table next to us hasn't been approached at all even though they've been sitting there for 2/3rds of our meal. I felt so frustrated for them watching them trying to signal to any waiter that walked by only to get ignored. Dmytro rushed right over to take their order and Dad joked that my courtesy is going to now cost us time since it delayed him scanning our card. The other table thanked me for sending a waiter their way as they were beginning to think they'd never get service. I had planned to speak to the manager on the way out about the poor service but by then even he was running around serving tables to help with the crowd. 

Grandeur of the Seas - Day 7 - St. Lucia (Part 2)

Random comment - I just noticed in today's Compass that the advertised one bag laundry special is listed at a cost of $34.99 when the flier we got in our cabin a few days back said $24.99. I hope that's simply a misprint and not the magic of inflation. Definitely double check with your steward or guest services if you're interested in taking advantage of the offer.

Making our way past port security after the duty free mall, they barely bothered to even look up as we passed, much less question whether I was holding a correct cruise card or the latest frozen yogurt punch card. Thankfully, RCL's own security at the gangway was more thorough before letting us onboard. We stopped at the towel return table after sending our bag through the x-ray machine and dropped off all 4 towels we had accumulated. The crew member only cared about our cabin number, promising to mark us both as having returned towels scanned out on our separate cards.

A quick stop at the cabin to dump our bag and change out of our bathing suits before heading back down to play the 4PM trivia. Our latest suite treat plate had been delivered and unfortunately was our first one to feature items that shouldn't have been left out. There was a noticeable smell when we first lifted the lid. I took a picture and tossed the plate's contents.

Our usual team members for trivia weren't there so we played by ourselves and came in second to "The Troublemakers." They gave their keychain prize to us. So happy to see a country music themed trivia, we stuck around for the Dolly Parton themed trivia coming up next. I overheard The Troublemakers talking about how this is a new series they've been trying out with the first one last week featuring trivia about Tammy Wynette. Wish I could have stuck around for extra sailings as this trivia would be the highlight of my onboard activities. Only three teams stuck around to play this trivia (The Troublemakers opting out entirely) and I won thanks to having just as much knowledge about musical artists' personal lives and career history as I do about their songs. I was a little surprised that the few I missed were ones where we had to name the song title from a spoken version of the lyric. To be honest, I probably wouldn't have guessed the song title from the first few notes being played either except for a select few songs. Something about how it clicks in my brain because if I heard the song playing somewhere, I'd be singing along to every word! My prize was a keychain and a highlighter prompting me to use the open clip top of the highlighter to start corralling all our keychain wins back in the cabin. Melissa was so impressed that she came over to see which ones I'd gotten wrong. Dad took the opportunity to show off his new tattoo sleeves and Melissa gave the right response of concern and suggestions to go to medical. Dad pointed out how it was after hours to go that night but Melissa assured him that there would have been at least a nurse on duty.

We returned to our cabin to change for dinner tonight back at Chops. Once seated at the restaurant, we noticed 3 different couples be led to their tables without issue where the gentleman was wearing shorts and the lady was dressed for dinner. I've stated in the past how neither Dad or I would consider wearing shorts to dinner, we also aren't into dressing to the nines either. I also took note of how it was only the guys who felt comfortable doing that, am I right ladies? Now saying that, did it make my food taste any different or my service go any slower because of how the guys a few tables over were dressed? No, of course not! To each their own, I didn't pay for your cruise and I'm not those guys' mamas so I'm not going to claim my cruise was ruined because of how someone else was dressed. Now if they'd shown up still in bathing suits and no top/coverup, I'm sure the restaurant staff would have asked them to change first. I share what I've witnessed as a preface to the reaction I got instead from a neighboring table who saw me taking photos of my food for this blog. A woman at a nearby table copped an attitude, stuck her nose in the air, and rolled her eyes so much I wondered if we should warn the waiter not to slip as he walked past their table. Really lady? My food picture taking is the bane of your high and mighty existence but you didn't notice the three shorts clad men who paraded past your table? I was so tempted to walk over and point out how many glasses of champagne she was knocking back and ask if she was now seeing two of me taking pictures? 

Tonight waiting on us was the delightful Alberto. He had joked earlier at breakfast that if only we'd had him waiting on us at dinner the previous times in Chops, we'd have had a much better dinner experience. Alberto kept apologizing for it being so busy and causing a delay but he had things moving so well we never even noticed there was a delay. He asked about where we planned to dine tomorrow and was open about his not so pleasant opinions of Izumi. He did recommend we try the ice cream dessert on their menu. We shared the huge difference between the two nights we'd already dined there and Alberto asked for each waiter's name. He recognized Prashant's name and agreed that he was good. He also recognized Leo's name and wasn't the least bit surprised to hear he was the bad waiter. I was a little taken aback when Alberto added that Leo was a bad waiter because he was Chinese. Tonight, the chef came out to chat with a few tables and Dad was so happy with how his steaks had been cooked that he shook the chef's hand and thanked him profusely.

Charred Beef Carpaccio - even though it's meant to be this rare, it was still tasty.

On to the food pics I know you all love with a side of brushed off negativity:

Spicy Jumbo Shrimp - had this on Oasis as well but don't think they were this jumbo! I had asked about making it less spicy on Oasis but neither dish tasted all that spicy. I do think Oasis's version had something more like polenta or mash on the bottom, not just this pile of melted butter.

This is the picture of how the same dish looked on Oasis of the Seas last year. Honestly I'm glad Grandeur spent their budget on the bigger shrimp than the little Gruyere Cheese Tater Tots that were large on Oasis.

Another plus for the Grandeur was how they prepared the side of Mac & Cheese. Oasis' looked like spiral noodles that ran away in fright when you went to add the cheese. This is what proper Mac & Cheese comfort food should look like - so cheesy that it lifted up out of the dish as large stuck together clumps.

Once dinner was over, we headed to the Schooner Bar to wait for the 8PM Tribond Trivia and found it packed for tonight's Pub Quiz session. This was a new thing to us so we sat in to listen. This type of trivia they have a set group of categories and then they ask you a handful of questions within each category. Much more like Jeopardy where you can use the category title to help guide your answer but all the questions were worth the same point value. We noticed that one team sitting nearby was having a hard time with an answer so we shared the answer with them. They were happily receptive to us sharing any further answers we knew and we ended up playing as a team from the start with them a time or two later in the cruise.

The lounge majorly cleared out after Pub Trivia was over so we moved over to more comfortable seats for Tribond. Our new friends had elected to leave for the show. Though not many people stuck around, there was a few of us who were there waiting to play. When 8PM comes and goes and no one shows, I walked over to the South Pacific Lounge just to be sure there wasn't a location misprint in the Compass (had that a time or two, especially between the paper schedule and the onboard app's schedule on other cruises) but no one was in there either. Dad used the bar's phone to call down and ask Guest Services who promised to call someone. We sat there waiting another 10-15 minutes before Bitty came running in out of breath explaining that she had been helping with the "Rock-a-Rokie" version of Live Band Karaoke in the Centrum. Unlike Mark's previous Tribond Trivia, Bitty elected to read the three items and have us put answers on the usual lined trivia sheets. By the end of the game we were all having laughing fits with Bitty at her attempts to read the words. Who knew the one non American cruise activities staff member who still had English as her native language (she's from Manchester, England) would be so hard to understand? Bless her heart though, this was her first ever cruise line job and she was trying her best. I could tell she was so nervous and possibly also had a learning disability (at one point she commented on how her evening trivia would be "short words so it would even be easy for dyslexics to read) making it even harder that I almost went up and gave her a hug a few times. She had to dart off immediately after the game was over to her next scheduled activity so we didn't get the chance to talk.

Part 3 to come featuring the sad tale of what happens on cruises probably more often than you'd ever realize.

Grandeur of the Seas - Day 4 - Sea Day (Part 2)

After we both got some down time in the cabin, I went to tell Dad it was time for afternoon trivia and found him sound asleep. I left him to rest and headed down to meet up with Cori and Allan. Cori found two brothers already well deep into enjoying Happy Hour and had us join them to play. The two brothers admitted to not being able to help give answers much and at one point one even asked me if Dad was napping because he was drunk. This same guy also took to standing up and letting out a whoop whenever we got an answer right. We saw these two show up again later in the cruise so I said hello as they came to sit nearby. One remembered me and the brother who'd done the one man cheering squad had no clue who I was or why I was saying hello.

Our cabin treat plate for the day was the cheese plate from the dining room dessert offerings

On today's schedule, the 4PM trivia usually listed as "Afternoon trivia" said "Evening trivia" and there was a new extra trivia held at 6PM labeled "General trivia." When we saw that listed, we bumped our usual 6PM dinner reservation to 7PM for tonight. Not many teams showed up to play at 6PM so we had a little more fun joking with the other teams, even "The Troublemakers."

After killing time talking about our upcoming tour plans, we headed over to tonight's dinner reservation at Chops a little early. Both Chops and Giovanni's were the busiest I'd seen them all cruise thus far. Guess tonight was the popular night for using dining packages or celebrating. Management was prepared though and brought in extra staff to accommodate the crowd. Our waitress tonight was Iuliia which is pronounced sort of like Julia. She was very thorough and left us wanting for nothing despite having several tables to cover. Dad took her recommendation to try the New Zealand Rack of Lamb and I continued my tour of the steak choices by getting the 9 oz. Angus Filet Minion that Dad loved the first night.

New Zealand Rack of Lamb

We both enjoyed our selections tonight, me so much I actually polished off the whole steak! I had also ordered 2 sides and the Colossal Shrimp Cocktail and Iuliia asked if I really only wanted one shrimp cocktail. It's called Colossal because it comes in a giant frosted glass on a platter. The shrimp are certainly larger than most shrimp cocktails but you still only get a few. This time though the shrimp were big enough to need cutting up with knife and fork.

These are the Gruyere Cheese Tater Tots. On Oasis, they were huge so they gave you just 2-3 in the dish. These were more like poppable bites and I liked that better.

Dad urged me to try the red velvet cake he loved but I didn't much care for it. Earlier while chatting with 2 different groups at trivia today, they guessed me to be decades younger than I really am. Tonight at dinner, Iuliia kept calling me "ma'am" and then correcting herself to say "miss." I figured it was another case of others assuming Dad's traveling with his wife and she was correcting the difference between Mrs. and Miss. After the fourth time of correcting herself (without us ever saying a word about it), she finally asked outright how old I was. Turns out she had the father daughter grouping right but she thought I was a teenager. She couldn't believe it when I revealed my true age.

Tonight Moses made me a dinosaur

While Dad's bed got an elephant

Feeling the effects of a food coma by this point, we opted to skip the Majority Rules game show and call it an early night. Tomorrow was to be our first port stop of St. Croix and with no scheduled tour plans, we decided to take it easy in the morning and wait until the crowds cleared before venturing out.

Grandeur of the Seas - Embarkation Day (Part 3)

I don't normally get steak at home so I was looking forward to eating my way through the Chops Grille menu on this sailing. I also don't normally have the appetite to eat a full large steak which is silly when you think about how a plate of pasta in front of me could be here today gone 15 minutes later. When we arrived at Chops tonight, we were seated at a table for 2 by the window. I always got a kick out of whenever someone walked by outside on the open deck below us because it almost looks like from your vantage point that they are walking on the outside of the ship itself. I also playfully fantasized about popping open a window and dropping something on them. Yes I hope you have noticed by now that I have a weird sense of humor. Our peaceful table for two was soon disrupted however by a table of 4 who was seated behind Dad and then proceeded to yell across to each other like they were 5 decks away in a windstorm. I'm pretty sure the medical center on deck 1 was wondering what that weird noise was. We asked the waiter to be moved and he put us instead at the end table in the back where one person sits on the bench that lines the back wall. I actually somewhat prefer these tables because it's more comfortable. Minor drawback as while quieter, it put us out of sight and our waiter kept having to remember we were back there.

Click here to view the menu for Chops Grille. A big thank you to RCL's PR department for sending me the specialty restaurant menus and another thank you to the Hotel Director on the Grandeur, Zoe, for sending me a pack of our sailing's main dining room menus. I will be scanning them in and making a separate post at the end. 

Our waiter this first night was Dmytro and we would end up seeing him quite often during the cruise since he also worked the suite/Pinnacle breakfast and sea day lunch in Chops.

Love me a Caesar salad and even got Dad to try some and get out of his blue cheese rut.

The 12 oz Prime New York Strip Steak cooked medium well

We each ordered different steaks and also ordered fries, mashed potatoes, and a baked potato under the "shareable sides" section of the menu. These sides come in little pots of their own so anyone can partake but I find it funny how some of the items are certainly not enough for sharing unless you take super tiny portions. Regardless of us having the dining package, we still had to follow the same rules when ordering. You can order as many appetizers as you want, as many sides as you want, and as many desserts as you want, but only one entrée. If both you and your tablemate wants mashed potatoes, I'd suggest both of you ordering it. While some may consider it food waste, I'm all for ordering something you just want to try and see if you like it. The wait staff in any of the restaurants will happily bring you more of or an entirely different dish of anything if it's something you didn't like. This ultimate dining package gave us a great chance to eat our way around every restaurant's menu without having to do it all in one evening.

Dmytro brought our steaks and they were perfectly cooked to order - a rarity we've found. However, he next brought us the baked potato and mushrooms as our sides. We told him that we'd ordered mashed potatoes and fries but not mushrooms and he quickly swapped out the mushrooms for the fries. We didn't get the mashed potatoes until Dad asked for it again when Dmytro came back to check on us.

Notice I didn't say he brought us the baked potato and toppings - it wasn't until I was almost through with my entrée and had put the baked potato (served to us as a cut in half already potato that was supposed to be shareable) onto my plate for cutting up that he asked if I wanted toppings. I said yes and he dumped a huge spoonful of butter that was almost as big as the potato half and then dumped a small spoonful of sour cream next to the butter. I shoved the butter aside after lightly coating the potato and tried a couple bites.

I'm guessing the other end of this potato became the buffet's potato salad

Possibly because of our back corner exile, it also took a while to get drink refills which is a huge aggravation for us since we drink a lot of water at meals. At one point, poor Dmytro was so stressed, he started pouring water into Dad's glass of Sprite until we corrected him.

The restaurant staff everywhere on board is great about asking for allergies or dietary restrictions. Make sure it is also noted on your reservation and by contacting the same special needs department where Dad requested his distilled water. That way the ship can plan ahead of time if needed as far as food prep or supplies as well as making sure you are given the opportunity to plan your choices from the next day's menu in the main dining room. You can also make special requests for other restaurant's food as we overheard another table being offered pasta from Giovanni's tonight when one of their tablemates didn't eat meat. I also was able to do a little mix and match of sorts getting to try a select few items from the dining room menu while I was in a specialty restaurant. Never hurts to ask and more often than not, the crew will happily honor any reasonable request.

I'm not normally into sweet treats unlike Dad who was sad to learn that the Ben and Jerry's counter on board never had Rocky Road. It didn't change much at all except Dad says one day they swapped out regular chocolate and vanilla for other flavors. His version of trying new foods on this cruise was to eat his way through the cake choices on the dessert menu. The one dessert I do love though is cheesecake and starting tonight I ended up having a lot of cheesecake throughout this cruise. It was nice to see that the fruit topping was simply a raspberry on top and not the compote saturating the entire dish.

As we sat in the back, we noticed the restaurant staff making a big fuss over the bench table at the opposite end from us until finally two senior crew blue blazer wearing crew members came in to dine there. The head chef even came out from the kitchen to sit and chat with them for a bit. With so many Pinnacles on this cruise, we noticed several tables in specialty restaurants filled by one or two cruisers dining with a blue blazered crew officer as one of their perks. Great thing to offer your most loyal of passengers, no argument there. I just wish everyone else's tables didn't experience a decrease in service while that table was tended to. It would make more sense to allocate one waiter solely to that table for prompt service until those diners left so that no other tables were left waiting. 

One of the things we learned about having a dining package of any kind is that even though you don't get charged anything to your onboard account like you would if you decided to just book this one meal once onboard, they still want to scan the cruise card of one person in your party so that it gives them the credit and shows a tally of your using the package. From what I understood of the explanation our waiter gave, it helps add to the restaurant's usage numbers plus it gives RCL a good idea of who is spending the extra money to get dining packages. Not to mention by getting a receipt in the first place, there's the opportunity to write in an extra tip for your waiter if so deserving. By the end of the cruise, we had so many $0 total dining receipts I could have made my own hand fan.

If you've read my blog posts before, you'll know of my ability to end up getting an injury or bruise on every trip. Tonight I made the mistake of sliding out of the bench seat toward the window and neglected to stand up when I ran out of bench. Once I realized I was now sitting on air, my legs buckled and I slammed my thigh into the edge of the bench seat. Lesson learned and from then on, I exited every bench seat in the opposite direction. I also turned at the wrong time later this evening while walking through the open part of deck 8 and bumped my arm and forehead into one of the large art frames they have hanging along the walls. I can't count how many times I've knocked off those stupid little cards they had nestled in the painting frames.