A Baltic boating adventure TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 11/19 - Page 97 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Tuesday 14 June – part two: how many calories were in this!
We headed back to the room to enjoy some more down time. Mark caught up on some of the TV programmes he’d downloaded before we went away, while I caught up on the trip report and listened to my iPod. Ironically, it seemed to think we’d only just left Stockholm, as that night, it didn’t give me a single ABBA song (it’s on random) and this afternoon, it gave me loads – that figures.
We got a call not much after 5:00pm to say that the "See how it's done" tour won’t be taking place this cruise. If you remember, we’d put our names down for it on the day we boarded and this would’ve been a three hour tour with a visit to the bridge, mooring desk, crew areas, engine control room and main galley, followed by a wine-paired lunch in the main dining room. They obviously haven’t got enough people interested for it to go ahead, which is a shame, but…
… they then went on to tell us that they were going to offer us the chance to have a tour of the bridge at 9:15am on our next day at sea. Mark took the call, and got the impression that there wouldn’t be a charge for this. Certainly one wasn’t mentioned to him at all, and they said they were refunding the cost to our credit card, so if that’s the case, we’ll be very happy indeed!
We headed down to Murano for our dinner a little before our 6:30pm reservation, but we were seated immediately, and our table this time gave us more of a view of the whole restaurant.
Most of the staff recognised us from our previous visit, including the maitre d’, our server and the assistant server, although the sommelier didn’t at all, and gave his introductory spiel he’d given us last time. We were waiting to see what his reaction was, as we weren’t planning on buying a bottle of wine tonight, as we’d done last time, as now we knew we could just get glasses of wine on our wine package, which we hadn’t realised on the first night. He brought it into the conversation, saying if we were on a classic or premium package, we could use that, which I was impressed with, and he kept us nicely topped up with White Zinfandel all evening.
We started off with the amuse bouchee, which was the same as last time, but at least this time, I got the standard version with asparagus.
Our server did apologise for that, and said he’d mis-understood last time and had given the kitchen the wrong information, as he couldn’t keep track of all my allergies, and in fairness, there are a few…
Much as I’d loved what I’d chosen last time, I was determined to have something different tonight, so for appetiser, I opted for the creamy Maine lobster bisque with leek and shallot flan, cognac cream, and crispy sweet yellow corn beignets. Look at the wonderful presentation of it:
I was told that the cognac cream could be used if the flavour of the bisque was a little overpowering. I figured it would be fine, but the first taste was a little too much, so I ended up using all the cream and it was fascinating to taste the difference it made to the dish.
Mark opted for what I’d had last time, the smoked salmon and peekytoe crab parfait layered with avocado, salmon caviar, crème fraiche and petite greens, and he enjoyed it as much as I had.
For entrée, tempted as I was by the lobster, I figured it would be overkill after the bisque, and we still had another night back her to enjoy that, so I went for the loup de mer or the grilled Mediterranean sea bass, with red pepper melange, crispy eggplant, balsamic syrup and sauce nicoise. It was very nice, although personally I’d have liked a little more of the crispy eggplant on the dish. There didn’t seem to be much, and that was a shame.
Mark had the herb crusted lamb rack with pea puree, tomato confit, baby carrots, spice meatball, and garlic jus. He commented that he’d have liked to have had some form of potato with it, and looking at the presentation, it did seem to me that it could’ve done with something other than just vegetables.
For dessert, I knew I didn’t want the soufflés again, as last time that was a disappointment, so that limited my options a bit. I ended up going for the assorted gelato and sorbet degustation, made up of chocolate, pistachio, mango and strawberry – my favourites!
Mark decided to get the crepe ballon rouge, with balsamic strawberries, vanilla ice cream and chambertin sauce, and we were told it would be prepared table side. Cool!
The photos I got of the preparation weren’t the greatest, as I didn’t want to use flash and irritate other diners, and the sport mode, which would’ve captured the movement came out far too dark. However, hopefully you get the general idea…
We were both very surprised that the crepe wasn’t cooked table side, it was the strawberries, and you should’ve seen the massive lump of ice cream that went inside the crepe. Oh my goodness, I dread to think how many calories were in this!
After that, I still had room for some cheese, so they brought the cheese trolley around, and there was quite the selection…
I ended up trying a piece of each, and the winner by miles was the blue cheese, which was the best I’d ever tasted, deliciously moist, whereas a lot of them are very dry and crumbly. I asked for the name of it and was told it was fourme j’ambert, so I may have to go looking for that when we get home, that’s how much I liked it.
The service was excellent. We had Nenad from Serbia and we asked if he could be our server again when we returned later in the cruise for our final time dining here. When he said that he was bringing out the chocolates, I remarked how much I liked macaroons, and look what turned up:
On the way out, we asked if we could book the Tuscan Grille again for our next at sea day, and it’s just as well we did, as that day, we were supposed to be in Murano. He swapped that to our final sea day and added in the Tuscan Grille, so we were all set on that front.
Before we headed out, we got our server to get a shot of us:
We decided to head up to deck 14, which was distinctly on the cold and blustery side…
As we walked along, it was just starting to drizzle. We headed into the Sky Lounge, found our favourite loungers….
… but this was the only view we had outside, as it was raining. Oh well.
We enjoyed a couple of glasses of Bailey’s there and then headed back to our room, exhausted from our day of really doing nothing.
The weather today was dry and sunny with temperatures in the low 60s. The best thing today was just being able to relax all day long. The worst thing today was not having much of a view from the Sky Lounge in the evening due to rain. Today we tried going back to Murano And the result was it was just as good as the first visit there. The most magical moment today was sitting out on the balcony together, soaking in the sun.
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Mmmmm, yum! I love eggplant and am trying to see it on your entree. Is it the entire length of fish there, right under the fish - or is that just a giant piece of fish? I agree with Mark - where's the starch?! A little pile of mashed potatoes would have been perfect! Alas, can't complain too much though as it sounded wonderful. Especially dessert!!
Indeed a bummer the rain made the view less than stellar. But it sort of tops off the lazy day just right. May as well go to bed.
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Tanya
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Mmmmm, yum! I love eggplant and am trying to see it on your entree. Is it the entire length of fish there, right under the fish - or is that just a giant piece of fish?
That was another giant piece of fish! The eggplant is actually the crispy bits you can see on top of the fish. Do not ask me how the heck they did that!
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I agree with Mark - where's the starch?! A little pile of mashed potatoes would have been perfect! Alas, can't complain too much though as it sounded wonderful. Especially dessert!!
Indeed a bummer the rain made the view less than stellar. But it sort of tops off the lazy day just right. May as well go to bed.
That was another giant piece of fish! The eggplant is actually the crispy bits you can see on top of the fish. Do not ask me how the heck they did that!
)
That's it?! Oh my. They could have put 3 of them on there!
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Wednesday 15 June – part one: one eyed photos of the sunrise…
I didn’t have the greatest night’s sleep, as I woke up a couple of times, looked up and it was dark outside. Given sunrise was around 4:30am, I knew it must be before that. However, we had gone to bed at around 9:00pm last night, and the clocks were going back an hour, which actually made it 8:00pm, so I figured it was a good possibility that I’d be up early.
Eventually, I woke up and saw some light coming through the crack in the window, so I hauled myself up. I could see a red glow in the sky, so I grabbed my camera, and headed out on the balcony, as perhaps it was sunrise. It was indeed!
These photos were taken one eyed, as my left eye was too tired to open up. It was about 4:50am, so I can’t blame it. I am so glad I got up though and got these shots.
I headed back to bed, and slept for the next couple of hours, finally getting up around 7:00am.
We’d figured out last night that the Solarium opened at 7:30am, and figured we’d head there, before going to the Persian Garden that opened at 8:00am. When we got there, the pool was already quite full with about three people in, so we just headed for the hot tub. We were going to grab a lounger, but given all the ones near the hot tub were wet, and we suspected they’d only just been cleaned, we thought better of it.
We sat in the hot tub for about 20 minutes, which felt so good. My bones and muscles were certainly aching less when I got out of it.
Just before 8:00am, I headed over to the spa, as I wanted to wash my hair before going into the Persian Garden. I was told it was already open, but I stuck to my original plan, and then all clean, I headed inside, and was the first person in there. I grabbed a couple of hot stone chairs, and headed into the steam room in a bid to clear my sinuses, as I was having a few issues with them. My goodness, it was really hot in there!
The same sadly couldn’t be said of the aromatic suite, which was only just vaguely warm, and certainly I’ve known it hotter than that, which was a shame.
We stayed there for about half an hour or so, then we made our way back to the room, and headed up to deck 14 and the Oceanview Café for breakfast. My goodness, we were wrong in our assumptions that most people would’ve taken a trip over to Berlin, and would’ve already left the boat. The place was packed, so much so that we struggled to find a seat!
We both got a surprise when we went to get food, as now we were back to self service again at the buffet, which neither of us like if I’m being honest. I would much prefer to have a crew member serve me, as it’s so much more hygienic, but obviously they’ve decided they don’t need to any longer. I didn’t like the way it meant the crew members were frankly sitting on their butts behind the buffet. I appreciate you don’t have to serve any longer, but my goodness, could you try and look busy perhaps?
We got our food and a couple of glasses of pineapple juice, and settled down to eat, chatting to a couple of women next to us. They’re both single, and met on a cruise, and decided to share a cabin for this cruise, as the single person supplement is so high – 60%. I never cease to be amazed by how much people get ripped off by the travel industry. Why on earth penalise singles so much?
We headed out to the back of the ship to admire the view from there, a lot prettier than the view from our room…
We then wandered around, and headed up to deck 15 to get a better view of Warnemunde. It seemed to be a lovely little town…
Mark took the opportunity to try his hand at golf.
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Gorgeous sunrise. Definitely worth getting up for. Glad you got back to sleep though!
That is strange that even if they're not serving you breakfast, they're just sitting there doing nothing.
Indeed a cute little town!
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Tanya
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Mark took the call, and got the impression that there wouldn’t be a charge for this. Certainly one wasn’t mentioned to him at all, and they said they were refunding the cost to our credit card, so if that’s the case, we’ll be very happy indeed! 
However, hopefully you get the general idea… 
Oh my goodness, I dread to think how many calories were in this! 
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It was indeed! 
(Even with one eye!!
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