Food & DINK
We travel. We eat. And we travel to eat.
Cruise Day 7: A Lazy Day at Sea
On our final sea day, I finally got the lazy morning I’d been missing. We managed to sleep until 10:00, which was lovely. With nothing on our agenda that morning, we ate a leisurely breakfast up at the buffet, which—most decent folks having been up for hours—was pleasantly calm. Okay, not calm, but not its usual madhouse.
After breakfast, we went down to the shops on deck 7 to buy a commemorative Dawn shot glass for my collection. I was hoping for some kind of last day sale, but if one happened, it was after we made our purchase.
Desiring more quiet reading time, we went back to our cabin and enjoyed a couple of our remaining hours peacefully reading on our balcony.
The weather on our last sea day was fantastic; it had cooled off a bit, getting down to around 70 degrees, and the skies were sunny and blue. We went back up to our favorite outdoor drinking spot at Bimini Grill to enjoy some final frozen beverages while listening to the reggae band.
At 2:30, we made our way down to the theater to watch the crew talent show. We’d expected it to be kind of cheesy, maybe worth a laugh or two, but the crew on this ship had some extremely talented folks. The highlight, at least for me, was Dan France singing opera, but every act was really, really good. They only do the one performance, so be sure not to miss it.
Since we ended up with a few tickets for the free cruise raffle, we hung out in the theater to wait and see if we’d get lucky. We considered playing bingo, but the cost for this last afternoon’s game was $40, which seemed a bit pricy for our blood, so we just watched everyone else play until they held the raffle. Needless to say, we did not win the free cruise.
We next headed up to Los Lobos for one last delicious round of Mexican food. I finally worked my way to the entrée portion of the menu and tried the carne asada, which was very good. Kathleen sampled their ceviche, which she said was good, but not quite the sublime offering available at Nachi Cocom. She also tried the nachos, which were also excellent. Of course, we stopped at the tequila bar and enjoyed one final Tropical Paloma with Rodell.
We really enjoyed Los Lobos, as you probably have guessed. Not only was the food great, but everyone who worked there was really wonderful. Just about everyone stopped by our table to chat with us that final night, and you could tell they enjoy making connections with people in a job where relationships are fleeting.
After dinner, we headed to Bliss to watch the Dawn Show Band play another set of jazz standards. They were great, as always.
We took a brief trip back up to the library on deck 12 to cash in our participation signatures we’d collected by winning at trivia. We ended up with 41 signatures, which allowed us to earn the top prize, an NCL mug. It’s not a coffee mug, but more of a glass goblet. I was hoping for a free cruise, but the goblet was an acceptable consolation prize.
Goblet in hand, we went back down to Bliss to catch two more shows. The first was a review of Broadway songs with the Dawn singers, which was a lot of fun. At 10:00, the Second City folks did their adults only show. Like everything else they did, it was very funny. Again, they really draw a crowd, so if you’d like to sit, be sure to arrive well in advance.
We were hoping to do some late night eating, but neither of us could work up any hunger, so we just headed back to our cabin to enjoy some final time on our balcony. We got back to our cabin just in time to see us pass by a fiery oil rig, which was a cool sight. We’d missed seeing any oil rigs on our last cruise out of New Orleans, so I was glad we saw one on this trip. In case you’d like to keep an eye out for them on your cruise, we saw this one on the port side at about 10:45 on the final day.
Since we were about to have four fun-filled days in New Orleans, we went to sleep that night without the customary last-day blues. Tomorrow, we’d be back in one of our favorite cities, ready for Christmas.
Up next in New Orleans day 1: a once-in-a-lifetime experience at an historic restaurant.
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