Chapter 22 – Sweet treats, good eats and kids club meets
As we left the dining room, we noticed Dug from Up was in the lobby so we had to get a picture. As we made our way aft we saw Gary waiting by the lobby. He was supposed to be meeting Terry but there was no sign of him. Kim decided to go and hunt him down, and Gary and I went up on deck where we watched a group called Paperback Writer who were performing by the family pool.
They were really good but it was so hot sitting there. Gary got some chicken tenders as he hadn’t eaten lunch, then we made our way down to the lobby to meet the others for our galley tour. Vicky was wearing yet another awesome Mickey shirt – I swear she had at least one for every day of the cruise.
As we made our way to the meeting point, we bumped into Woody so Kim, Vicky, Kathleen and I had a picture with him.
The tour started in Tritons, which is themed on the little mermaid and includes an impressive mosaic of King Triton and his daughter, Ariel.
We were taken through the dining room into the galley and learned that the same galley serves both Tritons and Parrot Cay. The chef de cuisine explained to us how the orders are taken and pinned to a board by table number, then the orders for each dish are added up, prepared and placed on the line for the servers to collect.
We saw where recipes for each dish are kept, pictures of how each plate should look (including the anniversary dessert, now just known as ‘Terry’s cake’).
We also saw pictures of all the different outfits for the different themed nights in the dining rooms.
Obviously we had to have a girly galley selfie.
At the end of the tour we were given a couple of chocolate chip cookies each. I had read that these were served warm but ours were not. They still tasted pretty good though. We had the opportunity to ask questions and then we left the galley into the Parrot Cay dining room – pretty cool!
After the tour we went back to the stateroom so that I could get changed (I was still wearing my dress). We had a little surprise waiting for us, in the form of chocolate covered strawberries, a gift from Guest Services.
After dropping some gifts down to the Cadillac Lounge for Pablo, Maylis and Carissa we made our way up to Cove Café, where we had arranged to meet the others. We took the strawberries with us, to share with the group.
I don’t like coffee at all but the fabulous CM was able to make me a cookies and cream frozen coffee drink without the coffee. It tasted just like a milkshake. Surprisingly, Gary didn't like it – he said it was too sweet – but I loved it. And I’m sure it was very low in calories so I didn’t feel at all guilty about drinking the lot.
Terry had some caramel macchi-lacchi thingamabob which he swears tasted great.
We sat and chatted for a little while, mainly about the differences between the ‘British’ and ‘American’ languages. There was much amusement over the word ‘pushchair’, as well as the pronunciation of the words ‘sloth’ and ‘aspartame’.
We decided we all (except Terry, but we made him go anyway) wanted to go and see the show, which was a magician called Magic Dave. It was actually really good and even Terry enjoyed it.
There had been many rumours going around that there was going to be some kind of announcement about a Frozen party coming up later in the cruise and I had been subjected to merciless teasing, given my disdain for the whole hysteria over Frozen. Lo and behold, Clayton announced that there would be a Frozen party held on Cabo San Lucas night and there would also be a scavenger hunt and lots of Frozen merchandise. As I turned to Kim to complain, she fixed me with a piercing glare and said “You will join in with ALL of the Frozen activities, and you will smile, and you will enjoy it”. Well, that told me!
After the show, we went back to the room where we freshened up and got ready for dinner. The guys had already decided they really didn’t want to dress up tonight so Gary was wearing – gasp – shorts! We made our way to the Cadillac Lounge to join some of our group for a pre-dinner drink. Although I was supposed to be having a ‘dry’ day, I couldn’t’ resist the lure of a Chambord Mojito Martini. It was absolutely delicious.
Dinner tonight was the rotational menu in Tritons, my absolute favourite. For appetiser, I ordered the brie (I may or may not have been very cheeky and asked if I could have an extra portion). This is probably my favourite appetiser on the ship but I do have just one small gripe – why do
DCL insist on ‘anchoring’ things to the plate with mashed potato. Under each of my brie wedges was a little dollop of mashed potato, which I can only assume was put there to glue the brie to the plate and stop it from sliding around. But it’s just weird!
Still, mashed potato aside, the brie was yummy. Terry also had brie, which he declared ‘nasty’ and offered to me but I was saving myself for the entrée. Kim and Terry had also decided to try the escargots. Kim was not impressed – but said it was because there were mushrooms mixed in with it. I am not sure it was mushrooms; I think that was actually the snail
For my entrée, I had the duck – with chips! Don’t judge, it was delicious. Terry asked me if it was a British thing but I told him, no, I just like chips – or French fries.
Others at our table also had pasta (Julie, I think) and lamb (Jim possibly). Both looked really good too.
Dessert for most people was the soufflé with Grand Marnier sauce. Some people – ahem, Terry – had a crème brulee as well.
According to my notes, I didn’t have dessert. Wait, no, that can’t be right. Jeez, I skipped dessert one night and I still gained 6 lbs, what’s that all about?
After dinner, we bumped into Vicky and decided to get some pictures taken with Mr and Mrs Incredible and Remy. Not sure who took this picture, maybe Gary – serious camera shake…
While we were waiting in line for Remy, Gary and Terry were doing this really silly dance which essentially just involved bending their knees one way and then the other, with their hands in their pockets. I just kept saying to Gary “don’t do the dance” (like Monica says to Chandler in an episode of Friends).
Dinner over, it was time for the adults to take over the Oceaneers Lab. Tonight we were making Flubber! It was actually really gross and I hated having to get my hands dirty (who am I kidding, I got one of the counsellors to make it for me so I didn’t have to) but it was really good fun and we had a real laugh.
ETA: In the interest of full disclosure, Kim has asked me to make it clear to you just how annoying the flubber instructor was. She was very loud, very hyper and had an incredibly annoying Northern accent (sorry Northerners). However, also in the interest of full disclosure, Kim was incredibly tired that night and probably found her slightly (greatly) more annoying than the rest of us.
It was gone midnight when we finished and we all parted ways.
When we got back to the room, we had been left some more gifts – a friendship bracelet from Wanda and a pair of cute cowboy boot earrings from Cathy. Tonight’s towel offering was a rose, accompanied by two Ghirardelli raspberry square chocolates.