Friday Jan 5, 2024
Hi again Folks! What a great day it’s been on this ship! We stayed at Kathy’s sister’s house in Miami last night and her and her brother in law were nice enough to drive us to the port. We got there about 11:45 AM and were sitting down to lunch by Noon. Probably the fastest embarkation we’ve ever had.
They said there were 600 people on board. With the capacity of the ship being over 900, we were at roughly 70% capacity with a crew to passenger ratio of almost 1:1. That’s why the service was so good!
The lunch buffet was the best we’ve ever seen with lots of different stations and many cooked to order dishes like fresh seafood, homemade pasta (how about black ink squid pasta for something unique?), and angus beef burgers with crispy fries! So yummy!
After lunch we walked the entire ship and are amazed at how beautiful it is. Like I said, it really is like a high end hotel vs a traditional cruise ship. It even has a Rolex store on it! No other cruise ship has that… maybe I’ll buy two! Lol
We then went to our room and got unpacked. The room is a good size with a walk in closet, nice bathroom, a huge shower and a nice balcony with two chairs and a chaise lounger.
After getting cleaned up we went to dinner at the French restaurant Fil Rouge. Very impressive menu. Kathy and I both got the escargot and crab cake for starters and the Maine lobster (of course!) and I also tried the 72 hour slow braised angus beef short ribs. The food was really good!
After dinner we went to the show which was various singers doing a variety of swing music (Michael Buble, Sammy Davis, Jr, etc), also some Carol King, Billy Joel and Neil Diamond. All really good music!
After the show we caught the Explora Trio band doing some classic rock and pulled a few slots. They didn’t have a late night piano player like we’ve listen to on other cruise lines but maybe another night.
Tomorrow is a sea day so we can sleep in and spend the day really exploring this beautiful ship! Hope everyone has a great weekend and if you’re on the East coast I hope you don’t get too much snow!
The Wandering Italian 