Round The World In 28 Days

Corinna, I am still here and reading, just lacking time for the DIS at the moment. But all your adventures sound so wonderful! That excursion on your second Fiji day just made me want to go there, too!
 
What a charming tour!

This tour was one of the big highlights of the cruise.

How great that you could swim in a waterfall pool twice!:lovestruc

I felt very spoiled.

Love the pics with the two of you in tropical attire!

Thanks.

Corinna, I am still here and reading, just lacking time for the DIS at the moment.

I absolutely understand. I have had a crazy month myself, but things are fortunately settling down a little.

But all your adventures sound so wonderful!

We definitely had a magical time.

That excursion on your second Fiji day just made me want to go there, too!

Fiji is well worth a visit and that excursion was absolutely amazing.

Corinna
 
Your day on Fiji looked amazing! Another destination on the bucket list!

Jill in CO
 
Day 11 sounded lovely.

How fabulous the tour worked out so well with the taxi driver. Swimming in a waterfall pool sounds magical :cloud9:

Oh my about the people outside the coffee shop. That makes me so uncomfortable.

Excellent that your problems with the drinks were at an end.
 


Just read day 12, what a fabulous tour!!!

All that water fun would have made me a happy camper :)

Lunch sounded yummy. Very interesting how they cook.

I think I would have skipped trying the kava as well.

What a great day!
 
Your day on Fiji looked amazing!

It really was.

Another destination on the bucket list!

I can definitely recommend this.

How fabulous the tour worked out so well with the taxi driver.

I was really happy with how this worked out.

Swimming in a waterfall pool sounds magical :cloud9:

It was. I wanted to do this for a number of years and for a variety of reasons, it never happened.

Oh my about the people outside the coffee shop. That makes me so uncomfortable.

It made me feel very uncomfortable.

Excellent that your problems with the drinks were at an end.

I was really happy how this was handled in the end.

Just read day 12, what a fabulous tour!!!

This was something very special.

All that water fun would have made me a happy camper :)

I was very happy about this, too.

Very interesting how they cook.

Yes. On the first day we saw people unearthing their lovo lunch right next to the road. I think they have a similar method of cooking in Hawaii.

Corinna
 
Day 13

This was our first Groundhog Day. As we were crossing the International Date Line, we would have two takes of the 1st May. We had nothing in particular planned for that day. Still, we were awake reasonably early at around 8:30. We got ready and headed to the Windjammer for some breakfast. It seemed to be quite empty so I decided to get a made to order omelette that morning. I had an omelette with bacon bits, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes and cheese and a side of hash browns. This definitely hit the spot. I also had a coffee and some skimmed milk. Graham had some coffee and a poached egg on toast. He then went back to get a bowl of porridge with brown sugar and raisins.



After breakfast, we went for a walk around deck 4. We briefly went up to the helipad, but it was pretty windy there. We found some sheltered loungers towards the aft of the ship. Graham went to get his telescope and his camera and I asked him to bring me my iPad. We had a nice relaxing morning with Graham watching the world go by and me reading. We had a lovely relaxed morning.



After the Captain’s noon announcement, we decided to go to the dining room for some lunch. We were seated straightaway and ended up with a table for two. I have always looked at the salad bar on previous cruises, but the lines were always long as they put your salad together for you. This time I decided to check it out and the line was not particularly long. They call this a Tutti Salad. They have about 20 different salad vegetables including different kinds of lettuce and then anything from 10 to 15 different topics and 5 dressings. What precisely was on offer changed a little day by day. I had Romaine lettuce, cucumber, tomato, black olive, roasted pepper, sweetcorn, chicken, croutons, ranch dressing and a little Parmesan cheese over the top. This was so good. If I could not have had anything else apart from a Tutti Salad all cruise, I would have been happy. While I had been to get my salad, Graham had ordered some wine. I tried to order some wine, too, but was not successful as there was no assistant server to be found. Our server said he would send somebody, but nobody ever materialized and in the end, I gave up. Graham has the grilled Moroccan pita bread with cucumber raita and I had the open steak sandwich with fried egg and crispy onions. We both enjoyed our main courses. For dessert, we both had the apple parcel with vanilla ice cream. Graham had this on our transatlantic cruise and this looked very good. It was not bad, but nothing special either.









After lunch, I headed for the Star Lounge for progressive trivia. Everybody was there slightly early and it was nice catching up with each other and finding out what everybody had been up to in the meantime. The trivia was fun, too. Straight after progressive trivia, there was something that was happening for the first time this cruise. It was called Battle of the Sexes and was a multi-day competition with the men and women taking each other on. This was played in three rounds. For the first round, both teams had a spokesperson and only that person was allowed to give the final answer, but everybody on the team was allowed to provide the spokesperson with the answer. For this round, the men were asked questions that the women would be more likely to know and vice versa. If the team that the question was aimed at got it wrong, the other team could steal the point by answering it correctly. This ended up being quite evenly matched. The next round was a quick-fire round about cities of the world where the person who put up the hand first got to answer. If the answer was wrong, the other team got to answer it. The final round was a Final Jeopardy kind of set up where each team had to wager a percentage of the score with the minimum wager being 20%. Then each team had to write down as many answers to the question as possible. That day, it was Space Shuttles. We were missing one. This had been a lot of fun.

After this, I went to find Graham. He was on the helipad. It was too windy out there for my taste. I found myself a lounger on deck 4 and settled down reading again. At some stage, Graham came to join me. Shortly before 5, we decided to head inside. There was some math trivia happening at the Schooner Bar so we decided to give this a go. We both had a glass of wine. Math is not necessarily my strength. We did OK though and it was a bit of fun. After the trivia, we stayed in the Schooner Bar a little longer and had another glass of wine, before heading back to the cabin to get showered and changed.

Once we were ready, we went downstairs for some photos. Then we headed for dinner. Graham had some Chardonnay and I had a glass of what was fast becoming my favourite wine, the Caliterra Sauvignon Blanc from Chile. Graham had the prawn cocktail for his starter and I had the split pea soup with focaccia croutons. For our main course, we both had the Steak Diane with mashed potatoes, broccoli and carrots. I passed my broccoli to Graham. For dessert, Graham went with the berry cobbler and I had the Chocolate sensation with vanilla ice cream.





















After dinner, we headed back to the cabin to read for a bit and then we settled down for the night.
 


The tour of the village and the waterfall on Fiji looked like a very adventurous excursion and a lot of fun!

I think it's funny that Graham took the first opportunity to jump off the raft and swim when called upon to do so. Your pictures are very nice and I love the tropical attire!
 
On Groundhog Day your omelet for breakfast looked delicious! Nice that you had the rest of the morning to relax. Lunch sounded good as well. Did they make your salad to your ingredients, or did they have a variety of salad recipes that you could pick and they would prepare based on preset ingredients?

The trivia sounded like fun. I'm glad you had a relaxing day with more fun pictures!
 
The tour of the village and the waterfall on Fiji looked like a very adventurous excursion and a lot of fun!

It was truly magical. I think part of the reason Fiji got so much under my skin is that I got a really good overview of the culture there.

I think it's funny that Graham took the first opportunity to jump off the raft and swim when called upon to do so.

We are both water babies, but I much prefer saltwater as rule. Having said that, as a teenager, I did a fair bit of swimming in lakes and mountain streams as the sea was so far away.

Your pictures are very nice and I love the tropical attire!

Thanks.

On Groundhog Day your omelet for breakfast looked delicious!

It was, but even on a quiet day, it took forever to make so I I never had another one.

Did they make your salad to your ingredients, or did they have a variety of salad recipes that you could pick and they would prepare based on preset ingredients?

You picked the ingredients you wanted out of about 30 or so options and they chopped it and mixed it.

The trivia sounded like fun.

We really got into trivia that time.

Corinna
 
Day 14

With the 1st of May having been so pleasant, I had no problem with repeating the day. We were awake around 8:00 and got up and ready. We decided to try the a la carte option for breakfast at the dining room. We got seated straightaway and ended up with nice people to share the table with. Were both had coffee and orange juice. When our assistant server came around with the pastries, Graham had a piece of Austrian Strietzel and I had a raspberry Danish. Graham then had some granola with fruit and yoghurt and I had a plate with sliced melon. I was contemplating the Eggs Benedict, but after a previous experience on a Royal Caribbean ship where this was truly awful, I played it safe and had fried eggs, bacon, pork link sausages, tomato, hash brown and a bagel with cream cheese. Graham had the same, but with toast rather than a bagel.







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We were quite surprised how long we had had taken over breakfast. We had some very nice conversation and the time had just flown. As we passed Guest Services, we had a quick look at the Daily Compass and noticed that morning trivia was about to start. We had nothing else planned. We each picked up a cup of coffee from Cafe Promenade and headed down to the Schooner Bar. The morning trivia was general trivia and was quite a good mix of questions. We enjoyed this. We started a trend that morning. We scored 11 out of 15, which for ages seemed to be our default score. This started to become a bit of a running score.

When the Schooner Bar emptied out after morning trivia, some of the sofas by the porthole became available so we decided to stay inside. We moved over to one of the sofas and then I went up to the cabin to collect my iPad and Graham’s telescope and Kindle. We had another lovely relaxing morning. Around 13:00, we headed up to the Windjammer for some lunch. Graham gave the Coca Cola Freestyle machines a go and had Dansani Lime. I tried the sparkling Dansani lemon and lime and really liked it. Graham then went to get some food. For his first plate, he had cheesy pasta bake and Lancashire hot pot. I had. Linguini, tomato sauce, Chicken Parmigiana, chicken and beef fajita strips. Graham then went for a second plate and had tortilla chips, chilli beef, pickles and cheese. We both braved dessert. Graham had some berry mousse and I had Viennese chocolate cake and marble pound cake. They were quite nice, but nothing special.





I then headed off for progressive trivia. Again, everybody was there early and I spotted one of the ship’s photographers on the prowl. I signalled her to come over and asked her to take some photos of our team, which she did. Those photos did not make it on our account automatically and they had some issues finding them because the computer system got confused about the two 1st of Mays. Fortunately they were located on the last day of the cruise.



Most of us stayed for Battle of the Sexes again. I had to bite my tongue this time. There was one person who just put up her hand for the heck of it during the quick fire round. This was on currencies of the world and the question was what the national currency of the United Arab Emirates was. She had no clue. I did however managed to get a point for knowing what the national currency of Hungary was. I also surprisingly did OK with the bonus round. We had finished the first two rounds quite quickly so Joe introduced a bonus round where one person from each team had to hum three tunes and the team had to guess. I guessed two of ours right. The songs in question were Eye of the Tiger and Son of a Preacher Man. I cannot remember what the topic for the Final Jeopardy round was that day.

I went off to find Graham afterwards and he was up on the sun deck on deck 13. It was too hot up there for my liking. They had a t-shirt sale that afternoon and I decided to check this out. I got a t-shirt that I thought Graham would like and I got one for myself, too. I had eyed this particular t-shirt ever since our first Royal Caribbean cruise, but they never had it in my size. This time I was in luck. At $5 each, the t-shirts were an absolute bargain. I went to show Graham his t-shirt and then took them back to the cabin. I then headed up to the solarium to chill out for a bit. At some stage, Graham came to join me. I spent most of the afternoon reading again, but I did have a bit of a nap at some stage. Around 5, we headed back downstairs to the Schooner Bar for afternoon trivia, which was history trivia that evening. I have always enjoyed history and Graham is interested in it as well, so I was hopeful that we would do well. There were a couple of obscure questions and a couple of them we should have got right, but started second-guessing ourselves and decided to go with the wrong answer. We got another score of 11 out of 15.

After trivia, we headed up to the pool deck. They were showing Sully - Miracle On the Hudson on the big screen that evening. I had wanted to see that film for a while and Graham was up for it, too. So we went up there and found ourselves a spot to sit. Unfortunately I don’t think that film works in that particular set up as it is so heavily based on subtitles. I was struggling to read them and Graham got quite annoyed with them. So after about 15 minutes, we gave up and went to get changed for dinner instead.

We went for dinner first as we wanted to get there before the people who had been to the early show would arrive. Dinner was nice again. Graham had some Merlot and I tried a Fumé Blanc. Graham had the roasted corn and poblano pepper soup for his starter and I had the roasted peach soup with sour cream. This was utterly delicious. For his main course, Graham has salmon with mashed potatoes, carrots and broccoli, which he enjoyed very much. I had Prime rib with potato croquettes, green beans, roasted Roma tomato and Yorkshire pudding. Everything was delicious apart from the Yorkshire pudding. They should be light and fluffy, but this one was dense and tough as old boots. Graham passed on dessert, but I could not resist the Baked Alaska, which was actually really nice.











After dinner, we did the rounds of the photo opportunities. We had a good laugh again. One of the photographers, Laura, decided it was selfie time and joined us for one of the photos. I don’t think professional cameras are really designed for selfies. While we were doing the photos at another backdrop, Jessica, who actually had the evening off came to join us for a couple of photos. We had become quite friendly with the photographers and I was glad to have those memories.












Once we were done, we went to the R Bar for a glass of wine. Graham had a glass of White Zinfandel and I had a glass of Moscato. Then we headed back to the cabin, where we found a towel animal as well as personalized equator crossing certificates. We checked out the Daily Compass for the next day and read for a while before getting ready for bed.



 
I have followed a few of your trip reports and I just love them. I'm probably not even supposed to be on the UK trip boards since I live in Wisconsin, USA, but Shhhhhh, don't tell anyone! Looking forward to your next update!
 
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I have followed a few of your trip reports and I just love them.

Welcome and thanks for reading along. I am glad you are enjoying my trip reports.

I'm probably not even supposed to be on the UK trip boards since I live in Wisconsin, USA, but Shhhhhh, don't tell anyone!

You are more than welcome here. We Brits are a friendly bunch. The reason why I am posting here is that I live in the UK, but more importantly I find it very confusing on the US side of things were which trip report belongs. At least on the UK forum, there is only one place.

Looking forward to your next update!

Work and my general crazy life permitting, I post updates on Wednesdays and Sundays.

Corinna
 
Day 15

We actually had a bit of a lie in that day and woke up about 9:00. Neither of us felt like a proper breakfast that morning so we headed to Cafe Promenade for some coffee and pastries. Graham had a slice of Austrian Strietzel, a croissant and a raspberry Danish. I had a raspberry Danish and a chocolate donut. Graham then got another cup of coffee and I got a cup of mint tea and headed down to the Schooner Bar for morning trivia.



We got there about half an hour before morning trivia was due to start, but I was still surprised that nobody apart from us was there. Any kind of trivia on that cruise was very popular. We waited for a bit and still nobody turned up. There was a screen in the Schooner Bar with the daily program, but that seemed to be stuck on a page for later in the day. I headed out to the elevator lobby to check the screen there and realized that morning trivia was taking place in the Star Lounge that day, which is a much better venue. So I went back to collect Graham. Fortunately the Star Lounge was right above us and we still had some time to spare. We enjoyed the trivia again and scored yet another 11 out of 15.

After morning trivia, we collected our odds and ends and headed for the solarium. I spent the morning reading. We lost another hour at noon. After the Captain's announcement, we decided to get some lunch and headed for the Windjammer. Unfortunately everybody else on the ship seemed to have the same idea and there was nowhere to sit. We thought we could check out what was on offer at Cafe Promenade. They had set up a food station just outside of Cafe Promenade and were serving pie and mash. Graham was all for this. I did not really fancy any of the pie options and decided to worry about food after progressive trivia.



We did pretty well during progressive trivia. I did not stay for Battle of the Sexes that day as I wanted to get some food. Graham was still sitting where I had left him. I checked in with him and then I went up to the Windjammer to get some food. I ended up getting a hot dog and some steak fries and took them back to where Graham was sitting. This definitely hit the spot. We were sitting outside the pub and I was hoping that somebody would come by to take a drinks order, but this did not happen. There only seemed to be one person on duty. In the end, we just got some coffee from Cafe Promenade and then moved on.



We had somewhere to be. This afternoon was our allocated ice show. On some of their bigger ship, you can make reservations for the most popular production shows online. On the Voyager class ships this is not needed for most of the shows as they do not have big production shows. However, the ice shows are very popular and the capacity of Studio B is somewhat limited. So the low tech solution is that everybody on the ship has an assigned show based on their muster station. As our allocated muster station was one of the first, we got to go to the first performance of the ice show. When we got there, crew was organizing a standby line for people who had a different muster station. We got let in first and if there were still seats 10 minutes before the show started, people in the standby line would be allowed in. Everybody who wanted to see the show that day was able to get in and there were still seats to spare. That gave the idea that I potentially could see the show more than once.

The show was absolutely amazing. It was called Spirits of the Season and was loosely themed around the four seasons. Each season had 3 scenes. The show was a great mix of solos, pair performances and ensemble pieces as well as different styles of music. I loved everything, but my favourites were the Halloween scene during the fall segment and all the winter scenes. During one of them, two children from the audience in sleighs were part of the performance. The show was absolutely spectacular. I had really enjoyed the ice show on Navigator of the Seas, but this was in a different league.







Once the show was finished, we made a quick exit. I definitely did not want miss afternoon trivia that day. The topic for that afternoon was Disney trivia. When we got to the Schooner Bar, they were just wrapping up the previous event, which was logo trivia. I would have loved to do this, but given the choice of logo trivia and the ice show, logo trivia did not have a chance. When I saw the logos, I was kind of glad as there were some rather obscure ones on there. We ended up with a couple from Australia asking of they could join us for the trivia. We were happy to have company. I fell afoul of the names of Ariel’s sisters (which I still cannot remember) and of the only character in a feature length film that does not speak. I have to say my ego was a tiny bit dented after this. I figured before the trivia that I ought to be able to win Disney trivia on a Royal Caribbean ship. Unfortunately for me, there were a couple of teams that got every question right. Oh well, it was still a bit of fun.

Opposite the Schooner Bar is one of the speciality restaurants and outside this, there is a screen were you can check the menus for all the specialty restaurants and also for the main dining room. I decided to check out the menu for that evening and I have to say, I was not inspired. There was nothing that evening that took my fancy. Graham came up behind me and suggested we could try dinner at the Windjammer. I quite liked that idea, but my one doubt was that it was formal night. Graham told me that we could still dress up and do the photos. That sounded good to me. So we decided to go up to the Windjammer to check out what the theme for dinner was that evening. This turned out to be a steakhouse menu, which sounded good to both of us.

We headed back to the cabin. When we came out of the lift, there was already a photographer about. Graham decided that he wanted a photo wearing his new t-shirt. I decided to join him. Then we headed across the Royal Promenade. They had a fashion jewellery sale that day. The brand that was featured mainly does Pandora-style bracelets, but they also had other jewellery on sale that day. A beautiful necklace and earring set caught my eye. At $20, I could not resist it. Up to that point, I had not made up my mind what gown I would wear that evening, but my new jewellery was the perfect match for my green gown. So that decision was made.



We headed back to the cabin to drop of our stuff and then went for dinner. I was not quite sure what to expect, but dinner was actually really nice. There were not many people up there and the selection of the food was nice. Graham had steak, lamb shank, prawns, fish, grilled tomato and steak fries. I had two different kinds of steak, chicken, steak fries and some kind of dough ball. Everything was nice. I could not resist the freshly made crêpes for dessert. I had mine with whipped cream, pecan nuts and chocolate ice cream. On the way out, I spotted a sign that made me laugh. One of the dinner offerings was vegetarian chicken.









After dinner, we went to get changed. We then headed back downstairs to the Schooner Bar. I had spotted music trivia on the Daily Compass and the theme was Songs with Colour. This sounded interesting. Well, we crashed and burned. There were 15 son snippets at for each you had to guess the song title and the artist. We got one completely right and the artist on another. Still, it was a a bit of fun. We then went to make use of the photo opportunities, but about half of them were closed as the photographers were taking photos in the dining room. We did the rounds of the ones that were open and then we headed back up to the pool deck to get some fresh air. They were showing Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them that evening. We both had watched this on the flight over, but decided we may as well watch until it was time to go back for the remaining photo opportunities. I think we both came to the conclusion that films on the pool deck can actually work. Once the time had come for all photo opportunities to open up again, we headed back downstairs. We completed our circuit around the photo opportunities and then retired to our cabin. We had another towel animal. We read for about half an hour and then got ready for bed.

















 
I like both of your gowns and the new jewelry set matched perfectly!

Was the dough ball like cornbread? If so, it was a hush puppy.
 
The jewellery and the gown look great together! I think you did a smart decision to eat where you liked the food and where it was comfortable and then just get dressed for the picks!

I am amazed at the amount of trivia there was and how much trivia you did! I know you enjoy it, but not that you loved it tha much! :goodvibes

I have no clue about Ariel's sisters either, but the non-speaking character would that have been Wall-E?
 
Sounds like you had a couple of relaxing days at sea with lots of trivia. I have no clue about Ariel's sisters nor do I know who the character who didn't speak, but Magdalene may have something with Wall-E.
 

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