With a much improved weather situation, sleeping was easier and without the Coldrex, almost back to normal so I passed over Paula’s birthday card and switched on the Wake Show in time for her to hear the dedications…
Light breakfast and no Horizon Court tour today, as I keep forgetting to take the last pics!
Oh heck, we’ll do it without the exciting (not) pics…
HORIZON COURT BUFFET TOUR – part 11
The final stations are far from exciting (for me anyway) as the first contains western porridge and also hot rice porridge (for the Asian tastes or maybe it is grits for the American tastes? Don’t know and don’t really need to know either.) but it does have a bowl of brown sugar and a honey pourer alongside, both of which I do use, to sweeten my coffee or hot lemon drink.
There is then a station for the individually boxed cereals, (another area I avoid like the plague, as I am one of those who believes there is probably more nutritional goodness in the cardboard boxes than in the contents anyway). So that concludes the exclusively breakfast aspect of the buffet. I can only emphasise that I have only covered breakfast and that runs to 11:30am and which point, the lunch options kicks in.
I hope future cruisers or even potential cruisers on the Dawn Princess may have found it useful, but hopefully, it also goes a long way to explain the attraction of an enterprise catering for maybe 1200 people each morning. (The remainder either skip breakfast, have room service or eat in the dining room.) Sadly, the much loved chocolate covered doughnuts and even the filled doughnuts seem to have been deleted from the menu. I blame the selfish fat people for that, as they probably couldn’t resist the temptation(s) and got them banned.
It isn’t just an eatery either, as in many cases, we have started conversations and even formed friendships in the oft maligned buffet. Sure, buffet style eating isn’t to everyone’s taste - but nor is waiting patiently in a dining room; nor eating in your room, relaxing in your nightwear before getting ready for the day. Cruises are often what you make them, by making the most of the various options available and working those options to your advantage. Generally, it suits us to use the buffet every day for breakfast as ALL the choices are laid out for you and you probably get far more variety and far more options than in the dining room anyway.
I’ll start again later with more on board culinary options, but that may well mean a return to the buffet for lunch and maybe even the famed afternoon tea. I can sense your excitement from here…
Back to August 4th specifically and after not winning the trivia, we headed upstairs for the “Filipino Buffet” back in the Horizon Court. Paula had a cold rice paper wrapped vegetarian roll and I had a deep fried pork roll, but only to try. I preferred the shepherd’s pie from the m ain buffet area. A light lunch and a welcome glass of lemonade (lemon squash) which is one of the (free) staples I really do enjoy. We still drink a fair bit of iced water – especially at dinner, so the lemonade goes down well.
On then to the packed theatre to see “The Life of Pi” – a thoroughly enjoyable film, before afternoon trivia. Now we can hold our heads up very high as we did finish equal first and then the team looked expectantly at me, as the tie breaker was a Formula 1 racing question. Oh dear. Pressure?
Q: How many points are awarded for finishing 3rd in an F1 GP?
Regardless of what our answer was, the quizmaster is always right and he maintained it was 4 points. It was indeed 4 points - up to about 1993, but times have moved on since then - twice. The real answer is in fact 15 points as from 2010.
We obviously didn’t win trivia… So near yet so far.
At 7pm, we met outside the Wheelhouse Bar for a pre-dinner drink, in our table’s chosen dress up Hawaiian theme, much to the puzzlement of people we passed, as they thought they’d maybe missed something and were seen frantically searching through handbags, scouring the Princess patter newsletter.
Jo & Ros made an early exit from the pre-dinner drinks, on the pretext of a bathroom visit and it was of course to decorate the table ready for Paula’s entrance. Wow! Flowers of course, but also Minnie Mouse headbands with flashing lights for the ladies – each having a different colour. With the leis, Hawaiian shirts and the headbands, the table group looked very colourful.
Paula was overwhelmed (of course) with the gifts and cards. Ros had also set up a fantastic birthday cake, not just the usual standard Princess small chocolate cake, but a creation covered with cream and strawberries and individually made edible sweet flowers, with a white and dark chocolate sign. As is traditional for birthdays, our head waiter (Robbie), came over with the cake, with a larger entourage than usual of waiters and waitresses, to sing “Happy Birthday”. The reason the entourage was larger than usual was because we were the only table left! Mal & Megan joined us to share the most delicious cake, then we had to follow the trend set at Ros’s birthday, with the birthday girl draped across the table for a photograph. Our waiter Alfredo and assistant Vincent didn’t seem to mind too much working overtime, so we have given them the night off tomorrow, whilst we skip formal night and eat at the Sterling Steakhouse instead.
We then followed the others up to the casino (but we didn’t gamble Dad…) and carried on chatting whilst others fed the pokie machines, at which point, Judy had a small win, but couldn’t remember her pin number to collect her winnings! That initiated a minor panic as she was required to produced photo ID and then she couldn’t find her driving licence back in the safe. (It was eventually found – in the safe, but tucked away in the lining!)
And so to bed, ready for the clocks going back yet again. Still sea days ahead but we seem to have things arranged by the Nomad’s (or Ros & Jo) for several days yet. We are not bored either, even though there are still sea days ahead…
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