POA1

Here's what we're not having for dinner in Club Orange tonight. We're going to the Morimoto pop up in Tamarind at 7:00. co_mdr_dinner_day_6.pdf

Here's the MDR Breakfast Menu from the Rotterdam on a non-brunch day. (Both as images and as a PDF - because I care.) Pulled these on the Rotterdam in Bonaire just now. mdr_breakfast_menu_winter_2023_en_-_v1(1).pdf

You probably looked on a brunch day. It'll be the regular breakfast menu most days.

Our verdict on Chogogo? It's definitely worth the $25 per person cost. Just remember that they limit the number of day passes to 30 people per day. You'll want to be up and off the ship early because the resort desk opens at 8:00 AM. A taxi from the pier to the resort is $15. Same price for the return trip. We shared a minivan cab with another couple from the Rotterdam, who just like us, thought that they were the only ones who knew about it. We're in port with the RCCL Rhapsody of the Seas. We had the earlier docking time, which helped. Even so, there were 10 people in front of us. I put the link below, in case you want to see the menus. As a point of reference, your $10 back on the $25 day pass fee will get you two beers. https://chogogobonaire.com/beach/

The final Chogogo images. The lazy river The pool area

Greetings, bread pudding officiandos! Cinnamon roll bread pudding with warm vanilla rum sauce tonight. We're at Morimoto by Sea, so we will miss it. Team Fruit Crisp - still nothin'. 😠

You're not alone. We've never seen a slice that large either. Michelle was wondering when the other three people were going to show up to help her eat it.

I grabbed a copy of the Rotterdam Art Tour yesterday. It's a paper copy, so I'll have to scan it back at Cheer HQ. It's a slightly different format. They show a deck plan with the locations of the various installations.

Some additional Chogogo photos. The beach bar. It's only 9:30 in the morning, so there's not much of a crowd. Looking across the lazy river, towards the Sunset restaurant.

Our former go-to in Bonaire is Van der Valk Resort. They've gone more toward the all-inclusive concept. We just needed a place to hang out for a few hours, so this works a little better for us. Chogogo's Beach: One of the hotel buildings

We're trying a new place in Bonaire today. It's called Chogogo Bonaire. They sell a very limited number of day passes - only 30 per day. They have a beach, a lazy river pool, and a few bars and restaurants. A day pass is $25 and you get $10 back in food or beverage. You can walk into the water and snorkel right there. You'll need water shoes because the bottom is rough, broken coral pieces.

For dessert, the lovely lady ordered the Jaques Torres Chocolate Puff Pastry Craquelin. This was quite tasty. The chocolate pastry cream was fantastic. Chocolate Puff Pastry Craquelin, with the inner workings exposed. Under normal circumstances, quick work would have been made of this. However, consuming half a steer tends slow a girl down. My dessert was the Rudi Sodamin Ricotta Raspberry Tart. I truly liked this. If we had to pick a winner, the edge would go to the Craquelin because it came with collectable chocolate coin.

Both of our entrées bore the David Burke designation. Mine was the Barramundi with Prosciutto. The Barramundi was quite good. It's Asian sea bass. We noticed that some people shied away from ordering this dish because it's unfamiliar. If you like sea bass, you'll be happy with this. Michelle ordered Roasted Spice Crusted Prime Rib and a Baked Potato. The minute our waiter delivered this plate, the jokes began writing themselves. First off, that's a full size baked potato. It's not a fingerling, baby, or new potato. That's a regulation sized spud. The couple seated next to us had serious food envy. This properly medium rare slab of beef was begging for a name. Candidates are: The Man vs. Food Challenge Plate, or The Fred Flintstone Brontosaurus Platter. ("It's Yabba Dabba Doo-licious!") This was excellent prime rib. Truly delicious. My wife was born in Nebraska, so she's a good, mid-western, beef-loving gal. Even so, she was not going to be able to power through this juicy hunk o' beef. She did manage to make a serious dent, though, before the meat-sweats kicked in. I think that I'm going to keep this photo handy. When someone posts, complaining about skimpy portions or cut backs, I'm just gonna throw this picture up with the caption, "STFU." Also, there was dessert.

Michelle started with the Baby Beet, hazelnut pesto, with burrata. Back up was the Sokol Blosser Pinot Noir. I began with the David Burke Crab Cake. Paired with Benziger Sauvignon Blanc.

We started dinner with a flute of decision-making juice, Chateau Ste. Michelle Brut. Having closed on food choices, we set to work on filling out the lineup. It is a well-known, and established fact that the table with the most glassware in play wins. We are trying to bring our "A" game.

I'm glad you asked. No. The "malted" has all but disappeared. It shakes my faith in humanity. I don't know if you are familiar with the ice cream sundae, Dusty Road. It's a hot fudge sundae with a layer of malted milk on top. It was my favorite as a young lad. I haven't seen a Dusty Road sundae in years. I am pretty sure that its disappearance signaled the end of the world as we know it.

Catching some afternoon outdoor moments in the bronzing sun, Poohby Joe and Michelle spend some quality pre-dinner time.

On a technical note: If your phone or other device is set to use MAC (hardware) address randomization, you may want to turn it off for the ship's network. Otherwise, your device will issue a new MAC address every time you reconnect. Since you typically reacquire a connection as you move about the ship, the HAL network will see this as a brand new device each time. Your internet plan is likely the one device kind, so the ship will think you are logging in with something new each time you move to a new place and home in on a new access point. It took me a day to figure this out, and my life has been simpler since I tweaked the settings for Rotterdam-Guest. I'll try to post some images to show how to make the change. It only impacts this one network, so you are not compromising your device security. I'm sure there are some of you who know exactly what I'm talking about and don't need diagrams. (Please know that you are my people. 😎) 😉

A few miscellaneous updates on our scheduled projects: Thicker Milk Shakes: This one was surprisingly easy. I walked up to the gelato counter asked the shakemeister if he could make a vanilla shake and a Nutella Irish Cream shake - but thicker. He said, "Sure." Then he did. Cabana Sparkling Wine Stretch Goal: Very little progress made on this front. Usually, by the time "champagne time" rolls around, we're kind of tired and thinking that a short afternoon snooze would be just what we need to keep our late night research going. If we are going to succeed here, we are going to have to apply outlrselves. We remain hopeful that we'll be able to bring this project to a successful conclusion on Thursday or Friday. If we are getting close, management has authorized some overtime for Saturday.

Tonight's dinner is the Culinary Council menu. We used to avoid this one and schedule speciality dining. Around 2015 or so, we gave it another try. (We are nothing if not fair.) It turns out that it's surprisingly good, and we were being short-sighted. co_mdr_dinner_day_4_ccc.pdf

The Monarch Butterfly, prized for (a) being one that you know by name, and (b) being pretty easy to spot against the green foliage. I'll be honest. You'd think that the Blue Morpho is really easy to photograph based on this report, since there are bunch of images containing them. In the professional travel writing biz, we refer to this as "dumb luck." If you zoom in on this one, you'll see that Michelle is looking at a Monarch to her right. So, in essence, you are looking at Michelle, who is looking at a Monarch butterfly. This is the kind of "You are there" experience that makes The National Institute of Cheer the most prestigious body of scientific investigation you have encountered in the last five minutes. (Or your money back!)

Our final stop on the Natural Wonders of Aruba tour was the Butterfly Farm. We had about 45 minutes to have a guided tour, and explore the garden. The guide was informative. The butterflies were plentiful, albeit a little hard to photograph. The Blue Morpho is one of the cooler inhabitants of the farm. To successfully photograph them, t recommend taking a crap ton of photos in their general direction. Then, later, scroll through your shots to see if you got anything.

Some photos from our Natural Wonders of Aruba tour yesterday. Our tour bus. A new Volvo Marcopolo bus. Benjamin, our guide. Witty and knowledgeable. He did a great job. One of the island's many cacti. Tree-sized Christmas Cactus. Ironically, this is not a big one for Aruba. These must be spectacular when they're in bloom. The baby natural bridge. The big one collapsed on 2005. The baby natural bridge has fissures on both sides. You aren't allowed to walk on it. A couple of beach pictures to establish "atmosphere." Michelle is in this one, to help prove we were there. This is the remains of a gold smelting operation that closed during World War I. You need to use your imagination here. The famous California lighthouse.

No fish in this version. It does have chicken and an egg though. (Two generations of chicken! With ginger and rice! 😯)

I would like the text in the chat feature to have smaller text and even less contrast with the background. I can almost read the messages. Sure, I need my bifocals, but I would like to need a magnifying glass and maybe some blue-blocker sunglasses. I'm sure that I'm the only HAL cruiser without 20/20 vision. It's not like this demographic sometimes has diminished visual acuity. Behold! A real life navigator message.