DaKahuna

It was really smooth and creamy, almost more like gelato than ice cream.

Dinner this evening in Luminae was very good. the Amuse-bousche was a plug of watermelo with some goat cheese on top My wife started with the Pear and Radicchio Salad i tried ordering 5-gallons of the Spiced Louisiana Gumbo again but instead all I could get was a very large bowl. Words cannot describe how much I really love this gumbo, even with the lack of adequate rice. I mean okra is the gift of the gods and improves every dish you add it to. We both had the pork tenderloins for our entree And at our waiter’s recommendation I ordered a small portion of the Linguini Alle Vongole for us to share — very good in my opinion. For dessert my wife was in the mood for some fresh watermelon And I went for the chocolate ice cream — there has been a discussion on @Jim_Iain and @Norwaylady live reviews about the taste and quality of the ice cream. The ice cream tonight was very good. I even had my wife, who has a much more refined palate than mine, taste it and she even said it was good. After dinner we sacrificed some OBC to the casino gods, who were not in a sharing mood tonight, and stopped at the Martini Bar for a drink on the way to the room.

We attended the Japanese Styled Tea in the Retreat Lounge this afternoon. It was a lot of fun. There were kimono’s for me and women to dress up in and have their pictures taken, there were four different types of Japanese green team, and there was Japanese beer and sake. We hung around after it was over as we had a scheduled meeting with the future cruises manager at 4:45 PM. We ended up booking a 17-day Sydney to Honolulu, via Fiji, for April of next year on Solstice. There goes more of our kids inheritance 🤣

@Jim_Iain I warned you and now you are to blame .. We just finished with our appointment with the Future Cruise manager in the Retreat Lounge and are now booked on Solstice, April 19, 2025 - Sydney to Honolulu. Now I have to start looking at flights and hotels on both end of the 17-day Transpacific cruise.

@scorfman Wow what an amazing tour that must have been. Kind of wishing now that we had taken advantage of the offering when we saw it on the Roll Call. Quite a bit more immersive than our walk to the Lotte Mall and back. Greatly appreciate your sharing it with us.

I was introduced to the Mexicali Martini last night at the Martini bar. They were quite delicious and I’ll have to go back for another - but ask them to add a little more Jalapeño as I think he only used two pieces and I think three would have been more to my tasting.

The Ghost Tequila is what Clifford, the evening bartender in the Retreat Lounge, used to make my spicy margarita’s on Cinco de Mayo. They were surprising delicious for a drink made with Blanco.

Just before lunch I received a call from the Luminae Sommelier informing us that our World Wine Tour scheduled for 2 PM this afternoon had been cancelled. Seems we were the only two that signed up for it. He indicated that he would be crediting our account for the cancellation and that he also had a “bottle of my favorite wine” as a consolation gift. I told him I would pick the wine up when we went to lunch. Lunch was in Luminae and was very good. The Sommelier dropped by and set a bottle on Conundrum on the table for me !! He’s getting a nice tip! My DW started with the tuna tartare And I had the Key West Salad from the MDR menu For her main course my wife chose the Pan Roasted Salmon, and the waiter removed the skin for her. And I went with the Mediterranean Turkey Club Sandwich I allowed the sommelier talk me into a white wine and he served me a nice Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. I usually do not drink white wines but made an exception since this is the second time he’s mentioned Sauvignon Blanc this cruise. For dessert my wife went with the Ricotta Cheesecake And I had two scoops of coffee gelato, creamy and smooth as always.

After breakfast I hung out in the lounge while my wife went window shopping. She did not buy anything but has her eye on a necklace she wants to get for our granddaughter who will be graduating from High School in just under two weeks. When she finished her window shopping she joined me in the lounge and when I finished my soda we came up to the room. Our Retreat Host was just finishing up cleaning and maintenance did some work on a faucet in the sink. Upon leaving our host presented us with documents regarding immigration tomorrow. So here goes… The Disembarkation Card for Foreigners is one per person. I spoke with the Retreat Concierge and he informed me that my wife, as a Japanese citizen, does not require one of these but I do need to include her on the Customs form. The Yellow Customs Declaration is one per family

Today’s Friday and our third of four sea days. We decided to sleep in today and went to the Elite Breakfast in Tuscan Grill. We shared the Ultimate Platter and my wife ordered the Freshly Baked Viennoiserie as well. I managed to snag a single bagel and a single almond croissant. Here is the menu The only thing out of the ordinary that has not been posted many times before is the mixed berry smoothie I had. Someone must have read my previous comments regarding the temperature as this was served cold and very much to my liking. We enjoyed the breakfast and the relaxed atmosphere very much.

For dinner last night we managed to get an 8 PM reservation in Tuscan Grill. I had mentioned in another live post that after our previous experience I doubted we would dine there again. However, others said to try it again as it varies with the chef and waitstaff. So glad we decided to try again, We had an excellent meal. Started with the Pizzetta Caprese And classic Caesar Salad My DW went with the spaghetti and meat balls And I had the filet, medium rare For sides we had garlic mashed potato and Broccolini Aglio E Olio I had a classic Chianti to go with my steak For dessert my wife chose the Fig Gelato And I had the Spumoni Donuts All in all a wonderful meal and very pleasant service. We did find Tuscan Grill to be a bit noisier than Luminae. This was due to a boisterous table of either close to where we were seated. Once they completed their meal, the atmosphere was significantly improved. 🤣

To pick up where I left off. Yesterday we had lunch at Sushi on 5. It was good. The gyoza seemed smaller than we recalled but the flavor was still there. I verified my favorite cocktail, the Gingertini, was no longer on the menu our and waiter had never even heard of it. We had standard maki rolls and the omakasi nigiri and I did not bother to take pictures as they have not changed since last year. We did share the sorbet and it was very good. After lunch we went up to our stateroom and relaxed until sail away. There was a group invited to the sail away on the Helipad but we were not a part of it so did not go up. Instead we watched it from our balcony. I have a 1:14 video of us going under the bridge on the way out of port. It’s too big to upload but even from deck 6 it looked impressive sailing under the bridge.

I had two scoops of ice cream in the OVC and they tasted fine to me. At lunch the other day I had the white chocolate macadamia nut cake with pistachio gelato and it tasted just fine. last night in Tuscan we shared the lemon sherbet and it did have ice in it but I think that is normal for sherbet - in any case it was very tasty! So if there have been supplier changes, they have not reached Millennium yet that I can tell.

Thank you for this information. We read on earlier live reviews about the immigration process and although we are in a Suite, we elected to do a sightseeing tour as neither of us have ever been to Hokkaido before. We have not seen anything regarding the immigration process that I have not shared but it is still early in the sea day before arriving.

We waited until after breakfast and left the ship about 1030. The queue from my earlier pictures were completely gone and there were two people walking ahead of us as we entered the terminal. Presented our passports, they scanned them, attached a sticker to them and we were on our way. We proceeded directly to a shuttle bus that dropped us off on the far side of the train station. We then proceeded to walk about 30 minutes to the edge of downtown to the Lotte Mall. My wife had an item she wanted to purchase, found one she liked, purchased it. We walked around the store a little more, including going down to the food market in the basement before exiting the store. We then walked back to the cruise ship shuttle bus stop, boarded the bus and it left as soon as we were seated. Came back aboard, stopping to fill out the Tax Rebate form for my wife’s purchase, showed our passports, and proceeded aboard. Since our bags were scanned ashore, they were not rescanned once we were onboard. Just presented our sea pass cards to the RFID reader and were pinged aboard. We then proceeded to our room and dropped off the items we were carrying and then went to Sushi on 5 for lunch. Lunch was excellent and I had two small glasses of unfiltered sake with my rolls. Found some information from our Retreat Concierge’s in our room upon our return.