JamieLogical's Live from the MSC Meraviglia 9/24

[melissy123]

39 minutes ago, ESCARGO said:

Ellie, MSC Meraviglia removed their Library where they had games and puzzles and added a small smoke-free casino in place of it. 

Ted

So no more games available?

 

[ESCARGO]

43 minutes ago, melissy123 said:

So no more games available?

 

I don't think so. They might have daily crossword & soduko puzzles printed out maybe in guest services. 

[ajoneen]

Jamie- noticed you tipped cabin attendant at beginning and I think you posted somewhere you tipped favorite bar server/tender(?) at end.  Do you tip the room service person each morning? Ever? End? 

[luckyinpa]

On 9/27/2023 at 9:59 AM, Debde said:

Thank you so much Jamie for taking the time to do that.

Enjoy your cruise and keep up the information. It is so helpful for those of us getting ready to board for our cruises!

 

i see nick for sponge bob and hgtv for home shows. im happy  🙂

 

on NCL they had 2 movies channels and one tv channel that played totally random stuff like star trek. original batman but then stuff like friends or other sit coms .. it was all commercial free but if the show ended at 22 after. you had 8 minutes of time till the next show was on . very strange

[JamieLogical]

Yesterday was our port day in Saint John, New Brunswick. We had made a lunch reservation for 12:30 at Britt’s Pub & Eatery near the cruise pier, so that was our only time constraint. It was a good thing, too, because once again the ship was late getting cleared for passengers to disembark. We had been scheduled to arrive at 10:00, but apparently, there were issues getting the ship cleared by Canadian authorities. First, it seems that the border agents were late boarding the ship and then it seemed that not all non-US and non-CA passport holders had followed the instructions to report to the Carousel Lounge for a “visual inspection.” See as how I would estimate at least a third (maybe even up to half?) of the passengers are non-US and non-CA citizens, this process was predictably slow.

 

We had breakfast in the buffet (it was a cage match up there). My husband managed to get a bagel toasted! It actually had black and brown areas from the toasting. I was impressed. I had to hunt for cottage cheese. The first bowl I found of it was empty. I finally managed to find some on the back, starboard corner.

 

After breakfast, we headed back to our room to await the announcement that we could get off the ship. I finished typing my blog and even had a light nap. Right around 11:00, the announcement was made that the ship had been cleared. We decided to go ahead and go down right away, knowing that meant we would likely have to wait in line.

 

We went down to Deck 5 and there was the expected line all through the Infinity Lounge area. It moved fairly quickly. We got in line at 11:04 and we were off the ship at 11:19. So, exactly 15 minutes. Not too bad since it was the first mad rush to get off the ship as soon as it cleared.

 

Immediately off the ship, there are a bunch of shipping containers that have been converted into shops/booths. We looked around a bit there. After that, we went up into town, which is very cute, walkable (if you can handle hills), and has plenty of shopping.

 

Our first order of business was to make sure we knew exactly where Britt’s was so we could get back there in time for our reservation. We then walked around a bit until we found a mall, Brunswick Square. We were keeping an eye out for a drugstore, as we were in need of additional bandaids. My husband had used up most of the ones from my little travel first aid kit when he sliced off his fingertip in the hotel in NYC. Meanwhile, I had a blister forming on the back of my heel. We found a drug store in the little mall we came across as did everyone else on our ship it seemed. It was doing quite a bit of business! I took some photos of their cookie selection for future reference, as my husband has been disappointed with the cookies on offer at late-night snack at the buffet and has been craving cookies.

 

I say “little mall”, but it was actually a fairly big mall with five stories, it was just that the vast majority of the storefronts were empty. So similar to most malls in the States these days.

 

We poked around that mall for a bit and did go into an “antique” store that had some interesting furniture and knickknacks. Then we headed back out to explore the streets. We found a shop that claimed to sell “obscurities” so we had to check that out. It was a really cute store with a nice, friendly dog. I ended up buying a magnet for my friend/pet sitter. We explored some more and then headed back to Britt’s for our lunch reservation.

 

I was surprised to see we probably didn’t even need a reservation, as it wasn’t as packed as I expected for a restaurant close to the cruise terminal. Apparently, Britt’s does a little of their own brewing, so my husband and I both had some of their “Britt’s Brew,” which was a pretty good amber.

 

As for food, I had expected I would just get a burger, but then I got tempted by the Chicken & Waffle Poutine. I love poutine first of all. Second of all, this poutine was made with waffle fries, which sounded amazing. And, of course, who doesn’t love southern fried chicken? But what sounded a little challenging about it was the combination of turkey gravy, sriracha aioli, and maple. In my mind, I was not convinced those flavors would go together. Well, I am glad that I learned long ago to “trust the chef” with weird flavor combinations because this poutine was one of the best things I have ever eaten in my life! I will honestly say it was probably up there in my top 5 list. It was just soooooo good. I could not stop eating it, despite knowing I was going to be painfully overfull. I think I either need to move to Saint John or convince the owner of my local pub to call Britt’s, get the recipe for this, and start offering it on the menu.

 

My husband had a chicken sandwich with all the dill pickles on it. He liked his too, especially the fried chicken, but he still ended up regretting his life choices and stealing some of mine. If any of you ever find yourself in Saint John, you MUST go to Britt’s and you MUST get this poutine. Otherwise, you will live a life full of regret.

 

After we rolled out of Britt’s, we really needed to walk off all that food, so we did some more exploring. We went to the Market Square mall, which really did not have much going on in it. There was a food court that seemed to be rather popular, but that was about it.

 

There was a skywalk from the Market Square that ultimately led us back to Brunswick Square Mall. We left that mall out of a different entrance and ended up across the street from a “supermarket”. This was actually not at all the sort of supermarket we are used to. It was more like an indoor public market with individual booths and stalls set up selling a variety of things from souvenirs to fresh vegetables and meat. There were several artists’ stalls selling photos, prints, paintings, etc. My husband ended up buying a t-shirt with a cute drawing of a chipmunk drinking a cup of coffee. My husband forgot to pack all of his graphic tees, so he needed to pick something up to fill out his cruise wardrobe but didn’t want to buy a souvenir t-shirt he would never wear again in real life. I also found a stall selling more cookies, so I took a photo to refer back to later for our cookie hunt.

 

We came out the opposite entrance to the supermarket from where we had entered and that spit us out near the King’s Park, which we had seen on a map of town and noted as a place that might be worth checking out. We needed to cross the street in order to get to the park and in order to cross the street, we needed to go down the street to our left a bit. That was fortuitous because I spotted a shop in that direction that was selling games and comics. That is our kind of store! We headed over to check it out and they had a good selection of games. We spotted 7 Wonders Duel, which someone had recommended to me on this very blog, so we decided to purchase it. The two guys working at the counter were super friendly and helpful and recommended a few other small, two-player games to us. I was really happy to be able to give them some business.

 

We then walked over to the park and sat and people-watched a bit while contemplating our plan. It was close enough to coffee time that we decided we should probably acquire some. We had passed a coffee shop that was NOT a Tim Horton’s (I am not a fan) that had a sign in their window that their coffee actually tastes like coffee. That appealed to me, so we headed over there and got some coffee. My husband also obtained a chocolate chunk cookie. We sat at their little bar along the front window and watched the people on the street go by. It was really pleasant.

 

Once we had finished our coffee and my husband had his cookie, he decided he didn’t need to buy any packaged cookies after all. We decided to head back to the ship.

 

On our way, we came across an AMAZING band just playing on the street for tips. I have encountered a lot of street musicians playing for tips in various ports, but these guys were just insanely good. Everyone was stopping to listen to them, including Chris J. Clarke, who we had heard in concert in the Carousel Lounge on the first day and Candice, who is a popular act that plays down in the Infinity Lounge both nights. We also ran into our bartender from the Champagne Bar. We stood and listened to them for a really long time until they decided to take a break. I could have listened to them all day. They did like bluesy and classic rock kind of stuff? It’s hard to describe, but it was just so good. They were so talented. The name of the band is Divine Contradictions, if you want to try to look them up on YouTube or anything. I haven’t been able to watch any of their videos with my Browse wifi package.

 

We headed back to the ship, which meant passing through the area with the converted shipping containers. One portion of that are was a stage and there was now a live performance going on on that stage. It was some guy doing a terrible cover of Friends in Low Places and it was frankly offensive to my ears after having just heard such a great performance out on the street. We couldn’t get out of earshot of that debacle fast enough.

 

Getting back on the ship was easy. We had to stand in about a 5-minute long security line. We then headed back to our room and got changes and headed up to the Sky Lounge to get drinks and play board games again. This reminds me: for anyone who doesn’t already know, Canadian law only allows for one bar to be open on each deck of a cruise ship while in port. Apparently, a gentleman we ran into later in the day wasn’t aware of this and was disappointed to learn Brass Anchor was closed. All the bars had to be closed until 8:30 in the evening because of this law. The bars that were open were Infinity on 5, Meraviglia on 6, the Casino bar on 7, the buffet bar on 15, one of the Atmosphere bars on 16, and the Sky Lounge on 18.

 

Because it was one of the only open bars, Sky Lounge was pretty crowded already by the time we got there, but we were able to find a table and play some more Splendor Duel for a while. We had decided to try to get a reservation for Hola! for dinner, so my husband went back down to the room to take his meds and to try to call the reservations desk. He let the phone ring and ring the whole time he was dealing with his meds and no one answered. He decided to just physically head down to Ocean Cay to ask about reservations and was able to get us in at 6:00.

 

It was already just after 5:00 at this point, so we didn’t have time for another round of Splendor Duel, so we played a couple of rounds of Happy Little Dinosaurs instead. That game is just silly and stupid, but we had fun.

 

We dropped our stuff at our room and tried to go back to Ocean Cay to see about getting a reservation for 8:00pm show of House of Houdini, but there were already a bunch of people in line there. We noticed the sign for the Carousel Lounge shows outside of Ocean Cay said they could be reserved from ANY specialty restaurant, so we decided to ask about it at Hola! We headed over there and got the same table we had the first night. I was a little worried we wouldn’t be able to get Margaritas with the stupid rule about only one bar per deck, but we were able to get them without issue. I asked the metre-de about House of Houdini reservations and he said he would get us hooked up after our meal.

 

We decided to mix things up a little this time and ordered a quesadilla. I also got the “small” nachos again, while my husband ordered the chips and salsa and a Chile Con Carne taco. The quesadilla was just okay. The beef to chees ratio was off. The nachos were great, once again. And we even decided we had room for dessert! We decided on the Dulce de Leche since my husband hadn’t experienced it on his last sailing. I had had it on my solo cruise.

 

After we finished eating, we were indeed able to book our House of Houdini reservations. We didn’t have a ton of time to kill before doors opened at 7:30, so we went to the Infinity Lounge and listened to Candice perform for a bit. I was too full to order a drink, but my husband had a double shot of Zacapa 23, despite that being outside of our Easy Plus drink package.

 

We headed back to the Carousel Lounge close to 7:30 and got in line to wait for the doors to open. I knew that Chris J Clarke was playing as the opening act for the Carousel Lounge shows, so I wanted to catch as much of that as possible. He was very determined to get the small crowd engaged. It was a fun time for those of us who knew all the songs.

 

We had seen Rock Circus back in April, so we knew pretty much what to expect for House of Houdini. I think I ended up preferring Rock Circus. House of Houdini seemed to be trying to have some sort of plot that I couldn’t really make out? And a lot of the songs were more modern pop that I was not familiar with. It was still entertaining, though.

 

After the show, we decided to go back up to the Sky Lounge and see what we could see of our sail away from Saint John. We managed to snag a recently vacated table by the windows and we enjoyed a few drinks. One of our regular servers was there and confessed she was having a rough cruise. Apparently, a lot of the passengers are very rude. I think it makes a huge difference that cold weather cruises mean that everyone is stuck indoors. The rowdy pool people all get forced into the interior lounges and don’t behave themselves. I hadn’t seen anyone acting crazy, but I did witness a woman just shout “WHITE WINE” at our server when she was serving our table.

 

We eventually left the Sky Lounge and headed to the buffet for late-night snack. I had my usual slice of pizza and my husband found some actual chocolate chip cookies. Then it was off to the casino, which I hadn’t visited in several days where I promptly lost those several days’ budget. Then to bed.

 

Day's Drinks:

Britt's Brew from Britt's Pub & Eatery
Mojito from Sky Lounge
Absolut Cosmo from Sky Lounge
Classic Margarita from Hola!
Red Rooster from Carousel Lounge
Vodka Ginger ale from the Sky Lounge
Hugo Spritz from the Sky Lounge

[JamieLogical]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 28, 2023 by JamieLogical

[BoundForSea]

That Poutine Tho!!!!! 🔥🔥
 

R U Kidding Me?!?!? 😍

Edited September 28, 2023 by BoundForSea

[yajaira74]

Does the ship stay on EST "Ship Time" or does it change to Canadian time at each port?

[DaKahuna]

Please tell your husband that I applaud his choice in rums.  The Ron Zacapa 23 is my favorite and I recommend if he's interested he try a rum old fashioned made with Zacapa 23.  

 

[Best Cat Mom]

29 minutes ago, DaKahuna said:

The Ron Zacapa 23 is my favorite and I recommend if he's interested he try a rum old fashioned made with Zacapa 23. 

Yes, yes, yes! I had this drink for the first time on Seaside earlier this month. The mixologist at the Wine and Cocktails Bar by the specialty restaurants (Frederick) made it for me. I had asked for a Side Car but he did not have brandy and could not make it. He made this instead and I was hooked!! From then on, we exited YC every night just so I could have one (or two, or three, or...). 🙂

 

[DaKahuna]

27 minutes ago, Best Cat Mom said:

Yes, yes, yes! I had this drink for the first time on Seaside earlier this month. The mixologist at the Wine and Cocktails Bar by the specialty restaurants (Frederick) made it for me. I had asked for a Side Car but he did not have brandy and could not make it. He made this instead and I was hooked!! From then on, we exited YC every night just so I could have one (or two, or three, or...). 🙂

 

 

 Please do not tell me they do not have Zacapa 23 in the YC?  I was looking forward to enjoying them while sitting in the lounge / pool deck watching the world go by. 

 

I also appreciate a good sidecar.  I enjoyed a number of them on my last Celebrity cruise. 

 

 

[Best Cat Mom]

5 minutes ago, DaKahuna said:

Please do not tell me they do not have Zacapa 23 in the YC?

We only visited Frederick every night because he introduced the drink to us -- and that area was completely empty at 10pm after we finished our YC dinner. Next cruise, we'll definitely order it in Top Sail.

 

I love a good Side Car but the Zacapa Old Fashioned was less sticky on the hands. LOL

 

[Sorry Jaime, for hijacking the thread -- but your spouse definitely should try the Zacapa Old Fashioned!]

[Mark_T]

15 minutes ago, DaKahuna said:

 Please do not tell me they do not have Zacapa 23 in the YC?  I was looking forward to enjoying them while sitting in the lounge / pool deck watching the world go by. 

 

I also appreciate a good sidecar.  I enjoyed a number of them on my last Celebrity cruise. 

 

 

Indeed, that is a familiar offering from the Celebrity World Class bar... 

 

 

If you find anything missing from the YC bar that is available elsewhere on the ship they will try to get it for you...

[DaKahuna]

9 minutes ago, Best Cat Mom said:

We only visited Frederick every night because he introduced the drink to us -- and that area was completely empty at 10pm after we finished our YC dinner. Next cruise, we'll definitely order it in Top Sail.

 

I love a good Side Car but the Zacapa Old Fashioned was less sticky on the hands. LOL

 

[Sorry Jaime, for hijacking the thread -- but your spouse definitely should try the Zacapa Old Fashioned!]

 

 Recently Celebrity has not carried Zacapa so I have been receiving my rum old fashioned made with Bumbu and Brugal. 

 

1 minute ago, Mark_T said:

Indeed, that is a familiar offering from the Celebrity World Class bar... 

 

If you find anything missing from the YC bar that is available elsewhere on the ship they will try to get it for you...

 

 The World Class bar is where i was first introduced to Zacapa, through the Zacap Old Fashioned and the Zacapa Beneath the Clouds. 

 

 We went to a restaurant in Bethesda Maryland a few months back that served the old fashioned smoked.  It was delicious! 

[JamieLogical]

2 hours ago, yajaira74 said:

Does the ship stay on EST "Ship Time" or does it change to Canadian time at each port?

 

We will be changing times for the third time tonight. We went forward for Saint John, back for Portland, and will go forward again tonight for Sydney.

[JamieLogical]

2 hours ago, DaKahuna said:

Please tell your husband that I applaud his choice in rums.  The Ron Zacapa 23 is my favorite and I recommend if he's interested he try a rum old fashioned made with Zacapa 23.  

 

 

We have visited the he World Class Bar on Celebrity many times, so he is familiar with this drink. He preferred the smoked Zacapa though. He is a sucker for smoked drinks.

[Ottawa_Cruiser]

Still no Mimosa Blossoms??! 😲

[JamieLogical]

Yesterday was our port stop in Portland, Maine. We received information in our rooms the night before about the US Immigration process that all of us would need to go through. They were going to have everyone go to the Carousel Lounge by “group,” regardless of whether they intended to go off the ship or not. Group A was to consist of those with MSC Excursions and staterooms on Deck 5. It was supposed to be called at 9:30. We were supposed to be in Group B with our fellow passengers from Deck 8. We were supposed to be called at 10:00.

 

We running a little late with getting ready in the morning, but still intended to go to Panorama for breakfast, which was supposed to be open until 9:30. We got there just about 9:00. We walked past Deck 7 (where Carousel Lounge is) and there was already a line past the aft elevators. Carousel Lounge is at the complete aft of the ship, on the other side of the casino, so this was a very long line already, considering it was a full half hour before the first group was even supposed to be called.

 

There was also a line on Deck 6 for Panorama. It initially didn’t seem to be moving at all. I looked at my watch and it was 9:04. We agreed to give it 5 minutes. The line began moving again and we did get inside, but I heard the Head Maitre’d tell them to close the doors behind us. Remember, they were supposed to be open until 9:30.

 

We were seated at a table with four other people, the two ahead of us and the two behind us in line. We were seated at an eight-top table right up against the wall, behind a pillar at the front of the restaurant. There were only 5 coffee cups on the table and I was the odd man out. Someone came around with coffee and milk and sent someone else to fetch me a cup. But by the time I received a cup, the person with coffee had moved on. Eventually, another person with coffee came around, but no milk. At this point, everyone else at my table was on their second cup of coffee. Finally, I waved down another person with milk and accomplished coffee.

 

We all placed our food orders and the wait began. We waited and waited and waited. At this point, the dining room was about ¾ empty because everyone else had finished their food and left. The army of servers were all busy turning over the tables with fresh tablecloths and place settings. Trays upon trays upon trays of dirty plates were being carried away. No new food was coming out. A table near us was also still waiting on their food (a few of them had gotten fruit salad at least). We waited some more. We were really down to about 10 tables with people still at them at this point. Only the two tables without food. Someone in a suit jacket came over and told us he had sent someone to check on our food.

 

We were just about to give up and go to the buffet when the other table that had been waiting finally received their food, which gave us renewed hope. Then finally we got our food. Three of the people at our table had ordered the eggs benedict. It came out on white bread instead of english muffins. Apparently, they had run out of english muffins. One of the other women at my table had also ordered an english muffin as her bread with her meal and they came out and asked her what she would like instead (she went with a croissant). My food was perfectly good. I had ordered an omelette with cheddar and bacon. I also partially accomplished toast as well. I asked for butter when they brought it out and was given butter almost immediately. However, I still didn’t get any jam. My husband’s meal was less successful. He had ordered french toast and there was no hope of syrup. I had seen the syrup carried away out of the MDR earlier while all the staff were clearing everything.

 

We headed back to our room around 10:00. At this point, they were still only calling Group A. They kept repeating that ONLY Group A should be queuing up at Carousel Lounge and that they would call everyone else by Deck after that. You were not allowed to get off of the ship until passing through immigration, so clearly a lot of people who wanted to go on shore were eager to get through, regardless of whether it was their turn or not.

 

We came back to the room and I worked on my blog and my husband played his Switch and we waited for our group to be called. It was called shortly before 11:00 (remember the flier had said our group was supposed to be 10:00). We headed down and got in line just past the aft elevators. It quickly got much longer behind us.

 

Fortunately the line moved quickly. However, we could see lots and lots of people going into the Carousel Lounge and none coming out. It was slightly alarming. We made some jokes about people just getting shoved off the back of the boat or being put through a wood chipper to become fish food. I did start to become concerned that they were having people exit the ship from there. We were not prepared to go on shore yet. We hadn’t brought our jackets or any of the other stuff we would want to take onshore like medications and water. As we got near the entrance to the Lounge, I could feel cold air coming in, so there was definitely a door to outside open somewhere nearby.

 

We got into the Lounge and saw that they had those facial recognition scanners set up, so we didn’t need our passports after all. We went through the scanners quickly then looped around through the Lounge to where two crew members were putting little white, rectangular stickers on everyone’s ship cards to show they had been “cleared” to go on shore. We then had to have our ship cards scanned by another set of crew members who were sitting at a long table with laptops. We were then routed outside onto the Promenade, which I had honestly forgotten existed on this ship and walked forward along that before re-entering the ship near the Champagne Bar.

 

As we were walking along the Promenade, we heard the announcement for Group C to come to the Carousel Lounge, so the pace of things seemed to have picked up. We went back to our rooms to grab the rest of the stuff we needed to go onshore and then tried to figure out how to get off the ship. We had to go down to Deck 4 from the aft elevator/stairwell.

 

Once off the ship, there was quite a long walk down gangways and across bridges and such out to the street. We had decided that we were going to do a DIY brewery crawl. There was a tour company called Brews Cruise that offered a brewery crawl for $85 each, but I didn’t understand the point of doing that when we were perfectly capable of walking to the various nearby breweries ourselves. According to Google, some of the breweries opened at 11:00 and more opened at 12:00. It was about 11:20 at this point. We decided to stop at the one closest to the ship first since it was already open, This was Brickyard Hollow. The location we stopped at wasn’t the actual brewery, which I gathered was in Yarmouth, ME, but they did serve their own beer. I got an Imperial Stout and my husband got a Brown Ale. Both were good and we really enjoyed the vibe of the place (which also seemed to be a popular pizza place) and relaxed at the bar and enjoyed our beers.

 

Next up on our list was Stars & Stripes, which was rated as a 4.9 on Google, so that boded well. It was pretty far away, but we figured we would go there first and then work our way back east. Well, we got there and were disappointed to discover that the hours listed on Google were wrong. They didn’t open until 2:00. That was a disappointment, as it was just now after 12:00.

 

We headed back down the hill to Liquid Riot, which was the next stop on our list. There we tasted a couple of beers and then split a flight. I had some sort of strawberry cream ale nitro and an Irish stout. The strawberry was my favorite. We also decided to order a little food to tide us over here. We had the crab hush puppies, which were delicious.

 

Next up was Shipyard Brewing, which required us to walk back past the ship and further north and east. This is a larger brewery that distributes. They had a large gift shop at the front and then just a counter to order beers at furtner in with some open tables, no table service or a bar to sit at. Here we got another flight. We both got the Pumpkin Imperial Ale and I also got a Blueberry Ale, which was very good. There was no food available here and my husband was starting to get hangry for a real lunch.

 

When we left, the plan was to head north up to Washington Steet, which is where the best breweries were purported to be located. It was quite a hike up the hill and we had to deal with a lot of road construction and closed sidewalks. We finally made it to Oxbow Blending & Bottling, which was our next planned stop. Right next to it was the Duck Fat Frites Shack where we got a grilled cheese sandwich and some poutine with duck confit.

 

We also got a German Pilsner to share from Oxbow, which only had their outside bar with a limited draft selection available, unfortunately.

 

The grilled cheese sandwich was delicious. It had cheese and sundried tomato pesto on sourdough bread that was perfectly toasted. The poutine would have been great if I hadn’t JUST had that amazing chicken & waffle poutine the day before. This paled in comparison.

 

After the stop at Oxbow, we decided to just head back to the ship. I had gastric sleeve surgery years ago and it makes it difficult for me to drink anything for about an hour after eating a full meal, so it would have been a while before I could drink more beer.

 

At least the walk back to the ship was all downhill, but by this point, we both desperately needed to pee. We were praying there would be restrooms in the little terminal building where the ship was docked, as the walk from there back to the ship was still quite long and we didn’t know what kind of security line we’d be facing.

 

There were indeed bathrooms in the little building, but the ladies’ room only had two stalls and the line was quite long. Two stalls seemed perfectly reasonable when accommodating a ship with roughly 6000 people onboard, presumably half of whom were women….

 

I waited in the line for forever. My husband went to the men’s room and came back out while I was still in line outside of the actual bathroom area. I did eventually get to pee, but I am not convinced it was any faster than had we just gotten back onboard the ship.

 

Back onboard, we went to our room and quickly changed. Our next priority was coffee, which we acquired from Edge while I finished typing up my blog for the previous day.  We then decided that a nap seemed like a good idea, but it was challenging as first, the crew safety drill was underway and they kept making announcements regarding that which played in the staterooms. Then my husband got some acid reflux from having had coffee right before trying to nap, so his coughing kept me up. I didn’t actually get much sleep and my husband got even less.

 

Around 6:00, we got up and out of the room again, having not conclusively decided what to do about dinner. I decided that we would go up to the buffet, do a lap to see if there was anything amazing there, and then go to the MDR at 6:30 if we didn’t spot anything we really wanted.

 

Surprising no one, there was nothing inspirational at the buffet, so we opted for the MDR. We headed down to the Champagne Bar for some French 77s before dinner and ran into someone from Cruise Critic who was on her way to Butcher’s Cut with her husband for their Diamond dinner. I gave her a little advice on drinks to order and then we headed off to the MDR. Oh, while we were sitting at the Champagne Bar, a couple of our dinner tablemates passed by and informed us they wouldn’t be at dinner.

 

We got to our table and no one else was there. Even the two ladies who always show up late never showed up, so we had the table to ourselves for dinner. I was excited because there was this seafood pasta on the menu, which I had had on my solo sailing in April. It was every bit as good as I remembered. I also had the French Onion soup as my appetizer and the cheese plate as my dessert.

 

My husband had the asparagus for his appetizer (the stalks were ridiculously small) and the short ribs as his entre. The short ribs were too fatty, but the polenta underneath was apparently really good. For his dessert, he had the Opera Cake and they brought him some strawberry ice cream as well, which was very good.

 

After dinner, we decided to head back to the Champagne Bar to hang out for a bit. My husband was still having stomach issues so he planned to call it an early night, but I wanted to try some of the other cocktails on the Champagne Bar menu. Our bartender recommended the Blueberry Lavender Sparkler, so I tried that and it was very good. While I was just getting it, the couple we had run into on their way to Butcher’s Cut spotted us again and we got into a long conversation that was initially about the differences between NCL and MSC and the cuts that NCL has made recently. They are whatever status level is below Ambassador on NCL now. They had status matched to Diamond with MSC before COVID and were going to lose their status if they didn’t sail by the end of the year, which is how they ended up on this cruise (their first on MSC).

 

They have been loving it so far and she ordered a glass of Vueve (a $14 upcharge with the Easy Plus package) just to spite NCL, which no longer carries Vueve onboard. We stayed and chatted for a very long time. My husband had to eventually go to bed, as he still wasn’t feeling great. But I stayed for longer and we had a great chat about cruising, children, grandchildren, nephews, broken bones, surgeries, and horses!

 

I had a few more of those Blueberry Lavender Sparklers. But eventually, it was time for me to have a late-night snack and head to bed. Especially since the clocks were moving forward an hour. I got a slice of pizza, checked for some cookies for my husband (there were none as I got there around 10:15), and headed off to bed.

 

We decided to fill out our room service card for later than usual because of the time change and then we crashed pretty hard.

 

Day's Drinks:

Wescustogo Imperial Stout from Brickyard Hollow
Ichigo Cream Ale and Irish Goodbye  from Liquid Riot
Smashed.Pumpkin Imperial Pumpkin Ale and Blue Paw Blueberry Ale from Shipyard Brewing
Zeit Pils from Oxbow Blending & Bottling
ending & Bottling
Americano w/ Bailey’s from Edge
French 77 x1.5 from Champagne Bar
Blueberry Lavender Sparkler x3 from Champagne Bar
 

Edited September 29, 2023 by JamieLogical

[JamieLogical]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 29, 2023 by JamieLogical

[DaKahuna]

@JamieLogical  I thoroughly enjoyed reading you DIY microbrewery tour.  I was please to see no mention of any IPA's. 

 

[JamieLogical]

19 minutes ago, DaKahuna said:

@JamieLogical  I thoroughly enjoyed reading you DIY microbrewery tour.  I was please to see no mention of any IPA's. 

 

 

There were plenty of IPAs on offer, but my husband barely tolerates IPAs and I outright reject them.

 

I love my Porters and Stouts, I like a lot of Brown Ales and Ambers, and I will try the occasional Sour. IPAs are straight out. I hate hops.

[mnpurple]

You are my kind of woman! I also hate hops and love porter and stouts. We were on a land trip up the coast last year and ended up at Oxbow and I was pleasantly surprised to find the Duck Fat frite shack there because I had heard wonderful reviews and found them very good. Now I'm thinking we'll need another trick just to find the other Poutine you had.  That must have been quite a hike up there, if I recall not very close to the port area.

[JamieLogical]

6 minutes ago, mnpurple said:

You are my kind of woman! I also hate hops and love porter and stouts. We were on a land trip up the coast last year and ended up at Oxbow and I was pleasantly surprised to find the Duck Fat frite shack there because I had heard wonderful reviews and found them very good. Now I'm thinking we'll need another trick just to find the other Poutine you had.  That must have been quite a hike up there, if I recall not very close to the port area.

 

It wasn't that far of a walk, it was just very uphill. If you can find any excuse at all to go to Saint John and get that chicken and waffles poutine from Britt's, do it!!! I looked it up and it's only a 12 hour drive from my house...

[DaKahuna]

3 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

There were plenty of IPAs on offer, but my husband barely tolerates IPAs and I outright reject them.

 

I love my Porters and Stouts, I like a lot of Brown Ales and Ambers, and I will try the occasional Sour. IPAs are straight out. I hate hops.

 

I could not agree more.  IPA's were originally called "skunk beers" for good reason. 

 

Our middle grandson works at a small micro brewery when he's home from college.  They make an excellent Milk Stout and it's my go to when I visit him at work or have our daughter / SIL pick me up some from where he works. 

 

During one of my tenures as a road warrior I use to look for micro breweries in the areas where I was staying, as much for the variety of beers as for the food.  I have had some very good dinners doing that, especially in the north east US. 

 

 

Edited September 29, 2023 by DaKahuna

[JamieLogical]

2 hours ago, DaKahuna said:

 

I could not agree more.  IPA's were originally called "skunk beers" for good reason. 

 

Our middle grandson works at a small micro brewery when he's home from college.  They make an excellent Milk Stout and it's my go to when I visit him at work or have our daughter / SIL pick me up some from where he works. 

 

During one of my tenures as a road warrior I use to look for micro breweries in the areas where I was staying, as much for the variety of beers as for the food.  I have had some very good dinners doing that, especially in the north east US. 

 

 

 

We live in Rochester, NY which has a huge craft beer scene along with the surrounding area, so we are incredibly spoiled.