A Day At Sea
Relaxing on the Apex
After breakfast at the buffet, we attended General Knowledge trivia in the morning with Ana and then followed that up with Line Dancing at the Rooftop Garden with Giuseppe, who got our heart rates up.
We grabbed a quick lunch at the Oceanview Cafe and then headed down to our Food & Wine Pairing. Thankfully we had checked the app and seen that it had been moved to 1PM from 2PM since the card telling us this would not be delivered until later that day (to our old room). Another call to Guest Relations did not seem to improve that situation.
The wine and food pairing was well done. Instead of the typical pairing where they told you what to taste with which wine, the leader told us to try different things and determine for ourselves what we liked and what we did not, and then he explained why certain foods were best. We tried five wines: a Chilean Sauvignon Blanc, a Chilean Oaked Chardonnay, the German Kabinett Reisling, a Chilean Pinot Noir and finally a Chilean Cabernet Saugivnon. The food pairings included cherry tomatoes with pesto, an olive cocktail, chicken pesto, plain cherry tomatoes, plain chicken, Emmenthalher cheese, trout and a brownie.
Afternoon and Eden Reception
We spent the afternoon lounging in the Solarium and taking in a relaxing day at sea. We found our favorite drink of the cruise at the Magic Carpet bar - the Sunset Daiquiri, made with Kraken spiced rum, fresh lime, Frangelico, Allspice Dram and cinnamon. We had quite a few of those by the end of the week. Janie also had a few margaritas from the bar as well. Finally we went down to the Captain's Club reception at Eden. The captain spoke for a little while and one of the aerialists did a short performance. Cocktails and appetizers were served and they were very good.
Showtime and Fine Cut
Tonight's evening show was a pianist, Claire Maidin. She was very good and did a lot of modern music, which was a change of pace for a lot of Celebrity shows. Turned out she is married to the Apex hotel director.
We had made dinner reservations in one of the specialty restaurants, the Fine Cut Steakhouse, for the night. We had hoped to try their Wagyu for two that we had seen on a previous menu, but they were not serving it this week. We went with filets instead. Janie liked hers but J. R. thought his lacked seasoning. The parmesan truffle fries that others had raved about were just okay -- regular fries with parmesan sprinkled over the top were not really special.
Evening on the Apex
We considered going to Night of the Arts in Eden since we had enjoyed the show in October but we were late coming out of dinner and seating is limited. We opted to change out of our chic clothes and have a drink before the 80's Flashback at The Club. Janie ordered a margarita from her favorite bartender and then we danced for awhile. When we came back to our table, she had another margarita waiting. We danced until midnight and then had a nightcap before bed.