Sept.18, 2018 Onboard the Jewel, Day 2

We woke up early and land was very close to our ship on the port side. I felt confused as I knew we’d been sailing for 8 or 9 hrs and I had never seen land this close on my previous trips to Alaska. I felt like something was wrong but then realized I had probably not been on the port side before when cruising to Alaska and therefore didn’t know what it was or where we were.

Eventually I sorted it out; it was still Vancouver Island that we were passing! It seemed bizarre to have sailed all night and we still hadn’t passed VI. On previous cruises we were on the starboard side viewing the mainland of beautiful British Columbia not even thinking of Vancouver Island on the opposite side of the ship. It will likely always surprise me to see and realize just how very huge my beautiful home Province is.

I went for breakfast in the Garden Cafe buffet and uppermost in my mind was to hopefully find out if they served muscelli. It’s my fav. breakfast food along with a little fruit and my last cruiseship the Carnival Sunshine didn’t have it and that was a disappointment. I went directly to the kiosk with the Cereal sign and found Creme of wheat and oatmeal and dry cereals but no muscelli. It was such a downer thinking I won’t get my fav brekkie for 35 days! What ever will I eat? Well, I don’t get muscelli at home and I’m still alive but on a cruiseship yes, I want my muscelli and it’s one of the first things that I think of and look forward to when I book a cruise.
So sadly I walked to my next favourite kiosk and that’s the one with the sign Fresh Fruit and there in a huge bowl was my muscelli! It was such a surprise I almost cried with relief! It was awesome with nuts, seeds, grated apple and raisins. Why would they put it with the fruits would be a weird question I thought so I didn’t ask it but Annie said she thought it was considered to be a health food so that’s why it lived with the fresh fruits. I was just happy to know it was there and I now know the secret of where it’s kept and I’ll be it’s best customer every day.

After breakfast I went to the Spinnaker lounge for the Cruise Critics meet and greet. It was nice to talk to other members and I signed up for the cabin crawl, two slot tournaments and a scavenger hunt and then took a ....uh....leisurely route to return to the cabin. Along the way I stopped at a bar that had a sign advertising coffee drinks so I asked for a frozen chocolate coffee and the guy asked if I meant iced coffee so I said no, a drink like Starbucks makes and he gave me a blank look. So I said something like a milkshake and he said ok. So he made my drink and asked if I wanted whipped cream on it and I while I don’t usually this time I said yes, big mistake......he put one of those tall plastic lids on it and then I asked for a straw and he said we don’t have any. What the heck! How do they expect people to drink their drinks from a plastic cup with 3 inches of whip on top and one of those weird tall toppers with a big hole in it where the straw is usually located. What a strange conundrum. So I removed that lid and sipped my frozen coffee as best as I could without getting a white moustache while looking all around for some sort of straw but I saw nada. Eventually I found out the NCL has disposed of all plastic straws in their quest to be environmentally friendly and they were waiting for paper straws to arrive. Now while I approve of making the world a better place I will have to delete frozen coffee drinks from my diet to comply because sipping it out of a tall container that contains more plastic than at least 100 straws doesn’t quite cut it for me. I think they’re confused thinking that everyone is going to throw their straws overboard and that thinking is just plain dumb. In fact, if anything they are the culprits themselves likely disposing of their garbage by dumping it overboard. In other words they’re their own worst enemy! Whadda ya think they’ll do after a couple months of people complaining? Yeah, me too......they’ll get straws again whether plastic or paper or whatever else they could be made of, straws will be back because it’s a very important little thing.
At lunchtime I went back to the buffet and had some fish, veggies, fruit and 3 desserts. Am I a piglet or what? I then visited the casino where I won and lost two or three times ending up on the loser side and because I felt cold I returned to the cabin to get my jacket. Once there i decided to slip under the covers to warm up and then didn’t feel like carrying on to any more activities so I just chilled...... or I guess I should say I just warmed....

So at 6pm we got ready for the the formal dinner at 7pm. In the Tzar dining room. I started with beef barley soup in honour of my childhood, a lovely Greek salad and a fish called Hake which was awesome and cherries jubilee for dessert.
Later we all went to the stage show which was very lively with fit young dancers and loud music. Actually it gave me a headache and as talented as they were I was glad when it was over so I could get outta there and into the casino for a little quiet game time.