Breakaway to the Caribbean! Day 5

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Trip Report

Day 5 – St. Thomas Partly cloudy, turning overcast, mid-to-high 80s.

We ordered our usual room service breakfast, which came at 8:15, instead of the requested 8:30 – 9:00. The coffee came in decaf urns, although the delivery person assured me it was regular. After breakfast, we disembarked and took a couple hours to walk through some of the shops that are near the pier. We picked up some souvenirs and a little jewelry.

This skyride is visible from the port (or from our balcony):

This is a half-scale sculpture, based on the original Little Mermaid in Copenhagen, is displayed at the St. Thomas cruiseport:

We came back to the ship around 11 and headed up to the Garden Café for an early lunch at the buffet. The chicken curry was really good, and the veal was ok, but was pretty dry. The roasted potatoes that I tried were not good. One of the nice things about the buffet is that there’s always freshly made pizza, and it’s pretty good. There’s always pepperoni, and a cheese pizza, and one specialty. My favorite of the specialty pizzas was the chicken bbq.

We had a 12:30 excursion to Megen’s Bay. Once again, finding our excursion was completely disorganized. We were told to wait on the pier, and then nobody ever came back to tell us where the tour was meeting. Finally, I went to find one of the people from the Shore Excursion team, and thankfully, our tour leader just happened to be talking to him. So the tour leader led us off the pier to the rest of group, and we got to the open-air taxi that was going to take us to Megen’s Bay. We had two full hours at the beach, which was gorgeous, and it was just slightly overcast, so there were breaks from the direct sunlight. Plus, I befriended an iguana! On the way back to the ship, the truck/taxi stopped at a couple of spots so we could get pictures of the island below us. It was a really terrific excursion.

Megen's Bay:

My daughter's photobomb mission:

And this guy seemed to like me and wanted to share my towel:

After getting back to the ship, we had specialty dining reservations for dinner. Dale and Molly went to Teppanyaki, which is a Japanese-style restaurant, where the food is prepared in front of you. They both said this was a terrific experience. The chef was wonderful and engaging with the people around the table; he put on a very fun show. He flipped pieces of the fried egg to people around the grill. At one point, he had an extra egg, so he decided to store it in the top of his hat. Later, he “remembered” the egg was there, but when he reached up for the egg, he pulled out a toy chicken! Cute and funny. The server was ok, but was a little off-putting by telling Molly that she was too young to want her steak rare. I think he was probably trying to give her a compliment, but it didn’t come across that way in the moment. Regardless of the server’s opinion, however, the chef prepared her steak rare and it was excellent; Dale had seafood and loved it. There was also plenty of noodles or rice for those diners who wanted some extra. The dessert was ginger cake or ginger ice cream. Molly passed on the cake, but liked the ice cream. Overall, a great experience. The total cost of the meal was $70.

Kathryn and I ate at Le Bistro, which is the French themed restaurant. We received, by far, the best service of entire cruise. And the food was very, very good. Kathryn ordered the seafood medley appetizer. It was a small chunk of lobster with some shrimp. It was delicious and very light. I had the crab salad, which turned out to be a moderate-sized lump of crab meat wrapped in a lettuce leaf. It was served with a light horseradish sauce, which was not overpowering and some orange sections. It was terrific, and I liked it very much.

For our entrees, I got the pan-seared scallops with mashed cauliflower and small roasted potatoes, served with a wine reduction. It was excellent. Kathryn’s lamb loin with fava beans (all five of them) came out well done. Done to death. The sauce still gave it some nice flavor, but the meat itself dry and not appetizing. Wilbur, our maître d’, came to ask how everything was, and when Kathryn hesitated, he didn’t even wait for her to say what the problem was. He just asked “What else can I bring you?” He brought her another plate which was medium-rare and she enjoyed it much more.

For dessert, we had the hazelnut/chocolate stack. It was a round chocolate disk for a base, with a layer of hazelnut crème, then a think cookie, with more hazelnut crème and topped with another chocolate disk. It was delicious. Finally, coffee was served in a French Press. Total cost of our meal was $66.

I really wanted to see the Dueling Pianos in Headliners (the comedy club), but we had an early excursion the next morning, so we headed back to the stateroom and compared notes with Molly on the two restaurants. We turned in a little early, because we had to set the alarm for 6:00 a.m.

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