Fjords and Kilts and Hot Springs, Day 7 -- Reykjavik!

Day 7 -- Reykjavik Mostly cloudy, mid-60's

Fourth of July!!

As usual, I got up to work out in the fitness center. We were still too far from port to have any real view of Iceland. Back at the stateroom, we had croissants, but I wasn't all that hungry, so I skipped breakfast.

It was a lazy morning for me, and I took the opportunity to sit in Fathoms and catch up on the notes I'd been taking for the trip report. Unfortunately, I practically cracked my skull when I sat down and leaned back, without realizing how close behind me the elevated shelf was. Ouch.

Around 11 that morning, there was a big Fourth of July party in the Atrium. A couple of the members of the Walt Disney Theater cast sang The Star Spangled Banner and "Proud to Be an American". After the "ceremony", there was a dance party and Mickey and Co. were all there in patriotic outfits.

We had lunch at Lumiere's right around noon. That's also just about the time that we docked, so we could look out our window and see the pier as we approached. (The wierd thing about this was that there was ONE woman in traditional dress throwing flowers into the water to greet us as we pulled into port. It was really odd, but sweet, I guess.) I had sliced pork tenderloin in a mushroom sauce, which was really good.

All-ashore was 1:15, and that was when we met for our excursion to the Blue Lagoon Spa. This was an awesome excursion. It was a 45 minute bus ride to the spa and then two hours in the hot spring. This is a geyser-fed pool, and the water has high levels of minerals in it, which is supposed to be really good for the skin. They had people in the spring that were handing out silicon mud to spread on your skin, so most of the people had white goop spread all over their faces and arms. One thing you should know if you ever plan to visit is that they require you to shower (without the bathing suit) before you enter the spring. They made it sound like this was just going to be a public shower where everybody was showering together, and this actually caused a few people to cancel their reservation for this excursion. But as it turned out, there were shower stalls, so it really wasn't a big deal at all. Everybody in our group loved being in the hot springs. It was terrific.

The blue wristband that you see me wearing is like a low-budget Magic Band. It allows you to lock and unlock your locker and also to make purchases at the bar that's located in the spring. It doesn't charge directly to a credit card on file; instead you turn it in at the end of your visit and you have to pay at that point. If you conveniently lose the wristband, there's a fine, of course.

Our guide on the bus told us that the we would all have to really wash our hair thoroughly after getting out of the springs. She said that if we didn't, the high mineral content of the water would give us "troll hair": stiff and wiry, like helmet hair. Well, I purposely didn't wash my hair just to see what troll hair looked like and it was very disappointing. My hair didn't really get very stiff at all. I was kind of hoping to look like a troll doll at dinner, but it wasn't to be.

We got back to the ship just after 5:00, so we had just enough time to get ready for dinner. Dinner was in Carioca's and it was our first time eating here (after missing our last chance because we had dinner at Palo instead). It's still very similar to Parrot Cay, in my opinion. You can still see a lot of the decor from before the re-imagineering of the restaurant. But I liked the changes that they did make. I particularly liked the colorful doors along the back wall.

The light fixtures are also colorful.

Here's an example of being able to see details from the old decor. These columns have the sliding panels that hide the parrots underneath them.

For appetizers, Molly had a duck prosciutto. It looked exactly like a "normal" pork prosciutto. It was ok, but she didn't love it. Kathryn had the chicken liver pate, which was really big; and she liked it. I had the cheese and bacon tartlet, which I've had many times before and I liked it a lot. It's always good.

None of the soup or salad options appealed to me, so I skipped them. Kathryn had the Orange and Beetroot salad. The greens had a lot of bitter flavors and I guess the oranges were supposed to balance the flavors, but Kath said it was just ok.

For entrees, Molly and I both had the veal medallions with shredded potato cake. The veal and the mushroom cognac sauce were awesome; but I wasn't crazy about the potato cake. Molly liked it better than I did, but I thought it had a bit of a flavor that I just didn't like. Kathryn had the trout and liked it but didn't think it was great. I couldn't have ordered it because it was served in an ocean of peas! There was also a steak on the menu, which my sister ordered. She liked it a lot. Because it was the Fourth of July, there were a few "All-American" items on a separate menu, and my brother-in-law got the fried chicken and corn-on-the-cob. It was kind of fun, and he enjoyed it a lot.

The steak:

The fried chicken:

The veal medallions (AWESOME!!):

And the trout:

The show in the Walt Disney Theater was a showing of the Pixar movie "Inside Out" in 3-D. The theater was packed. I won't do a full review of the movie, but I really loved it. I thought it was really terrific. Inside Out was released just before our sailing, but my family purposely didn't go to see it until we were onboard. It was like our very own Prem-ear at Sea.

In the evening, a lot of people left the ship to go back into Reykjavik, but we decided to relax in the lounges. We split our time between Keys to listen to Clara Oman and the Promenade lounge to hear The Dreamers. We just spent the rest of our night relaxing with great music. It was still light out when we finally went to bed just after midnight.

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