Day Two - At Sea - 06/30/2009

We woke up at around 5:00 AM (as usual) and opened the curtain to see what it was like outside. It was pretty light since we were in the Atlantic time zone at this point and it was technically 6:00 AM. Weather wasn't too bad: a bit overcast, probably mid 60's but not foggy - that came later.

Friendly tip: Channel 14 on the television is the ship's channel which shows ship position, estimated arrival time at next port and what is supposed to be the weather conditions. Looks like they never update the weather though. The entire trip it read 68 degrees outside temperature, 53 degrees sea temperature, fog and 78% humidity. It took a few days to realize that it wasn't changing.

We had ordered the continental breakfast from room service the night before, but it wouldn't be delivered until between 6 and 6:30, so we threw on clothes and headed to the Lido for coffee. There were two people jogging around the funnel and a couple of crew on deck, but no one else awake yet. Got our coffee and headed back to the room to watch the waves from the balcony.

Breakfast arrived at 6:00 exactly and was TINY! The citrus segments consisted of six orange or grapefruit segments and a single grape. The muffins consisted of two mini muffins and one slightly larger muffin. Coffee was a single 8 oz cup. Luckily, we knew it wouldn't be a lot and had already planned on going to the dining room for breakfast when it opened at 8:00. We scarfed it down, added an oatmeal cookie from the Bon Voyage gift and showered before heading to the dining room.

Breakfast in the dining room was good. Nothing spectacular. Jeff enjoyed the "hash browns" which were sort of small versions of the deep fried potato patty things you get a breakfast at McDonald's. The eggs were cooked well, the pancakes and sausage were tasty.

After breakfast we wandered around a bit, played $40 in video poker in the casinos (lasted about an hour), checked out the photo gallery and did not purchase our embarkation photo (we looked scarily like deer caught in the headlights). We did like our photos from dinner the first evening and purchased those. Unfortunately they were individual photos. We had to remember to ask them to photograph us together next time since we were seated across from each other at dinner.

10:30 was our meeting with the Cruise Critic members in the Lobby bar. We looked around for people wearing Mardi Gras beads, but didn't see anyone wearing them, so sat at the bar and ordered two Bloody Mary's. Soon Scott came over and introduced himself, followed shortly thereafter by Josh & Lindsay, Gary and several others who had been sitting at one of the sofas in near the bar. Others filtered in (including ShipShape (and daughters), NorwegianNut (and mother) and a couple of others whose names I can't remember. We all hung out for about an hour I guess. Was nice to meet everyone and hear how their trips had been so far. No one seemed to have had any real problems at this point and was enjoying themselves.

Really didn't do much this day. We did thoroughly scour the Capers left in our room the evening before and even highlighted things we might like to do. Didn't do a damned one of them. Read our Frommer's guide to prepare for Saint John the next day. Read our other books we had brought on board. Had lunch. Took a nap. etc. Very uneventful day.

Lunch: Burgers & Fries from Coney Island Grill (did I mention that burgers are my favorite food?)

By afternoon, the fog had started rolling in. Not heavy enough to sound the fog horn, but enough to make sitting out on deck a little damp.

That evening was "Elegant Evening" and the Captain's Reception so we got all dressed up in what we call "standard prep" (khakis, button down shirts, penny loafers and blue blazers) and headed down to the Promenade deck. They had photographers all over the place with different "backgrounds" to have your photos taken in front of. We never seem to have a good photo of the two of us, so we wanted to get a couple taken and see if any came out well, but there was only really one background that wasn't really cheezy (plain brown backdrop). Rami, the photographer, led us up to the stools when our turn came and said, "Friends? Boyfriends?" We said yes to the latter and it was nice that it didn't even get a reaction out of him. He took two different poses, both of which were really good when we found them the next day in the gallery.

The Captain's reception was in the rear three lounges on deck 5 (Club Rio, Venezia and the Big Easy). The Captain and officers were standing outside in the lobby area of the three clubs greeting people and the bar waiters were wandering around pushing (free) drinks. We checked out each of the three rooms. The Big Easy had a pianist playing Rhapsody in Blue, Venezia had a small ensemble playing and Rio had the Triumph Band. We found seats in Rio and the Captain came up to the stage, welcomed everyone and introduced some of the senior officers. A Cruise Critic member was seated behind us and took our picture.

At 8:15 we filed into the Paris Dining Room for the lobster dinner and our first performance of the singing waiters! (Don't get too excited...they can't sing at all, but it was cute)

(singing waiters)

Appetizers:

Indian Spiced Pumpkin Soup (Jeff loved it so much I didn't get a chance to taste!)

Stawberry Bisque (took a long time to arrive and was good, but not great)

Stuffed Mushrooms (nicely done)

Main Course:
Duo of Lobster & Shrimp (shrimp better than the shrimp cocktail; lobster tail small and obviously frozen, but lobster is always good)

Desert:
Cherries Jubilee (disappointed that it wasn't flambeed tableside)
Carmelized Apples on Puff Pastry (very good)

We went to the show in the Rome Lounge that night at 10:30 - Wonderful World. We had heard some reviews of the shows being so-so on the Triumph, but we found it to be very good. Would it last on Broadway? No. Was it as good as Bette Middler or Cher's Las Vegas show? Of course not. Was it as good as any other Las Vegas revue-type show? Yes. It was a musical review with dancers spanning lots of different genres. Our only problem was that it was late for us and after a couple glasses of wine at dinner and a few other drinks during the day, I was falling asleep in my seat by the end.

(Rome Lounge)

Back to the room for bed after the show and found towel animal #3: Ape, the Capers for the next day and a note informing us that the balcony would be cleaned while we were in port the next day, so please don't plan on using it between 8AM and noon.