Views of St Kitts

Yesterday we were in St Kitts. We didn't have an excursion so we had a relaxing day onboard.  

We had some Detox smoothies at the Spa Cafe along with some tea.  They have all kinds of smoothies available.  The Detox variety has kale, mint, coconut milk and mango.  Very refreshing and tasty.  

It was then time for more trivia!  We played general knowledge trivia and came in second place.   We would have won but couldn't come up with the names of the two countries in South America that have both Atlantic and Pacific coastlines.  Answer below. 

After that it was time for more electronic trivia.  Since it was a port day, there was only eight people playing. There was nowhere to hide!!  Angie rocked the Pop Culture category and won this trivia again!!  I came in third place.  So we won three more prize tickets!!!  Redemption will be at 7:30PM on the last night of the cruise.  They have another trivia today at 1PM.

We then headed to the Sunset Bar to enjoy the nice weather. It was a bit warm but there was a breeze.  We then headed to the buffet to get some lunch. There was a Mediterranean theme. They had some delicious skewers of beef, lamb and chicken as well as chicken gyros!   All very good. Dessert was some delicious cinnamon ice cream.  It really should be called churros ice cream. Probably the best flavor they make.  It was getting close to sailaway time so we headed to the Sunset Bar to enjoy that. We found the bartenders here have been the friendliest. We talked to Andrei from Romania for awhile.  As we were sailing away, he wanted to point out his favorite island which is called Saba. It has dormant volcano where most of the people live.  The island is only 13 square kilometers in size and is part of the Netherlands.  

We got ready for dinner and headed to Blu. Tonight's menu had some interesting sounding dishes. Unfortunately there was poor execution.  Angie had a short rib appetizer. It was tasty, but not like the amazing short ribs we had earlier in the cruise.  I had the escargot which were very good.  For a main, Angie had the flank steak salad.  I had the osso buco.  The flank steak was very fatty and tough. Really inedible. The osso buco was different then the traditional dish where you get the roasted bone.   This was more like pulled pork.  It was supposed to be wrapped in prosciutto.  Instead it was wrapped in a piece of bacon that hadn't been properly rendered.  The meat itself was okay but the almost raw bacon was not appealing to me so I didn't eat much of it.  We did have a very good shrimp dish with squid ink pasta.  

That had a pleasant briny seafood sauce along with some nicely grilled shrimp.  That dish saved the night.  No dessert tonight.  

We headed to the Martini Bar and listened to the guitar player Bryan James and the band Magnifica.   They had a very good Beatles set.

 We then wanted to do something different.  The main theater show was based on Shakespeare.  And there was a smaller show in The Club.  Neither sounded interesting.  When we talked to Andrei earlier, he had said that the Sunset Bar was open late.  Some fresh air sounded good so we headed up to Deck 15 aft.  We had a great conversation with Andrei and Fred.  Both of them are on their first contract. That is a trend we have seen over the last year or so.  I think a lot of crew didn't (or couldn't) return to cruising after the shutdown. So the cruise lines had to hire more new crew than usual.  Andrei was telling us when he arrived the ship had 1000 crew members who were new to cruise ships and on their first contract.  There are only 1400 total crew members.   So the task of trying to get everyone trained was monumental. You will hear many people talking about the ships being understaffed.  And that is a problem. But I think the larger issue is they have so  many "rookies"'.  

Towards the end of the night, Andrei told us more about his country of Romania.  He was especially proud about many of the home remedies that are used in Romania.  And he also wanted to share a special digestif from Romania that was similar to what his mother would give to him when we was sick.  It is made from green (unripe) walnuts and other medicinals and herbs.   It tasted a bit like Jaeger meister but with less Robitussin flavor.  :-)

Today is a sea day and we'll be staying onboard.   :-) Will probably check out the thermal suite since we didn't get there yesterday.   Then more trivia.  We have a special Captain's Club event at 5PM. And it's another formal night!!  Actually the term they use on Celebrity is "Evening Chic".  

The South American countries that have coastlines with both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are Colombia and Chile.