Sea Day

Sunday was our first full day onboard the Reflection. I went to the gym for some elliptical and weights. Angie walked on the jogging track. Surprise !! There are fitness centers and jogging tracks on cruise ships. With all these cruises it's important to stay active. We then relaxed for the rest of the morning in our cabin, staring out at the sea. This cabin has many great features. One of them is that it is so peaceful. Our cabin is at the end of a long hallway so other guests aren't walking past the door. And there aren't other cabins directly adjoined on either side. Just us and the sea!!

We had a noon reservation at The Porch which is primarily a seafood restaurant. We had eaten here on the Silhouette when we were on a transatlantic in October 2022. The food was quite good then so we wanted a repeat. This time, the food was even better. We had starters of tuna tartare, hamachi crudo and Asian chicken wing lollipops. The fish was perfectly seasoned. I loved the brinoise knife work on the jalapenos. The chicken has a delicious (and sticky) sauce that had notes of molasses, honey and sesame oil.   

We also had a seafood tower with lobster tail, scallops, shrimp, mussels along with dipping sauces of red wine mignonette, a velvety, lemony tartar sauce and traditional cocktail sauce. The lobster was perfectly seasoned with lemon and dill. 

For our mains we had fettuccine and mussels in a creamy beer and saffron sauce. What an amazing sauce!! I would have never thought of using beer in such a sauce. 

We also had a lobster roll which had some nice chunks of lobster with a bit of mayo. No dessert. 

We spent the afternoon in a cabana on Deck 15 where we enjoyed one of our favorite Sauvignon Blancs: Villa Maria from New Zealand. We were able to watch the first half of the Tampa/Detroit playoff game. We then headed to our cabin to get ready for dinner. We went to Tuscan Grill which is the Italian restaurant onboard. We both started with a delicious arugula salad with fried goat cheese. It had a well balanced balsamic vinaigrette. Also tried the meatballs which had a good blend of beef and pork topped with a tasty marinara which wasn't too sweet. 

For mains, Angie had short rib pappardelle ragu and I had grilled Branzino. The ragu was so tasty with the combination of savory short ribs and delicate noodles. The Branzino was perfectly cooked and served on top of well seasoned sauteed spinach. We also had a side of perfectly seasoned broccolini which had just enough garlic. And of course we had to try the lasagna. It wasn't my favorite of all time. It needed more sauce and cheese but was flavorful. No dessert.  

After dinner we visited Raju our favorite sommelier from the last cruise. He got a new roommate on Saturday so he was updating us on that situation. Our ship time advanced by an hour yesterday and apparently his new roommate had forgotten to set his watch properly. So his supervisor was calling their cabin for his whereabouts. So not off to a great start for Raju. After that we went back to our cabin to watch the Kansas City/Buffalo game.  

Today we will be docking in the United States!! Old San Juan Puerto Rico to be specific. We have a late afternoon arrival of 4PM. We probably won't get off the ship.