Trevor & Jonathans Cruise & Trip to the Far East and Australia 2016

Day 7 - Monday May 16th 2016 - At Sea

Sometimes you just one of those days where you don’t really do that much and this was certainly one of them, well at least except for the evening.

We awoke slightly later than normal which is a very good thing as we have both been feeling tired for no apparent reason, maybe all the stress before we went away in regard to the situation with Trevor’s Dad? I don’t know but we had been sleeping very lightly and rising very early etc. so even calling 0830 a lay in is good news.

We went to breakfast once again up in the Windjammer Buffett restaurant followed by our normal jaunt down to Starbucks for a coffee then we lazed around.

It was really hot up on deck so we avoided it, walking around the deck but not laying out on the loungers. Trev indulged himself with a frozen strawberry daiquiri which had four measures of Bacardi white rum in it, quite potent for a lunch time drink.

I spent the rest of the day reading with Trevor spending it trying to rebuild our blog website which sounded like it was a lot more complicated than he hoped it would be, especially with only the ships internet to work with which can be painfully slow indeed.

I went to the gym, ran seven miles and then it was time for our first night of speciality dining. Our restaurant tonight was Wonderland. We have actually been to the restaurant before but on Anthem of the Seas and it is a dining experience so we were looking forward to it so after our pre dinner drink of choice the espresso martini we headed to Wonderland to eat far too much food all over again.

Wonderland is an event. The restaurant itself mimics the craziness of Alice In Wonderland, all illusion and forced perspective with half backed chairs and hologram artwork. It’s like a crazy surrealists painting by Dali but in 3D. The menu arrives but there is no menu, you have to use a paintbrush dipped in water and run it over the blank page to reveal what might be on offer. The waiter then checks you have no food allergies and then proceeds to order your food for you all loosely based around the theme of earth, fire, ice and water.

So a quick run through of the food. It starts with like a tapas menu with small ice cream cones filled with wasabi, avocado and pureed peas, fermented olives made to look like eggs that you pop in your mouth, a lobster role in a chowder on a spoon, a duck liver bon bon in a crispy coating, a fresh beetroot salad ( I don’t do beetroot, it’s the devil’s food but actually this was divine) and then an egg that has the yolk cut out which is then replaced by chicken with bacon but still looks exactly like an egg. I hope I am getting across that the food is both plentiful and bizarre. This is followed by what they call a vegetable patch which is crusted onions representing the soil and radishes and carrots and other root veg all coming up from it. This is then covered with a crème fraiche dressing…. yummy ! It was then time for some tempura, some kind of leaf in batter with spicy sauce to dip it into followed by gala melon to cleanse the pallet. Next up was some hollowed out limes then filled with a seafood cocktail served on an ice bed with sorbet over the top to balance out the heavily spiced cocktail mix, a true taste sensation. The food is not over yet as it was now time for the main course which is a beef rib that is cooked for twelve hours and served with blackened potatoes (they use squid ink) and beetroot crisps…. again yum yum yum and a fish dish which was a mahi mahi served on basmati rice topped with a crispy bread served in a mustard type sauce, just so much food and there was still dessert!

Dessert arrived and we had a baked Alaska Two mini ice creams that looked like white chocolate magnums with a raspberry coulis followed by a volcanic chocolate lava cake with pistachio ice cream and fresh cream…..needless to say we were full. I dread to think how many calories were involved in the meal but it was great and it’s a very unique culinary experience. It’s as much about the theatre of presentation as it is the taste but rarely to you get both and wonderland definitely delivers and then some!

We were feeling stuffed so we headed up to deck 15 to walk it of a little the thought of any drink at this time was a big no no, our bellies were loaded!

We had decided that we would go to the theatre tonight to watch the male singing group 4ever, a kind of Il Divo opera/ harmony voices male group which started at 22:45. There was just time to meet up with Martin and Michael and explain that was what we were doing and thy told us that they had been to the earlier showing and had really enjoyed it, so much in fact, that they decided to join us again and see it twice.

The group was made up of four singers and one of the guys was actually from Gran Canaria, now you don’t get that very often. They were superb and sang a real mix of songs from Opera to Queen to unchained melody. They had the right mix of singing in Spanish, Italian and English and their harmonies were so tight it was a real pleasure and they got a great reaction from the crowd.

After the show the four of us headed off to Vintages for one more glass of wine and ended up talking until one o’clock in the morning about our mutual love of musical theatre. Despite the boys living in Germany it seems that they fly to London regularly to see the London shows and had even recently managed to see Glenn Close In Sunset Boulevard at the ENO just as we had.

So a lazy day and I suppose but quite a busy nigh time.

At one am in the morning we walked back through an all but deserted boat to our cabin and sleep. Yet another good day!