This is installment two of my three week vacation. The first day is found here. If you aren’t interested in my travels, you are free to skip this one, I won’t be offended. Once I am done with this post, I need to finish my taxes up, so the next post might be later in the afternoon or evening.
Having spent the night at a Marriott hotel in Jersey City, we got up early the next morning and went to breakfast at a Krispy Kreme that was a block over. Went back to the hotel, showered, and headed out to the port in an Uber.
The ship was the Odyssey of the Seas. After checking in to our Junior Suite, 200 square feet of living space. The room has a queen bed, plenty of cabinet space, one and a half baths, a desk, and a small 80 square foot balcony. The best benefits are access to the suite restaurant and the double points you get. A 15 night cruise gets you 30 points. Since we have over 400 points, we get 5 free drinks anywhere on the ship, and as frequent gamblers, we also drink free in the casino.
I am going to just compress the first six days of the cruise into one post. We didn’t stop anywhere since we were crossing the Atlantic, so all of the days were pretty much alike. Being that we were sailing on the North Atlantic in the spring, the weather was a bit rough. Since this was the North Atlantic in the Spring, we were in some rough seas for the crossing. I’m talking 40-50 knot winds and 15-20 foot seas. That means the outside decks were closed. I wouldn’t want to be in the pool anyhow, because temperatures were in the mid-50s. Here is a video I shot from a lounge that was on the 4th deck, meaning we were about 40 feet above the ocean. Due to a lack of scale, those waves look smaller than they were, but you get the idea.
The meals were great. I ate things like duck confit, filet mignon, veal pasta, sea bass, onion soup (my favorite soup), and other gourmet dishes for dinner. The best soup of the cruise was seafood volute, and it was a very silky soup with a distinct lobster flavor, almost like lobster bisque. We rarely had lunch, but on those days we did, we had sushi, a nice surf and turf, and hibachi. Breakfast was usually just something small like a donut or something. Here is a picture of the second course of day three’s lunch.
I had forgotten to take a picture until I had eaten some, but you can see that the food is fairly good. I can’t believe that neither of us gained any weight, eating like this.
During the day, we did things like ride bumper cars, play laser tag, or sit in the sports bar playing games like Jenga and connect four. There was also a British pub onboard, as well as plenty of activities like bar trivia and the like. The laser tag was great. I think we played 4 or 5 times, and it is great practice for clearing rooms and moving around corners.
In the evening, we spent time in the casino but these first few days was rough. I had one night where I was ahead by $400, and 4 or 5 nights when I lost my ass. All in all, the casino was rough. By the end of the six days, I was down about $2000. We also had time to see a number of shows. The entertainment was pretty good. A few nights we sat in the music hall and listened to the band- called the “High C’s Horns.” The band was pretty good. I thought I had video of them, but can’t find it. Instead, here is video of the entrance to the casino:
The crossing ended on day 7 with our first port visit, which I will cover tomorrow.
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