When we woke up, we had no idea what the time was. That is part of the reason why I really love interior cabin. Once your door is closed, you are really completely removed from everything. I never sleep quite as well as I do when I cruise in an interior cabin. When I checked the time, it was only shorty after 6:00. We were however both hungry. We got up and ready. The Windjammer was due to open at 06:45 and we went upstairs at opening time. I had expected it to be quite empty at that time, but that was not the case. It was really busy, and it did not take long until most tables were taken. I suppose this should not have been all that surprising as the majority of passengers came from Louisiana and Texas and the time difference therefore was significant.
We both started with fruit. Graham had a selection of cut and tinned fruit with different types of bread. I had a pear and some fresh blueberry yoghurt with granola. Graham then had some oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar. I had checked if there was any congee when I got my pear, but could not spot any. I was kind of surprised about this as there was a significant number of people on Chinese origin on this ship. I had planned to get hash browns and sausages for my second plate. Fortunately for me, the hash browns had run out on the side I checked. I decided to check out the other side. There were no hash browns on that side either, but there was a small pot of congee tucked away at the end of that section. There was not much in terms of toppings. There were spring onions, ginger, chilli flakes and bacon crumbs. Normally there are all kinds of meats , chopped egg and vegetables as well as a range of Chinese condiments. I saw that a Chinese lady added some scrambled eggs to her congee. I figured that this would work. There were also some bottles with soy sauce in the area with all the condiments. I made myself a bowl of congee with scrambled eggs, bacon crumbs and soy sauce. It was not the best congee I ever had, but it was tasty and nutritious. I also had some sausages.
Once we had our food, we decided to check the Crown Lounge to get some decent coffee. The Crown Lounge on Radiance is part of the Viking Crown Lounge. It has floor to ceiling windows, but even with that, it felt dingy and somewhat claustrophobic. I also was not too impressed with the coffee on offer. They had a different brand of coffee maker from the ones they normally have in the Crown Lounges across the fleet and the coffee was somewhat anaemic. Still, it was a big step up from Royal Caribbean blend and sometimes you have to be grateful for small mercies.
With about 20 minutes to go before morning trivia was due to start, the Schooner Bar was absolutely packed. Considering how big this space is, that was an amazing turn out. We did manage to find two seats at the bar. Graham decided if he was sitting at the bar, he may as well have a drink. he had a virgin pina colada. I initially turned down a drink, but then I decided to have a mocktail as well. There were no mocktails on the menu. I asked for something fruity. I am not entirely sure what I got, but it was refreshing and delicious.
Morning trivia was very heavily based on geography again, which is something that we both do well with. I was a little annoyed with myself. There was one question for which I knew the answer, but then I started to second-guess myself and put down the wrong answer. In the end, it did not matter. We scored 17 out of 20 and this was the winning score. We won a couple of can koozies.
After morning trivia, the Schooner Bar emptied out. We managed to get a table near a window. We were sailing through the inside passage and there was some stunning scenery to admire. Next up was Connection Puzzles. We thought we may as well have a go. This was not something that we had come across before. We were given a sheet of paper with 32 pairs of words. We then had to find a word that connects them together. There was an example with the pair Break and Ball and there was a hint that the word we are looking for had four letters. The missing word was Fast. Some of the answers were very obvious and some were fiendishly difficult. We scored 25 out of 32. The winning score was 27. This was a lot of fun.
They were offering the Find the Nations Scavenger Hunt on this cruise, and I decided I may as well have a go. Once I had my sheet, I decided that I may as well get started. I left Graham in the Schooner Bar and went exploring. Usually, the three best places to find a wide variety of nationalities are the spa, the photo gallery and then the shops. After our experience the previous day, I had no wish to go anywhere near the spa. Instead, I headed for the photo gallery. This was not quite the mix of nationalities that I would normally encounter. The photographers on this ship were either from Mexico or the Philippines. However, I did meet Letitia who quickly became my favourite crew member. She was a real character. I had a look at the embarkation photos. I really loved one of them, but they all had the wrong date on them. Instead of the 3rd of May, they had the date of the previous cruise that never was. I pointed this out to Letitia, who in turn called her manager. He was not at all happy about this. I have the feeling that somebody in the photo lab had a very rough ride as a result of this. She did offer that they could reprint this with the correct date. I took her up on this offer. I also purchased a 10-print package. As part of our status, we also got a free print each. I figured that would be plenty. If they had offered a digital package, I would have gone for the 100-photo package, but there was no way I wanted 100 prints. On the way back, I checked out the shops and there was a wide variety of nationalities there, some of which were quite unusual. I also checked out that they had ship models and Spirit Jerseys. I was on luck on both counts. After getting a bunch of signatures for the Find the Nations Scavenger Hunt, I headed back upstairs to rejoin Graham.
There was another scavenger hunt going on, which is not really our thing. We did just stay and admire the views. Just before 13:00, the string duo came to get ready for their set. As we had no wish to have our ears assaulted, we decided that this was a great opportunity to get some lunch. We headed up to the Windjammer. Graham had some breads and salads followed some butter chicken and rice. I had some hush puppies, a French onion burger, chicken nuggets and fries for my first plate and then had some of the butter chicken and rice on Graham’s recommendation. Everything was very nice. One of the dessert options that day was pistachio pound cake. This was as good as it was on Navigator in November. I also had some chocolate soft serve.
After lunch, we headed back to the Schooner Bar. Next up was House of the Mouse trivia, which was Disney trivia. Considering that I have been a huge Disney fan most of my life, I never do quite as well at this as I wish. I was thrilled when we scored 17 out of 20. For a short while, I actually thought this may be a winning score. However, somebody got a perfect score. Still, I was thrilled with the result.
The next two trivias were not exactly our areas of expertise, but we had nowhere else to be and figured we may as well have a go. Next up was sports trivia. This is not something we are good at at the best of times. However, we had even less of a chance here as most of this was geared towards American sports. I wanted to get to 5 points, but I knew this was going to be a challenge. In the end, we finished on 6 out 20. The winning score was 15, but this was definitely a personal best for us. This result needed to be celebrated. We both had a drink of the day, which was Blue Wave that day. This was very nice.
I expected that we would do slightly better than that with the next trivia, which was Name That Tune ABBA. Music trivia is not our strength either, but some of them I really enjoy. I figured ABBA would be a bit of fun and it definitely was that. We scored 6 out of 19. The winning score was 18. The last event of the day was afternoon trivia. We enjoyed another drink with this. Graham had another drink of the day, and I had a dessert pear margarita. We were not on the top of our game that afternoon and made some silly mistakes. We only scored 10 out of 20. The winning score was 16. We did however have fun and that is all that counts.
After this trivia, we decided to head back to the cabin for some downtime. I had ever intention to just read, but fortunately I had the foresight to set an alarm as both of us fell asleep. When the alarm went off, we took turns having a shower. We got changed and then headed down to dinner. That evening was dress your best night. Again, when we came down, all the photo opportunities were closed. We went straight for dinner. We were given the same table again. The menu that evening was A Taste of France. Graham started with the escargot, and I had the French onion soup. For his main course, Graham had the fragrant herb crusted salmon with celery root puree, snow peas and a lemon butter sauce. I went for the classic beef Bourguignon with white rice. For dessert, we both had creme brûlée. We had a couple of glasses of Chateau St. Michelle Riesling each. Dinner was very nice.
After dinner, Letitia was back taking photos outside the dining room. We stopped to have some photos taken and then we decided to find some artwork so that Graham could take some unofficial photos of my outfit. I had picked the globe in the Schooner Bar, but the photos came out darker than I had hoped. He took a second set near one of the marble and glass panels that were all around the midship landings of the ship and that I really loved. Then we headed back to the cabin to get some sleep.
Dolphingirl’s Travels 
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