We were awake bright and early again and went to the Windjammer shortly after they opened for breakfast. Graham had some fruit, yoghurt, and granola plus some orange juice. I had congee with chicken, scrambled eggs, soy sauce and sesame oil followed by a cinnamon roll and some apple juice. Then we quickly headed back to the cabin. I put on my swimsuit and cover up, and we headed up to the indoor pool for aqua aerobics.
We had intended to get a swim in beforehand. They must have changed the water over night, and it was freezing. Graham got in, but I just got one foot wet and decided to pass. I headed for the hot tub instead. Graham joined me shortly afterwards. When the instructor for aqua aerobics came. Graham got out of the hot tub and joined in with the exercise from the poolside. We had been joined in the hot tub by a couple from Canada and we decided to do the aqua aerobics in the hot tub. We had to slightly modify a couple of the exercises, but for the most part, this worked well. They left after the class and Graham joined me again. We stayed in the hot tub another 10 minutes and then we headed back to the cabin to get showered and changed.
We stopped by Cafe Promenade on the way to morning trivia. As what used to be the Patisserie was now a Starbucks, they added a coffee counter to Sorento’s. I had been told the day before at the Crown Lounge that as the coffee machines there was broken, we would be able to get a free specialty coffee there. I mentioned this and was told he needed to check with the bar manager if the machines were still broken. Graham just went to get a normal coffee from Cafe Promenade. I got a latte and as this was neither deducted from my drinks allowance nor did it show up as a charge on our onboard account, that must mean that the machines were still broken. Ironically, the latte was worse than Graham’s normal coffee and this means something. I never went back for more.
We did OK for morning trivia. We scored 16 out of 20. The winning score was 17. I was a little annoyed with myself as I was overthinking one of the answers and ultimately went with the wrong one. Still, the prize was keychains, and I do not even like the ones they give out.
The next two trivias were at the Schooner Bar and we headed straight up there. First up was Tribond Triva. We normally do OK with this. They normally give out the clues on paper which means that we do the straightforward ones first and then come back to the trickier ones. This time round, they read out the clues, which was much harder. We scored 55 our of 125. The winning score was 115. We did better again during the next trivia, which was Where In the World Am I. We got 50 out of 60, but two teams got a perfect score.
After this set off trivia, we got some fresh air and then headed to the Windjammer for some lunch. Graham had some iced tea, a cheeseburger and fries and some garlic bread. He had matcha cream puff and some coconut ranger cookies for dessert. I had brought my soda cup and had some grape Fanta. This time round, I got lucky with the made to order pasta. I got some fusilli Bolognaise and got some garlic bread. I then tried the butter chicken with rice and poppadom and also had a slice of meatloaf. For dessert, I had a couple of mini churros with chocolate sauce and matcha cream puff.
After lunch, we headed back to the Schooner Bar. Graham had a glass of white wine, and I decided to give the desert pear margarita a try. I first had this on Navigator in 2023, when I fell in love with this drink. It was also great on Radiance the following spring. However, on Odyssey and Allure, it was disappointing. I am pleased to report that Ovation can make a decent desert pear margarita.
The reason why we went back to the Schooner Bar was that they had something called ocean trivia. We were not sure what this would entail. We figured that we would be either very good at this or it would be complete disaster. It turned out that it was the later. The questions were really obscure. We scored 5 out of 15. The winning score was 15.
After this, there was nothing we wanted to do until afternoon trivia. We cut across deck 5 as we wanted to go by the cabin. I wanted to get my iPad and Graham wanted to get his telescope. They had a green screen set up near the midship elevators. We had some fun with this before heading to the cabin and then upstairs to deck 14. We saw our first wildlife as soon as we headed outside. We had acquired a stowaway.
We managed to find an empty sofa by the indoor pool. We had not sat down very long when we realised we had company. There was a huge pod of Pacific white sided dolphins quite close to the ship. It was fascinating to watch them. When they went on their way, I read for a while. Graham saw a whale at some stage, but it was too far out for me to focus on.
With half an hour to go until afternoon trivia, we headed back to Sound Cellar. I picked up my first soft serve ice cream of the cruise on the way. I had a chocolate and vanilla swirl. This tasted strange. It was almost like they forgot to add sugar to the chocolate ice cream. I was not impressed.
Afternoon trivia was not one of our better efforts. We scored 11 out of 20. The winning score was 19. After this, Graham headed back to the cabin. I however was intrigued by a game show which was called Royal Trivia Live! This was played on the mobile phone and the score board was displayed on the big screen. There were 5 rounds and four different themes – movies, music, cruising and popular culture. The final round consisted of one question from each theme. I did OK on the cruising topic, but the rest was hit and miss. I still came 32nd, out of around 80 people. I had a Blackberry Lemon Drop, which consisted of Ole Smoky blackberry moonshine, simple syrup and lemon juice. This was delicious.
When I came back to the cabin, Graham had settled down for a nap. I set an alarm and joined him. Once the alarm went off, we got ready for dinner. Then we headed downstairs to get some photos before heading to Grande for dinner.
The menu that evening was A Taste of Italy. We had a glass of Chateau Ste Michelle Riesling each. Graham started with the beef carpaccio with rocket, crispy garlic, shaved Parmesan and a Dijon mustard sauce and then had the creamy mushroom risotto. I started with the crispy Parmesan arancini with marinara sauce. I then had the chicken Parmesan with spaghetti in a tomato sauce for my main course followed by the Italian chocolate hazelnut cake with sweet, whipped cream. This was different from how I remembered it. I still enjoyed it.
After dinner, we went back to the Pesky Parrot. We both had the Teqkil-ya Zombie, which consisted of Espolon Reposado tequila, Bosscal mezcal, cinnamon syrup, grenadine, lime and grapefruit juices, tiki bitters. I think I would have preferred this without the mezcal.
Once we had finished our drinks, we headed back up to the solarium. There was no chance of sunset that evening as it was very cloudy, but it was just nice to relax for a bit. Once I started to yawn, we headed back to the cabin and got ready for bed. I read a few pages, but soon we were both asleep.
Dolphingirl’s Travels 
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