I have a half completed post. Can't upload more pics & can't preview what I've got. So I'm doing new posts w/o photos & will do a few catch-up posts later before jumping into the subject of Barcelona.
We're at the cruise halfway point...a week ago today we boarded, a week from today we'll arrive Spain. We're on our third of five straight sea days, heading pretty much east. What's my evidence? It's not by looking out our veranda, we're heading to the left (So what side of the ship are we on?) but that we lose an hour each day. Sailing pretty much into the sun at sunrise is also a clue.
The French pastry on board is as good as anything in Paris. The bread at mealtime is wonderful, don't want any of the other rolls. And the breakfast pain au chocolate...yummm! Pull one apart and the flaky layers fly.
The culinary godfather of this line is Jacques Pepin. He's a consultant; they offer cooking classes in his style. And there's an oil portrait of his happy, smiling face outside the French restaurant called what else but Jacques.
The food is very good overall & occasionally excellent. The osso buco, cioppino & bouillabaisse were top notch. The roasted leg of lamb last night was tough & overdone.
The choices are amazing. They try to do everything...the buffet sometimes has themes, one dinner was Caribbean & lunch was Mexican.
Lots of seafood offerings, lox for breakfast every morning, sushi every evening. There's an amazing variety of appetizers, salads, main courses & desserts. One section I won't visit is the European preserved meats...Italian, French, German...nutritional travesties all.
Last night we did the buffet late & rather than sit at a window for a lovely view of unchanging blackness, we took up place settings facing the buffet lines. The ship's officers (lots of stripes on the sleeves) from the three groups; hotel, deck & engine came through. The one place each stopped & loaded up was the sushi.
(A post sans photos sucks, doesn't it?)
The yoga classes are a bust. I couldn't get the so-called yoga instructor to describe what his class of Simply Yoga did. The best I could discern is that it's an impromptu mash-up of what the least capable attendee can do. He then silently concluded that if I attended I'd be a pain in the rear, so he advised that the class is not for me.
The passengers are definitely on the elderly side. Oceania makes it very clear in the literature that on a transoceanic (TA) cruise, there are no children's activities. There are quite a few folks who walk with difficulty (which has to be an extra challenge as we pitch & sway. I haven't been able to walk a straight line for a week.) Then there are the canes, walkers, wheelchairs & electric carts.
But us reasonably able-bodied folks do find each other to chat & visit. One couple (Karen & Pat from south Florida) is getting off in Barcelona, then heading straight to the airport to go home. Karen doesn't like to travel; Pat considers it an accomplishment just to get her on the cruise.
Tonight we have dinner reservation at the Asian specialty restaurant, Red Ginger. We took a peek inside a few days ago...gorgeous, all done in red & black.
That'll be it for now. There's only so much just-text a body can absorb.
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