N and N's New Adventure: Day 69 August 1 wednesday's

Day 69 August 1, 2012 Wednesday

We got up and beat room service by 10 minutes before they delivered the coffee. We got cleaned up and went down to Britannia restaurant for breakfast. We ate with an American couple moving from Belgium to Florida and a couple from Bath, UK. We had eaten breakfast with both of these couples earlier in the week. It was a pleasant meal and at the end the couple from Belgium talked about Iowa. He had hitchhiked through Iowa as a student and had friends who had done Ragbri. It was fun to talk with someone whose knowledge of US geography extended beyond New York and New Jersey.

After breakfast we had tea, worked on the blog and then Nancy went to Illuminations for a cooking demonstration. The cooking demonstration really ended up being a cook off. The head chef for the Cunard line demonstrated the cooking of a tenderloin and mushroom sauce. He really liked three ingredients a great deal....cream, butter, and Tequila. Then the chef who was second in command created a strawberries jubilee, lots of flambé.....a nice high flame. They took two couples from the audience who volunteered to come on stage. One person from each couple was designated the junior chef and the other was the taster. Each junior chef then prepared the tenderloin and then they were taste tested by the other persons who had been blindfolded. Then they switched roles for the cooking of the strawberries.

After the demonstration, Nancy went to the Chart Room to meet Neil who was going to save seats to learn about Pearls. Neil was supposed to go down early and save seats. We didn't connect so Neil watched from the front row and Nancy from the back. Afterwards we went up to deck seven for a walk in the beautiful blue skies, warm sun, and calm seas. Then we went back inside for lunch. Today was dessert day---beautiful chocolate and sugar sculptures on long tables laid out with beautiful desserts. There was a 5 layer chocolate walnut cake and a sticky toffee pudding that we sampled.....WOW!

Neil finished his book. We went down to the Royal Court Theater to see the entertainment staff's radio play. It was great fun with lots of laughs. Parts of the play were replaced with piano songs which the audience had to guess the titles of. We even scored more point on the quiz than we had the last time we did this. We got 150 points out of 300. This is, of course, way short of the fellow who scored a perfect three hundred to claim the bottle of champagne prize.

We went from deck 7 up to deck 10 where we explored the forward lookout for the first time as it had been closed due to wind on the eastward voyage. The view was awesome on this bright clear day. We were lucky enough to see a whale on the surface for a long moment. This sighting can be added to the dolphins jumping out the water and many short fin sightings over previous days.

We went down to the photo gallery to buy some picture of the ship which we did. Then we went back to the cabin to cool off and get ready for our last formal night. We shared our room's bottle of champagne with our table mates. Christine, a woman from South Hampton, New York, was going to eat with the captain later, so she did not eat. Sue had also been invited, but she chose to eat with us and go dancing instead. She said that she had had enough of people bragging about how often they had been on this ship and others and how much money they have. Dinner was wonderful....the top choices were chateaubriand or lobster. Nancy took the chateaubriand and Neil the lobster. Willy, our waiter, brought extra lobster tails for Neil and Geoff. There was baked Alaska or chocolate truffle cake for dessert. These ware what we chose.....there are actually 6 choices. Tonight was the parade of chefs. It is a rather amazing parade as they march through the dining room. There are 164 chefs, 86 assistants, more cleaning crew, 70 main waiters and their junior waiters, wine stewards, and so. These people produce 15,000 meals a day. These do not count the meals prepared for the 1500 employees.

After dinner we went to see Apassionata, a musical/dance extravaganza which was great fun to watch. It was a great show with very talented dancers and singers.

We then went up to our cabin and to bed.

Steps: 7545

Most of the pictures, unless noted otherwise, are the chocolate, sugar and vegetable / fruit sculptures created by the chef's aboard the ship