Steve woke up thinking that there had been a time change from Atlantic to Eastern, which would have set the clocks back an hour (essentially ‘gaining’ the hour we had ‘lost’ early in the cruise). He woke up very early. He thinks it’s 4am.
Cathy arises around 6:30am, and we decide then that breakfast should be taken in the Grand Dining Room. On our way there around 8:00am, we discover that the time change is for tomorrow night. Steve and Cathy have suddenly had their day ‘shortened’ by an hour. Bummer.
Again, Swedish pancakes are the draw for Steve, only this time he orders five instead of the customary three. Of course, both of us enjoy cappuccino coffee. That stuff is addicting, but we only ever have it on board ship.
After breakfast, we plan the day. Steve is, of course, behind on the blog, so he spends the morning on the Pool Deck (in the shade, of course) writing the January 21st post. Cathy has a much more interesting pursuit at 10am: a Cooking Demonstration with Senior Executive Chef Frederic Godineau and Chef Victor Galeana, who is the senior chef at Toscana, the Italian specialty restaurant on the ship. Here is her recap of that fun event:
Chef Frederic was greeting the guests at the door to the lounge. I stopped and told him how much we had enjoyed and appreciated the DP Experience. He said, “Well, I have to work sometime.”
The demo was very entertaining because the two chefs spent a lot of time teasing each other over the fact that they were demonstrating Italian food and one of them is French and the other Mexican. They made veal chop Milanese, fettucine carbonara, saffron arancini (rice balls), artichoke souffle with truffle sauce and vitello tonnato. They passed out recipes but it’s obvious that English is not the native language of the person who wrote them! Very fun but not terribly informative but who cares. The cooking demonstrations have been among my favorite things on sea days on Oceania ships.
Because it’s our last full day on board, we have lunch at the Grand Dining Room. One of our servers in named Raj. Cathy is having the phenomenally delicious mushroom soup (all their soups are indescribably good) and shrimps. Steve has one of very favorite lunch dishes: croque-monsieur. Here is a photo Raj took for him:
Cathy stays in the room to begin her packing, and Steve heads back to the Pool Deck to catch twenty minutes of time in the direct sun. It’s still hot out there, but he realizes that, soon enough, we will be heading back north to real New England winter weather, so some last-minute warm sun is a must. After a while, however, he heads back to the stateroom.
It’s time to check in with JetBlue for our flight tomorrow. The procedure itself goes without a hitch, but there is an added urgency. For three or four days now, we have been hearing news of an impending Nor’easter snow storm that is due to hit the coastal Mid-Atlantic region and all of New England. When the news reports began, there was no estimate when it would begin and its severity. Now normally, Cathy is the one to become anxious about travel, especially air travel. But there’s been a role reversal, and she is the one that is mellow about our flight tomorrow and getting home without a problem.
Steve, on the other hand, is all worked up about the flight being canceled and being stranded in Florida for three days while the airlines untangle their schedules and the airports reopen. That we were able to check in for our flight gave him some optimism. That means that, as of that minute, the airline intends to fly to Hartford a few hours before the arrival of the nor’easter. That’s significant, because our flight was with JetBlue, who has become notorious for canceling flights by the dozens on short notice as recently as the New Year holiday period. In addition to that, weather reports had narrowed down the arrival time of the storm in Connecticut to late Friday night. Both are good omens.
Back in the room, Cathy has pretty much packed. Steve had said earlier that he would wait until 6pm, but he is becoming too antsy to wait until then, and proceeds to beginning the procedure around 4pm. Around 5, we sit down to our last selection of canape’s (cheese platter, olives and nuts platter) and watch the movie Rear Window.
At 6:30pm we head for the GDR. Everyone knows it’s the last night of the cruise, and we are lucky to have Budi from Bali and Mario from Honduras as our wait staff. Budi is in rare form. He convinces Steve to have sambas oolek sauce on the side and he tries some on his potato slices. Spicy! Tasty! For the main course, Steve has roasted chateaubriand and Cathy has cod fillets.
Of course, we have the Soufflé of the Day for dsessert; today’s is vanilla with pecan sauce. We turn down coffee because it’ll keep us awake. Budi suggests chamomile tea. What a great idea! This was the best time we have had at dinner on the entire cruise. Budi from Bali (he introduces himself that way) is a very fun person and entertains not just us but also the large table next to us as well.
On our way out, we thank Mary the maître d, who we find out is leaving the ship tomorrow as it is the end of her contract. She returns in April to Insignia, meeting the ship in Malta.
We retire to our stateroom for the final packing and put the luggage out in the hall around 8:15pm. A little keyed up in anticipation of tomorrow, we stay up and watch the movie Caine Mutiny. Oceania certainly has an interesting variety of movies to watch. A pleasant distraction from thinking about this being our last night before a very busy day tomorrow.
