Day 9 – Norwegian Bliss Inaugural Transatlantic

It’s Day 9 of the Inaugural Transatlantic cruise on Norwegian Bliss.

So we woke up rather early this morning, our last sea day before our stop in Halifax Nova Scotia. Clearly turning the clocks back a further hour is affecting our sleeping habits. It was still misty outside with little visibility.

The cabin is starting to look messy above the dressing area. Although we love the bathroom, there are two main issues with the design of the stateroom itself. No drawers and not enough space in front of the wardrobe where it aligns with the sofa. I almost cut off the circulation in my legs hanging clothes in the wardrobe and no amount of cubby holes and cupboard space can replace a drawer where you can chuck in any bits n bobs and paperwork you want to keep. Ok, winge over – let’s get the day started!

With the extra time to play, we thought we would try The Local for breakfast. Chris wanted to check the menu first and yes, it had enough flexibility.

So Chris ordered the Country Plate without Eggs and Mushroom.

I ordered the Express with selected pastries which I shared with Chris:

The food was essentially the same as the Garden Cafe but this was the first time I had seen scrambled egg. It was nice to be served at our table though.

Next, we headed up to a sofa near the front of the Observation Lounge. All the window facing seats had been taken by 9am and it proceeded to get more and more packed all morning. The weather was keeping people inside but they still insisted on running to grab any newly free seats near the windows. Yet there was nothing to look at!

We headed down to a trivia session in Q at midday but they had started early. It didn’t matter as we would have been rubbish – the questions were so hard!

Next, we treated ourselves to a Starbucks and found a spot in The Atrium – more language lessons, quizzes and a funny movie sketch trivia session put on by the cruise staff. The ship was started to rock a bit by this time.

Because we had eaten breakfast early we thought we would try a Margaritaville burger for the first time. It closed at 5pm so we rushed up at 4:15 and were the only food customers. The jogging track around it was covered in water and it was very windy out on deck. But Margaritaville was warmed by heaters and dry inside.

This is the food menu and there is a $14.95 cover charge plus service charge – no individual prices.

For drinks I chose a Tranquil Waters and Chris ordered a Havanas and Bananas:

As appetizers, we selected Hot Pretzel Sticks and Conch Fritters:

The sticks were warm and yummy – loved the Mustard dip in particular. I found the Conch Fritters a little too spicy and not fishy enough for my liking.

Chris had ordered the famous Cheeseburger in Paradise and I selected a Rancho Deluxe Burger.

Both were cooked were to our taste and were excellent.

We decided to forgo the dessert as they were shutting up although they did offer to let us take a key lime pie with us!

Instead, we headed back down to The Atrium for another cocktail and music from Siglo. What a great band! Wished we had looked them up earlier. Chris was most impressed when they covered a little known song by The Cure.

We went back to the room to change for the Happy Hour Prohibition show at 10pm. This was held in The Social – one of our favourite venues on the ship. There was a queue to get in by 9:30pm at least and they started scanning cards to let us in early. We were then given long silver beads to wear a cocktail in a tin cup and a foldable menu of drinks. We were then asked to choose pairs of seats set up in front of the stage around their own little drinks table.

As the show began, ladies of the night started walking amongst the audience and interacting with them.

More appeared on stage and broke into a song and dance routine. We were introduced to each of the girls and their ‘madam’ and informed that this was the last night before Prohibition started and we were going to receive drinks from the menu through the evening.

The singing, dancing and harmonies were fantastic. The commentary and humour was rather adult in nature but very funny. There was some audience participation too. Note that most of the drinks were bourbon and whiskey based (so Chris felt obliged to drink my untouched drinks too!)