While Grandma Trudy and Ross were shopping in St. Thomas, Sweet Pea and I headed to the Oceanview Café Buffet for lunch. We decided to try the stir fry station.
There is a nice display of attractive veggies to choose from and some less attractive already-cooked meats. I liked the concept of this station where I could choice what I wanted in my stir-fry and have someone cook it fresh for me. It's a great idea in theory, although the execution of cooking each guest's food was a little slow.
We were somewhat confused about how the stir-fry station worked as there were no instructions. Other people in line had no idea either. There was an older woman in front of us and we watched as a cook held her plate behind the counter and then added various foods to it per the woman's instructions. The cook then turned around and stir-fried the food from the plate on the grill.
After the woman took her now cooked meal, I tried to hand my empty plate to the cook.
"Put food on the plate," the cook informed me. Oh, okay. My mistake. I tried to load up my plate, but some of the food was really far back in the case and it was a struggle to reach it. It was just an awkward set up.
When my plate was finally piled with veggies and meats, the cook (who was very hard to understand) said, "What sauce?" There were no choices listed anywhere.
"Soy sauce?" I guessed.
"Do you want spicy?" she countered.
"No. Not too spicy. Maybe a little."
"Okay," she said, as she took my plate and started cooking it.
I ended up being really happy with my stir-fry, although it was a little salty. Maybe soy sauce wasn't such a good choice?
Sweet Pea liked her stir-fry also although she had rice instead of noodles. (And melon. Of course, the fruit choices were all types of melon.)
Instead of getting our usual post-buffet ice cream, we decided to get some tea and a treat from Café al Bacio. It is hard to just pick one treat from such a beautiful assortment!
Café al Bacio always has a variety of tasty cookies to chose from too.
I ordered a slice of coconut chiffon cake, which was excellent. It was really moist with an earthy coconut flavor. The frosting was creamy without being cloyingly sweet and the toasted coconut coating added a great texture.
Sweet Pea ordered a small glass of mango mousse, which was also very good. Creamy and flavorful with an actual raspberry on top.
We split a pot of tea, which was adorable as usual. I love the little Tea Forte leaf that sticks up out of the pot.
Enjoying our little mother-daughter break. :)
We lounged around until Grandma Trudy and Ross returned to the ship. They had walked all the way back from their drop off spot in St. Thomas, but did not find the exact perfect t-shirt for Grandma Trudy until they were almost right back to the ship. How funny!
Because of their unexpectedly quick exit from the bus, I had inadvertently taken our sunblock back on the boat with me and as a result Grandma Trudy got quite sunburned during her shopping trip. Ross was better off because he had been wearing a long-sleeved hooded swim shirt (from Land's End. Highly recommended. Those things are the best!) so only his legs really got much sun. They also ran into a couple that we knew from the ship who let them use their sunblock. The couple had been shopping for diamonds and had purchased some gorgeous earrings and a tennis bracelet.
We started off our evening with the show "Momentum". I had heard that Celebrity had a Cirque du Soleil show with aerialists and based on the description in the daily schedule, I thought this was it, so I encouraged all of us to go. Unfortunately, this was not that show. There an aerialists, who was very entertaining, but the rest was mostly just a dance show. There was one stand-out act with an incredibly strong and acrobatic couple. They were very polished and amazing to watch.
On our way to dinner, we stopped to watch a game show called "Living Room Games" which I think was supposed to based off of the TV show "Hollywood Game Night". The cruise director, Alexander, pulled Ross over to participate in the show. We love these ship game shows and they are even better when you know one of the contestants.
There were several different rounds. The first involved blindfolding the contestants and giving them giant foam letters. They had to solve a clue and then unscramble the letters to spell a word that was the answer. For example, each team member is given one of the following letters: M, P, A and C. The clue is "A place you might pitch your tent." The team them must unscramble the letters and hold up the word "CAMP".
I want to say that the cruise director Alexander (above, in the blue suit) has been amazing. He is always full of energy and makes an effort to get to know the passengers. He is always around and very approachable, not to mention hilarious. He is the best cruise director that we've ever had.
Another game required the contestant to finish singing the lyrics to popular songs from various categories, such as 80's Music and Boy Bands. There were two people on Ross's team who were especially good at this so his team was really entertaining to watch.
Ross's team won the whole game by a mile, mostly due to the members who knew the lyrics to every song. :) As a prize, they handed out ribbons with a metal X on them.
Next Up: Dinner at Qsine
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