I will carry on from where I left off last night, after unpacking the cases we went off and did a little more exploring. Alex had decided that he would give the kid club a go at 8:00 where there was a sort of welcome party going on. This meant he wouldn’t be joining us for dinner so it was just the 2 of us that went last night. As you would expect being the first night it was very busy with lots of people not knowing where their table was. What surprised me was how many people did not even know their table number. We have ended up on a table of 9, three lots of three except there were only 8 of us last night. It is basically three couples with their sons. Both the other couples are from Manchester and we had a great laugh on our first night so it does bode well for the rest of the cruise.
Our waiter goes by the name of Alfred and is from India and he is assisted by Roland. Our sommelier is from Croatia and goes by the name Dragana and if ever there was an apt name then she fitted the bill on our first encounter. I put it down to first night stress because when we spotted her on duty in the buffet early this morning she was all happy and smiley and her fire seemed to be out!
After dinner we climbed the stairs passing the atrium tree to deck 15 to walk dinner off and the pool looked amazing all lit up at night. After a few laps it was back to the cabin for our first night on board the ship.
The clocks moved forward 1 hour over night and I was again awake for work, this time though it was 8:30 and not 7:30. Wandering out to the balcony I noticed we were just about to enter the Messina Strait so I promptly popped out to the coffee machine to get a couple of cups so we could sit and enjoy the transit from our balcony.
Because it was a sea day we had anticipated the buffet would be busy and we were not wrong. It might be too early to tell but I think the extra deck and passengers on the Reflection could well of been a move to far. On our last 3 cruises on this class of ship they have all had their busy moments but none like the scrum we had this morning. Another factor could be there are a lot of youngsters on board so many of the cabins could have 3 or 4 people in instead of just 2. Even the pool decks seemed to be much busier than I can previously recall them being in the past. Lets hope its just a blip and things will settle down in due course.
Much of the day was spent up on the Solstice Deck lying in the sun, the only interruption being a break for lunch.
On our way back to the cabin we stopped for some Gelato which does have a cover charge but is well worth it in our opinion.
Tonight is a formal night so time to put the old diner suit on again, it will be interesting to see how well the other passengers will embrace the dress code being as the ship is so busy and especially s there are so many youngsters on board. I would like to think it would be well attended.