This was our third sea day on this cruise and the first on our return leg back to Barcelona. All of a sudden time seems to have flown by and it only seems a few days ago that we were embarking.
The clouds have continued to follow us but we did get some brief sunny intervals around midday when were able to sit up on deck. The prize areas being those out of the wind of which we were lucky enough to find one.
The weather even held out long enough for a poolside BBQ at lunch time which was relatively well attended, however the weather had the last laugh as soon after 1:30 the clouds took control yet again and even produced a few showers for us.
Because of this we ended up watching the Crew Talent Show in the theatre which was almost full, nice for the performers to play in front of a full house but not the way I intended to spending my afternoon. The talent included several singers, a guitarist, one of those swirly ribbon dancers, a Salsa dancer and a drag queen who mimed two songs!. Two other other acts were made up from the entertainment staff.
As with all of the NCL fleet there are various speciality restaurants on board along with the complimentary ones. The free ones for want of a better name are called Windows & Garden and both are located on deck 6, the larger of the 2 (Windows) is located at the aft while the other is midship. We have so far favoured Windows as this one at least requires the gents to wear trousers in the evening and we have always like to put something smart on when going out to dinner. All of the restaurants are what NCL call Freestyle Dining which basically means you can turn up when you want. We have never had to wait more than 5 minutes for a table so from our perspective it works quite well. The food too has been good but a little inconsistent, some of it being exceptional while others very lacking indeed. The service too has been excellent and NCL have obviously fine tuned this style of eating to perfection and it is really fascinating to watch the tables being reset ready for the next diners. We thought they must have been influenced by formula one tyre changes.
For the speciality restaurants you are advised to book and the one that everybody seems to be favouring is Teppanyaki ($25 cover charge) which is Japanese style cuisine prepared in front of you. The other restaurants include Sushi, La Trattoria (Classic Italian cuisine with a $15 cover), Shogun which is described as an Asian fusion ($15 cover), Le Bistro ($20 cover) French Gourmet, Cagney’s ($30 cover) American Steakhouse. None of the following have been able to tempt us as we are more than happy with the complimentary food.
Tomorrow is Malaga and we have tour lined up regardless of what the weather does.