Turns out you wake up early on cruises. If the screaming butthead children in the hallway don’t do it, the inefficient curtains in your room will when the sun comes up. Our first stop today was breakfast and we tried out the Waterfront, which is the second free restaurant on board. Not too bad, although it’s a seated restaurant with table service as opposed to the “free for all” in The Pantry. I think we both agreed we prefer the food court approach.
After breakfast, we went to the pool to lounge about. This was when we discovered that on a cruise, people nab ALL of the sun lounges at 7am and don’t give them up all day, which was a bit disappointing for me. Instead of lounging around reading, I was relegated to a corner next to the ping pong table full of annoying kids and a very uncomfortable chair. At least the cocktail was tasty! Eventually (after 6 ping pong balls to the back of the head), I gave up on the pool deck and relaxed in the cabin instead before our 2pm couples massage. Bliss! Love a good hot stone massage. It was so good we booked another one for Thursday (our next full day at sea).
At 4:30pm I went to play bingo – so excited! I used to play it all the time when I was younger and I do variations of it at school pretty frequently as well. MY EXCITEMENT LEVELS WERE HIGH! B was…less excited….he came along for the fun though and helped me mark numbers. When playing bingo, it’s important to have all the essentials: playing card, marker and frozen toblerone cocktail.
Dinner was at Salt Grill by Luke Mangan which is an affiliated restaurant on board that you have to reserve fairly early on. It’s definitely not a free one ($49 cover charge) but the set menu and wine options were delicious. B happily ate some prawns, we both had steaks and the desserts were top notch.
Side note – when cruising you should always mention a special occasion. I was talked into specifying something “special” when we booked (I chose our anniversary….which is in 6 months lol) and today they put a sign on our door, every staff member we met wished us happy anniversary AND we got free cake delivered to our room!
Amazing.
Mel
Breakfast: Waterfront (free) with some decent bacon and eggs.
Lunch: The Pantry (free) mmmmm tacos 🌮
Dinner: Salt Grill by Luke Mangan (definitely not free and had a long reservation list). Food was yum though!
Mel’s alcoholic beverage intake for today: 4 cocktails + 1/2 bottle of Wirra Wirra Shiraz
Mel's Travel Blog 
I am enjoying the cruising 101 guide 😊
It’s been an interesting experience. One thing we have really noticed is that staff just assume you know what you’re doing and have cruised before….which is a bit of a pain!