Lazy Js Steakhouse - Pride of America
We began to get ourselves going about 5:30pm, to shower and dress for the Latitudes reception at 6:30 in the Mardi Gras. As usual we were a little bit late, so we found a pair of seats in an aisle which happened to be right next to where the Captain was standing. I took the opportunity to quietly thank him for keeping the ship safe and to explain that I'd done his origami flower bouquet in his Texas colors :) He did thank me profusely for having a positive outlook on things. I didn't get the impression that he'd actually SEEN the bouquet :) I imagine the concierge just makes a pile out of the random gifts sent to the captain. Still, he seemed genuinely happy that he had an understanding passenger on board.Waitresses were going around with free drinks - I had a glass of sparkling wine (i.e. Californian Champagne). As we had come in late, nobody ever came by to ask Bob if he wanted something.
A blonde woman was doing a promo for the book-a-cruise-while-on-board promo, then she brought up the general crew officers so they could introduce themselves. Once they were done, the captain went up and talked for a while.
He thanked the Latitude members for being so understanding about the weather situations. He said that they had broken 8 lines trying to keep us moored at the Maui harbor and that for the first time ever we'd needed the help of a tug boat to keep us safe. Usually our engines are more than enough power. He said our ship is very high out of the water - with very little ship IN the water - so when heavy winds blow it's like "driving a car on ice". He said that the lines are rated to some huge breaking strength - I think he said 120,000 pounds but I'll verify that later. He talked about how long the ship was, how high it was, how many passengers it could hold, and so on. I didn't write down those numbers but I'm sure they're on the NCL website.
He said that many people ask about the loud toilet flushes. That for environmental reasons, where as most home toilets use about a gallon of water for every flush, here they use a vacuum system so they only use a tiny amount of water and the rest is done with air. Also, the purification systems on the ship ensure that the end result water is pure water with no contaminants in it.
Someone asked him how many lines the ship uses and I think he said something like 6 in the front and 7 in the back - but he explained that once one line snaps, then there is extra stress on the remaining lines and they begin to snap in quick succession so it is critical that they have all the lines in place in a situation like that. When he was done and heading out he stopped by our table again to thank me again for being positive about the ship's events.
We ended the evening with a montage video of the beautiful islands of Hawaii which was quite lovely. Bob went up to the bar and they gave him a glass of grand marnier, and we listened to the band play for a while before heading back up to our room. Our steward was in there making up the room, so we grabbed our two bottles of wine (the Cabernet we began last night plus the Conundrum, a white wine) and headed down to the Napa Valley wine bar which is right in front of the Lazy J Steakhouse. There was a guitar player strumming along nicely. It was just before 8pm, and when I asked, I was told that we had to eat after 8:30 to have our discount even though the restaurant was half empty. Fair enough, we got 2 menus and 2 wine glasses and sat in the lounge area, listening to the music and sipping at our conundrum.
Just before 8:30 they came to get us. Bob wanted us to sit with the Brooklyn waiter, as the two of them had hooked up earlier in the Aloha buffet. Bob is from Yonkers NY :) So we had our New York waiter plus helper. The staff is mostly male and in cowboy gear here, white and black. The tables are oddly VERY tiny so there is barely room for your plates on there.
There were a LOT of tasty looking things on the menu here and we agreed to come back here Friday night so we could try other things. I ordered the spinach appetizer, lobster bisque and filet mignon. Bob ordered the tempura, lobster bisque and the prime rib. Tonight was prime rib night all over the ship but we were told the rest of the ship got the regular / cheap cuts while the steakhouse got the choice cuts.
The appetizers were really good, and just as we got to the bisque a couple was sung to to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. It was our friends from the Cruise Critic group! I had made 3 origami flowers to give to the waiters, but I sent them over to the couple instead. I figure if we're coming back on Friday I can make something more "manly" for them now that I know they're all male. We talked with the couple for a while, and our soup got cool - but actually it just wasn't that good. Our waiter had warned us as much and had suggested we get the potato soup instead. We'll do that on Friday. On to the main course.
The steak and prime rib were REALLY good. This ranks up there with the sushi as the best dish. Ironically both waiters raved about the Bistro and how much they liked it there - but we liked these meals better. I suppose the French Onion soup at the bistro was definitely better than the lobster bisque here, but we'll have to see how it goes up against the potato soup. We chatted for a long while with our waiters - things were quiet at this time of night - and also a photographer came by and Bob talked with him for a long while about cameras. The staff was all very friendly. We finished off the cabernet with our dessert - Bob had bananas foster and I had the chocolate obsession, which was a scoop of mousse over a thin cake. Very tasty.
I do want to note in here one odd thing I saw. A waiter was going past our table with four spoons and dropped one on the floor. He picked it up, went forward and then handed the spoons out to four people who were eating. So that dropped spoon went to someone to eat with. I don't believe that's sanitary :) It wasn't one of our waiters, though. Our waiter also forgot to bring us bread - which we didn't really mind, as we aren't big bread eaters. It was still funny though, with the table being so tiny, that a portion was taken up by a non-used little bread dish.
Anyway, it was now about 10:30 and Bob has an early morning golf game tomorrow, assuming of course we get into port and conditions are good! So we headed back to the room with the rest of our bottle of Conundrum. This means wine-wise we are now down to a half bottle of Conundrum for tomorrow at East-meets-West, and a bottle of Shiraz at our final dinner at Lazy J's again. The shiraz will go well with the cajun rib-eye that Bob wants. We also have half a bottle of port in the room for sipping with chocolate desserts. So our four-bottle-plus-port plan seems to have worked out perfectly.
We had another towel shape waiting for us! This time he made a towel heart, with two of our green leis (from our cruise critics meet-and-greet several years ago on the NCL Majesty!) made into a pair of hearts on either side. We headed to sleep - the ride had gotten a bit rougher, with large corkscrew motion. I found it relaxing, not disturbing, since it was smooth and regular.
In interesting news about our continuing weather saga, the waves began to get heavier as the night went on. Then about 3:30am we both woke up. The ship had been corkscrewing up until now, going up-side-down-side in a large but steady, smooth motion. Now it was going uppppppppp - THUNK. uppppppppp - THUNK. I.e. we were just riding the waves and it did not feel like there was any forward motion. Also, we realized the power was completely out in the cabin. No lights, no power outlet, no phone. Luckily we brought flashlights for the lava tube!! Another good reason to bring flashlights! We have a balcony so we had light from the outside but I know those inside cabins can be completely dark caves.
So Bob headed out with a flashlight to reception to see what was up. He left the other for me in the room. I pulled out the laptop to report in. No such luck, we had no signal at all. I couldn't even call someone to have them log on for me The GPS reported that we were doing 2 knots (I imagine that was our drift speed), pointing NE. We were just about halfway between Oahu and Kauai Our actual location was
21° 32' 8.19
-158° 45' 8.56
If you put those two coordinates into maps.google.com in one long line -
21° 32' 8.19 -158° 45' 8.56
you can see exactly where we were. In any case when Bob got to reception they said they were working on it. He was the first one down there; a few people came down after him asking about it. One woman was upset that the cabins didn't have flashlights in them all for emergency use. The emergency lighting was quite good in the hallways, and the elevators had all gone down to the 6th floor and opened up.
By the time Bob got back to the room, 4:07am, power was back on and we were back to our corkscrewing motion. Our guess is that the rough waves temporarily knocked something out of order, they fixed it very quickly though. We got back to sleep.
Photos from the Steakhouse Evening
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