Sushi Dinner - Pride of America
The captain was taking photos at 7:30 and I had made a bouquet of origami flowers for him in his Texas Longhorn colors; I figured he was being yelled at by many of the left-on-shore passengers and I wanted him to have at least some bright spot in his day. Unfortunately, due to the high winds we still weren't able to leave the harbor by then, so they made an announcement that he was putting off his photo taking. We also got a call from Lauren, the golf person, asking Bob if he wanted to play tomorrow as someone else wanted to play there. Bob said we'd talk about it over dinner and then let her know. The shower tonight was rather extreme in its vacillations between hot and cool. Every day it had varied a little bit as I showered, and I assumed it was because as the ship rocked the water pressure changed in the pipes. Today, though, we showered while we were right at the dock and there was very little motion, but the water would go to almost too hot down to lukewarm and back again. I had to time the cycle to make sure I did my face part during the non-super-hot part, so my face didn't end up red :)I also want to comment that I am pretty sure Carnival provided conditioner in their shower set, but that this ship only has shampoo and bath soap. Normally I use conditioner - but normally my hair is long down to the middle of my back. I had just cut it off a week or two ago to donate to cancer victims, and was thinking that I really didn't need conditioner anyway with my super-short hair so I didn't worry about bringing any. I was QUITE wrong. After going through the massive wind tunnel this morning on the bow, apparently my hair - short as it was - was in a HUGE snarl. I took 20 minutes trying to untangle it in its rough non-conditioner state before I gave up and dug through my bag. I'd taken the rest of the conditioner from the hotel we were at in Honolulu as I'd really liked it. So I used it on my hair here, to try to detangle the mess. So the short version of this section is if you use conditioner, make sure you bring some with you. Especially if it's windy out, you might really need it.
Tonight was formal night, so I wore my long gold-and-black oriental dress (in honor of the sushi). A fair number of people on the ship had dressed up and were having photos taken in the central area. There were still people in jeans and such though, too.
So we went in to our sushi dinner at 8 with bouquet in hand, plus two butterfly dollar bill creations as tips for the sushi chef. I left a dollar bill butterfly plus a few cranes on the bed for our room steward.
The sushi was DEFINITELY the best meal of the trip. You have in essence your own personal sushi chef at your beck and call. We had a Japanese fellow who had only been on the ship for a few weeks. Before that he'd been in Miami and Vancouver. He was VERY good. We eat a ton of sushi back home, in a variety of restaurants. One of the things I do is review sushi restaurants whereever we go. I started with a spicy tuna roll. Note that a roll order is not ONE SINGLE ROLL!! The people next to us made that mistake. A sushi chef can't just make a single roll, he makes a long roll and slices it up into 6 or 8 pieces and you get all of them. Anyway, it was very good. We brought down our sparkling wine (i.e. Californian Champagne) which went wonderfully with our food. Bob had a variety of sashimi. I next had some tuna sashimi which was tasty. Then the chef caught on to our interests and just started making things for us. He made me a delicious set of tuna and scallop items. He made a really cool cucumber roll set with tuna and other items. Bob stayed with his sashimi items. So really the key with the chef is to give him guidance about what things you like and then ask him to go crazy. This guy was very artistic, the items were beautiful and delicious. Don't stick to the menu :) We were SO full by the time 9pm rolled around, the sparkling wine was gone, and everything was really really good. Definitely the highlight of the trip. In comparison the Bistro was nice and elegant, but you were ordering your "best choice" from the menu. Here you ordered exactly what you wanted or had the chef make you your own personal creation based on your favorite items. All of this assumes you really like sushi of course :)
The chef and waitress loved my dollar bill origami tips, so definitely it's worth it to learn how to make a few things like these and take them with you on your cruise :) They're very easy to make and lots of fun to give! We did give him a larger tip than just the butterfly :)
Now at this point the concierge - the man who had walked us to the Captain back at the VIP session - happened to walk through the sushi area. I asked him if the captain was still out taking photos, and he said no, he had just left. So I asked him to please give the flowers to the captain, that I'd made them with the Longhorn colors. He said he would - but I have no idea if he remembered who I was or if the message would be conveyed to the captain. So the hour + I put into the bouquet might have just been wasted ... but I tried my best.
We went over to the golf shop to put in Bob's request to play tomorrow, and the person on staff there was almost trying to talk Bob out of playing. Their golf staff seems a bit odd in giving mixed messages, since Lauren had explicitly asked Bob to play only a few hours ago. Bob got the reservations to be made and everything was set. We then headed to the Cadillac diner to get a pair of brownie sundaes to go, and headed back to our room to eat them with our port wine. There was no towel animal on the bed. Hmph. But wait!! There was a two swan heart creation on the sofa! It was really pretty. I will have to think what I am going to leave our steward tomorrow to up the ante. I did bring tropical colored pipe cleaners so I could make him a tropical bouquet.
In all, the port-and-chocolate was a lovely ending to a relaxing day!
Photos from sushi
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