Carnival Miracle: October 23, 2013, Sea Day 4

Clocks were set back another hour last night for the final time meaning that we were up at 4 a.m. even after getting 8 hours of sleep.

We had already decided to do a load of laundry this morning as I was down to only the undies on me (thanks to the missing suitcase). After scoping out the cost of the machines and laundry soap, we headed down to the guest services desk for quarters.

We started a load and headed up for coffee. 30 minutes later, I went down to check on the laundry and waited while it finished (about 5 minutes) and then started the dry cycle. I had cereal and Danish by this time because hot food wouldn’t be available until 7 a.m. and I was hungry.

After the dryer finished (about 45 minutes) I folded the clothes and we still had to wait for breakfast. Finally, we ate before heading to the pool.

Today I wanted some shade so we headed to the midship pool area where most of the loungers were open at 7:30 am but it was full by 9:30 or so. It was a gorgeous sunny day and Steve bought a bucket of beers.

We ate lunch from the Lido at our chairs. I tried chopsticks and he had a burger. I also had a turkey sandwich from the deli that was very good. For dessert there was a chocolate pie that was fantastic. It made up for that chocolate cake the night before.

Later that afternoon I went to the tea with others from the Cruise Critic roll call.

I'm on the far left — I’m on the far left

There were about 30 of us for tea and it was fun getting to chat with a couple of different people. They served cucumber sandwiches and something with salmon on it. Then came the sweets trolley. There were so many options and I had too much. I had another chocolate pie, pound cake and a scone with whipped cream. It was all delicious. Other choices included strawberries and fruit tart.

The past guest party was 5:15-6 pm for early seating which didn’t make any sense because our dining time was 5:30 pm. I think they forgot to adjust the schedule to accommodate the earlier dining times. We skipped it and headed to dinner at the usual time. Our tablemates did go and said they couldn’t even get a cocktail and only had the chance to get two hors deourves. There are just too many past guests this sailing.

For dinner Steve and I had the fried shrimp appetizer which we both enjoyed. I ordered the Seafood Newburg and Steve had the beef stroganoff. The scallops in the Seafood Newburg were very tough and not that tasty so I then ordered the beef stroganoff which was very good.

I had the Bitter Blanc for dessert which was so delicious. I was pretty full from all the food today so could only finish half of it. Steve had the coconut cake with a scoop of butter pecan ice cream.

We were both tired out from the day in the sun and went to bed pretty early.