I got up early again, stopped at the Lido buffet to get coffee (I had brought my own travel mug) and took my laptop back out to the terminal to do my Mafia Wars chores, upload pictures, and update my Facebook. I was going to miss the wifi in the terminal - it was more than decently fast.
When I returned to the cabin, I had forgotten that Amina had ordered room service for breakfast to be delivered between 8 and 8:30. She had finished her breakfast of cereal and yogurt and had gotten back in bed again – we didn't have to leave until around 9:45 to be back at the Fairmont by 10:15. I ate some fruit and put the box of granola cereal into my backpack to take with us to the aquarium.
We walked back into QC and found the funicular, paid the $5 per person and boarded immediately. It must have been relatively early because the funicular wasn't nearly as crowded as we had seen it before.
After the brief ride up to the top, we went into the Fairmont to the tour desk and paid the $5 per person fee for the green line shuttle to the Aquarium that we had reserved the day before – we were given green wristbands for the ride. After a bathroom stop and buying a drink at Starbuck's for Amina, we sat outside of Starbuck's for a little bit until the green line shuttle arrived. When the passengers got off the shuttle, the driver told us it would be a little bit before he left (10:30 am) so we had a seat on the bench and Amina noticed that the red double decker tour bus in front of our shuttle had free wifi so we both connected and I was actually able to upload some photos to Facebook while we waited.
The shuttle took an AWFULLY long time to get to the aquarium – I was watching the clock because I was a little worried about making it back to the Fairmont in time to walk back and re-embark before sail away at 4. When we finally arrived at the aquarium (after stopping at one hotel twice and dropping some women off at the shopping mall), it had been almost 45 minutes! I asked the shuttle driver what time he thought the next shuttle (2:25 pm) would arrive back at the Fairmont. 3:10 pm he said. I really didn't think that was going to work for us – we would have to find alternate transportation back to the ship. We waited in a pretty long line at the aquarium – only 2 windows of 7 were open. It was also getting pretty warm standing in the sun.
When it was finally our turn, we presented our voucher and had our hands stamped and went into the aquarium. I was looking for the information center to make transportation arrangements but the door signage was confusing. It probably would've helped if we had spoken French. The gift shop/guest services door said “exit” on them and I took that to mean that we needed to find the entrance so we went around to the other side of the building and walked in but it turned out to be the jelly fish and sea horse exhibit.
This exhibit was VERY interesting and the highlight of our aquarium trip, in my opinion. They had so many different types of jelly fish in very cool tall displays – some reminiscent of Finding Nemo and some with tentacles longer than I was tall. Jellyfish have no brains and are, well, beautiful but just plain creepy. One display was particularly interesting comparing how poisonous a type of jellyfish was compared to the cobra and other poisonous animals. The jellyfish won handily. The last part of the jellyfish exhibit was a huge “wall” of jellyfish with alternating colored lights – it was just gorgeous and, well, creepy.
The sea horse exhibit was fun with some of the most beautiful sea horses that I've ever seen. I learned that it's the male sea horses that carry the babies.
We made our way to the other large building which held the fish and sharks. I stopped at the information booth to ask about alternate transportation arrangements and was told to have the guest service center just call for a taxi. The highlights of this building included a very close up look at an octopus (they just look nothing like how they are depicted in cartoons and stuffed animals), a particularly pesky sting ray that seemed to beg to be touched, a blue lobster, and an underwater fish viewing tunnel.
We left that building and went outside for a little bit – it was probably in the mid 80's by now – not too bad in the shade but just a bit uncomfortable in the sun. We hopped (ok, walked) some lily pads in the small garden pond and then made our way over to see the seals, walruses and polar bears.
At the conclusion of this portion of the aquarium, we were pretty much done and it was around 1 pm. We went back to the fish building to check out the cafe but nothing really appealed to us so we decided to call a cab and go back to the ship to have something to eat.
We went back to the gift shop/guest services center and went in the door that said “exit”, asked the lady at the register to call a cab, looked around a bit then went outside to snack on granola cereal and wait for the taxi. It wasn't but 10 minutes when the taxi arrived and took us back to the ship – the fare was about $25. The taxi driver was very friendly pointing out a large pile of salt that they use on the roads when it snows and told us that the record was in 2008 when they received 17 FEET of snow. We don't even get 17 inches in Oklahoma let alone 17 feet.
We arrived back to the cruise terminal and after enjoying the free wifi for the last time briefly, we got back on the ship and decided to try the grill on the lido deck where they offered different types of burgers (beef, lamb, turkey, vegetarian) as well as hot dogs (beef and turkey). The line moved very
slowly with just one cook in the grill filling orders and cooking the food. While we were waiting in line, we met Tatiana and her family – she recognized us and introduced herself and her daughter Alex as well as her 2 younger children. We had “met” on Cruise Critic and had texted each other prior to the cruise having a lot in common. We enjoyed our food (beef hotdog for me and turkey burger for Amina) and then went our separate ways for the life boat drill. I think this was the first drill that I've been to where they didn't make us bring our life jackets from the cabin. Eons ago, they used to make everyone wear the life jackets and then more recently, they just had you bring them with you and now they just have you report in for the drill. It was a little disorganized. I think part of the problem was that deck 6 really isn't wide enough to accommodate everyone along with the fact that there were a bunch of people who arrived late. The life boat drill captain repeated missing cabin numbers several times and eventually, everyone was accounted for in our group. They gave the usual speech about using the life jackets, etc and then made a final announcement daring the missing passengers to report in for a "special drill" later.
We then headed to the Crow's Nest for the Cruise Critic meet and greet. We weren't there very long but did meet up with John and Leslie who would be with us on a couple of our privately booked shore excursions. We left the party a little bit early to go to the spa and attend the drawing for free services but we didn't win anything. I had some time before dinner at 7 so I went back to the cabin and put on my workout clothes, returned to the gym, and got on the treadmill to run 3 miles.
After showering and changing, we headed to the Main Dining Room (MDR) for our first dinner on the ship. There were 2 lines at the MDR on deck 7 (people with assigned seating were on deck 8): one for those with reservations and one for those without. There was a pretty good group of people loitering around waiting for their pagers to go off.
The selection was really good – we actually had trouble deciding on what to get and agreed to order different things and split so we could try a few things. I ordered the goat cheese with red onion jam and Amina got the salt cod and lobster cake. Both were very good.
Amina then had the chilled cranberry soup which she described as melted ice cream – I had to agree. I got the New England clam chowder which was good but a little too much like “soup” than a “chowder” for Amina. As we were enjoying our soup, the older couple seated next to us raved about the lemon turkey spinach barley soup so we asked the waiter to bring us an additional cup of soup. Amina ordered the bay scallops and clams over noodles while I got the Seafood Pot Pie. Both were good as was the turkey spinach barley soup. For dessert, we tried the banana chocolate tart and whoopie pie.
When we returned to the cabin, there was a stingray waiting for us on my bed.
Amina went to meet some of the other kids at the Loft so I went to see the comedian by myself. He was really good and did a lot of improv and audience heckling. I was so tired after the show that I went straight to bed and Amina followed not too soon afterward.
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