We had another morning to sleep in - our "tour" didn't start until around 10:30 am. When I went up to the Lido buffet to fix my coffee cup, it was very foggy outside and the ship was a bit late in docking. I could hear the fog horn going off frequently. It was drizzling outside too.
When I returned to the cabin, Amina was already up so we packed our things and went up to the Lido buffet for breakfast. I have to say that I was really looking forward to the fresh squeezed orange juice available in the buffet. I don't normally drink juice but there's just something about fresh squeezed OJ.
I had done just a little research on this port and made a handful of inquiries but everything that I was interested in booking were already full so at the last minute, after consultation with Amina, I had bought the Halifax Urban Quest Scavenger Hunt for us to do ($29 per "team"). We exited the ship and started off on our scavenger hunt - the rain had stopped and it was a bit humid but still pleasant.
We had never done something like this before but I had previously printed out the "clues" and we walked to our starting destination which was the peace officers monument at Grand Parade. The quest used a letter system to act as coordinates on a grid for the letters of the final clue. We wrote down the inscription on the floor of the monument which contained 2 letters that would correspond to the grid location of the first letter of our final clue. The second task was to figure out which names listed on our page were not listed on the monument. This clue was pretty easy although some of the names were similar and we had to go back and eliminate a couple of names off our list.
We followed the walking instructions and found our next location - the statue in front of the provincial legislature but had a tough time with this clue. I ended up having to google search the answer to what war the statue was a monument to. The answer was not immediately obvious on the statue.
We were then directed to our next location sort of vaguely so we walked for a bit and happened upon another Cow's ice cream so we stopped for a cone and to ask for help finding the next location.
We back tracked a bit and found the pedestrian mall. The clue at this location was a bit tough too - we had to look up what a "window keystone" was (again, thanks google and for international data that I had bought before the trip through AT&T).
Our 4th location wasn't too hard to find and the clues this time were pretty easy. We had to check off a list of items like anchors, buoys, cannons, masts, etc that were easily spotted on the harbor front entrance.
Our next location was on the boardwalk. Another google search found the answer to one of the clues and the other 2 we did find pretty easily on the boardwalk.
By this time, Amina was getting tired of walking and didn't have the right shoes on so she got a "walking taco" from a stand and sat while I looked for the next few clues.
Our last location was marked by "flags" but they were kind of hard to see - we had to walk a good way down the boardwalk to find the last location. We also didn't know what some of the terms were on the list (admiralty anchor, stockless anchors, and life rings). We are obviously not familiar with living by the sea. With the last clue solved, we figured out the final answer and I got online one last time to enter the answer on the Urban Quest website. I had also signed up for reservations at a "mystery restaurant" but when I entered the final answer on the website, it told me that I had already completed the quest. Since we had no idea where the mystery restaurant was, we decided to go back to the boardwalk and have lunch at the poutine shack that we had spotted.
We had poutine for the first time while on a culinary tour of Victoria, British Columbia. We got the triple pork poutine: bacon, sausage, and pulled pork with cheddar curds and gravy on top of french fries and shared. It was more than enough for lunch and absolutely delicious.
We walked the boardwalk back to the ship making a stop at a candy store to try some local chocolate. I have to say that the Urban Quest was kinda fun but neither of us *really* got into it and it was more walking that Amina had anticipated. It did take us 2 hours to finish with just a couple of diversions along the way and maybe it was a good thing that we didn't find our mystery restaurant because of the snacking we had done too.
When we returned to the ship, I went for a run in the gym and then spent some time getting caught up on my travel blog. Dinner was in pinnacle grill tonight and I was really looking forward to it. There were a lot of choices on the menu and we had a hard time deciding what we wanted.
The pinnacle ocean platter was good - 2 types of salmon with well cooked (ie not overcooked) scallops and shrimp.
I had enjoyed the cod the night before so much that I ordered cod again on a cedar plank with shrimp scampi. I asked for the cilantro butter to be placed on the side because I really really hate cilantro. Unfortunately, when my entree arrived, it had the cilantro butter on top and I was told by the waiter that it could not be separated. Hmmm. If the cruise line wants to pride itself on world class service and food, this should not have been a difficult thing to do.
We also wanted to try the lobster macaroni and cheese so our waiter suggested a side dish of this and we each received one. Suprisingly, there was no lobster in the mac and cheese. I would describe it as mac and cheese with a bit of lobster bisque. It was a bit disappointing but maybe the full order would have actually had lobster in it.
For dessert I had the Not-so-classic baked alaska which I think was my most favorite dessert of the whole cruise. I love cherries and this dessert was full of them - much better than the classic baked alaska that they usually have on the last night of a cruise. Amina had the cheesecake which also didn't look quite classic.
I returned to the cabin to just hang out and watch some tv - there was a creature on our bed that Amina and I debated on what it was.
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