Tasmania to Tokyo – Adelaide – Day 23 can be found here.
Today’s Chronicles can be found here.
A lovely, late, luxurious sleep-in this morning, lulled by the gentle rocking of the ship. Glorious.
While on our Papeete to Valparaiso cruise, we were continually losing hours – 7, to be exact – as we moved from east to west. Now we are gaining hours – or half an hour, as a start. I can say without hesitation that gaining them is better.
This has not improved our time conversion skills, however. After landing in Sydney, it made more sense to think of ourselves as 7 hours behind Eastern time – rather than 17 hours ahead – but that was further complicated by it being yesterday instead of today.
This might be a three-champagne-flute problem.
But not quite yet, because we haven’t had breakfast – and while I shall never judge anyone who has a mimosa with breakfast, that’s no way to live for 47 days.
Off to Atlantide for breakfast this morning to see if the general improvement in food quality holds for breakfast, too.
This morning’s menu:
Same as it ever was
I have a ham and cheese omelette:
The kids have waffles:
And my wife has avocado toast:
The verdict? Meh. It feels identical to what we might get aboard the Wind or the Cloud, and a step down from what’s available at La Terrazza – but with the added disadvantage of pokey service.
The real disappointment lies in the avocados. We are in Australia, after all, and every order of avocado toast – even from the humblest cafe – has been exceptional in terms of the quality of the avocados. Here they are using some sort of pre-made avocado paste. The end result is not particularly good.
So that will be something to inquire after – fresh avocado.
With breakfast behind us, we then head to SALT Labs for our next cooking class on Australian bush tucker. We’re going to be making a fresh mango and avocado salad with kangaroo filet.
Well, that’s one question answered – there are fresh avocados on the ship!
Chanelle steps us through the process of slicing up the ingredients – avocado, mango, macadamia nuts, peppers and onions – and then mixing up the dressing of lemon juice and macadamia oil.
We then heat the pan with a drizzle of oil and cook the kangaroo for two minutes per side, searing the edges at the end.
The meat then rests for a period so that the juices will not spill out when we cut into it.
Chanelle suggests resting for half the total cooking time. So with 4 minutes of cooking time, we will rest for 2 minutes. This should be applies for larger cuts of meat, too – better that the meat is a bit cool than to have the juices spilling out all over the plate.
She also recommends that we avoid adding salt to our marinades in advance, as that will dry out the meat. We marinate earlier with all other elements – seasoning, oils, etc. – but should wait until cooking before adding salt.
The end result:
Delicious!
We then drop in for a brief visit to the Moon’s Superbowl party.
They have quite the spread:
It’s a fun atmosphere, too. Some of our fellow guests take some time to help explain the rules of football to our kids. We don’t stick around for long, but we do also manage to catch the excellent halftime show. We appreciate the shoutout for Canada during Bad Bunny’s outreach to the Americas.
Off for lunch – we’re having the Indian buffet at the Grill today:
It’s pretty good, though I would say the Tandoori chicken steals the show. However, I preferred the Indian dishes aboard the Cloud during our past voyage – but perhaps we’ll see better offerings from the Moon later this cruise.
We take some time to go for a walk this afternoon, keeping an eye out for orcas. No luck, but I do manage to get a shot of the ‘wave pool’:
Among other shots:
We also head up to visit @Fletcher’s hidden observation platform on Deck 12:
There should be better orcas-spotting prospects as we approach Albany, so we’ll be spending some time up there tomorrow afternoon.
Off to the casino to see if I can join the blackjack tournament. The rules are as follows:
We need five people to play, but we only have four – so no dice. Instead, the four of us decide to play a few hands of regular blackjack. I start with a $100 stake and inform my fellow players (but mostly myself) that I will be leaving if I manage to double that, or if I burn through it entirely. I successfully tempt chance and leave when I reach $200.
For those curious – it’s best to bring cash to exchange for chips, as otherwise you will be charged a 2% credit card fee for billing the cost to your room.
Meanwhile, my daughter has been at an art lesson – and did a phenomenal job painting a tote bag:
Guests were coming up and congratulating my wife on her excellent work – they were amazed to hear that our daughter is the resident artist.
The kids go to bingo – no luck there – and then we once more convene for trivia. We correctly identify the number of eyes that a bee has (5) and the city in which the Taj Mahal is located (Agra), and we learn that the Microsoft was founded in the 1970s and that the capital of Albania is Tirana. We once more tie for second – another podium finish!
Off to dinner at Silver Note, the Moon’s intimate ‘speakeasy’ type venue with live jazz music:
Tonight’s menu:
We’d wondered whether we’d be able to customize any of the dishes here, but have no issues with asking for various sauces to be put on the side. The server provides us with a kids’ menu, but the kids are quite happy to order choose from the Silver Note’s offerings.
My wife has the tuna in a can for her appetizer:
I have the caviar rosette:
The crab bites:
And the baby potato basket:
I preferred the crab bites, while my wife really enjoyed the tuna in a can.
Midway through the appetizers, a Code Alpha is called over the ship’s announcement system – a medical emergency. Hopefully whoever is affected is okay. They only made the one announcement, so fingers are firmly crossed.
Our server was called out as part of the response team, but the Silver Note barely skipped our beat in terms of the quality of the service – nor would it be an issue if they had. Passenger health and safety should always come first.
Moving onto our mains, I get the beef tournado with the lobster tail:
While my son also has the chicken:
I loved the surf and turf and the kids really enjoyed the tournados, but it wasn’t quite enough food for them – so they order a second round.
For dessert the kids get the black swan:
While I get the opera cake:
And my wife has the pavlova:
The opera cake and the pavlova were the clear favourites.
Then back to our rooms and off to bed. We gain another glorious hour of sleep tonight, and get to enjoy another sea day before we make landfall at Albany.