Royal Voyage 2015 Day 7 & 8: This Doesn’t Look Like Israel
Day 7
Following our full day in Crete we were absolutely prepared to relax on our ship for another day at sea in order to get prepared for our big Israel stop. Today was also the day we found the perfect rhythm at-sea days. We laid in bed until 10AM where I went to go work out and Jenn stayed relaxing in our room thinking about future trip plans.
After I got back we got ready for the day. We went down for lunch at the dining room and had a really nice lunch. I just stuck with the salad bar (a trend you will probably see repeated throughout the trip) and Jenn got a chicken soup and a bangers and mash style entrée. She of course finished her lunch with the patented scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Once we were done with our lunch we headed up to the pool deck and laid out for a couple of hours. It was perfect outside. A crisp 72-75 degrees with a nice light breeze. One of the best days to lay out on the deck so far. We read for a couple of hours before retreating back to our room to get ready for dinner.
Tonight we went back to Giovanni’s the Italian restaurant onboard. We tried to mix up our order from the last time we were there to just get more variety. We started off with some calamari and mozzarella. For our main course Jenn got a shrimp scampi dish and I had the veal tenderloin. We also split some mushroom risotto which was far too rich for both of our palettes. We rounded out the meal with a tiramisu for me and a raspberry mousse for Jenn. When we were finishing up our dinner we were talking to our waiter about how excited we all were for Israel the next day. He had mentioned very casually at the end of the conversation that he hoped the rumors weren’t true and that we would dock in Israel. It kind of took Jenn and I by surprise. We hadn’t heard anything but that we were going to dock in Israel. In fact earlier in the morning we had to pick up our passports at the dining room, in which Jenn convinced the Israeli official to give her a stamp in her passport rather then on a visa. We left dinner a little concerned.
That concern increased exponentially when we arrived in our stateroom after turn down service and there wasn’t a cruise compass telling us of the activities for the next day. No sooner then maybe two or three minutes does the captain come on the overhead speakers to announce that our day in Israel was cancelled due to the unrest in the city. We had cancelled our cruise tour earlier in the trip instead going with an outside vendor who luckily has at the time of this writing already refunded our tour. Sadly, though this was one of the stops we were both most excited for.
But as with anything you got to roll with the punches. And that’s exactly what we planned to do. More then anything we went on this cruise to relax and so that’s precisely what we plan to do.
Day 8
Waking up this morning was a little bittersweet. On one hand it was really nice to sleep in but on the other it was sad not to be porting in Ashdod, Israel. We did however have to make a quick stop right outside the port to drop off Israeli officials that were on board and then the ship started making its way towards the Suez Canal. With the day wide open we planned to do exactly what we’ve done on every at-sea day, relax.
We woke up leisurely again. We did make one slight alteration and got room service. I just had a banana and Jenn had some orange juice and pastries. It was really nice to eat those on the balcony and enjoy yet another pristine day on board. The weather/ocean has been incredible so far. After we got out of Barcelona and that storm on the first day we’ve had really smooth sailing (knock on wood). I went to work out at 10AM, and we went down to lunch again at the dining room at noon. Jenn got her go-to penne pasta with marinara sauce and vanilla ice cream and I stuck with their salad bar.
Something there starting to do more later in the cruise is show movies in the theater. Today at 1PM they were showing Mr. Holmes starring Ian McKellen. It was a really good movie, a little slow, but good. It was so nice to just forget about everything and take in a movie. The theater was packed, far busier then any other activity we’ve seen on-board. It seems like we aren’t the only ones wanting to take in a movie at-sea.
We left the theater and headed up to the pool deck to get some more reading in. We stayed up there for two hours. It was another glorious afternoon up on the pool deck. We’ve found a nice spot with the sun at our back that makes it so nice to just lay around and read. We left the pool deck and went back to our stateroom.
At this point we figured we weren’t really in the mood for a full blown meal so instead we decided to just go to Johnny Rocket’s again. Can’t go wrong with a hamburger and fries. Which hit the spot. Jenn got a grilled cheese, I got a cheeseburger, and we split some fries and onion rings. We even got an Oreo ice-cream sundae.
We left dinner and played a round of ping pong, mini-golf, and a game of P-I-G basketball. Jenn won two of three (ping pong and P-I-G). It was a poor showing on my part from all standpoints. I barely won in mini-golf. We then walked around the top deck for a while before grabbing both Monopoly Deal and Love Letter and two glasses of wine from our room. We headed over to the library where I literally lost every game we played. It was not my night. We closed out the night with a couple episodes of New Girl and then hit the sack. I’ve said it before but once we found our rhythm on these at-sea days this trip has been nothing short of insanely relaxing.
