Day two finds us at sea.
All day. Breakfast in the Manhattan Room, anyone?
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| My morning Cuppa... |
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| My usual standard breakfast on any cruise...bagel with smoked salmon, cream cheese and capers |
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| Mini pancake stack with bacon |
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| Buttermilk waffle with syrup and warm banana compote |
We pretty much walked around the ship exploring most of the day. There are 19 decks in all on the Epic. Decks 1 through 4 are off limits to passengers, so I'm guessing that's where all the crew resides, storage, engines, etc. All the action is on Decks 5, 6, 7, 14, and 15-19. Decks 8-14, 16 and 17 have the staterooms. If you're rich enough to book a Deluxe Owner's Suite, 2-Bedroom Villa or a Courtyard Penthouse on deck 16 or 17, you get exclusive access to the Villas Courtyard, the private Concierge Lounge and a private restaurant and bar.
Ooh La La! Fancy-schmancy sounding, ain't it?? Needless to say, we didn't see any of that stuff!
Deck 5 consists of business meeting rooms (Boring! Who has business meetings on vacation?
Really?), the photo gallery (pick up and pay $10 each for all those professionally awkward photos, people!), Internet Cafe, the Epic Theater (for Blue Man Group, Legends, Nickelodeon Slime Time Live), Le Bistro French restaurant, Taste restaurant, the Atrium Bar (coffee bar!), art gallery and Epic Theater bar.
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| Click Photo Gallery |
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| Entrance to the Epic Theater |
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| Le Bistro entrance |
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| Taste entrance |
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| Looking down on Taste dining room |
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| Internet Cafe |
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| Art Gallery |
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| Atrium Bar |
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| Atrium Bar with view of the two story movie screen |
I decided to have a pre-lunch cocktail in the Cascades Bar on deck six. This was a great decision, I think...
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| Pear Pleasure: Grey Goose LaPoire, Limoncello, Apple Juice, splash of soda and fresh pear garnish |
We decided to have lunch in the Irish pub on deck 6, O'Sheehan's. This was one of the 'freebie' dining areas.
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| Chicken Pot Pie |
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| Fried Mozzarella Sticks (loved the presentation on these!) |
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| Fish n' Chips (and in case you were wondering, as I was, the green stuff was Mushy Peas...) |
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| The ever popular standard: Buffalo Wings! Someone (including me) was bound to order them at one point... |
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| Corned Beef on Rye with Fries |
The fare was fair; it was your standard bar/pub food. Not good enough to write home about. I ate the wings and corned beef. My wings were mushy, almost like overcooked, but had a powdery texture to them. Would that be 'beyond overcooked' then? I only ate two of them after writing the first one off as a fluke, then figuring if the second one tasted exactly the same that there was something a bit...er,
wrong. Papa Bear had the wings, too - and he said his tasted fine. The sandwich was okay with the portion being really half of a normal-sized sandwich.
We ate at the bar table right in front of the bowling alley in O'Sheehan's. Afterwards, Granma took the girls bowling whilst my main squeeze and I tried out another martini back at the Cascades Bar.
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| The alley directly in front of us |
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| ...and if we looked to the right... |
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| The Coco Cabanatini: Bacardi Coco, Creme de Banana, Goldschlager Cinnamon Schnapps and fresh cream served with a coconut rim and cinnamon sprinkles. This was to die for... |
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All of this nefarious activity just plum wore out three quarters of our crew, so we all went back to the stateroom to chill and refresh...
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| Papa Bear's idea of a reboot... |
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| ..and my idea of a reboot. I win! |
Which, in retrospect was probably
not the best idea I had all day, because those mushy, powdery wings were beginning to do a helluva number on my stomach...
When everyone (but Little Lawyer and myself) had woken from their catnaps, we explored deck 6 some more. This deck has my beloved Cascades Bar, Fat Cats Jazz and Blues Club, Headliners Comedy Club, O'Sheehan's Pub, Shanghai's Chinese restaurant and Noodle Bar, the Spiegel Tent, the Manhattan Room restaurant and the Epic Casino.
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| Cascades Bar |
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| Fat Cats entrance |
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| Headliners Comedy Club |
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| O'Sheehan's |
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| Shanghai's |
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| Spiegel Tent entrance (to the left) |
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| Manhattan Room entrance |
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| Casino |
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| Granma playin' the slots |
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| More casino fun |
We had reserved a table at Shanghai's that evening for dinner. I
wanted to be stoked for this, but those wings had given me the stomach cramps from hell - I could not stay vertical long enough to eat after I ordered.
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| Waiting for dinner at Shanghai's |
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| Rice crackers with a bevy of dipping sauces: wasabi, chili and hot mustard |
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| Harvest Spring Rolls with Sweet Chili Sauce |
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| Salt and Pepper Calamari with Wasabi Mayo |
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| Drum Roasted Hoisin Barbecue Pork Spare Ribs |
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| Hot-n-Sour Soup |
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| Cantonese Scallops with Snow Peas, Sweet Peppers and Garlic |
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| Beef Broccoli with Oyster Sauce |
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| Shrimp Fried Rice |
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| Malay Lamb Curry |
Shortly after the main course arrived and I took one or two bites, I had to leave and go back to the stateroom and lay down. We had reservations to see the Blue Man Group after dinner, but there was
no way I could have sat through it. Granma had them bump the reservation to the next night because they didn't want to go without me (even though I said they could) Awww, they really
do love me!
I spent the rest of that evening in bed - from about 7pm til I woke up the next morning at 7am. The bathroom and I had a long discussion (maybe even an argument...but I'm not sure exactly which one of us actually won)
and I felt
much better the next day. The rest of the crew hung out, went for ice cream or ordered room service and just chilled.
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