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The Drinks are on Fred

Posted on February 15, 2011April 24, 2022 by bollingerbabe

Went up to the Grampian restaurant this morning to find there was another “champagne” breakfast.  Whoo-hoo!  🙂  Enjoyed a breakfast of kipper fillets washed down with coffee and a couple of glasses of the free bubbly.  A nice way to set you up for the day – good old Fred.  🙂

The weather was hot and sunny so we decided to go up and spend some time by the pool with our books.  A couple of hours is usually the most we can tolerate, as the sun is so hot.  We read, people-watched, sunbathed and swam in the pool before a crew member brought a massive block of ice out to the deck.  It was the ice-carving demonstration.  One of the chefs used a hammer and chisel to create a fantastic sculpture of an Indian chief’s head, complete with feathered head-dress.  It would be the centre-piece later on in the Thistle Restaurant for tonight’s Grand Gala Buffet.

Personally, we never bother with the midnight buffet and we can’t understand the people who do.  Don’t they get enough to eat on the cruise?!  Would they normally tuck in to a plateful at that time at home?  Just seems like unnecessary calories to me!  🙂

At midday we sought refuge from the sun in the shelter of the Marquee Bar.  We had a light lunch and I enjoyed a great big rum punch, full of ice and fruit and dark rum.  Yummy!  😀

The afternoon passed by in its usual pleasant, lazy way and then we had to get ready for the Captain’s Farewell Party (boo-hoo).  🙁  Couldn’t believe our holiday was nearly over after we’d looked forward to it for so long.  Tempus fugit.

So it was formal attire once again as we made our way, in good time, to the doors of the Neptune Lounge.  When we got there, we saw three old dears already standing in the queue (!!) reading their books to pass the time.  As the time approached 5.45pm, more people arrived to join the lengthening queue, then someone from the entertainment team arrived to open the doors.  “We just need to squirt your hands with hygiene gel before you go in…” she said, but to no avail.  As soon as the doors were open, there was a mass stampede to get the seats at the front.  Queue-jumping prevailed on a grand scale, as all the old farts rushed in as fast as their walking sticks could take them.  In a way it was funny, but in another way it was just sheer bad manners; pushing to the front when it was obvious people had been waiting longer.

We chose a seat near the front and near the end of the row, so as to be more readily within reach of the passing waiters with their trays of champagne glasses.  😉  More drinks on Fred!  Then Captain Rodberg did another amusing speech and we managed a couple of refills before dinner time.

Dinner that night was lobster thermidor, yum yum.  Absolutely delicious, and beautifully presented and served as usual.  Afterwards it was off to the show lounge, as tonight it was the Braemar Crew Show. 🙂

The men and ladies of the crew did some traditional Philippino dancing and singing, in colourful costumes they’d made themselves.  There was also a comedy element to it when some of them came out in sailor suits and did Village People’s “In the Navy”, also “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred.  So there was quite a variety in the show and it was all very entertaining.

When we went along to the Skylark Club later on to join Colin and Liz for the quiz, a surprise awaited us – Paul and Lyn were there too!  They are “morning people” so they usually go to bed fairly early on, so the fact that the quiz didn’t even start until 10.00pm was a late one for them!  Maybe they decided to see if another two brains would help us break our winning drought; tonight’s quiz was based on The Body.  All the questions were cryptic, and the answer was a part, or parts, of the human body.  You had to use a bit of lateral thinking in some cases.

Anyway, it worked – because our team won with 19/20.  Yay!  So yet another free bottle of vino on Fred.  🙂

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