Cruising to Lisbon!

It’s always a sad day to receive your luggage tags on your door when you awake BUT our adventures are not ending.  We are about to take Portugal by storm before returning home AND we get to enjoy a full day at sea today.  

If you don’t like a rocking boat, today would not be your day.  I love it!  Your stance is wider to maintain your balance and everyone looks like they have a load in their pants. It makes me giggle and the rocking is very soothing to me.  After like 18 posts, I figured out how to post a video! 

Strong headwinds make for super cool waves. Bill is getting a catnap before the end of cruise party! Check out my readers under my sunglasses!  Talk about a trend setter.  

Off to the galley for a tour with the Executive Chef.  The galley was super clean, streamlined and a well oiled machine.  Everything on the boat is fresh; the chef literally leaves the boat each day to switch out a few menu items to give the guests a local flair.  All breads including hamburger and hotdog buns are made in house.  All desserts are made in house. 

The chef is a cocky, hard-nosed son of a gun but he runs a tight crew.  40 members of the kitchen staff work the 3 restaurants. 

Interestingly, Windstar recycles.  All food waste (-with the exception of bones, shells and eggshells) are ground and held into a storage tank where they are dumped into the sea once the ship reaches 12 miles.  I think I need to do more research on this to see if it’s actually a good thing for the fish and sea or not.  The bones, shells, and egg shells are held in cold storage and then offloaded to a recycling center.  Same with paper, tin, glass, etc.  I was bummed that he would allow pictures but he indicated that some cultures were uncomfortable with their picture being taken.  I was hoping that he was true to his word and not trying to wordsmith; undocumented workers.  Regardless, we respected his wishes so you get no pics.  

Off to the library for an espresso refill then down to deck 5 for a cooking demonstration with the Executive Chef and the Assistant chef who is responsible for Cuadro 44.  

It was fun to watch a chef with 45 years of experience cook a specialty dish.  There were 2 really funny things; first, it took the chef 40 minutes to make this dish and he had every single ingredient prepped for him and he had TWO assistants.  Can you imagine trying this at home?  I will be making it but I’ll prep one day and cook the next!  Also, the dishes smelled amazing and the audience couldn’t wait to try a bite!  I started to laugh realizing that he wasn’t cooking enough to offer the audience a bite.  Sure enough, he offered for us to come up and take pics!  Are you serious?  That’s like waving a bone near a dog and then throwing it in the trash!  It was still fun to watch but I would have liked a bite. 

Bill, having watched the British Baking Show with me, was quite entertaining.  “Hon, won’t the sauce with the lemon juice curdle the egg?”  🥚 I had to give him a pat on the arm.  A well thought out question!

We had 🥗 lunch, relaxed on the deck and then Headed to 80’s music 🎶 trivia where we continued our terrible 😣 losing streak.  I mean seriously, who wouldn’t remember that Bryan Adams sang Summer of ‘69?  Well, that would be the Vasquez’!  I can sing every word but remember the artist, nope!  We made a good team-I would sing the lyrics and Bill would say the artist and title.  The host only gave us like 8 counts of the song to identify the title and artist so it was pretty hard.  

Next up was the Captain’s farewell party.  The entire crew gathered to wish us safe journey.  It was a bittersweet moment.  We made such great memories but were ready for our next adventure.  

Meanwhile, the boat began really rocking and I had the worst heartburn. I thought “am I going to be sick?”  Dinner pretty much consisted of two pieces of bread and like 5 glasses of club soda and dessert was a lime tums!  By bedtime, I was feeling much better but I have to be honest, the boat was seriously rocking and the noise made me nervous.  There was a loud grinding noise coming from below deck that was disconcerting.  Had I been on deck 3, I would’ve cried!  Finally fell asleep 💤 dreaming of Lisbon.