Thanksgiving at sea

Today we steamed back toward home for our final stop tomorrow at Nassau before returning to Miami Saturday. The sea was stormy and we had great rocking but it wasn’t much of a day for lying out by the pool so I spent most of Thanksgiving Day hammering away at the Deuces machine in hopes of hitting the progressive Royal, now almost $1400, giving thanks that the casino was open all day because we weren’t in port. I hit four ducks again but otherwise got only the royal hoover, not the Royal Flush before it was time to eat.

Our bellies had recovered sufficiently from Johnny Rocket’s that we decided to meet Larry and Shirley there for lunch. We sat indoors this time which gave us the added benefit of a jukebox at our booth. I was fishing around my change purse for nickels when our waiter came by with a stack of them for me! I selected some lovely tunes as the kids in the restaurant all selected “YMCA” and we heard them intermingled. Service was much quicker this time because we didn’t come right at opening along with everyone else. Larry and Shirley had arrived early in anticipation of a long line so they were already seated and had already ordered fries and onion rings when we got there. I had “The” Double again and so did Larry while the girls had girlie burgers. As a rule I don’t eat dessert but Larry’s policy is to eat everything on the menu so he ordered ice cream:

“I’ll have ice cream.”

“It is not possible.”

“What do you have?”

“Apple pie. Apple pie with a slice of cheese. Apple pie à la mode.”

“Then you have ice cream. Just bring me a scoop of ice cream.”

”We don’t serve ice cream.”

“You serve apple pie à la mode?”

“Yes.”

“Bring me the apple pie à la mode and hold the pie.”

“It is not possible.”

Larry couldn’t remember any more of Jack Nicholson’s lines from Five Easy Pieces so he just ordered the apple pie à la mode. The waiter quickly brought it and said if it wasn’t enough ice cream he could bring more.

We did a quick tour of deck 13 but the weather was windy and spitting so I headed back to my machine while Hunnybear took a nap. I lost prodigiously all afternoon, giving back the four-ducks win and more.

We discovered that the special Thanksgiving menu in the main dining room was turkey, ham, or cod, so Larry got us a table at Portofino. Paul and Rhonda joined us and we knew Sandro and Josette had already booked a romantic table for two so Zsuzsa had the night off. Service was excellent and I didn’t order ice cream so there was no problem in that arena. Astonishingly, they had taken our feedback from the other night and changed the Caesar dressing! We all agreed it was much improved, with a nice garlic bite and more cheese. I didn’t mention the other night that they started with two complimentary orders of yummy bruschetta, one with olive tapanade and one with fresh tomatoes. I once again had the excellent beef carpaccio and then an insalata di mare that was great. The beef tenderloin was still great and everyone else was having dessert so I ordered a tiramisu even though I don’t eat dessert as a rule. It was delicious, soaked in liquor and espresso and served in a chocolate coffee cup. For additional dessert they brought the same marzipan candies they had served every night at midnight in the casino.

I lost a little at blackjack than hammered away at ducks to no avail until they shut the casino down at two, leaving the still-unhit jackpot over $1500.


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