A full day at sea is the best way to start a cruise, I think. Time to settle in, decompress, find your vacation vibe. No alarm clock and a lazy pace.

We had two planned engagements for the day: the Latitudes event and another specialty dinner reservation.

Latitudes is the loyalty program for NCL, so if you have a certain tier or higher then you get invited to this event. I had pictured the event as more of a meet & mingle thing to meet other NCL nerds, but instead we were all seated separately at tables in the Q Texas Smokehouse specialty restaurant and served drinks and snacks while ship officers came around for awkward hellos. Maybe I’m the awkward thing, not the hellos.

After that was over we got changed and got our stuff together for our first Thermal Suite experience. This was something Scott splurged on for us to minimize the possibility that I would be a whiny brat on a cruise ship again. I took very minimal photos in the space during the trip, and zero today. But here’s a video that someone else made to give an idea:

What the video doesn’t say is that there are no children allowed and access to the space is limited to only a certain number of people. And generally it’s understood that this is a quiet space. (I say generally because one day there was a hillbilly sitting in the hot tub yelling across the room like it was a pool club, and no amount of passive aggressive stares were giving him a clue.) So if nothing else this is an awesome place to avoid most other humans, which is what my introvert heart adores the most.

Today I alternated between the big, warm, bubbly pool and a lounger with a crochet amigurumi project, my headphones, and an audiobook. I learned/reinforced previous learning that I’m not that into saunas or other types of “treatments”. But buying a thermal suite pass was definitely a huge WIN for this vacation and it was evident from this very first day of enjoyment!

As evening rolled around we dressed for dinner and decided to have a pre-meal drink at the District Brewhouse. Because we like beer. But I got a cocktail. The vibe and seating and natural light in this bar was fantastic – definitely a favorite spot on this ship!

Thanks to Scott’s Platinum status with Latitudes we had two additional specialty dining nights in addition to the two that already came with our cruise fare. So four out of our seven nights we were able to enjoy really nice meals. He’s kind of a big deal.

Tonight we had booked the steakhouse Cagney’s, and used the coupon that included the free bottle of wine. Which is kind of silly because you can have as many glasses of wine as you want with our cruise fare, but hey, why not. We got a pinot grigio because it’s my honey’s favorite.

Then for appetizers Scott got the grilled bacon and I got the shrimp trio, we each had steaks (obvi) for entrees, and we enjoyed some creme brulee for dessert. Decadent! I am a spoiled girl.