The Captain warned us the night before that the seas would be rough again today. That we had to sail outside of the channel into the open waters of the Pacific. Side note on the Pacific, the wake was green on the South Pacific side where the wake is the normally a blue-turquoise color on the Atlantic side. After we crossed to the Atlantic side it returned to its blue-turquoise color.

So, I took my meclizine before going to bed, and a second one when waking up. The ship was rolling. We got ready and went up to the buffet for breakfast. We got food from the Great Outdoors and brought it back inside in the buffet seating area in the back. It was a challenge to walk and hold on to drinks.

Today was our "behind the scenes" tour; I was determined to not be affected by the movement. The tour met at the Four Seasons restaurant around 11am. We were visiting backstage Stardust Theater, the galley, and the laundry. Accompanying us was a member of the cruise director's staff and security. We each got tour labels and were off.

First the Stardust, where we met the stage manager (we think this is his title -- trying to remember), who planned and coordinated all the shows. He explained the process, showed us his clipboard, and let us ask questions. Then we went backstage, entering through the outside (promenade deck), being careful since the ship was still rolling.

Backstage is very small. They had a place to store microphones; they were labeled: iMic green, iMic blue, etc.

Each dancer had their own closet section. Some had their outfits in the order they would wear them during the show. They have to keep their own space organized.

On Stage

Next up, the galley. We have gotten a galley tour on one previous cruise with a request by our CC roll call. On the other tour, we got to see more food storage areas -- all the ice cream and vegetable rooms. I had a hard time hearing when we were in the galley this time.

We interrupted a team meeting in progress; when complete, we got to go in.

Everything is clean and shiny (which is good :)). Prepared appetizers. It would be really interesting to see the galley while dinner is in progress; though we would be quite in the way.

Large soup vats

How the food should look and be arranged.

On to the laundry room. It cleans all the laundry from the staterooms and galley, as well as, guest laundry sent in. Higher ranking officers get their laundry done for them daily; other crew members have to do their own laundry.

This is the tagging machine for the guest clothes sent in. The tag is like a stiff material and pulls off without being sticky. We got to try laundry for the first time on this cruise because it is a platinum perk that we can each send one bag complimentary. Me from the future will warn that maybe this is down to one bag per room. That's what they told us and limited us to on our most recent NCL cruise -- NCL Pearl, November 2024. The wording on the perks page is vague enough that you cannot tell for sure. I'm not convinced yet that one per room is right. I guess we will see on our next NCL cruise -- Japan 2027.

The pressing machine

This was awesome; a machine that folds! Though probably works best on just table clothes and sheets.

Feeding in a tablecloth and machine folding.

Piled and sent out. This ended the Behind the Scene tour.

After the tour, it was late, and we were hungry. We had lunch in the MDR. There are two MDR lunch menus. I like the one with the fish and chips and calamari the best; this one is rarer. Today, we had the other. We both had the greek salad. My husband had the omelet, and I had the bacon burger (which is good, though not fish and chips :)). I did not note a dessert; we likely skipped to have ice cream and cookies in the buffet later. The cookies can be hard to get on some cruises; some people stock up a little too well. On this cruise, though, they did a good job keeping the chocolate chip available in the Great Outdoors at the 3-5pm snack time.

We moved back into the channel, and the seas calmed by lunch.

Some beautiful channel pictures we got. Also, in the channel, apparently there were glaciers one morning, but they never announced it. So, we did not know to go see them :(. We only found out when we saw the photographer pictures out that people had done with the glaciers.

See that green wake!

I'm not sure what is up with this picture. It looks rainy; maybe it was splashes from the morning rough seas. Or, maybe from another day. This is looking out our port hole. This is the first time that we had a port hole, though not well cleaned. It was larger than I expected. At one port, at the end -- I think Buenos Aires, they were finally cleaning port holes. Though not on our side... The picture looks pretty cool anyway.

To finish this sea day, we had dinner at Le Bistro. We got our second bottle of wine. One came with room for platinum. It was supposed to be a sparkling wine, but they had regular white instead. My husband was happy with the substitution. Between them, he had a white and red depending on the meal he was ordering, and only remembered the wine claim tag if he was wearing his sports jacket with them in the pocket :). The waiters kindly found the needed wine without the claim tag.

We ate at Le Bistro twice during this cruise. On this visit, we got the complimentary salmon mousse with crusty bread that they give frequently (such that I'm insulted if the chef does not compliment us that night) and is delicious. I had french onion soup and their delicious filet. My husband had mussels and vegetable Napoleon. We both had the chocolate Napoleon for dessert. He thought it was very good, but I thought it had been better in the past.

After dinner, we went to the Argentinean Beatles cover band show. They were good; you could hear their accents only when any one sang solo. Then we went to the game show, and husband participated in the Battle of the Sexes. Here they had to sing a real song that had not been sung already in the game when the microphone was put in their face.