The seas remain calm and the skies clear as we head north west towards Los Angeles.
The air temperature has dropped considerably, below 60 at day break, by mid day a brisk 63, cold, compared to the high 80's and 90's of Florida over the past months.
8 or 10 days ago we decided to go to Chops Grille on the next to the last night, day 15. I anticipated that may be a formal night despite the Diamond host telling me formal night would be on day 12.
It turned out I was correct, which was OK, but I missed out on the cheese tortollini for dinner.
Chops was a partial disappointment. The steak was good and properly prepared, but the baked potato barely room temperature. The goat cheese salad lacking in several of the listed ingredients. The bread spread came directly from the freezer and couldn't be penetrated with a butter knife. There was a nice view of the sunset however, and the server was good. In this Chops the table was covered, on some ships only placemats are used.
As often is the case, Chops Grille is less than half occupied.
Jodi, one of the regulars in the Diamond lounge was celebrating her birthday today. Karen, the lounge host, arranged for a birthday cake and Jodi's husband, John, provided party favors. As he does every night Ryanaldi poured free drinks for everyone. A good time was had by all.
The winds are slight, but by midafternoon the ship is creaking, pitching and rolling from the 5 and 6 foot swells coming from the north west. The remnants of some far off storm.
The Centrum and front desk is now adorned with a handful of decorations for Halloween. Maybe more in the next few days.
Royal's relative inexperience with provisoning for longer itineraries shows on this trip. Bananas disappeared about 3 days into the cruise. Today the only fruit available at lunch time is a few apples and kiwii. Soup crackers have been soggy and stale since day one. Potato chips remain since the ship was stocked in Europe, being sourced from Belgium. Soft drink cans have come from Europe, Mexico, and the US.
Despite the relative small number of passengers, 1,938 Royal is expecting it to take three and a half hours to clear the disembarking passengers before processing the 40 or so back to back passengers.
I am going to do both. Disembark with the regular passengers to get Gail off to her plane at LAX, and then reboard as an "in transit" passenger. Allegedly this skips some of the process followed when normally checking in, but is not the same as the back to back passengers. Always something new.
Bingo is a long time favorite activity. This afternoon the big prize is a 7 day cruise for two. Surprisingly only about 25 passengers are playing. Actually makes the odds of winning pretty good. I still pass.
The ship rolls just slightly the remainder of the way to San Pedro, Ca.
Disembarkation is to begin at 7:00