Hey all – welcome to Day 5 of our September 2025 empty nest trip. And yeah, as we all know. Day 5 is…
ALIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!
Seriously though. Are we NEVER going to get another Short Circuit?
Anyway though – yeah, Day 5 is a sea day for us. Which means we get a lot of “appreciating the ship” time. I initially thought I would be combining Days 5 and 6, like we did for Days 3 and 4, since Day 6 was a port day. But it turned out Day 5 got me 10 pages of content.
And I mean, let’s face it. Just getting through those 10 pages is gonna be tough enough. Wait did I say “tough”? I meant “delightful.” Getting through those 10 pages is gonna be delightful enough.
Ahem.
Right.
Our 12-Day Empty Nest Extravaganza Trip: Day 5
Day 5 was a Wednesday. And for us, it began at the same time Hanna-Barbera’s World of Super Adventure began on Saturday mornings in the eastern time zone.
…
You know. Hanna-Barbera’s World of Super Adventure?
The Herculoids?
Space Ghost?
Mo-fo’n Shazzan?
Ugh. 7:00AM. It was on at 7:00AM.
So right, we were up at 7:00AM. And we were back to the continental room service breakfast.
And since today was an at-sea day with little in the way of early-morning plans, we kind of just took our time this morning, enjoying our breakfast, having our coffee out on the balcony, and getting ready for the day.
But I did end up making it to the gym at around 8AM or so.
Awesomely, there was a treadmill open right in front of one of the windows looking out over the ocean. Not all that awesomely, it turned out that treadmill was actually not working. But like, the person next to me ended up finishing around the time I figured out I had a bum treadmill so I hopped on there for a quick 3-miler.
But, I mean. In taking that treadmill, I was charged with a pretty big responsibility. This meant I was now put in charge of telling everyone that tried to use the broken treadmill it was, in fact, broken. No matter how much it interrupted me watching that episode of Gossip Girl on my phone, it was my duty as a human.
I know. I am some kind of hero.
Once I finished with my workout, I went on back up to the cabin to meet back up with Nickie, get showered, and head out for Sip Tour Brunch, an experience we booked our first day on the ship.
Sip Tour Brunch is an experience that combines a galley tour with a brunch in the main dining room with BOTTOMLESS MIMOSAS.
Yeah, I mean, being that we didn’t have a drink package, this right here was a huge deal I was prepared to embarrassingly take advantage of.
To start, we met with our tour Culinary Crew Member in the main dining room before being brought back into the kitchens. And yeah, we were able to take all the pictures we wanted. So like get ready for a lot of this kind of stuff.
I am not 100% on why I found that salad dressing shelf so interesting, but I obviously did. I mean, there isn’t even actual salad dressing in that picture. Just signs designating where salad dressing should go.
I know. Riveting stuff.
But the tour was super interesting. We got to see all the different areas of the kitchen, stopping every now and then for a quick explanation and tutorial as to what we were looking at.
This area of the kitchen was completely desserted.
I know, that joke was key lame.
I think the part that probably grabbed my attention the most was the amount of steaks they were cooking. So. Much. Meat.
I think I actually ended up asking the crew member how many steaks the cruise line goes through in a typical year. And while he didn’t have an immediate answer, he did come find me during the brunch to tell me the answer once he found it.
And the answer was…um.
Er.
I don’t remember.
But it was a lot. I’d steak my reputation on it.
A quick look online did tell me that weekly beef consumption on the Oasis of the Seas is approximately 15,600 pounds. So there’s that at least.
Oh and look. As we were finishing up the tour, we did get a look at the Top Performing Waiters in Revenue and check it out – Satish!! Our dude.
Well-earned port day, my man.
At around 10AM or so, it was time for both the “Sip” and “Brunch” portion of the experience. As we left the kitchen and walked into the main dining room, a crew member was there with a tray of both mimosas and straight-up champagne.
And I mean, you know what we went for.
Orange juice just gets in the way.
But right, we were then led to our table for two to get brunching. Here’s the menu:
I started off with a bagel with smoked salmon, cream cheese, capers, onions, and tomatoes.
Which was pretty dang good. The smoked salmon itself was nice and fresh-tasting.
Both Nickie and I went the savory-and-sweet double-entrée route this time around.
Nickie of course went for her go-to entrée of the trip – chicken.
Specifically, she went with the Roasted Lemon-Pepper Half Chicken (served with Mashed Potatoes and Roasted Root Vegetables).
She also paired that with the French Toast and Hickory-Smoked Bacon.
For my savory dish, I ordered the Eggs Benedict, served with a Hash Brown.
And for the sweet side, the Homemade Waffle (served with Fresh Berries and Whipped Cream).
And like, eh. It was a mixed bag there. The Eggs Benedict was good stuff for sure but the waffles came out cold.
Win some, lose some.
Speaking of winning, we also got two desserts to split.
The Royal Chocolate Cake (with Dulce de Leche and Chocolate Fudge).
And the Crèma Catalana, which is pretty similar to crème brulee, made with Dulce de Leche Custard and Caramelized Sugar.
Both were definitely good stuff. If I had to choose one, I think I would go for the Crema Catalana but both were pretty stellar desserts.
Oh and for anyone wondering, my champagne count was 6.
I just wanna stress that the meal ended around 11AM. That means I had 6 champagnes in one hour. Which averages out to about 1 glass of champagne every 10 minutes.
Yeah, I have a big problem.
And that problem is being too awesome.
After we finished up, we went back to the cabin for a quick change and look what was waiting for us.
Stop looking at me swan.
But yeah, we quickly got into our swimming attire and quickly made our way back to the Solarium sun deck. And I quickly got this blue drink here.
It was a drink of the day but that’s pretty much all I got.
Very informative, this blog.
The clouds were starting to form overhead, which meant rain was coming. But I did still manage to sneak in a few pages up there.
Unfortunately, it did end up raining so we decided to try our hand at this trivia situation where you had to watch a series of commercials and guess the brand or product being advertised. Nickie and I figured I would be pretty good at this game given I wasn’t a very popular person and spent A LOT of time watching television growing up.
Fun fact: I once, as a child, had a videotape of ONLY commercials. Like, while most people were pausing the recording when the commercials would come on, I would pause once the show started.
…
…
It’s wild that I have both a wife and kids.
Annnnnyway.
This game WAS NOT the game we were expecting. It wasn’t like, “hey watch this commercial you’ve probably seen and tell us the brand.” It was, “watch this foreign commercial you’ve never seen that definitely does not seem like it’s advertising what it is and tell us the product.”
Right, like, the host would play a part of the ad, then give us three different choices of what this commercial could be advertising. Then, he would go out to the audience members to ask them why they made their specific choice before playing the rest of the ad and revealing the answer.
We paired up with another couple that was sitting next to us, but it was hard. Honestly, though? We didn’t do all that bad considering.
I mean, we did bad. But a lot of other people did a lot worse.
And actually, so ok – like I said, the host would often go out to the crowd to ask them to explain their answers and more often than not, people would have these outlandish reasons for making the choice they did. But when the host asked me why I chose “Video Game App” for #4, I gave an answer that pretty much described everything that happened in the second half of the ad.
And everyone was very impressed.
Well, everyone was impressed.
Well, I mean. I was impressed. With myself.
We ended up not winning, but I think we came in second. And we really enjoyed talking with the couple we were paired with. So in that we made new friends, we were actually winners.
Except we weren’t.
We came in second. Which is like the best loser.
All that non-winning made us a little hungry so we made our way back to the Boardwalk on Deck 6 to visit Johnny Rocket’s once again.
So yeah for those of you keeping score – we had breakfast, brunch, AND lunch today already. Most people? Most people just have the whole combined brunch situation and call it a day. But not us. We like to experience each both breakfast and lunch on their own but also like to see what these two meals can accomplish when they team up.
I, of course, started off once again with a Strawberry Shake.
Which was, of course, delicious.
And for food, I went with the Tuna Melt with Fries.
Which left me saying, “man, I don’t get nearly enough tuna melts” so like, it was obvs squad good.
Nickie stuck with the Grilled Chicken Sandwich sans Fries.
And like, this was not her first grilled chicken sandwich at Johnny Rocket’s on this cruise. So like, hers was also obvs squad good.
Probably good to do a little time check here on account of the amount of food we ate today. At this point, it was like 2:15. And outside?
Since it was raining, we went back to our cabin to relax, catch a little nap, and get ready for the night. And sometimes, being in the cabin, with the lights low, and this going on outside our balcony door…
…is kind of the most coziest thing ever. Which probably, at first blush, feels weird to say given how big that whole ocean is but that’s kind of part of it. The “feeling small” of it all is all kinds of peaceful. Knowing how big the world is and how our existence is such a tiny part of just helps to put things in perspective sometimes.
I know. Sorry. That wasn’t very funny.
How about this one?
Q: Why do sharks swim in saltwater?
A: Because swimming in pepper-water makes them sneeze.
Better?
OK so tonight we had some dinner plans y’all. Tonight we had some specialty dining booked at Chops Grille, the ship’s high-end steakhouse. Chops is located in the Central Park area of the ship so back to Deck 8 we went!
Our reservation was kind of early tonight, like 5:20, but we tried to get to the restaurant a little early on account of we had asked for an outside table when we made the reservation and given the weather, that wasn’t gonna be happening.
The line was long but the dude up front did a great job of moving through people and finding tables. We were seated by 5:45. As you can tell from this picture of the menu from our table.
We also ended up making friends with the couple next to us and immediately started talking about our Fantasy Football teams. On account of the next day was going to be the first game of the season.
Yes, the Superbowl is now right around the corner. I fully appreciate how long it’s taken to get through this post series.
Our waiter started us off with a nice bread service.
I also started with this HELLA-dirty Grey Goose martini.
For starters, take a look at this Wild Mushroom Soup (Scented with White Truffle Oil and Chives).
And this Grilled Black Pepper Bacon (Slow-Cooked Berkshire Pork with a Sweet and Spicy Glaze).
Right though?
Both of these were delicious stuff. That mushroom soup though? REAL mushroomy. So like, make sure you like mushrooms if you order that situation.
For her steak, Nickie went with the 9oz. Filet.
And I – behold this situation – went with the 16oz. Bone-In Ribeye.
Beautiful, right? If you ever find yourself at Chops, I think you’d be pretty happy if you ordered the ribeye.
I’d steak my reputation on it.
So yeah, those were our main dishes and that’s about it.
…
…
Pfft. Nahhhh. You KNOW we got some sides.
Up there, from left to right, we got the Gruyere Cheese Tater Tots (with Crème Fraiche and Horseradish), Creamed Spinach (with Bechamel and Parmesan), and some Yukon Gold Mashed Potatoes (with Salt and Sweet Cream Butter).
All of these were also kind of perfection. Those Tater Tots were kind of mind-blowing and Creamed Spinach is legit a must for me when I am at a steakhouse. This Creamed Spinach was lovely. And the Mashed Potatoes, while not the most exciting of dishes, were still delicious.
We ended up hitting dessert at around 6:45. As I do, I ordered a cappuccino to accompany our sweet treats.
And Nickie and I shared the New York Cheesecake with Fresh Raspberries and Lemon Confit…
…and the Warm Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream and Berry Compote.
Both were good, but gun to my head? I think I’d honestly go with that Chocolate Cake. Which is cray since I mean cheesecake is like one of the best things ever made of all-time.
All in all though? A pretty stellar dinner at Chops. I’d say it felt a little rushed but I blame the weather for that more than anything. The big question for us was – was this worth paying extra for given how good the main dining had been so far?
That’s a tough question to answer – I think if I had the opportunity again, I would book at least one specialty dining experience on top of our main dining. Maybe not Chops again, only because we had already experienced it. But based on how good our food was at Chops, I would give specialty dining another go.
We were back out in the open at around 7:00. And the rain had given way to a really nice night.
And I mean, it was only 7:30. So of course we stopped off for a post-dinner drink. Which are like some of my favorite kind of drinks. Along with pre-dinner and during-dinner drinks. And also drinks that have nothing to do with dinner.
For this particular post-dinner drink, we hit up Schooner Bar down on the Promenade Deck (Deck 5).
Nickie went with a Sauvignon Blanc (of course) and I grabbed some sort of whiskey on the rocks (of courser). Not sure the brand, but it was brown so.
While we were enjoying our drinks, we struck up a conversation with the family next to us that was playing cards. They were on sort of a multigenerational vacation and were super nice. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but talking to random people is one of the unique – and awesome – things about a cruise.
After we finished our drinks, we went back to our cabin but the night wasn’t quite over just yet. While we were there, we made the call to take a quick night dip in one of the hot tubs up on Deck 15.
Interestingly, we weren’t the only ones with that idea. This hot tub was the least crowded one we could find.
I don’t think we spent a ton of time in the hot tub (most likely due to the crowd of teens surrounding us) since we were back in the cabin by 10:30. I know that because we took this picture of another ship out in the water at that time.
And that was Day 5 you guys. Days at sea are kind of great, right?
Well wait for Day 6 – on account of on Day 6? We visit Royal’s private island.
See y’all then!
Last post – Day 3 and 4 !
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