20240420 Sapphire Princess South Pacific Cruise Day 17 - Sea day steakhouse

Sapphire Princess South Pacific Cruise Day 17 - Sea day routine, but with a steakhouse dinner

We have a single sea day between American Samoa and Suva, Fiji. It was a normal day with normal sea day stuff - ukulele lessons for Arlona, three trivia rounds, buffet breakfast, and buffet lunch. Today's differentiator was going to the steakhouse for dinner.

Another beautiful South Pacific day

We were hit and miss for trivia today. We won the morning round but failed miserably on the noon progressive trivia. The afternoon was better, just out of first. The reasons we didn't win everything:

• What percent of the human body is water?
• We guessed 75% - it is 60% - 65%
• Who created the first automobile?
• We guessed Daimler - it was Karl Benz
• What percentage of people are allergic to cats?
• We guessed 16% - it was 10%
• What was the Spice Girls' first album?
• It was Spice
• What first opened to traffic on August 15, 1914?
• We guessed Brooklyn Bridge - it was the Panama Canal - duh
• What element has the symbol SC?
• Scandium
• How is a person's personality judged using Chirognomy?
• By examining palms
• What did Frank McNamara invent in 1950 that can fit in a pocket?
• Credit cards
• What nationality was Alfred Nobel?
• We talked ourselves out of Swedish for Norwegian - of course, he was Swedish
• How often does a cockroach pass gas (every minute, every 15 minutes, never)?
• We guessed never - it was every 15 minutes - eww...
• A male snake has more than one penis - True/False?
• True - they have two!

We had a 5:20 reservation for dinner in the specialty restaurant, Sterling Steakhouse.

There are two specialty restaurants on the Sapphire Princess, Sterling Steakhouse and Sabatini's Italian. Both come with a surcharge of $39 and $35 per person, respectively. Of course, tonight's dinner was comped by Guest Services due to the issues we encountered early on this cruise.

The menu

Sterling Steakhouse has all the ambiance of...well...the buffet. That's because it sits behind the main buffet and is also used for buffet seating for lunch and dinner. It was not busy with perhaps three tables full. When we finished just before 7:00, there were a dozen tables in use.

The mean starts with their tasty garlic-cheese bread

I got to share a bottle of Moscato with this honey

I started with the seared scallops with salmon caviar - they were good

Arlona reported that the French onion soup was also good

My main course was the 14oz ribeye - it was cooked perfectly and was good, but not great - I've had better ribeyes on other cruises, specifically Viking

The garlic and herb fries were tasty

Arlona has the 11oz New York strip and loaded baked potato - again, good, not great

We shared sauteed mushrooms - they were odd and rubbery

To add seasoning, they supplied smoked applewood salt, Himalayan pink salt, and black lava salt

For dessert, I had the chocolate peanut butter bar - I'm not a fan - it had a weird texture and little flavor - I only took a couple of bites

Arlona tried the Triple Chocolate Treasure - it was better, but still not good enough to finish

Our philosophy with dessert is that the taste needs to be worth the calories, and for us, neither of these desserts had it.

The service was great and dinner was good. Would we pay $78 to dine here again? Probably not. Neither one of us felt it was worth the upcharge.

We were able to catch the early show from comedian Sid Davis. It was an all-new show and we laughed harder than his first show a few days ago. If you get a chance to see him, do it. We liked him a lot.

We wrapped up the evening at the Explorers Bar for a nightcap and music bingo. We didn't win anything, but it was fun. We stayed for Movie Misquotes - a game where they showed an improper quote from a movie and you had to correct the quote and name the movie. For example:

• I could have been a rear-ender
• I could have been a contender - On The Waterfront
• These go up to heaven
• These go to eleven - This is Spinal Tap

With our bar team friends, we nailed all 23 quotes and the movies, winning the game. It was fun and a nice group effort.

Tonight, change our clocks from UTC-12 to UTC+12, jumping ahead a day, so tomorrow, we'll be a day ahead of the U.S. East Coast. It's all still a little confusing. We'll be going to bed tonight on the 20th and waking up on the 22nd. Then, we'll enjoy the 24th twice. Fun fun fun.

We dock in Suva, Fiji tomorrow morning at 8:00 and we'll be off for a day on boats and inner tubes.