We got up at 8 today and put on swimwear prior to heading down to the breakfast. I had the french toast burger again, with a couple hash browns. Later on I got some smoked salmon as well. I can’t remember Shannon’s breakfast from today, but I think it was whatever the usual has been here. She had a bento box of fruit at some point, and at some point I got her some bacon and another hash brown. I’m not sure what her main course was.
By 9:30 we were down on the disembarkation deck heading toward the shuttle from the Souda port where our ship was docked to the Old Town of Chania, Crete. It was about a 30 minute bus ride to the old town. We went past a bunch of car deslerships to get to the old town. We were let off the bus at a clock tower on the periphery of the old town.
The tour guide lady told us two different directions to go depending on the sites we wanted to see. We were already planning to see the Venetian Harbor and the Egyptian Lighthouse. I asked her which way the harbor was, and she told us the wrong way to go. We followed my instincts instead. We walked north until we encountered what might have been a college stadium, or at least a very impressive high school stadium.
We had to jog around that, and then continue north until we reached the old sea wall. There we got our first glimpse of the Mediterranean coast of Crete. We could see Koum Kapi Beach to our east, which was one of our desired destinations. We had wanted to go to Elafonisi beach with pink sand, but it turned out it was 90 minutes away on the other side of the island. I don’t know how that one ended up on our list, but in our research last night we determined that Koum Kapi would be our alternative.
We would return to the beach later, but the first destination was the Egyptian Lighthouse, which was at the end of the sea wall. We walked around the edge of the harbor, and were able to walk along the top of the sea wall. There were some very narrow corridors that didn’t seem safe to walk on up on the sea wall, but we made it. We didn’t go all the way over to the Egyptian lighthouse, but got close and got a good view. We also were able to see the old Venetian fortress across the way. The Egyptian Lighthouse is not ancient, but was built by Egyptian soldiers of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, from what I read.
Returning back down the sea wall, we then went to the beach area. Shannon first went down into the water via a staircase that ended with the ocean, along a board walk before the actual beach. There was a lot of algae growing at the bottom that looked slippery, but she made it down and back successfully. We then walked a lot further down the boardwalk to the actual beach. There we each took a turn getting into the water. I kept my sandals on, as I had not brought any other shoes. They were the impulse buy sandals I got from CostCo the day before we left. The water was cold, but very blue and beautiful. There were all kinds of people at the beach, families and individuals of all ages.
After the beach we somewhat retraced our steps back to the bus drop off point. Right before we got back to the college, we stopped and got a coffee from a walk up window. Shannon was able to get an iced latte, but it was more of the Greek equivalent, basically a paper cup, espresso over ice, with some foamed milk on top. Not a “real” iced latte.
We got back to the bus, and they drove us back to the boat. We went to the galley for lunch. I went to the panini press place and got a buffalo mozzarella toasted cheese sandwich was just mozzarella and tomato. It came with some ruffles chips. I also got a piece of avocado toast, which was OK. It turned out there was also steak on offer, so I got two, one for me and one for Shannon, as we were needing some protein. Shannon had some taco chips with the Greek pico de gallo to go with the steak. I ended my meal with some Alaska roll sushi which was decent.
After lunch we went out to the pool and found Lisa. We spent several hours at the pool. Eventually Mason and Shane came around to the pool. They had also been out over in Chania exploring on their own.
We went back to the room to rest a bit and clean up, and tonight we’re going to the Korean restaurant, Gunbae, and then the Scarlet Night party happens on decks 6 and 7.
Gunbae is a “family style” type experience, and experience really turned out to be the right word. We got sat down, and our waiter was a guy from South Africa named Jean. I used chop sticks for the entire meal, a fun reminiscence of my time in China back in 2010.
Before the food, you play a drinking game called 3-6-9. The group goes around with each person saying a number, but on any number inclusive of the numbers 3, 6, or 9, you clap instead of saying the number. For a number where two of the numbers are present, like 36, you would clap twice. If you mess up, you have to drink a shot of soji, which is apparently the Korean equivalent of saki, in this case a clear rice liquor, which was like a more mild vodka in my opinion.
The first appetizer course was 5 little bowls of vegetables. One was fennel, one was kimchi, one was eggplant, one was watercress, and one was lotus root. The lotus root was the best, the fennel the spiciest. I tried them all.
Next came a cucumber and avocado salad thing. At this place and Razzle Dazzle the night before there have been these red strings that are apparently peppers. Not terribly spicy. Following that was a much spicier “twice fried chicken” offering, which did have some heat to it. There was a “seafood pancake” around this time as well, which I really liked. Basically it was like just a bunch of fish batter with random seafood pieces like octopus and such in it fried up in a pan and then sliced. Very delicious, but also extremely oily.
After this, Jean turned on some type of hibachi built into the table and grilled for us the following meats in succession: scallops and shrimp, ribeye steak, and pork. All of them were good, but the ribeye was probably the best. There was a condiment tray for the seafood, one was a powder of soy I didn’t try, one was an oil, and the third was some type of sesame sauce. The oil one was best.
The final round was dessert. There was a twisty cone of two different types of rice ice cream, one was dark in color, the other light. It left our tongues black/dark blue. There were also little gummies in the ice cream that are apparently Japanese, and everyone else knew the name of but me. They also brought out little donut things with nuts in the middle. Those too were enjoyable.
After dinner, we went up to the room to get ready for the Scarlet Night party. Our friends were back down around 9, but we were still getting ready and didn’t make it downstairs until 9:40. At the bottom of the elevator we went right into the Red Room for “the octopus show” as our friends had described it to us.
Basically a lady in a red dress with a silver crown sang some songs and told a story for about 20 minutes. The lore was somewhat hard to follow, but apparently she was the personification of the ocean as a whole, was an octopus goddess, and was The Scarlet Lady herself, the namesake of the boat. She sang one possibly original song, plus also Bad Romance by Lady Gaga, and Moon River. The story was she fell in love with a sailor, they were together for a time, but he drowned, so she turned him into the moon.
When the show let out, we walked around Deck 7 taking in the party sights. On an event like this, the women are always much better dressed than the men. Some of that may be a practicality, it’s hot out here on a cruise and a full blown suit takes up a lot of room in a bag compared to a slinky dress perhaps. We ended up in The Dock House where we ran into our friends listening to some live music.
When the band’s performance ended, we went down to Deck 6, but not much was going on there, so we took the elevator up to Deck 16 near the top of the ship. It was already very crowded, with people anticipating the 11pm after party where everyone jumps into the pool while wearing their fancy red clothes.
We were above the pool deck and managed to find a spot on the rail to look down on the event. There was a ship-employee dance team performing starting around 10:45, and about 11pm the host from the first night’s pajama party came out to be master of ceremonies, along with someone else I couldn’t see who was described as the VIP guest of honor. I believe he was also part of the pajama party night. At some point The Scarlet Lady herself from “the octopus show” showed up as well. There was a giant red inflatable octopus, and the three of them narrated a story about making a sacrifice to the octopus goddess or something. I’m not sure the simulated idolatry story was necessary.
At some point they did get to the part where people were meant to jump into the pool, and a fair number of people did, plus more and more throughout the night. At some point Shane, Lisa, and Mason all went their own ways, so we circulated a lap on decks 16 and 15 and then headed back to the room around midnight.
