Today I was up a bit before 7, got my shower in, and spent some time on the balcony waiting for Shannon to get up. Around 8am we were up and moving, and went to have breakfast. Today I went to the burger place and just got 2 burger patties with cheese and some bacon. It was nice to skip the french toast, as good as that has been. Later when the hash brown supply was replenished I got a couple hashbrowns for me and Shannon, as well as a little scoop of scrambled eggs. The eggs were too runny today. Shannon had a fruit bento box, bacon, and a couple hashbrowns.
By 9:30 we were ready to head down to Dubrovnik. This port is one where we are docked, so it was simple. We boarded the bus that would take us to the Piles Gate of the Old Town, and we were off.
The bus dropped us off just outside that gate, and clearly that’s where a lot of tour groups get dropped off, because tons of people were around. This place looks the most different so far from what we’ve already seen. There is a lot of Venetian influence here from what we heard, and at some point it was a big maritime rival of Venice. The buildings are stone with clay roof tiles, similar to what you might see in Germany, and I suspect Italy, though I haven’t been there.
We walked across a draw bridge and through the gate in the walls of the Old City to enter. Inside and out there were flowers and gardens all around. When you clear the wall, there is a main marble street that runs the length of the entire old city. We slowly worked our way down that street towards the harbor, hoping to find a coffee shop along the way.
As it turned out, the ferry to the Lokrum Island nature sanctuary we were thinking about exploring costs 30 euros, so we decided not to do that, and continued to explore the old city. We went around streets and alleys and finally encountered a cafe in a plaza that had coffee drinks on the menu. Nowhere we have been in Europe seems to have caught onto iced coffee very much, but we did get a couple cappuccinos, and they were the first real, and also best, coffees we’ve had on this trip. The cappuccinos on the boat are OK, the ones we had in Greece were from a machine. I wish we’d been able to get a Turkish coffee in Bodrum.
Dubrovnik seems to be fed by spring water, and there were fountains everywhere. We refilled our water glasses at the cafe with fountain water and it tasted the same as from the original glass provided by the staff. We also filled our water bottles with it.
Some entertainment was provided by a naughty local boy with a squirt gun. He would stealthily squirt unsuspecting passers by with the water pistol. They would all look around trying to figure out what caused them to get wet. He did this to 5 or 6 people as we sat at the cafe enjoying our cappuccinos. Eventually a woman caught him, and went over and yelled at him, and then he went inside a building, and didn’t come back out. The cappuccinos were 4 euros each, which was a bit high in my opinion, but not way out of line.
After our coffee break, we began ascending higher and higher in the city. We never went up onto the walls, which I believe was another extra cost option. At some point we encountered what was probably a cannon port behind iron bars where cat was resting. There were a number of churches around, but I only went into one. It seems that the prevailing religion here is, or at least was Catholicism.
Throughout the day, we were on a quest to purchase Italian-suited playing cards. According to Google Gemini, none of Greece, Turkey, Croatia, or Montenegro have their own systems of card suits, but Croatia and Montenegro use the Italian suits traditionally. Throughout the day, we checked in 4 different stored and/or news stands for cards, but only encountered French-suited ones. We’ll try again in Montenegro. We’ve also been on the lookout for Dr. Pepper, but not likely to find that either.
We spent 3 hours or so exploring Dubrovnik, and then went back to catch the bus and return to the ship. We got ready for the pool, but decided to get some light bites at The Dock Grill first. We both had the “hanger steak” which was served souvlaki style on little pita tacos with some Greek pico. I also got some grilled shrimp and Shannon got the polenta, although I ate one of hers. We also went to the ice cream stand and this time each of us got two scoops, so our ice cream trend has escalated. I got butter pecan and apricot. Shannon got Rocky Road and also the chocolate Hazelnut.
We then went down to Deck 5 to try to get off of our Gunbae reservation and switch to the Italian restaurant Extra Virgin. The person down there said they didn’t have access to the system, then said that it was all taken care of. We’ve begun to notice that some people we’ve encountered on this trip are just willing to lie to get out of an interaction. There was a worker at the news stand who told us she didn’t have playing cards and 4 separate decks were right behind her. We looked at those and unfortunately they were German suited and not the Italian ones we wanted. The worker down at “Sailor Services” lied to us about getting us a dinner reservation. I think some folks may be willing to just lie to American foreign tourists because they know we’re going to be out of their life soon, so there’s no real consequence to them lying to us to get us to go away, which is kind of funny, and not too terribly frustrating.
After all this, we went up and spent a couple hours in the pool, then went up from deck 15 to deck 16 to find a hot tub that was open. We got a good 10-15 minutes in the hot tub, then went down to Gunbae to try to cancel the reservation in person. Another person lied to us about taking care of it.
We got another bit of a snack at the galley, a couple mediocre desserts, and a chorizo hot dog thing that was like half the length of a real hot dog, and a small basket of fries.
Now we’re back in the room getting ready for dinner. I managed to finally get us out of the Gunbae reservation without cancelling it for the rest of the group, and sadly there were no reservations open for Extra Virgin, but I kept checking continuously and finally got us in on one.
After dinner there is another magic show we might try to take in at 9:30. Tomorrow is Kotor, Montenegro, and this is the one where we’re meant to be up early to watch the ship coming into the port.
Our dinner reservation for the Italian restaurant, Extra Virgin, was at 6:15. We were sat one table away from a window. Our waitress was “Kate.”
For the starters, Shannon got some delicious meatballs, and I got burrata cheese, which turned out to be a weird sweet soft white cheese. Thankfully there were some peppers that came with it that made it more edible with the couple grilled slices of bread.
The second course was a charcuterie board. There were mortadella and salami slices, blue cheese, parmesan chunks, and then 4 little cups containing honey, fruit bits, eggplant bits, and little mixed nuts. The charcuterie board was OK.
For the main course Shannon got Pappardelle bolognese pasta. I got a steak which came on a bed of some type of grains. They were sweet and kind of weird. The steak was also sweet. It was bizarre. I also got some type of pepper alfredo pasta, which was OK. This was only the 2nd time I’ve had pasta in my life, and the first time was at Gunbae a couple days prior. I actually can’t believe this is what pasta was this whole time that I’ve been avoiding it my entire life. It’s just wet bread. Thankfully, I think I’ll continue to disdain pasta. I’m glad I didn’t like it, because it would be one carb source to eat too much of.
For dessert, Shannon ordered an affogato, which they made at the tableside. It was OK. The coffee was in a moka pot, and it looked weak. I had the special dessert of the night, which was a lemon cake with lemon basil ice cream.
I’m surprised, but this was actually the worst restaurant meal we’ve had on the ship in my opinion. I don’t want to make it out like it was bad, but I’m surprised the Italian place ended up being my least favorite. Shannon said it was her favorite though. As of now, the rankings in my opinion are as follows: Gunbae, Pink Agave, Razzle Dazzle, The Wake, and then Extra Virgin. The only one on the ship we haven’t tried is the Test Kitchen which we didn’t sign up for.