Cruise The World With Us 2026

Thursday, January 11, 2026 – cruise day 11

Featured photo is from a restaurant added to Magnifica during its recent renovation – Butcher’s Cut. More on the meal later in this post.

Following breakfast each sea day Jan has been going to a Tai Chi class held in the Onyx Lounge at the stern of deck 7. First day had perhaps 15-20 participants. The number has grown steadily as you can see from the photo that is included in today’s group.

Nearly each day Kelsey has been checking the area where jigsaw puzzles are placed. Today I stopped there to see what progress has been made on the latest puzzle – it was complete – showing the Brooklyn Bridge and a portion of the New York City skyline.

Later in the morning (11:15) we went to deck 13 for World Cruise games. Today’s game is to create the longest string of belts. Jan and I thought we could use the belts that came with the robes in each room, but we were told that the belts must have tongues that can connect with other belts – belts cannot be tied together. I surrendered my belt – neither Kelsey nor Jan had a belt that would be accepted. You’ll see photos today of the Air team assembling our string. There were areas marked on the deck where the chains of belts could be laid so they could be measured. When finished Air’s belt chain measured 7 1/2 lengths. We did not win. The winning team – Water – had 13 1/2 lengths. We weren’t even close.

During the day we passed through more of the Sargasso Sea and saw one very large group of Sargassum seaweed – nearly the length of our ship! As we get closer to Barbados we will be traveling out of the Sargasso Sea and no longer viewing the seaweed.

Each day a new Sudoku puzzle is printed and set out for passengers to solve. Jan takes a few minutes to do so and today I got a photo of her working on the latest puzzle. So far, they have been easy, but I imagine they will become progressively harder.

In an earlier post I explained that as Diamond Voyagers Club members we received an invitation to dine at specialty restaurants 3 times during our world voyage. We made a reservation for 6:30 tonight at the Butcher’s Cut restaurant which is at the rear of the buffet area with a portion of the restaurant inside and a portion outside above the propeller area. The meal we had there tonight was fantastic! There are photos of the starters, entrees and desserts we chose so you can see for yourself the appearance of the food.

Dinner began with a selection of 4 breads made fresh that day with 2 smooth spreading butters (one cheesy and one sweet butter). The bread was served in a bag that looks like burlap material. Each of the breads I tried was soft and tasty.

The taste of each of my selections was superior. I like Caesar salads but usually they are delivered missing the anchovies – this salad was complete! Jan said her crab cakes were the best she has had – ever! Kelsey had smoked tomato soup with cheddar cheese sandwich (with crusts cut off). She liked both soup and sandwich.

My entree (and Jan’s) was a 200g (8 oz) filet mignon cooked medium rare. The steak is accompanied by 4 sauces made fresh each day – Bearnaise, chimichurri, mushroom and peppercorn. It was cooked to perfection. I tried each of the sauces and settled on peppercorn as my favorite. Jan’s choice was Bearnaise. Kelsey had slow roasted chicken. She liked the white meat better than the dark but said it tasted good.

Our sides were mashed potatoes (Kelsey), onion rings (Jan) and roasted cauliflower (me). Each of those was fresh and tasted good. There were 5 other sides from which to choose so we may have others on our next visit.

We were full before dessert arrived, but we forced ourselves to consume the peanut butter and chocolate cookie (Kelsey) and lava cake (Jan and I) – both served with vanilla ice cream. The lava cake reminded us of the meal we had last year in Perth, Australia on the first night of our 9-day overland Australia excursion.

This meal could not have been any better – we are looking forward to booking our next visit during the time between Los Angeles and Tokyo.

Following dinner, we made our way to the theater for the production company’s presentation titled “Live from Magnifica”. This show was a combination of song and acrobatics. There are several photos showing the singers, dancers and a couple of the acrobats. As usual, the show was fun and engaging. We were told that, with the exception of the 4 main singers and 8 dancers, all the entertainment would be leaving the ship in Barbados and replaced with other acts.

Tomorrow, we reach our first port in the Caribbean – Barbados – an island we last visited in 2000 when on a cruise with Princess.

You can view today’s photos here.