At Sea Day #3: Free Dinner at Samsara Pacific Fusion Specialty Restaurant

Costa Pacifica’s Samsara Restaurant menu

April 3, 2019

ABOARD COSTA PACIFICA IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN – I ate my lunch (dinner service) at the Samsara Pacific fusion specialty restaurant this evening during our third day at sea crossing the Atlantic from the Caribbean Sea toward the Mediterranean Sea. Also got a lot of travel reading and planning done for my next three trips.

Got up at 4:50 p.m. aboard Costa Pacifica. This is our third day (of six) at sea traveling from St. Lucia to Tenerife Island, Canary Islands. We had another time change (from GMT-2 to GMT-1), so the clock was set ahead to 5:50 p.m.

Read the Lonely Planet West Africa guidebook outside and watched sunset at 7:57.

We are still in the tropics – barely. Will probably cross the Tropic of Cancer tomorrow morning. Despite our tropical location, it got chilly so I moved inside to the covered lido on Deck 9 aft.

As a Costa Club pearl member, I received an invitation for a free dinner at Samsara, Pacifica’s Pacific fusion specialty restaurant. Normal cover charge is €15 for Costa Club member and €30 for first-time cruisers.

My Costa Club invitation for Samsara Restaurant
My Costa Club invitation for Samsara Restaurant
My Costa Club invitation for Samsara Restaurant

Sat down for my lunch about 9 p.m. I discovered there is a limited menu for free Costa Club invitees, which I found to be ridiculously cheap of Costa. There’s a separate, expanded menu for paying guests.

Costa Pacifica’s Samsara Restaurant limited menu

My courses were: mango ceviche (good), Hawaiian fish soup (okay; hard to eat with mussels), coconut risotto with spicy “moscardini” octopus (excellent), monkfish with chorizo and lemongrass potato cream (okay), and warm mango “tatin” (bad, except the one scoop of ice cream – the first ice cream I’ve eaten aboard!)

Costa Pacifica’s Samsara Restaurant appetizer
Costa Pacifica’s Samsara Restaurant soup
Costa Pacifica’s Samsara Restaurant first
main course
Costa Pacifica’s Samsara
Restaurant second main course
Costa Pacifica’s Samsara
Restaurant dessert

After dinner, I looked for a quiet place indoors to continue reading about Senegal and The Gambia, where I’ll be visiting after this cruise terminates in Barcelona, Spain. But there just aren’t many comfortable spots for quiet reading inside the ship.

Instead I returned to my cabin and changed to jeans and a long-sleeve shirt to read outside. Finished the West Africa book and began reading the Lonely Planet Budapest & Hungary guide. Mom and I will be taking a Danube River cruise in late April and early May that will conclude in Budapest. We’ll then spend about 10 days exploring Budapest and Hungary, ancestral homeland of my mother’s father’s family.

My quiet, isolated, lit-up place to read at night

Came back indoors at 1:15 a.m. and set up in the Deck 4 conference room to work on Trip Planning Checklists for my next three trips (West Africa; river cruise, Budapest, and Hungary; as well as Romania and Bulgaria).

Dinner at 5:25 a.m., after which I continued working on the Romania and Bulgaria Trip Planning Checklist.

Back in my stateroom at 7:09 a.m. It’s only 9:19 p.m. Lucas Free-Running Time, but I’m just about worn out. Watched TiVo on my phone until bed at 9:11 a.m. local time. We should be crossing the Tropic of Cancer within the next hour or two.