Thursday, June 16, 2011

Cruise Blog 2: The food

Everything I ate over the course of the cruise was good. Everything, from the dining room to the buffet upstairs, to the pizza bar.

Every morning, we headed up to the buffet for breakfast - Scrambled eggs, omelettes, bacon, sausage, waffles, pancakes, oatmeal, grits, donuts, bagels, English muffins, toast, cereal, fruit. Really, anything a person would normally want for breakfast was available. Oh yeah, and baked beans(?).

At lunch, I think the buffet changed it up a little from day to day. I know there were various chicken and pork options. Plus there was the guy carving beef every day. There were always coldcuts available for sandwiches. There was a decent selection of sides, breads, and desserts, too. None of this mattered to me, though. They had a hamburger bar. And the burgers (and hot dogs) were good. That being said, I really had a hamburger and a hot dog every day for lunch...with the exception of our day at Coco Cay, where I had a hamburger, a hot dog, and a couple of pork ribs. The fries were amazing, too. Thicker than McDonalds, but thinner than Five Guys. Crispy as crispy can be. Delicious.

Dinner was the star of the show, though. The atmosphere was very nice and upscale, and the food reflected that. I don't remember what dishes I had on what night, but over the course of the week, I had lamb, roasted duck, escargot, shrimp and mahi mah...wait, what? Escargot?

Yes, I ate snails. Actually, we all ate snails. They were served in a delicious garlicy, buttery, crusty goodness. Kimberly first bit the bullet by ordering it as an appetizer. When our waiter saw that we were all trying it, he took it upon himself to bring each of us an order of our own. I'm pretty sure every last bit of it was eaten.

Please note above that our waiter took the liberty of bringing us all extra dishes. This was common throughout the week. If you couldn't decide between the steak and the shrimp, well, just order both! It's all included in the price we already paid. Two appetizers? No problem. Two entrees? Go ahead!

One would think that you'd gain a lot of weight on a cruise. I'm not going to lie, it is entirely possible, but 1) While there was a good bit of lounging on this trip, there was also a good bit of walking. We took the stairs more often than the elevators, and 2) We danced. A lot. Good exercise.

So, to wrap it up, the food could not have been better.

Next time I'll get into the people we encountered on this trip. There were quite a few characters.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Cruise Blog 1

Kimberly and I just finished a 4 night Bahamas cruise with Kristen (Kimberly's sister) and Andy (Kristen's husband). There were enirely too many cool/fun/hilarious things about the trip to put into one blog post, so I'll break it up into sections. First section will be the ship:

From my understanding, the Monarch of the Seas is small in comparison to other ships. It houses about 2,000 guests (along with the 800 crew members). I have heard that other ships hold around 4,000 to 5,000 guests. Regardless, having never been on a cruise, I was still impressed by it. Most of the ship had 11 floors, with the exception of one end, which went up to the 14th floor, where a circular bar could be found.

In the middle of the ship was a large, multi-floor lobby. From this lobby, one could easily reach the dining rooms, the collection of duty-free stores, the casino, and the piano bar.

The staterooms were nice. Small, like everyone told me they would be, but nice nonetheless. No difference - we were rarely in our room. It had two beds that had already been slid together to make one queen-size bed, an adequate closet, a tiny bathroom, a tiny TV, and that's about it.

There were two pools on the (second from the) top deck. Both were saltwater pools that we learned were filled with ocean water pumped through a filtering system. We spent most of the pool time lounging on the balcony deck that overlooked the pools.

There were two clubs: Boleros and The Circuit. Boleros was where the bulk of the people hung out. It was where most of the games, karaoke, and dance lessons were held. The Circuit was more the late-night dance club. If one has enough to drink and lets go of the concept of embarrassment, one can have a really good time dancing at The Circuit. That party usually started around 11:00pm and was still going strong at 2:00 or 3:00 when we decided to turn in for the night.

There were two main dining rooms (that I know of). Each party generally was assigned one of the two. There was also the Windjammer Cafe next to the pool that housed a buffet that was open almost all the time, only closing overnight and shortly between meals to prepare for the next meal. Inside the Windjammer was also a Pizza bar that was open just about any time someone had a hankering for pizza. It should be noted that the Windjammer had a soft serve ice cream machine, and I never knew until this week how much people LOVE soft serve ice cream. There was almost ALWAYS a line.
The food - ALL of the food - was good. I'll get into that in another post, though.

That I'm aware of (there are probably more that I never saw or that I don't remember), there were no fewer than 9 bars. In addition, there was ALWAYS a server walking around that was more than willing to bring you a drink. If one wanted a beverage of any kind, one would never have to wait more than about 5 minutes. Alcohol was extra, but when you aren't paying for food, it doesn't seem that bad.

I'd really like to try another ship next time, but to be honest, my experience on this one was so good that I don't want to mess with a good thing. We'll see, though, as my wheels are already turning for making another cruise happen.