Another Meal

I was excited to go to the dining room. The Lido had not enthralled me. I was even more leery of it after the fiasco with the horrible Mexican theme.

Tonight was lobster night. I like lobster. I’m just not willing to pay lobster prices. It amuses me that something that was once considered vile, peasant food has become a mainline dish. I had ever plan to consume the lobster that was part of my cruise price.

It was also elegant night. I had gotten a dress for this occasion. It is a cocktail tress I am told. I don’t know. Tim liked it. I thought I looked like an idiot, but I always feel that I look like an idiot when I dress up. The ship brochure was filled with urgings to go and get your photo taken at the photo opportunities while dressed your best. There were also long lines at the laundry rooms for people to iron their stuff. We had wrinkle-less fabric and I’m a slob I guess becuase a few wrinkles wouldn’t bother me a bit.

We ate late this night. We wanted to make it to the comedy show that started at 1000hours. This put us at dinner right around eight. It was right before the timed seating started and the place was a zoo. We wound up getting a pager and we had to go and wait to sit down. Our wait was about fifteen minutes. We went into the Oak Room and attempted to do a crossword puzzle. We learned that we suck at crossword puzzles.

Once we were seated, we again got a table that was a half booth. I got to sit on the booth side. The goal had been for us to trade the view each day. We forgot that it was already dark when we sat down. Whoops. I also forget how unreasonable wearing a dress is. Ahh well, it was kinda fun (even if I look the fool) and the husband so rarely sees me dressed up.

The room was buzzing. The first night had been calm. I figured that people were still getting their bearings. Tonight was a bit crazy. The servers moved at about five thousand miles an hour. Everything took a bit longer then it had the previous night but it was also packed with a line of people waiting. At one point our server stopped and apologized for the wait and length of time things were taking. “It’s lobster night,” he said. “We normally serve ninety percent of the ship these nights.”

Wow.

This is where the night started to get amusing.

We noticed that to the aft, beside us was the same couple from the previous night. They were wearing jeans. The male part had on a t-shirt and the female part had on a nice top. My husband noticed me looking and he chuckled at me. I could not help but feel amused. I thought of Cruise Critic and the massive arguments over what people wore in the dining room. Then I noticed that they both had on flip flops and I had to bite back giggles.

Then I watched the male half lean over and pick up a water bottle and pour it into his glass. He then closed it and placed it back down beside him. It was the big, liter bottle of water you can buy in your cabin. The previous night he had not liked the taste of the water. I guess this was his fix.

For the food.

Appetizer wise, I started out with the ‘Didja ever’ and tried the crocodile balls. When we were heading down to Florida I had told the husband that I wanted to hunt down crocodile. It is as if Carnival heard me. I also had the fruit plate.

From Bahamas - 2011

From Bahamas - 2011

The husband had the mushrooms.

From Bahamas - 2011

Next I had the lobster. It was properly done, soft and succulent. I should have ordered two.

From Bahamas - 2011

The husband does not eat crustations of any type. He had the prime rib cooked closer to well done.

From Bahamas - 2011

Desert I had the souffle. The waiter dropped it off and then suddenly, to my surprise he stabs it with a spoon (it was not violent but I was not expecting my cake thing to be stabbed) and pours a creamy sauce onto it. He then said, “Is that enough?” and I said, “I don’t know? Is it?” he chuckled and said, “Some people like it extra sweet” to which I replied, “Whatever you think is right.” I often eat things with the sauce separated from the cake but I figured I’d go with the flow. I am so glad that I did. I should have ordered two. I will order two next time. It was divine. I still have dreams about it. It was a Grand Mariner Orange something or other little souffle of bliss. Wow. It was also quite hot and stayed that way as I consumed it like I hadn’t been gorging all day. Wow, it tasted so good.

From Bahamas - 2011

The husband had a chocolate and cream pie. I let him have a small nibble of my souffle and he said he wishes he had gotten it. Next time he will order two as well.

From Bahamas - 2011

On the other side of us from the grumpy couple that we began to call Jeans Guy and Grumpy Girl, there was a young couple. They seemed to be having a very nice time. Halfway through their meal, they had a friend approach. I looked at her and realized that she was extremely intoxicated. She held her liquor well.

She was holding a table for them at the comedy show and she wanted them to know that they needed to get to it. She staggered away and the male half says, “Shes been at it,” and the girl goes, “Yeah but shes done for the night.”

About ten minutes later she comes back. This time she has a large glass that she hands to the female friend and goes, “Is that to strong? I’ve been trying to dilute it but it has a lot of rum in it.” The girl tastes it and goes, “It’s pretty strong.” Yeah. She tells them not to have the souffle. It was ‘so so and not that great’ and staggers off.’

This is when I comment to my husband that a cruise ship is a rather good place for people who are that wasted. No walking in the streets or driving cars.

Then she comes back again right as desert is served. Now she is holding her shoes, her hair is wild and her eyes are glazed. It seems that she had taken her shoes off and gotten chased out of the dance club. She was cut off at the bar. She was to drunk to find the comedy club becuase she had been at the wrong place. The other two finished their food and herded her out.

It made for an amusing meal. We finished up and hurried out. There was only about ten minutes before the comedy show was to start.

First Dinner

I was excited to eat. The buffet was featuring Italian that night. Tim changed into long pants and we went to find our dining room. We had chosen any time dining and we decided to eat around 7:00. We had assumed that we would eat later, but after unpacking our things we where excited and hungry and very, very tired.

We were assigned to the Fantasy Dining Room. There are two dining rooms. The second is called the Ecstasy Dining Room. The names make me giggle.

From Bahamas - 2011

Outside a show girl in full costume was there for people to take photographs with her. I'll discuss pictures during another post.

They are elegant places with lots of glass and brass, wood chairs and table cloths every where. The seating arrangement seems to be that assigned dining gets seated in the center. The center of the room is a raised platform. The any time diners eat on the sides. There are tables of four and tables for two. They will combine them for larger parties but you get to eat privately.

Now privately sitting is not a cuddly booth for two. For the most part the tables look like this.

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One side is a booth and one a seat. There is an average of eighteen inches between the tables. Its enough room to slide in and out but it is not secluded. The booth side faces the windows. The tables are narrow but somewhat long. When they seat you they pull the chair out for the woman and place her napkin on her lap. I hate this. I can pull out my own chair. I can also put my napkin where I want to. I tended to sit on the other side of where they pulled the chair out becuase I had no idea they where pulling the chair out for me. My automatic reaction is to avoid them so it made for some awkward seating situations until I caught on. This type of thing is an interesting divergence point between Tim and I. I shy away from people giving me services that I ca do on my own. They don't bother him and bit and in fact he enjoys the attention.

When you sit down you get fresh bread and butter. They make all the bread on ship and they do an excellent job of it. Its crusty and soft. Your water glass is filled and then the drink waiter comes around and tries to convince you to spend some money on alcohol or soda. Tim didn’t care for the taste of the water. It had a bit of a metallic flavor. He asked for some lemon and that cleared it up. He kept offering me lemon and I kept saying no. The flavor did not bug me.


Because I have been reading forums about cruising I knew that I could order whatever I wanted. This was a good thing because the menu looked pretty good. There is a section called Didja (As in Did You Ever) and it features an exotic selection that you might have wanted to try but did not want to risk.

The first day it was Escargot. I’ve always wanted to try it but not enough to pay for it. So this was a great option for me. I’m pretty adventurous with exotic food. I won’t eat things with mayonnaise on them but I’ll try snails.

I didn’t take photographs of the menus. They are pretty wide ranging. There is a daily menu with staples such as a flat iron steak, a burger, spinach dip and a Caesar salad. There is a daily comfort food section with things like meatloaf and fried chicken.

I stuck to the ritzy side. The first day I wound up with the duck appetizer, a Caesar salad, and the escargot. The waiter came up and asked, "What would you like?" and I answered, "A lot of things" and rattled off my list feeling giddy and wicked at the same time. It was fantastic.

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The duck. It was on a spicy rice noodle and they were delicious. I’ve been learning to cook rice noodles becuase I love the texture. They are a bit slippery. Tim also got the duck but he did not care for the rice noodles under it.

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The escargot. It was chewy and buttery. A lot of oil on the dish. The toasted piece of bread helped to absorb the oil and give it a flavor more then an oiliness. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t super great either.

I didn’t get a photograph of the Caesar salad. I ordered a fancy named chicken dish that was basically a piece of chicken coated and cooked in fresh herbs on a tomato cream pasta. The pasta needed more sauce and the herb thing had a bit of a blandly bitter undertone. The piece of chicken was cooked to perfection and was succulent and moist.

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Tim got a pork chop type thing that he said was very good.

From Bahamas - 2011

And then for desert. Tim ordered coffee and I ordered tea. The desert menu has about 10 selections on it. They have two main deserts, a low calorie deserts, ice cream, sorbets, and then alcoholic drinks. I had heard a lot about the warm chocolate melting cake so I decided to try it.

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My first impression was that it was a chocolate lava cake. But then I realized that it did not have a liquid center. It was really, really, very rich. Its tasty and a nice dark chocolate flavor. Its super sweet and the ice cream helps to tone it down. I ate about half of it and then I was chocolated out. My husband tried it. His eyes lit up and he started to drool a bit as he consumed the rest of it.
I can see why people like it. However, it was not unique in my opinion. I tried the other, more exotic deserts for the rest of the trip.

I liked Tim's key lime pie a lot more the the chocolate cake. It was very creamy.

From Bahamas - 2011

There was another interesting thing. The couple next to us saw us get the plate of lemon slices and did the same. We would come to see them multiple times through the rest of the cruise. Two thousand people are a lot of people but you start to see the same people over and over again. The girl seemed a bit grumpy and the man uninterested in what she had to say.

I noticed them becuase they where some of the only people in the dining room wearing shorts and t-shirts. I was reminded of the heated arguments on Cruise Critic about dress in the dining room.

I had to chuckle a bit inside.