ottawa foodies

Here's the scoop, Food & Think are considering a cruise vacation together this winter. And I was hoping that perhaps some Ottawa Foodies that have been crusin' might care to share their foodie experiences (or other experiences) when it comes to crusin'. We are thinking of doing a 7 - 10 day cuise out of Florida and visiting the Eastern Caribbean. As always any feedback is welcome.

Cruise food = Buffet after Buffet after Buffet ....

The Early Riser Breakfast Buffet, The Brunch Buffet, The Luncheon Buffet, The Tea Time Buffet, The Supper Buffet, The Dinner Buffet, The Late Night Snack Buffet and The Mid-Night Chocolate Buffet.

You know .... food in steamer trays, fancy carved watermelons, huge ice sulptures ... and your turn to sit at 'The Captains Table'. !!

I'm pleased to tell you F&T that the Captain is exaggerating slightly, although it does depend on what cruise line you choose. My wife and I were on a 7 day Caribbean cruise in 2004 and were quite pleased with the vacation. The cruise line we chose was Royal Caribbean. The venues for eating onboard varied. Dinner was served at a specific dining time (not buffet) in the main dining hall/ballroom ( attached picture ). Dinner was served by waiters in tuxedos, and there was a dress code. You chose from a nightly menu, which varied every night. The food was pretty decent in the main dining room. Not Beckta good, but way better than Kelsey's good. Breakfast and lunch were 'up to you'. You could eat any time other than dinner at the main buffet room (which had 4 or 5 themes of food) or at some of the small restaraunts (Such as 50's style Johnny Rocket). All of that food was included in the price. For a small premium ($20 / person / booking) you could eat in one of the two or three 'finer dining' restaraunts. We went to one of these, and were quite pleased as well. One note was that wine was VERY expensive, and quite mediocre on board, so it is a good idea to bring your own wine. They will charge a corkage fee of about $12 if I remember correctly. One thing I can truly recommend is to get a room with a balcony. Some people say, get the cheapest room you can in the bowels of the ship, and I wholeheartedly disagree. Although most of your time is spent enjoying the ship, it is nice to have a 'nice' place to retire to. Further, there is no charge to get your food delivered to your stateroom, so one of our favourite things was sleeping in, and having breakfast delivered to our stateroom, to be eaten on our balcony while enjoying the ocean view! Amazing!

I'll second Pete-in-Ottawa. Hubby and I took a Caribbean cruise with RC and enjoyed the food. Again, don't expect super-luxury; they have to feed 1000+ people on board. If you check out cruise chat boards, you'll find a lot of complaints from foodies who don't take the "mass production" aspect into account. Given their limitations, I think the cruise lines do quite well, on par with what you'd expect from a land-based all-inclusive.

The only thing that was hard to choke down was the cost of drinks. Yikes. That little card they give you that's connected directly to your credit card is EVIL. Evil like the froo-its of the de-vyl.

Captain C - Afraid Pete is right, you and Captain Stubing here -------------->
are stuck back in the 1980s. Cruising has definitely changed from the days of endless buffets.

Pete - Royal Caribbean is one of the lines we are considering. We've noticed that just about all the cruise lines now offer a multitude of choices such as the main dining room, a buffet place, the smaller spots like snack bars or themed restaurants and the premium restaurants. I'm glad you shared your experience because we were somewhat worried that the all inclusive fare might not be that great, and then we'd end up tacking on another $ 50 to $ 100 a day in the premium spots. Also wine seems to be an issue that is handled differently on every line... some don't let you bring anything on board, some have a set amount one can bring (1 bottle per person, or 1 bottle per day), some only let you if the wine you bring isn't on their wine list... all seem to have a $ 15 corkage fee. As foodies, what's on the menu is very important to us, and as funny as it sounds the wine policy just might swing our decision about which cruise we go with. We originally were looking at a room with a view, but like you, we are now seriously considering an upgrade to the balcony level. "The Man" says having breakfast in our room or a cocktail before dinner, or a late night dessert sounds marvellous. Anyways, thanks for sharing it's good to hear from someone who's opinion I trust. BTW, is there any chance you recall the name of the ship you were on?

F&T - The ship that we sailed on was The Mariner of the Seas, which was only a couple months old when we took our cruise. I remember fixing a light fixture in the room which had obviously not worked since it was launched. This is not to indicate that the quality of the experience was low, on the contrary it was very high, but rather to indicate my MacGyver moment that demonstrated my irrevocable geekiness. As for 'rules' around booze, my experience was that they were more 'guidelines' (i.e. rules that were not very harshly enforced). You are 'supposed' to register your wine with them. I believe that we just packed a couple bottles of my favourite Amarone (Righetti) in our luggage, and carried the bottle to the Portofino Italian restaraunt when we went. It seemed quite common on our cruise for people to smuggle booze in their luggage, and we even met one group of hard partiers who smuggled CASES of beer in their luggage (i.e. they wore the same shorts and shirt everyday, cause that's the only room left after the beer). Other advice is related to the off-ship activities. The ones the ship provides are usually ok, but very pricey compared to what you may pay if you just leave the ship at the port and find your own activities. We chose to book a couple of the ship sponsored ones, just so we didn't have to worry about activities for the first port or two as we figured out how things work. Then for later ports, we ventured off on our own. My favourite was renting a car ( of dubious road worthiness) on St. Maarten, and taking the day to drive the entire circumference of the island hitting several beaches on the way and just generally having fun. It was quite memorable swimming at one of the nude beaches, and having a ummm memorable young woman approach me to 'ask the time' (apparently there weren't many people wearing watches ha ha). Oh yeah, last piece of advice, 'Don't forget your watch!'

I took a cruise with RC in 2005, and agree with every one of Pete's comments (including the stateroom with the balcony). The only thing I'll add is ask for the later of the two dinner sittings, if you can wait. You'll be less rushed to get back from port and there will be far fewer young children running about.

I believe we were on Adventure of the Seas (with the rock wall and mini-put). It sailed from San Juan (also recommended over FLA) to Aruba, Curacao, St Martin, and St Thomas, if I remember correctly.