Cruise Flashback #2: We Take the Cake

It's been hot, hot hot here in SoCal - so I'm mentally sending myself back three weeks, when we were sailing the Inside Passage to Alaska:

Monday, June 27, 2005

Moving slowly today. This ship has a ton of bars, and I think we managed to have a drink in every one of them: a glass of wine from the Breezes bar by the pool, more wine in the Oceanview Grill (where we watched Vancouver fade away as we set sail), champagne at dinner, brandy in the Cova café, and a saketini in the Martini Lounge. Come to think of it, we haven’t even scratched the alcoholic surface here: We still need to visit the Mast Bar up by the bridge, the Rendezvous Lounge (where a dance was held last night for the teen passengers), the champagne bar, the Constellation (the ship's disco), the casino, and Michael’s Club, which I guess is a piano bar. We don’t move into our first port until tomorrow morning, so “we may as well keep on drinking,” my sister pointed out as we started planning our day.

Linda started hers early. She was awakened at 5:30 by the ship’s rocking, and assumed we were on the open sea. She got up to look and discovered that the ship was actually at a spot very close to Vancouver Island, so close she could see the trees on the hills. She woke Mark up and the two of them sat on their (cold!) balcony, watching as we passed the island. Then they walked around the deck, returned to their room in time for the breakfast they’d ordered… and then Mark went off to the Internet Café to check his email. The two little girls are rooming together, rotating between all our cabins – and they were fast asleep Linda was knocking on our door, looking for someone to talk to. (We are usually early risers and had planned to have breakfast delivered around 7:00 – but after that last martini changed the time to 8:00).

Each night, our cabin steward delivers us a ship newsletter, with information on what we will be seeing that day and a two page schedule of shipboard activities we can choose from. There must be a hundred different listings here, which makes sense as they are trying to occupy 2,000 passengers at sea. We decided to go to the 10:30 cooking demonstration led by head chef Oswald, who gave us some statistics on Infinity: he supervises a staff of 120 chefs, turning out between 9,000 and 10,000 meals daily! (The kitchens here must be massive!)

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Chef Oswald showed us how to make "Filet Mignon Celebrity," but first, he had the bartender from the ship's Martini Lounge teach us the methods for shaking a great martini. And then, a couple of waiters passed out Cosmopolitans and Melon Martinis in sample-size glasses. It may only have been 10:30 in the morning, but what the hey -- we happily accepted them.

Then, while the chef began showing us how to cook the filet mignon (and the fabulous sauce to serve it with), the waiters returned with sample-size glasses of red and white wine. And yes, we tried them both.

Having finished the recipe demo, the waiters returned with huge platters of freshly cooked, thinly sliced filets and the sauce so we could all taste what the chef had created.

The demo finished with the pastry chef, who showed us how to make a store-bought cake look special. He created roses out of marzipan and studded the sides with large, thin flakes of chocolate he'd made up easily.

No samples were given of the cake, but prior to decorating it, Chef Oswald asked if anyone in the room was celebrating something special on board the ship. Several people were celebrating birthdays, engagements and honeymoons - but then my mom announced that we were here for her 50th wedding anniversary. (My parents' actual anniversary is August 16, but so what? This is why we were all here.) So she was declared the winner - and our waiters served us the cake that night at our formal five-course dinner -- in addition to all the other desserts on the menu!

Now, up to this point, I'd been determined to stick to my low-carb diet, thinking that with all the options available on the ship, this would be easier to do than when we visited my in-laws in the U.K. But it didn't feel right to pass up my mom's anniversary cake. And I was still thinking of the warm creme brulee (my favorite dessert) served the previous evening, which I had passed up, which my sister and nieces proclaimed as the best creme brulee they'd ever tasted. And I finally concluded that as this is probably the only time I'll ever be on a cruise, I should enjoy everything it has to offer -- and as one of the things is good food (including desserts), so be it. So I dug in - and did not look back until we got off the ship, back in Vancouver.

Comments

[ComfortAddict]

I'd like to try a cruise sometime (if I could get past my tendency to get seasick). I wonder if they have any non-smoking cruises for vegans who can't swim.

[Donna]

The cruise line is very accommodating to special diets - the kitchen will prepare vegan meals for you. But you do have to let them know at least a couple of weeks before you set sail so they are prepared.

And like hotels, you can choose non-smoking cabins/decks - and most of the public areas on the ship are non-smoking. That cigar night was held in an outdoor lounge.

Only one member of our party got mildly seasick, and only on those few days we were at open sea. One of the reasons my parents chose this particular cruise is that the inside passage is protected, so the ride was pretty steady. I did find that the rocking motion of the ship (when we were outside the passage) made me sleepy.

Can't do anything about the swimming! :)

[Jen]

Oh my god, that cake sounds fantastic!

You need to become a travel writer, Donna. Seriously!