Facinating Thoughts

Vacation in Hawaii – part seven June 15, 2010

There are many reasons why people like to cruise. One of most cited is the quality and abundance of food on board. Other than the convenience (no need to worry about kids, meal, and lodging), I expect to have a feast of delicious food and gain a few pounds every time I set out to cruise.

Not this time.

Not even if I’m willing to pay extra for the privilege of a decent meal. The essence of “free style cruise” turns out to be a grand trip accumulating fat one grand buffet at a time. If you want to enjoy finer food, you have to forget that you just paid a load of money for the cruise, for they charge you on board eating in waited restaurants what you’d be charged on land in a similar restaurant. Unfortunately, even after paying up for better food, you’ll still likely be disappointed.

Before we walked into the big buffet “Aloha Cafe”, a guy in his lat twenty or early thirty greeted us cheerfully. We soon realized that the true reason for this guy to station here is to ensure us to wash our hands before entering the cafe, for he pulled out a spray bottle and spray on each hand without exception. The cafe was very large.  On both sides of the long aisle there were row after rows of carefully laid out chairs and tables on light green plastic backings.  There were plenty large windows for passengers to enjoy scenery while eating. Interestingly, one section of chairs and tables were entirely kid sized. This cute feature made a lot of small kids happy campers while their parents struggled to fold into the junior table and chairs. The buffet area was divided into eight food sections. The section along one wall was apparently aiming for all the junk food lovers. The usual french fry, burger, and pizza were on display. The section on the left served regular American style food that you could find in a typical American restaurant. The middle section provided “healthy” eaters with all kinds of salads and fruits, as well as some sea food. Over to the right there was an International section that served more exotic food choices such as Japan, China, India, Turkey, etc. Next to windows on the left was drink station for soda, beer, and wine. However you have to pay extra (on par with the price charged by a typical restaurant on land) for all drinks except water, coffee, and ice tea. Further down on the left was the bread and butter station which was surprisingly well stocked and nicely made. On the right side against window was the fruit station that offered supposedly tropical fruits but in fact served nothing other than what you could buy in neighborhood groceries. The desert station and water station rounded up the entire offerings. Although the sweets and ice creams were only as good as a local buffet on land and international foods were pretty much tasteless, the entire buffet was far superior than any of the previous cruises we took.

Those sit-in restaurants (extra charges) were entirely different story. And they were a disgrace to any cruise experience. The waiters were unskilled and unfriendly. The food made me wonder if there was any chef on board. The cocktail was so bad that any trainee could do a better job. After burning some cash in one sit-in restaurant, we decided to stay with the famous “Aloha Cafe” and cross out “dinning” from our list of cruise enjoyments.

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