Flossbolna
Sea days are just so relaxing!
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2006
An update with only food pictures – and one blanket animal
Once back on the ship we were really hungry! We had thought about getting something in San Juan, but then we thought why spend money when we could get free food onboard. In hindsight I thought we should have researched the food options in San Juan and tried a local lunch. Next time!
So, after failing @nodnol horribly on two cruises, I finally managed to get lots of pictures of our fast food from the serving stations on the pool deck!!
First a hamburger:
You can tell that it is Michael’s as it has onions on it and I don’t do raw onions!
Had many this afternoon at a salad bar place that I want to take you when you are here!
(not sure whether this was meant as a general comment for everyone, or just for me, but I decided to leave it in. Now you all know that Michael wants to take me to a salad bar and I have witnesses!)
I have read so many comments on the DIS about those burgers being inedible. I really don’t understand that. They certainly are no gourmet burgers, but I think they taste good enough.
They are very good. I would definitely say they are better than the typical WDW or DL burger.
Next a salad:
On the Wonder they had small bowls with salads prepared that they would hand out to you and then you could add dressing as you wished (ranch and Italian were the options). On the Fantasy the fixings bar served as a tiny salad bar as well, so you could put your own salad together.
I had a panini and added a side salad:
This was brie, tomato and bacon and it was quite delicious. It could have been warmer though. On the Wonder they made the paninis freshly when you ordered it, here it was kept warm in a container. I remember thinking that if I ordered one again, I should ask if I could get one freshly made.
I also got two chicken strips:
Those are really delicious!
After lunch we headed to the pool for a little while. This was the afternoon when I was trying really hard to purchase a drink while at Satellite Falls and just did not find anyone. I was a bit frustrated that the pool servers did not bother to make the round there and when I went to the bar, they were busy chatting with a couple and did not acknowledge me at all. I kind of gave up on Satellite Falls after we had departed San Juan (I wanted to enjoy the view from up there) and went to hang out in the Adult Pool for a bit. Since the seas were pretty rough, it turned into a nice wave pool!
And then it soon was time for Wishes, the show of the evening. It is one of the three main big Disney productions on the Fantasy. It is about a group of kids graduating from high school and visiting Disneyland together. Reading about it, I had thought that this sounded like a fun show. But in the end, I did not enjoy it very much. One of the main actors was far too cheesy (and I already expect Disney shows to be very cheesy). In my opinion she was overacting way too much. I enjoyed the songs though, so it was not all lost.
I'd see it again/ Not a must do, but enjoyable ... and, yes, sappy in a typical Disney way.
On the other hand, for me this is a show that I will happily skip on another cruise on the Fantasy.
Before or after the show we also paid our daily visit to the shops to see if there was anything new or newly reduced, but had no luck. But we spoke with Tim, the store manager from Germany, about San Juan and he told us that he always makes sure to go and have a local lunch there as there is so much wonderful food in San Juan. Yes, we missed out on that thanks to bad planning…
After the show we got ready for dinner and then headed to Skyline for a pre-dinner drink and to continue working on our passport!
Michael opted for the Paris 75: Grey Goose Citron Vodka, Peach Schnapps, Blue Curacao, Pineapple Juice, Sugared Rim and a Souvenir Glow Cube:
I had the St Pete Sling: Russian Standard Original, King’s Ginger, Honey Syrup, Freshly Squeezed Lime and Grapefruit Juice, Jasmine Tea and a Souvenir Glow Cube.
You don’t get a picture of it as it looks exactly the same as Michael’s drink (or maybe Michael’s drink picture is really mine. No way to tell them apart with a glow cube colouring the drink in the pictures.
We were running a little late and arrived at dinner a few minutes after our meal time. Michael kept telling me not to worry, but I did not want to make things difficult for our servers. However, one other large table of 8 that was under our servers’ care managed to arrive about 30 minutes after service had started! So, being 5 or 10 minutes late as a table of 2 seems to not have been the biggest issue…
What is it about Germans and being on time. It isn't like the trains are always on time there, right?
They used to when I grew up.
Tonight was the Prince & Princess menu. On the Panama Canal cruise that was one of the menus that made us skip the dining room as it did not appeal to us. Michael original wanted to bail tonight as well, but I really enjoyed the main dining rooms on this cruise and wanted another meal in Enchanted Garden, so made a case of eating there. Michael agreed, I think because so far on the cruise we had really good experiences with the food and our servers.
We were greeted with a lovely place setting:
The bread for the day was Fig and Date Ciabatta Roll with Mint Yoghurt Dip:
I remember really liking it.
As our first appetizer we both ordered “Belle’s” Blue Cheese Polenta Cakes with Caramelized Onions and Walnuts:
It turned out to be quite wonderful! We both were really surprised how much we loved it. For me there could have been a bit more blue cheese, but for Michael it was the perfect amount. So, cheese lovers should not that it is not a lot of blue cheese!
We both ordered the same salad as well: Coronation of Mixed Leaves: Vine Tomatoes, Blue Cheese, Apples, candies Walnuts and aged Red Wine Vinegar:
Now I got my blue cheese fix as Michael transferred his blue cheese over to my plate!
Another really good salad, not as wilted as the ones we were served on the Wonder. And there was a decent amount of apples and walnuts in it to make it interesting. The dressing was really tasty, too.
For his main course Michael had the Vegetable Lasagna served with Three Cheese Sauce and Tomato Sauce:
It looked delicious – and it was. Michael kept telling me how wonderful it was. He said that it was one of the best vegetable lasagnas he ever had.
It truly was. The entire meal was actually the best ''surprise' of the cruise. My expectations were not high as the menu looked ordinary at best, but the food was very, very, very good.
I guess like one should never judge a book by its cover, one should neither judge a meal by the menu...
I had the Roasted Mushroom Triangoli Pasta topped with Sour Cream, Pesto Swirl and a sweet Butternut Squash Sauce:
This was excellent as well!
I also was really happy to see a good pasta dish on the menu, that did not include any kind of shellfish (which I don’t eat).
For dessert Michael had Cinderella’s Lemon Cheesecake: Lemon-infused baked Cheesecake with dark Cherry Compote:
He said it was good, but not exciting.
I had Princess Jasmine Banana Bread Pudding: Banana Bread Pudding, Caramel Sauce and toasted Macadamia Nuts:
While my serving seems to have wandered on the plate, it was excellent! I love puddings and this was very good! I guess I need to give this a good second place behind the Grand Marnier Soufflee. I won’t dream about it, but I need to keep it in mind the next time I can order from that menu.
While we were eating dessert, Sughit, our server, came over and suggested a little riddle. We were not really keen on that, but he said, he will just put it down and we can ignore it if we want. Of course we totally got into it and obsessed about how to solve it:
You are supposed to get the diagonal crayon off the “shovel” with moving only two crayons and not touching the diagonal one. We needed a small hint from Sughit, but then I got it! It was really a fun addition!
And then after dessert, I got an additional surprise:
Our servers came and sang Happy Birthday to me. It was really nice. The cake however, was nothing spectacular and was a typical DCL dessert that is sweet, but rather tastefree.
I really have no idea whether our head server was there as well or not. He was really strange. The first two evenings he more or less ignored us. He came and greeted every table around us and then just skipped over us. On the third evening he came and asked if everything is ok and we felt that he did not really want to listen to anything we had to say (which was that we thought our servers were excellent). He kept ignoring us and the few times we interacted with him he gave off a rather insincere vibe. I often read comments on the DIS of people thinking that head servers were superfluous and why should they tip them. Our head server might very well have done a great job overseeing his servers, but he definitely did not show very good people skills for someone working in the service industry. I would never not tip him because of that. But I did not feel like I had to go out of my way to hand him the tip envelope at the end of the cruise either. The envelopes are just filled with the print out of the tip that has been charged to our onboard account, so he will get that tip anyway, whether I hand him the print out or not.
Yes, agreed on all counts. He seemed to enjoy talking to some people. But we were basically invisible to him. I likely would have not tipped him at all, but it wasn't much money.
Even with two desserts and the riddle and after arriving late, we left the dining room at 9:35pm! On the Panama Canal cruise we often spent nearly two hours at dinner. That was one of the reasons why we started to skip the main dining rooms. Here we never felt rushed, but the meal kept flowing at a nice speed.
I was really happy that we had not skipped the main dining room for this dinner, it was a great atmosphere and great food all around!
After dinner we took up our Midship Detective Agency game again and finished it. It really was a lot of fun!
I think we ended up spending quite some time in the art gallery chatting with a CM there and I started to consider buying one of the pictures from there. It was really lovely, but also quite pricey. And it was not what I had in mind. I had just bought a new sofa for my living room and wanted something to go on the white wall above it. So it needed to be a certain size and the one that I liked was rather small. But I kept it in my mind.
We then returned to our stateroom to find another blanket animal…
I have no idea what this is?
We finished watching “The Boys” about the Sherman Brothers. And I think afterwards we watched some of the Mickey Mouse cartoons that were released a couple of years ago. They were very cute!
And then it was time for bed! Tonight we were getting one additional hour of sleep as we were going back to EST as we were leaving the Caribbean.
Up Next: Fire and Ice
Once back on the ship we were really hungry! We had thought about getting something in San Juan, but then we thought why spend money when we could get free food onboard. In hindsight I thought we should have researched the food options in San Juan and tried a local lunch. Next time!
So, after failing @nodnol horribly on two cruises, I finally managed to get lots of pictures of our fast food from the serving stations on the pool deck!!
First a hamburger:
You can tell that it is Michael’s as it has onions on it and I don’t do raw onions!
Had many this afternoon at a salad bar place that I want to take you when you are here!
(not sure whether this was meant as a general comment for everyone, or just for me, but I decided to leave it in. Now you all know that Michael wants to take me to a salad bar and I have witnesses!)
I have read so many comments on the DIS about those burgers being inedible. I really don’t understand that. They certainly are no gourmet burgers, but I think they taste good enough.
They are very good. I would definitely say they are better than the typical WDW or DL burger.
Next a salad:
On the Wonder they had small bowls with salads prepared that they would hand out to you and then you could add dressing as you wished (ranch and Italian were the options). On the Fantasy the fixings bar served as a tiny salad bar as well, so you could put your own salad together.
I had a panini and added a side salad:
This was brie, tomato and bacon and it was quite delicious. It could have been warmer though. On the Wonder they made the paninis freshly when you ordered it, here it was kept warm in a container. I remember thinking that if I ordered one again, I should ask if I could get one freshly made.
I also got two chicken strips:
Those are really delicious!
After lunch we headed to the pool for a little while. This was the afternoon when I was trying really hard to purchase a drink while at Satellite Falls and just did not find anyone. I was a bit frustrated that the pool servers did not bother to make the round there and when I went to the bar, they were busy chatting with a couple and did not acknowledge me at all. I kind of gave up on Satellite Falls after we had departed San Juan (I wanted to enjoy the view from up there) and went to hang out in the Adult Pool for a bit. Since the seas were pretty rough, it turned into a nice wave pool!
I am starting to understand why Orlando was moving for almost the entire week we were there now!
And then it soon was time for Wishes, the show of the evening. It is one of the three main big Disney productions on the Fantasy. It is about a group of kids graduating from high school and visiting Disneyland together. Reading about it, I had thought that this sounded like a fun show. But in the end, I did not enjoy it very much. One of the main actors was far too cheesy (and I already expect Disney shows to be very cheesy). In my opinion she was overacting way too much. I enjoyed the songs though, so it was not all lost.
I'd see it again/ Not a must do, but enjoyable ... and, yes, sappy in a typical Disney way.
On the other hand, for me this is a show that I will happily skip on another cruise on the Fantasy.
Before or after the show we also paid our daily visit to the shops to see if there was anything new or newly reduced, but had no luck. But we spoke with Tim, the store manager from Germany, about San Juan and he told us that he always makes sure to go and have a local lunch there as there is so much wonderful food in San Juan. Yes, we missed out on that thanks to bad planning…
After the show we got ready for dinner and then headed to Skyline for a pre-dinner drink and to continue working on our passport!
Michael opted for the Paris 75: Grey Goose Citron Vodka, Peach Schnapps, Blue Curacao, Pineapple Juice, Sugared Rim and a Souvenir Glow Cube:
I had the St Pete Sling: Russian Standard Original, King’s Ginger, Honey Syrup, Freshly Squeezed Lime and Grapefruit Juice, Jasmine Tea and a Souvenir Glow Cube.
You don’t get a picture of it as it looks exactly the same as Michael’s drink (or maybe Michael’s drink picture is really mine. No way to tell them apart with a glow cube colouring the drink in the pictures.
We were running a little late and arrived at dinner a few minutes after our meal time. Michael kept telling me not to worry, but I did not want to make things difficult for our servers. However, one other large table of 8 that was under our servers’ care managed to arrive about 30 minutes after service had started! So, being 5 or 10 minutes late as a table of 2 seems to not have been the biggest issue…
What is it about Germans and being on time. It isn't like the trains are always on time there, right?
They used to when I grew up.
Tonight was the Prince & Princess menu. On the Panama Canal cruise that was one of the menus that made us skip the dining room as it did not appeal to us. Michael original wanted to bail tonight as well, but I really enjoyed the main dining rooms on this cruise and wanted another meal in Enchanted Garden, so made a case of eating there. Michael agreed, I think because so far on the cruise we had really good experiences with the food and our servers.
We were greeted with a lovely place setting:
The bread for the day was Fig and Date Ciabatta Roll with Mint Yoghurt Dip:
I remember really liking it.
As our first appetizer we both ordered “Belle’s” Blue Cheese Polenta Cakes with Caramelized Onions and Walnuts:
It turned out to be quite wonderful! We both were really surprised how much we loved it. For me there could have been a bit more blue cheese, but for Michael it was the perfect amount. So, cheese lovers should not that it is not a lot of blue cheese!
We both ordered the same salad as well: Coronation of Mixed Leaves: Vine Tomatoes, Blue Cheese, Apples, candies Walnuts and aged Red Wine Vinegar:
Now I got my blue cheese fix as Michael transferred his blue cheese over to my plate!
Another really good salad, not as wilted as the ones we were served on the Wonder. And there was a decent amount of apples and walnuts in it to make it interesting. The dressing was really tasty, too.
For his main course Michael had the Vegetable Lasagna served with Three Cheese Sauce and Tomato Sauce:
It looked delicious – and it was. Michael kept telling me how wonderful it was. He said that it was one of the best vegetable lasagnas he ever had.
It truly was. The entire meal was actually the best ''surprise' of the cruise. My expectations were not high as the menu looked ordinary at best, but the food was very, very, very good.
I guess like one should never judge a book by its cover, one should neither judge a meal by the menu...
I had the Roasted Mushroom Triangoli Pasta topped with Sour Cream, Pesto Swirl and a sweet Butternut Squash Sauce:
This was excellent as well!
I also was really happy to see a good pasta dish on the menu, that did not include any kind of shellfish (which I don’t eat).
For dessert Michael had Cinderella’s Lemon Cheesecake: Lemon-infused baked Cheesecake with dark Cherry Compote:
He said it was good, but not exciting.
I had Princess Jasmine Banana Bread Pudding: Banana Bread Pudding, Caramel Sauce and toasted Macadamia Nuts:
While my serving seems to have wandered on the plate, it was excellent! I love puddings and this was very good! I guess I need to give this a good second place behind the Grand Marnier Soufflee. I won’t dream about it, but I need to keep it in mind the next time I can order from that menu.
While we were eating dessert, Sughit, our server, came over and suggested a little riddle. We were not really keen on that, but he said, he will just put it down and we can ignore it if we want. Of course we totally got into it and obsessed about how to solve it:
You are supposed to get the diagonal crayon off the “shovel” with moving only two crayons and not touching the diagonal one. We needed a small hint from Sughit, but then I got it! It was really a fun addition!
And then after dessert, I got an additional surprise:
Our servers came and sang Happy Birthday to me. It was really nice. The cake however, was nothing spectacular and was a typical DCL dessert that is sweet, but rather tastefree.
I really have no idea whether our head server was there as well or not. He was really strange. The first two evenings he more or less ignored us. He came and greeted every table around us and then just skipped over us. On the third evening he came and asked if everything is ok and we felt that he did not really want to listen to anything we had to say (which was that we thought our servers were excellent). He kept ignoring us and the few times we interacted with him he gave off a rather insincere vibe. I often read comments on the DIS of people thinking that head servers were superfluous and why should they tip them. Our head server might very well have done a great job overseeing his servers, but he definitely did not show very good people skills for someone working in the service industry. I would never not tip him because of that. But I did not feel like I had to go out of my way to hand him the tip envelope at the end of the cruise either. The envelopes are just filled with the print out of the tip that has been charged to our onboard account, so he will get that tip anyway, whether I hand him the print out or not.
Yes, agreed on all counts. He seemed to enjoy talking to some people. But we were basically invisible to him. I likely would have not tipped him at all, but it wasn't much money.
Even with two desserts and the riddle and after arriving late, we left the dining room at 9:35pm! On the Panama Canal cruise we often spent nearly two hours at dinner. That was one of the reasons why we started to skip the main dining rooms. Here we never felt rushed, but the meal kept flowing at a nice speed.
I was really happy that we had not skipped the main dining room for this dinner, it was a great atmosphere and great food all around!
After dinner we took up our Midship Detective Agency game again and finished it. It really was a lot of fun!
I think we ended up spending quite some time in the art gallery chatting with a CM there and I started to consider buying one of the pictures from there. It was really lovely, but also quite pricey. And it was not what I had in mind. I had just bought a new sofa for my living room and wanted something to go on the white wall above it. So it needed to be a certain size and the one that I liked was rather small. But I kept it in my mind.
We then returned to our stateroom to find another blanket animal…
I have no idea what this is?
We finished watching “The Boys” about the Sherman Brothers. And I think afterwards we watched some of the Mickey Mouse cartoons that were released a couple of years ago. They were very cute!
And then it was time for bed! Tonight we were getting one additional hour of sleep as we were going back to EST as we were leaving the Caribbean.
Up Next: Fire and Ice
Craig Ferguson seldom does UK tv, I think he lives and is based in the US. I am planning to find Scottish Craig on the Fantasy - might even ask if he knows Craig Ferguson!!! x
That is one of the reasons why my sister and I are going on the Norway cruise. Factoring the difference in air fare from Germany to Denmark vs. to the US, the fact that the cruise is one of the pricier ones did not matter that much. I can only imagine how it would be if you have to fly a family of 4 during school holiday time! 
)!
)
