March 8, 2019
Days at sea, and particularly days at sea paired with the gala night, usually mean everyone is focused on food. It’s so easy when it is literally available 24/7 (when you count room service).
On the Nieuw Amsterdam, the food is plentiful and it is really good. Although we’ve had a few bland items, most of the meals have been filling and tasty. Breakfast items abound and if you can’t find a favorite among the dozens of options, then you either don’t like breakfast or you are way too picky. I mean, the bread alone could last me for years; and, the fruit is beyond compare. Once or twice, I have strayed from the hard-boiled egg and yogurt parfait combination to try a frittata or eggs benedict. Joan has enjoyed trying new things every day.
Lunch in the Lido Market (deck 9, just forward of the Lido pool) provides a cornucopia of options from salads to sandwiches, from hot entrees to cold, appetizers aplenty, and choices between Indonesian, Thai, Chinese, sushi, Vietnamese to good old pizza, hot dogs and hamburgers (the Dive Inn is a burgers and fries place; New York Pizza serves, well, pizza). And then there are the dessert cases overflowing with options and the adjacent ice cream and cookie station. Although we haven’t partaken of the ice cream (as of yet), we’ve been told that it is scrumptious. I can attest that the oatmeal raisin cookies are out of this world.
In case you are feeling peckish and can’t quite make it to dinner (and don’t want to snack on pizza), you are more than welcome to stop by the 3rd floor of The Dining Room at 3:00 pm each day for Afternoon Tea. At elegantly set tables, you are served tiny finger sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam, and more sweets that you can shake a stick at – oh, and of course, tea. All this and you can come dressed in shorts and a t-shirt.
We opted not to have a set dinner time where we were tied down to going to The Dining Room each evening. Many nights, we have not “dressed” for dinner and opted to eat in the Lido Market with many of the same entree choices as offered in the more formal setting. We have done the more formal dinner a night or two, including one of the gala nights where we actually “dressed to the nines” for dinner.
Whether it be formal or informal, the options are numerous, hearty and delicious. I’ve had anything from a create it yourself ceviche, which was so awesome I wish it was an option every night, to a decadent combination of butter ladened escargot and filet minion oscar with crab meat, asparagus and hollandaise (or was it a bearnaise). Again, the desserts are divine.
We have yet to avail ourselves of room service because we have more fun circling the buffet stations, scoping out what’s available and then going in for the kill. My diet reboots on March 18th.
When we aren’t eating, lounging or on an excursion, we’ve been enjoying time in America’s Test Kitchen learning cooking tips, recipes and watching demonstrations. We missed the session on Salmon, but have attended ones on Mediterranean cooking and how to prepare a steak dinner for two. We have to do a bit of advance planning for these because they are very popular and if you don’t arrive early, you won’t have a seat and you won’t get a set of recipe cards. Ever see a bunch of Cruisers fight over pieces of cardboard? It’s not pretty.
Contrary to one couple’s comments to us that they don’t like the entertainment on board because it isn’t flashy enough, Joan and I have enjoyed each lecture, movie and show, even the one where the gymnast bound himself up in silks. We’ve seen 4-5 movies, attended 4-5 lectures and seen shows by the gymnast, a magician, an electric harp musician (amazing), and a comedian (if you have the opportunity to ever see John Wing, he’s hilarious).
We’ve also been delighted by the musical stylings of a trio of cute guys who have been billed under the names The Knights and The Showmen (depending on their repertoire for the evening) – I suspect we will see them again, likely under a new name, during the next week. Simple entertainment, but really top notch. We stopped by the Lincoln Center Stage to listen to the quartet for a bit, heard the pianist tinkling the ivories in the Ocean Bar, but haven’t made it to BB King’s Blues Club despite a personal invitation by one of the artists (I met him in the elevator and told him he smelled really good … well, he did).
We’ve even made it to a session of Majority Rules, a trivia game where the answer doesn’t have to be right – it just has to be the one given by most people. Fun times!
Oh, we just discovered the gym at the front of the ship. We haven’t used it yet, but it took a week for us to even contemplate looking for it… baby steps. Until I get back on a cruise ship, I forget how much I like cruising. You can be as busy as you want or don’t want, to be. Now I just have to figure out how to fit future cruises into the schedule.
