So Jenny and I are off to take our cruise. For various reasons (not least that internet time onboard is something like $5 a minute), I am posting these after the fact. Pictures of the cruise are available here. The full list of cruise posts is available here.

Cruise: Day 2 (At Sea)

So since Jenny's birthday was going to occur while we were on the ship, I had previously contacted Princess to discuss a special dinner. The CSR I spoke with was very confident that this would be easily arranged. It was not. The first response I got was that Princess' vendors "could not procure" the items we had requested. The second response I got (after I modified my request) was that we should talk to the Maitre d'Hotel once onboard and he would "be happy to accommodate any request". Fine, no problem. In fact, we actually had two reasons to talk to the fellow, because the menu for that night (posted every morning, or available the night before on request) indicated that the vegetarian entree was something called "Vegetable Pojarski". Vegetable Pojarski is an (apparently) Polish invention which consists of squished up, mushy vegetables. I am not kidding. In this particular case the Pojarski was to be shaped into "cutlets" and pan-fried. Now, I recognize that Jenny and I are foodies, but mushed-up vegetable bits are something I expect to serve a newborn baby, not actual adults. So--off to see the Maitre D.

I use that phrase advisedly, as for several days we were convinced that the Maitre D, like the Wizard of Oz, did not actually exist. Our first try was the ship's phone directory. No entry. Next we tried the Purser's Desk. They told us to go to the dining room and ask for him. So, being literal people, we did. We were directed to a head waiter, who assured us that the Pojarski was "very good". We remained skeptical, but the head waiter claimed he had never heard of any such creature as a Maitre d'Hotel (I'm sorry, what was that? It sounds French, doesn't it?), but that the Pojarski was in fact wonderful. (He was, not surprisingly, not a vegetarian. One of the waitresses was, but we never discovered her views on Pojarski.)

Of course, a cruise ship offers a number of ways to acquire calories. So we avoided the dining room that night in favor of the fast food in the forward pool deck. Now, in the interest of fairness, I should point out that in order to efficiently use limited resources, the ship's kitchen will reuse a lot of items. One night you'll see asparagus soup, in addition to several asparagus sides, etc etc. So it wasn't entirely a surprise when Jenny and I had so-called "veggie burgers", which turned out to be Pojarski on a bun. I assure you, it was entirely unappetizing. Even on a bun with lettuce, tomato, onions, ketchup, and mustard. The fries were good, though.

Jenny and I also attended a wine tasting, at which we were invited to partake in a "much more expensiveexclusive" wine tasting, hosted by none other than the Maitre d'Hotel. We speculated on whether this would prove to be a waiter in a tux. We did, of course, decide to attend (who could resist?). We didn't like any of the wines in this first tasting. :-P