I have been away on vacation. My husband and I are celebrating 10 years of marriage in April, and to celebrate, we went on a cruise to the Caribbean like we did for our honeymoon! It was wonderful to escape the snow, and enjoy the beaches! We had a wonderful time on a 12 night cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas, with our two little girls, and my husband’s parents.
We left from New York, and went to 6 Caribbean islands.
It was wonderful. I feel well rested…and very full! I didn’t take nearly enough pictures on the trip, but I did have one wonderful experience that I grabbed the camera for, and thought that you my blogging friends would love to see; a behind the scenes tour of one of the ships serving kitchens. Can you believe that they prepared and served over 160 000 meals on our cruise alone! We ate very well indeed.
This is one of the main dinning rooms serveries; there are three. When you walk through the main doors, there is a dish washing station, so that the dirty dishes never have to come in contact with any food prep areas.
The next area, was the cold service line. Salads are prepared on one side, and placed in a double sided refrigerated unit, for waiters to retrieve on the other side. It’s all very efficient.
On the prep side, they were preparing shrimp cocktail for that nights dinner.
They were delicious, I had one as an appetizer that evening.
Beyond the cold service area, was the bakery area. The smell there was wonderful. The ship makes all it’s own bread and pastries, and they are in abundance. Every meal includes both bread and sweet pastries. We joked that it was going to be hard to go back to not having dessert with breakfast! My girls loved fresh donunts every morning, and I loved the Danishes.
Pictured here is some of the bread dough waiting to be shaped into buns for the evening meal. They use no preservatives in their breads, and keep them only two days. Leftovers are used for bread crumbs.
Next we headed over to the hot line. The chef pointed out one of the unique qualities of ship ovens, the doors are made so that they side back out of the way and stay in place so they can check the meats cooking without any danger of the moving ship jostling the door closed into the chef causing a burn. Things you never think of on land.
All along the hot side, were different stations for the eight or so different entries offered each night.
I noticed this sign on the wall about how to set up a bread basket. Every thing was done exactly right, every night.
This last area was a beverage station, complete with filtered water, juices, pop, and the LARGEST coffee maker I’ve ever seen!
All the food on the cruise was amazing, and it was really fun to get a little peek behind the scenes in one of the smaller serveries.
Tomorrow…I’ll share pics of some of the amazing food.
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