A Baltic boating adventure TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 11/19 - Page 26 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Well it sounds like the portion that is missing was about relaxing. So it's good to know you were doing just that!
The dress up nights are fun - like you say, if for nothing else to just see what others wear! I wonder how they pack everything. Do people iron the tuxedos and such? Silly thoughts. Like your Titanic thoughts!
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Well it sounds like the portion that is missing was about relaxing. So it's good to know you were doing just that!
True!
Quote:
The dress up nights are fun - like you say, if for nothing else to just see what others wear! I wonder how they pack everything. Do people iron the tuxedos and such? Silly thoughts. Like your Titanic thoughts!
I think it was easy for a lot of people, as the majority of people on the cruise were British, so didn't have to worry about weight limits on their suitcases for flights - that does make a huge difference!
As Tanya said, no worries about the missing bit since we can all hope you were just relaxing! Too bad the massage was less than stellar, though.
It was a real shame. I wonder whether I've become too critical, as I regularly have lovely massages, but it was when Mark said the same as me, I figured perhaps it wasn't just me....
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What a nice lounge, which looks so relaxing and love the decor! Too bad your massages weren't all that great! That's too bad that somehow part of your TR just vanished! At least it wasn't one of your photo heavy updates!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
What a nice lounge, which looks so relaxing and love the decor! Too bad your massages weren't all that great! That's too bad that somehow part of your TR just vanished! At least it wasn't one of your photo heavy updates!
In a way, the photo heavy sections would've been easier to recover, as I'd have had photos to remind me what we did!
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Sounds like you had a relaxing morning and that was a great spread for lunch. More great pictures of the ship. Sorry that part of your TR went missing!
Monday 6 June – part six: an Italian signature dinner
We headed into the Tuscan Grille, and given the windows at the back of the restaurant, it is a bit hard to photograph the entrance, which is a shame, as it’s quite dramatic with all its mahogany colours in it…
Inside though, it’s much lighter…
We were seated at a sea view table, which worked for us, although obviously there wasn’t much to see out there, except for pretty much this view the whole evening…
This is an Italian restaurant, and the staff quickly worked out I can (theoretically!) speak Italian by the way I was pronouncing the menu. I did point out that, although I have a qualification in it, that was 20 years ago (actually almost exactly, as I would’ve sat my exams in May/June 1996 – where does the time go? ) and I barely get a chance to speak it these days. What made me laugh though was that there didn’t appear to be any Italian staff in here, and most were Eastern European – the assistant maitre’d was Serbian, the sommelier was Bulgarian, and our server was Croatian, and none of them actually spoke Italian.
One thing I do want to mention here are the name tags for the staff. They are ridiculously small and very hard to read as a result. You don’t want to appear rude, as if you’re staring at them, and I constantly found it easier to read the country, as that was at the bottom, rather than the name at the top, so that’s why so few staff are named in this trip report.
We started off with the bread service, which I felt deserved a photo to itself.
The focaccia was so good, we ended up asking for some more, and they brought us another four slices.
When it came to dining, we were both very predictable, and got exactly the same first two courses. We started off with fritto di calamari (fried calamari) with marinara sauce and lemon garlic aioli. I was a bit surprised by the presentation, as this isn’t what I’d expect to see at a fine dining Italian restaurant.
Despite that, the calamari was beautifully cooked, completely melt in the mouth, and the marinara sauce tasted exactly how it should. I like marinara sauce, and I know what’s it’s supposed to taste like. We differed on the aioli sauce. Mark said his was spicy, and had a real kick to it, whereas mine didn’t at all. He offered to let me try some of his, but I passed on that kind offer, as I don’t do spicy food.
For the soup and salad course, we both went for the Pomodoro i mozzarella di bufala (or buffalo mozzarella and tomato) salad with extra virgin olive oil, aged balsamic vinegar, and garlic focaccia. I left most of my focaccia, given we were now on something of a focaccia overload from the bread selection.
At least when it came to entrees, we did differ. I had melanzane parmigiana – breaded eggplant, mozzarella, tomato sauce, fresh basil and parmesan. Again, this is another of my favourite Italian dishes, and this again lived up to my expectations.
Mark went for the filetto di manzo rustica or filet mignon, and chose to have some contorni (side dishes) with it, as just like a traditional Italian restaurant, it came on its own. He went for garlic mashed potatoes, and grilled Mediterranean vegetables, and it also came with a sauce, so it went from looking very lonely to a lot of accompaniments…
It was at about this point that I got our server to take a couple of photos of us…
Then it was time for the most important part of the meal, as our server told us – desserts. I knew I wanted tiramisu, but when I saw the Tuscan Grille signature pistachio marble crème brulee, I knew I wanted to try that as well, so I asked if I could have two desserts. Our server told us that they had a policy on that – and it’s called “go ahead”. Well, that was all the encouragement I needed!
It was a case of eyes bigger than belly, as I couldn’t finish either off, although Mark polished off the rest of my crème brulee, after devouring his. That was excellent, very unusual, and very flavoursome. It also came with something popping on top. I can’t describe it better than that. It was a bit odd, but it did work with the dish.
As for the tiramisu, that was excellent, although it had a slightly odd presentation again. It tasted how I expected though, although the coffee was stronger than I thought it would be. I wish I could’ve eaten more of it, but I was truly stuffed by now.
We also decided to finish our meal in a truly Italian way – with limoncello, even though Mark had already declared that he’d had too much to drink. It was very nice, and we just about managed to stagger back to our room afterwards.
We were very surprised to find out the limoncello was included in our drinks package, which was a nice bonus.
All in all, we thoroughly enjoyed our meal here. We much preferred being able to see outside, which you can’t do in Murano. Mark did talk about coming back here, and I like the idea, but I figured maybe we’d wait and see what we made of QSine, as I know you’d have to have one meal more in each restaurant, and there’s no point if we don’t like the other restaurant.
On our way out, our server told us he’d really enjoyed serving us, and he’d had a real laugh with us. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but hopefully it was a good thing…
We got back to the room, and watched an episode of the Newsroom, which we used to love, and it brought back some great memories – it’s so well written, and having worked as a radio journalist, I can tell you some of it is very true to life as well.
We made it tonight until 9:15pm (real party animals, right? ) before we crashed, as we were again so tired.
The weather today was hot and sunny with temperatures in the mid 70s. The best thing today was dinner at the Tuscan Grille. The worst thing today was the problems I had with sunburn. Today we tried having a hot stones massage And the result was it honestly wasn’t as good as we’d hoped. The most magical moment today was sitting out on deck, sipping a glass of wine, and just taking in the scenery.
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Too bad your massages weren't all that great! 
At least it wasn't one of your photo heavy updates!
Alaskan Mom aka Bonnie
) and I barely get a chance to speak it these days. What made me laugh though was that there didn’t appear to be any Italian staff in here, and most were Eastern European – the assistant maitre’d was Serbian, the sommelier was Bulgarian, and our server was Croatian, and none of them actually spoke Italian. 
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