by Jim Bellomo | Sep 13, 2022 | Photography
Before we sailed, we knew that cruise ships (unless they are lower than a certain tonnage) are no longer allowed to sail into the cruise ship terminal. The gross tonnage requirement means that about 90% of the cruise ships in the world (including Viking Sky) can no longer dock there. While I am sad we didn’t get to sail into Venice on our ship; I realize the damage the ships were doing to the environment in Venice and also, having been there as a land-based visitor, how much their being there basically destroyed the Venetian experience for those who lived there or visited by any other form of transportation. When you are walking through San Marco and a 16-story behemoth sails by with speakers blaring Italian arias, it really destroys the mood.
The larger ships have been forced to move even further away than we were on Viking Sky. For instance, most of those owned by the Carnival Corporation (Carnival, Holland America, Princess, Costa and a few more) are sailing into Trieste for the port of Venice. Trieste is about a 90-minute bus ride away to the east on the border with Croatia. The other major cruise corporation, Royal Caribbean (RCL, Celebrity), has decided to go southwest and dock at Ravenna, which is a good two hours by bus from Venice. If you are ending or starting your cruise there, this is not a problem as you can just come in early or stay late and still see Venice in a decent time frame.
We were doing neither. Although some people on our cruise were ending here and we were picking others up, for us, Venice was just a port stop. Thankfully it was a two-and-a-half-day port stop. Originally we were told that we would be docking in Fusina, which is a small, industrial port just across the lagoon from Venice in the Maestre area of Venice. It would be a short hop over on a Vaporetto (water bus) from there to the city. But because it was an industrial port, we would not be able to come and go as we pleased. So we decided that we would get off the ship for two nights and check into a B&B. Yes, it was expensive, and yes, we did need Viking’s approval before we did it. To me, as a travel photographer, a chance to shoot a city in the blue and golden light of the dawn is the best thing ever. I hope you will agree once you see my photos that those two early morning photo walks were truly worth it.
About four days before we arrived in Venice, it was announced that we would not be docking in Fusina in the Maestre area but in Chioggia, which is not as far as Ravenna or Trieste but is still a lot further than Fusina. We had planned to get into Venice for our two-and-a-half days in the city by doing an included shore excursion that would drop us in the city. Once we were moved to Chioggia, Viking decided to create a new shore excursion called “Venice; On Your Own.” It gave us a way into the city. Sadly, it was only offered the first and second days we were in port, so we had to find our own way back. More about that on day three.
So we all canceled our “included” tour and signed up for the first “Venice On Your Own” tour that was available (which turned out to be as soon as we docked). We arrived in Chioggia around noon, and we had been packed (one small suitcase each) and ready to go since 11:00 am, so we were in the first group off and the first group on the excursion boat into the city. I should mention here that our best buddies and neighbors forever, Jayesh and Lisa, had told us good things about Chioggia. They come to Venice every summer, and they had explored Chioggia, which you can do by public transport. You take a short Vaporetto ride to Pellestrina (see the map), and then you switch to a bus. It can be an exhausting trip and not one we really wanted to do with luggage of any kind.
The boat Viking chartered was your typical excursion vessel, and it was fairly crowded on board, but you could still stand up and move around, so I was able to take some photos from the back as we went in. Here are a few shots of Chioggia and the trip. Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
The town of Chioggia from our verandah
The rest of the shots I took on the way in.
In Venice
We got into the city after a 90+ minute boat ride and docked right near San Marco Square. We jumped off, and since we had luggage, we just decided to go directly to the B&B. Besides the fact that it was both extremely crowded and scorchingly hot. So we walked a very short distance to the San Zacharia Vaporetto station, and we purchased three-day passes that would let us have unlimited rides on the Venice water bus system for the entire time in Venice. Based on how many trips we took and the price of a single 75-minute ticket, we really feel like it was a great bargain.
After grabbing the passes, we walked down three bridges (that’s what the ticket guy said to do ?) and jumped on Number 1 and headed up the Grand Canal. If you are not familiar with the Vaporetto system on the Grand Canal, #1 is a local bus. It stops at every single stop. It takes people on and lets people off. It is almost always very crowded, especially in the middle of the day, and this day was no exception. (In contrast, the #2 is an express bus that goes from San Marco to Piazza Roma without a stop.) We got off at the St. Stae stop and followed our B&B manager’s excellent map and directions to the Ca’ Bonvicini B&B which sits right on the border of the Santa Croce and San Polo districts. It is a very typical Italian bed and breakfast (although we didn’t do the breakfast part) with a steep staircase, small rooms with typical Venetian decorations (chandelier, large drapes above the bed, etc.) and is very well located.
After we collapsed, we decided to let the crowds thin down and the heat of the day pass before we ventured out for a really nice meal in a small trattoria a few streets away. We ate outdoors, and it was a great Venetian experience. My next post will give you some of the best photography I have ever been lucky enough to shoot. Here’s a sample.
Venice is incredible. Although you may have seen it in pictures, you can’t grasp how beautiful it is until you visit. —Gino D’Acampo
by Jim Bellomo | Sep 11, 2022 | Food Experiences, Photography
Well, it could be worse; I could have made a banana joke. We are back from our three days in Venice, and now I can resume our story.
When I last wrote, it was Thursday, and we were in Split, Croatia. It is a truly beautiful walled city. Those Romans certainly knew how to build. We had a great time on Kathleen’s first day out after her time in food poisoning jail.
We both got off the ship and had a nice walk around the center of the old town. Of course, I took a lot of photos. You can see all my Split photos below. But before I post them, I want to mention our day onboard. We had a great room service breakfast (because Kathleen was still in food poisoning jail). But right after breakfast, the doctor called her and set her free, and we were off to see Split.
That evening we decided to give The Restaurant dining room another chance. We were given an excellent table in the far aft of the dining room where we could see the wake of the ship. It’s like the best place to eat in the place. But again, our service was sporadic. At the start of the meal, things went as usual. Not offered a wine list, one bread basket for six people until we finally got more. Then I made the mistake of saying I liked the breadsticks, and all of a sudden, we had three baskets of nothing but breadsticks. We asked for more “regular” bread, but that never did show up. We asked for more butter, but that didn’t show up either. But when my brother asked for olive oil and vinegar, it appeared in less than five minutes. They went all the way to the buffet to get it. Do you see what I mean about sporadic? It just went from good to bad service and back again all evening.
We got our appetizers in a hurry, and then the entrées took a while, followed by dessert a few moments later. I should add that the desserts were excellent, but not so much the entrées. The prime rib I had was close to raw, even though I had asked for medium rare. Since I had seen people at the tables near us getting it before we ordered, I specifically asked for much closer to medium. But that was not to happen. And a number of people at the table ordered the lobster thermidor because they saw the HUGE lobster tails coming to the tables nearby. But when they got theirs, they found a huge lobster shell with about three tablespoons of Thermidor in it. Once again, the dining room kind of failed us. They provided an adequate meal, but as my brother pointed out on our last, if this were a restaurant we went to at home, we would probably not go back.
The same cannot be said for the buffet. We love pretty much everything we have had from that venue. It has been amazing. This is very unusual for us because we can’t remember a previous cruise when we have eaten dinner in the buffet more than once or twice in a cruise, and then only when we were returning late from a shore excursion. This buffet is the epitome of class. You never have a second when your glass gets less than full, or they are whisking away your dirty plates. Just a fabulous experience.
We also tried Mamsen’s, which is a great little Scandanavian snack bar (but so much better than a snack bar). We have had breakfast there twice. They make extraordinary, ultra-thin Norwegian waffles that come with yogurt, berries, and some very interesting Norwegian cheese. Put it all together; it is wonderful.
I went there for lunch a few days later and had a superb open-face smoked salmon sandwich. It was truly delicious. Kathleen had open-faced roast beef that she liked just as much.
Enough about food, here are the Split photos (below). Come back tomorrow for my Venice pics and report. My pre-dawn photo walk around Venice was everything I was hoping for and more! Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
Sailing into Split with a gorgeous sunrise.
I love the light on side of the cathedral.
I wonder how much this shipping line had to pay to use these cartoon characters on their ships.
Is this the UGLIEST yacht/boat you have ever seen.
Heading into downtown Split on the promenade. They had a lot of VERY welcome benches.
Outside the walls of the city.
One way into the old town is through this underground tunnel.
Very cool down there
And you can come out of there into a square dominated by this clock tower.
Which is guarded by these…
two…dragons?
And a sphinx.
The square is a very busy place
In many of these ancient cities…
you see guys like this dressed as Roman (or Greek) soldiers to pose with tourists. I liked the smile on this guy’s face.
Once you walk though the city, you come on to this tower and statue just outside the gates.
This guy is pretty fearsome looking.
The back gate of the city.
Another shot of the tower.
The side gate of the city. Much easier to get out of.
Kathleen doing the Split
by Jim Bellomo | Sep 9, 2022 | Photography
Before I start on Dubrovnik, I will provide an update on our situation onboard. Yesterday (Thursday) afternoon, around 4:00, I received a call from the Hotel Director. He had seen my posts on this blog and on Cruise Critic. He asked me if he could come up and see me. I told him I had been thinking about doing that, but I wasn’t sure what to say. But I said I would love to discuss it and I would come down to his office. Suffice it to say; everything has been settled; he is a wonderful person and has assured me that things were taken care of. I believe him, although we still had problems last night in the dining room…for a while. More about that later.
But the big news here is that while Kathleen was locked away in food poisoning prison, I got to do the shore excursion tour I had planned to do. I had already planned to do this one on my own as it was listed as “strenuous” and it was—STRENUOUS!
The tour was called “A Guided Tour of the Top of the Walls in Old Dubrovnik.” What that meant was we climbed to the top of the Old Dubrovnik fortifications (see photo above) and walked all the way around the city. My watch told me that my elevation had changed enough for me to have climbed 37 flights of stairs and the walk itself is around three miles with a ton of ups once you are on top of the wall. Funny that I can’t remember anything going down until we finished the walk and were leaving.
Suffice it to say that the views were amazing, the walk was an awesome place to take pictures and the guide (Nicolina) was the best we have had on the entire trip. We left the ship at 9:45 (I wish we had left earlier so the climb would be a little cooler) and took a coach downtown arriving in about 20 minutes. Lots of one-lane roads make for some really fun traffic. As soon as we were off the bus and in the old city, Nicolina had us climbing the walls. From that point on, I am going to let my pictures do the talking (or viewing), but I do want to say upfront that you may recognize some of the things in the photos because this is where much of Game of Thrones was filmed. Dubrovnik was the stand-in for Westeros. So keep an eye open for things you might recognize if you are a fan of the show. And again, don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
We woke up to our ship pulling in behind a German cruise line’s ship
And next to a really big bridge
In a busy harbor
With lots of boats coming and going
But some peaceful spots as well
We were off to the walls with Nicolina
That’s where we are headed
Up these very steep and slippery stairs
FInally got to the first level
The round thing is a well that still has drinkable water
The rest of these shots are so many views from the walls.
I am not going to caption all of them unless there is something special about that shot.
Just know that we walked and walked and walked.
The fortress across the way. Nice neighbors.
A small bay below the walls
So many kayaks.
Everywhere we went it was laundry day.
People actually live in and next to the walls.
Nicolina leads us onward.
There are restaurants on the wall itself.
More laundry
More views
More laundry
Finally saw someone hanging it.
An actual high school that backs onto the walls.Maybe they need a yearbook?
Lots of boats passing by.
This is so reminscent of San Juan, Puerto Rico
Resorts with water access were all along the walls
Looking back at the walls that we had already walked.
The front of the palace.
Biggest tighty whities we have ever seen.
Boats entering the yacht harbor.
Loved the splash of red here.
The yacht harbor.
Looking down into some pretty spectacular gardens
In the distance is the Dubrovnik version of The Spanish Steps
These balconies were some of the only ones to survive an earthquake in the sixties.
There are cable cars going up the mountain above the city.
This is the highest point on the wall. Of course I had to go up.
Here’s the view from up there
On our way down.
The gardens of the Benedictine Monastery.
Back on the ground
And the spigots on the well look like this. Lots of people filling water bottles.
I think that is where I am going to stop with Dubrovnik. We are about to get to Chioggia, our port for Venice. Just a note that we will be off the ship until Sunday and staying in Venice. We will be back on the ship on Sunday and I will fill you in on our visit to Split, Croatia, as well as on our three days in Venice and our time onboard.
We build too many walls and not enough bridges. —Sir Isaac Newton
by Jim Bellomo | Sep 8, 2022 | Food Experiences, Photography
The Sail In
On Tuesday morning, I (and a lot of others on the ship) were up early for an incredible sail-in to our next port, Kotor, Montenegro. Check out this map to see where we had to sail in order to get from the Adriatic Sea to our pier in Kotor. 
It takes about two hours to sail-in from the sea to the port. Along the way, you can see so much, and it takes place during my favorite time of my photography day—the golden hour. Without further ado, here are my photos from the sail-in. Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
We start the trip in from the sea
All along the way you see buildings like this along the way
Even salt mines
But it is truly beautiful
There are some pretty ritzy homes as well
I mean this is a nice place.
Plus plenty of industrial apparatus
We would pass boats from big to small
And village after village
Churches and castles
A crowd grew in front of the Explorers Lounge
More churches
Another photographer set his glass on a railing so I took this shot to salute the morning.
Hotels and resorts
Ferries criss-cross the sound
Roads run up and down both sides of the sounds
Two small islands in the middle of the sound. One with a church and one forested.
People on the roads stopped to take pictures of Viking Sky as we sailed in.
Loved this castle
Sometimes you have to see what’s behind you.
I love this castle.
Castles on the bluffs
Beautiful villages
The church and the forest as we pass.
Loved this church and the colors below it.
Just going to let you look at the photos
These blue windows gave me a great reflection.
Olives
We had signed up to do a tour of an olive farm and check out their production of olive oil as well as other things. Kathleen was still resting after her bout with food poisoning, so I went off on my own. We drove up a severely twisted, bumpy road to a beautiful olive farm owned and run by three brothers. The far had been in their family for nine generations. He told us his ancestors planted the first olive trees there more than 250 years ago. Those tress still yield as many olives as they ever have.
We started our visit with a traditional Montenegran sweet donut that is dunked into honey. Then we tasted two of their newest products; a wonderful brandy and a kind of sickly sweet liquor made from the brandy and a cocoa-type plant that also grew on the farm. After that (and an encounter with their donkey), we walked about 500 meters to their production facility, and our host showed us their method of picking and pressing the olives. We tasted their olive oil (it was outstanding) and then they served us a “typical” Montenegran luncheon in the room where the old olive press was still in place. The food was “fine” but I did enjoy the tour. Then we were back on the bus and headed back to Kotor. Here’s the photos from the Olives part of the day. Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
Our guide Veronica at one of our stops
DONKEY!
Donuts dipped in honey
The donkey wants some.
200+ year old olive trees
Brandy and chocolate liquor
Holes for new trees to be planted. They won’t bear fruit for 12 years
Showing us how they pick the olives
A three stage press. First the olives are washed here
Then sorted here
and fnally pressed here. The olive oil goes in the silver container
Smart chickens
The door to lunch
In a very dark cave with the old olive press
Lunch time
They also grow pomegranate
Figs
Flowers
And grapes that are almost raisins to try their hand at making Amarone wine.
Kotor City and my hill climb
After my tour, I came back and went to lunch with Kathleen. She was feeling better (this was before they imprisoned her) and needed to get something in her stomach. After lunch and some time in the stateroom, I wanted to walk back into the city. Since we would be there until 10:00 pm that night, I thought I could go walk into the city in the afternoon and gauge how long a walk it was and then talk Kathleen into coming in after the sun was down and the temperatures were more moderate.
So I wandered through the city (see pics) and took a bunch of photos, and then at one point, I found myself in front of a shop talking to a local artist about their work (I eventually bought one of her smaller pieces), and I asked her where the path up to the old church on the hill started. You can see the old church and its relationship to the city in the picture on the right.
She replied that it was right behind her shop and that if I decided to climb up, I should be very careful because there were at least 15 falls a day going up or down, and there had already been 11 that day. I asked her if I did go up and if she had any tips for me. She had one, “Stay on the steps, stay off the stones.” She was right. The stones that made up most of the path (you can see them next to the steps in my photos) were mostly old granite and marble that had been worn down to a very slick surface meaning that on the way up, it was very difficult to climb and on the way down, it was a real fall hazard. But I decided to try it using those steps. I should let you know that climbing the wall costs 8 euro (I think they should pay you! ?). The climb itself was a good one. And in the heat, while I didn’t regret doing it, I wouldn’t do it again and wished I had done it in the evening.
But the views! What incredible views. Take a look at the photos. Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
The ship tied up at the only pier in Dubrovnik.
Always good to know where you are.
The moat around the old city
The gate into the old city
Above the gate, this guardian
The old clock tower. A great story is behind it.
The piazzas looked a lot like Italy
A different view of the clock tower
Love the streets in the old cities
The cathedral
Did I mention I love the streets
And the stairways
I begin the climb
At this point I thought about turning around.
Getting higher
Halfway to the church
An old guard post on the fortifications
From the guard post turnaround
Finally at the church
An incredible view.
Everywhere I looked
The church itself from closeup
My brother Steve is taking my picture from his verandah
See if you can spot him
The Sky is a pretty ship
Move views from above
This cat was lying on the stairs and just would not move. About 20 people had to go around him.
Cracked me up completely. Just glad it was at a point where the stairs were side
On the way down.
Got to the bottom, talked ot my new artist friend and took a pic of her cat.
Love this arch
And this building. Just intersting.
As were many other parts of town
Seems there are umbrellas all over the world. First saw this in Québec
I liked the lighting on this pizza place
And had to shoot the local farmer’s market just outside the city gates.
And night descends in Kotor
After dinner on the aft deck (which looked like a commercial for Viking), we headed back to the stateroom. Kathleen had not yet been confined and was feeling great so we watched a little TV before I went out on our verandah and saw the beautiful lights of Kotor come up. I shot a couple from our verandah but then decided to go up to deck seven to what has become my favorite place on the ship, The Explorer’s Lounge. There is a forward-facing open deck in front of it that is the perfect place for taking photos, and that’s when I got these other shots, one of which may move into my top 10 shots I have taken in forever. We shall see. Make sure you look at the last photo in this group at full screen.
Just from our verandah
From the front of the ship
I truly love this pic. I literally shouted when I saw it on my Mac screen for the first time.
Report from onboard!
That about covers Kotor. Had a marvelous time. Back on the ship, this was the day before Kathleen’s quarantine confinement, so we had all our meals together. Again both lunch and dinner were in the World Cafe (buffet), and they were excellent. I just happened to be grabbing a dessert at that section of the buffet when the head pastry chef was there. I got a chance to tell him about how I am not a chocolate lover, but anything he has made with chocolate in it has been incredible, starting with the Amarone and chocolate dessert in Manfreddis. This particular night they had announced a Montenegrin dinner featuring local dishes that turned out to be 90% seafood. Kathleen stuck to the bland stuff, but I had seafood salad, prawns, king crab legs and some of the best mussels I have ever had. Oh, and I forgot to mention that at lunch that day, they had a Barolo braised short rib that was sooooooo good that as Primo said in The Big Night, “I have to KILL myself.”
A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in.
—Robert Orbin
by Jim Bellomo | Sep 5, 2022 | Food Experiences, Photography
After that long night of lousy sleep due to the firmness (HARD) mattress, I got up and did my usual pre-dawn deck walk. I am a walker and my usual day includes five miles of walking. So I was thrilled to see that the Viking ships have a quarter-mile track on deck 2 all the way around the ship. Did a five miler before breakfast, grabbed my sweetie and we had an excellent breakfast back in the buffet. Above is what the village we disembarked in (Katakolon) looked like.
Then it was off on our tour. We had chosen to go beyond the included tour to do one called, “Syrtaki, Greek Food & Ancient Olympia.” What we got were two tours. One half was the included tour of hell (oops, I meant Olympia) and the other was absolutely wonderful food and dance experience at Syrtaki. Let me explain.
The included tour was just to the ruins of Olympia. Don’t get me wrong, Olympia is fine. But to me, it’s basically another big pile of rocks. I go on vacation for two reasons. To meet people in new places and to take pictures. I am a travel photographer. For this first half of this tour, there wasn’t much I could take pictures of. Rock are rocks. Seen one (like on the Acropolis yesterday), and you have kind of seen them all. I did get a few pics but not great ones. Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
Our guide Anastasia
Look rocks
A building made of rocks
Some stacked rocks
A really tall column made out of stacked rocks
This part was cool. This is where they light the Olympic flame every four years.
When I said that our tour of Olympia was “hell” it was because of something Viking could not control—the temperature. It was well over 90 in the shade and probably well over 100 in the sun. My lovely bride does not react well to heat so she stayed at the entrance under a shady tree while I did the Bataan Death March of ancient Greek ruins.
After that we got to experience one of our least favorite things on “luxury coach” tours with a lot of people, we got to wait almost 40 minutes for one couple who was late arriving back to the bus. In fact, our driver drove around trying to find them, thinking they were in another parking lot. Our guide walked all the way back to the ruins (quite a ways) but couldn’t find them. Turns out they had tired out coming back and taken a taxi to our next stop by had neglected to tell the guide or the bus driver. So much fun.
Our next stop was the Greek food cooking and tasting part of the excursion. The place we went was beautiful and they jumped right in pouring water and wine and getting food demos started with six from our group making tzatziki. Then another group made zucchini fritters (deep fried) to go with the tzatziki. Finally, the last group rolled out some phyllo dough to make Greek cheese pies (also deep fried). As soon as they had those done they invited everyone to not only eat those but an entire buffet spread. It all looked incredible but since we were going to Manfreddis that night we decided to eat light. We tried a few things and loved them all.
At this point (realize it is now 5:15 pm and the ship wants everyone back by 6:00) and a troupe of Greek dancers starts to entertain. We thought, OK, they will do two dances and we will be out of here in plenty of time to get back by 6:00 (the ship was about 35 minutes away). But no, they danced right up until 5:45 and the big problem was…they were GREAT! Hilarious. I have to say that everyone had a wonderful time with them. They dragged a bunch of people onto the dance floor and even had some people dancing on the tables. They were outstanding. Here are some very fun pics I got to take. As you can see, I made photo friends with the big guy.
Let the food demos begin
I just buy Phyllo dough. I could never roll it thin enough
Time for dancing
We think the group was a mom, dad, daughter and son-in-law
But who knows for sure
They could really dance
But more than that, they were just fun.
I loved shooting the leader. He has an awesome face.
I will let the next few pics speak for themselves. Just know I loved shooting the action.
This one might be my favorite
We met Susan from Nebraska who was traveling alone. I promised to send her pics of herself.
The buffet they put out was quite a spread. Really only tried an eggplant dish that I LOVED!
Here’s my new buddy in full on action
This man can whistle louder than any human I have ever heard
And he has a one word vocabulary.
Opa!
Opa!
Opa!
Everybody dance.
That’s when we use Kathleen’s hip and my giant camera to get out of stuff
Opa!
Opa!
We finally got out of there at 5;45 and the bus raced (he passed four cars in a BIG BUS) back to the ship where we arrived at 6:15. Good thing we were on a Viking excursion otherwise we might have missed the ship. We would do the second half of this excursion again; just the food and dancing.
Back on board, it was a quick shower and change of clothes to make a 7:00 pm Manfreddis reservation. We thought…this is it. We will really get to see the best of Viking food and service. Sadly, this was not to be the case. Again we were seated and got bread and water and then about 20 minutes passed and we got wine. We were NOT offered a wine list (I will give you that we did not ask for it because our server came to the table with two bottles of Italian wine and said “red or white”). We will ask in the future. We just got wine. The red was a decent Sangovise and the white a decent Pinot Grigio.
About 10 minutes later our order was taken. I have to say one of the things I really do not like is the use of the little iPhone/iPods to take orders. I have no problem with technology, I have made my living using it, but this makes the interaction with the server very impersonal. They are so busy looking at the screen that they never acknowledge things that they might see if they are just jotting things down on a pad of paper. We found out that each thing on their device has choices. For instance, let’s say I order a steak. They click steak. Then they must choose which steak, then they choose how I want it, then if I want a sauce with it. All of these are choices they have to read, rather than me just telling them I want the ribeye, medium rare. That would take two seconds and they could interact with me while they are doing it but with the devices, their heads are buried in them. And if someone else at the table says, “Oh, that sounds good, I will have that too,” it screws up the whole thing. They can’t just mark a 2 next to the order, they have to start all over again. Viking is doing themselves a disservice to be using these.
Again we waited for our appetizers (but not as long as the night before), and they and the entrées arrived when they should. Wine glasses were kept full. The only real complaint about the service was that my brother had been waiting for the fabled Manfreddis’ ribeye and when they brought him his, he got a New York steak. This time, instead of asking for the right steak he just ate it so we wouldn’t have to wait for him to get his order late to start eating. I should also point out that they had three kinds of sauces to go on the steaks. One was a “balsamic sauce” which I ordered. When it didn’t arrive with the steak I asked for it and our server brought me back a small bowl of balsamic vinegar. That’s not sauce. That’s vinegar. I didn’t realize she had done that and poured in on my steak.
Now let’s talk about the food itself. And speaking of the steak, I left about half of my ribeye because a quarter of it was fat and the other quarter was too tough to chew. That’s just sad. I also love calamari. I have eaten calamari as two complete courses in the Tuscan Grille on Celebrity ships before. I was excited to try Vikings. Disappointment! It was beyond boring. It reminded me of an old snack food that was in the shape of a bugle but tougher. And it was supposed to have a balsamic aioli with it but I couldn’t taste any balsamic in it.
I must admit I had a side of risotto with escargot in it that was the best thing I have eaten since we came on board…right up until I tried the chocolate Amarone dessert. It is the hands-down best chocolate I have ever eaten and I am not a big chocolate eater. Deep, dark and rich.
It was then off to bed (I did have a mattress topper but it wasn’t much better). Tomorrow (today as I write this) we are in Corfu and it has been a really nice day. More about that tomorrow…I hope.
I have a long view of history – my orientation is archaeological because I’m always thinking in terms of ancient Greece and Rome, ancient Persia and Egypt. —Camille Paglia
