After roughly 3 hours of waiting, my shift at the Viking Line smorgasbord came at 7:30 pm.
This is one experience that travel writer Rick Steves heartily recommends springing for. Given that I was a little sad to leave Stockholm for unknown Finland and a little down on the cruise-ship experience so far, I was looking forward to dinner and showed up promptly.
The food all looks great. They had lots of different types of fruits, veggies, meats, and desserts. They have soft drinks, juice, beer, and both red and white wine all on tap. They even had a couple of stations where a chef stood with a long knife ready to cut one a portion of perfectly cooked prime rib.
I'll cover the good part first. Vegetables and fruit and cold cuts are hard to mess up and they were all fine. But the beer didn't taste right; perhaps they water it down since they figure people are getting it free. The white wine was very dry and weak and the red wine tasted sour.
I tried a little of several of the desserts: a little cake, a little tiramisu, a little chocolate ice cream. None of it was particularly palatable. Even the chocolate ice cream was mostly bland and just sweet.
Since they made a big show of controlling one's access to the prime rib and it looked wonderfully cooked with a brown outer crust and a nice pink core, I figured that might be the highlight; so I got two pieces. It was so tough and tasteless that I couldn't force myself to finish more than a third of it.
Worse yet, there is assigned seating in such large-scale feasts. I suppose it's the only reasonable way to manage big crowds in limited space. My table was almost empty. After I sat down, there was an older man who sat down. I looked up and started to say something, but he didn't look like he wanted to talk. So I kept quiet and he said nothing to me....throughout the whole dinner. In fact, the only sounds I heard him vocalize were some indications of disgust. It wasn't clear what they were directed at: me, life, the dismal food, the dining experience, or something else.
After an hour or so, he left. Having little to look forward to when I left, I stayed at the table alone and got a few extra cups of weak coffee and relaxed, now that there wasn't a sense of hostility at the table.
This is one experience that travel writer Rick Steves heartily recommends springing for. Given that I was a little sad to leave Stockholm for unknown Finland and a little down on the cruise-ship experience so far, I was looking forward to dinner and showed up promptly.
The food all looks great. They had lots of different types of fruits, veggies, meats, and desserts. They have soft drinks, juice, beer, and both red and white wine all on tap. They even had a couple of stations where a chef stood with a long knife ready to cut one a portion of perfectly cooked prime rib.
I'll cover the good part first. Vegetables and fruit and cold cuts are hard to mess up and they were all fine. But the beer didn't taste right; perhaps they water it down since they figure people are getting it free. The white wine was very dry and weak and the red wine tasted sour.
I tried a little of several of the desserts: a little cake, a little tiramisu, a little chocolate ice cream. None of it was particularly palatable. Even the chocolate ice cream was mostly bland and just sweet.
Since they made a big show of controlling one's access to the prime rib and it looked wonderfully cooked with a brown outer crust and a nice pink core, I figured that might be the highlight; so I got two pieces. It was so tough and tasteless that I couldn't force myself to finish more than a third of it.
Worse yet, there is assigned seating in such large-scale feasts. I suppose it's the only reasonable way to manage big crowds in limited space. My table was almost empty. After I sat down, there was an older man who sat down. I looked up and started to say something, but he didn't look like he wanted to talk. So I kept quiet and he said nothing to me....throughout the whole dinner. In fact, the only sounds I heard him vocalize were some indications of disgust. It wasn't clear what they were directed at: me, life, the dismal food, the dining experience, or something else.
After an hour or so, he left. Having little to look forward to when I left, I stayed at the table alone and got a few extra cups of weak coffee and relaxed, now that there wasn't a sense of hostility at the table.
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