St. Thomas afternoon
Today is Saturday, 2/5/2005
Arrived back at Diamond and ready for some lunch. The Grill is a Mexican Buffet today. We went up and nothing really looked good to either of us. We will finally have lunch in the Grand Dining Room. We get a table by the big windows and can watch small sightseeing boats come and go from the dock.
After lunch we stroll around the Havensight Mall and up and down the dock. I checked cameras here too, same stuff with higher prices than St. Maarten. The cab drivers have both said that there are 5 ships in town today and that Charlotte Amalie is a zoo. We decide that we definitely do not need to partake of that. We go in and work on the jigsaw puzzle some more, and do some packing. Debbie wants to go to the Chocoholic Tea this afternoon and we have signed up for and received our invitation to the Galley Tour. The tour is at 4pm and the Chocoholic Tea is from 4-5pm.
We are met outside The Grand Dining Room by Executive Chef Rolando Cornejo with champagne and started the Galley Tour just off The Grand Dining Room on Deck 8. This is the prep kitchen and where they prepare room service meals. Then we go down one level to the pastry kitchen and refrigerators. He only unlooks the vegetable refrigeration room for us to look in. Debbie sees the first raspberries of the cruise in the dessert area of the pastry kitchen. We then we go down one more level to the working kitchen. They are preparing the dinner for the crew. They tell us that they are making chicken and rice for the Filipinos and roast beef for the Europeans. Rolando tells us the food service and food and beverage servers personnel are all Filipino. He is asked about the menus and is a little vague but appears to be saying that he gets menus from corporate, and he orders provisions from the master on the ship and the orders are done locally. He is asked how often he repeats menus, to our shock he replies every 14 days. He is asked if this is true and longer cruises and replies, yes. Debbie is incredulous. She jumps in and asks him specifically about the World Cruise, if we sail for 122 nights, we will repeat the menus every 14 days, he is firm in replying yes, the menus will always repeat every 14 days. We are both stunned. We cruised for 45-days on Orient Lines' old Crown Odyssey and never once repeated a menu, though we did repeat about 6 different dishes for a couple of times, we never repeated an entire menu. We did not think OrientLines were really a class act compared to RSSC, but if Rolando is correct, we will have to reevaluate our opinions of both lines. He was firm in his reply. He opened a door to release us and we found ourselves by the gangway entrance on Deck 6. It is a 3-story kitchen.
We are off to the Chocoholic Tea. We enjoyed the grape and banana skewers dipped in chocolate the best.
We go back to the room and pick out final outfits so we can continue with the packing. We shower and watch the sailaway from our balcony and are ready for dinner.
