Here's the gang off for a few pre-dinner drinks.
The captain and senior officers host a cocktail night
and guests are invited along. Not everyone gets an invite,
so we were quite lucky . . . it was Tom's doing . . .
he could get a piece at anybody's door.
Jackie & Tom with their traveling companions, David & Tony
I've seen both the old and the new TITANIC films and this cruise lived up to that old-fashioned style.
We arrived at the two-tiered restaurant on the Third Deck in dinner suits and evening gowns.
By now, all the crew had changed from tropical whites to black uniforms.
We were shown to our seats by the restaurant manager and introduced to the two waiters who would look after us, menus were handed out, orders taken for eight people, and not a thing was written down or served incorrectly.
Tom is a vegetarian, so he was always told if any dish had things in it that they thought he wouldn't eat. I don't eat cream or cheese and the waiters made sure if cream was a garnish or decoration, then my dish came without it; they even had a dessert made just for me so the cream could be left out.
The food was superb; each night I would say this is the best meal and the next night it would be better; all meals were five courses. One night the soup was so nice that three of us asked for the recipe - beef and beetroot broth - the waiter came back with a list of ingredients. "There's no quantities," one lady at the table said. Tom replied, "That's 'cause he's just cooked it for 1000 people; the quantities would scare you." (Every week, 75,000 eggs were used.)
Most nights we went to the piano bar for a pre-dinner g&t;
after the first night, the waiter always spoke to us,
remembering our names and our order.
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