Auckland to Alaska

the ship’s condensers and desalination system.

Nine dedicated kitchens on board are staffed by 170 cooks and 60 cleaners. Along with waiting staff, a grand total of 515 crew members are involved in the onboard dining experience. Menus are dictated by length of voyage, age and ethnicity of passengers and areas being cruised. A trip through one of the vast stainless steel galleys gave some idea of the industrial scale of the enterprise.

Soft food waste is put through chopping blades and goes into holding tanks to be treated with chemicals which make it environmentally safe to discharge at sea. Hard food waste is off-loaded in port, along with all recyclable material.

We found the food variety and quality outstanding and the Horizon Court became our go to place for most meals. Here, in the buffet setting, the ship’s cooks provided a constantly changing variety of food with themes such as Bavarian night, Italian and French menus, Thai, Chinese and Japanese-influenced offerings as well as the standard fare expected by the mainly American, European and Asian passengers.

When it came to the dessert section, cakes and puddings were positioned opposite the fresh fruit display. Time and again I would pause, like Good Cop/Bad Cop in the Lego Movie, my head spinning one side to the other as I agonised over choice. I usually failed to avoid the creamy delights, but piled on a good portion of fruit, too, in a lame attempt to limit calorific damage.

Fifteen or so days into the trip and, despite numerous trips to the gym and power walks around the promenade deck, my waistline was beginning to burgeon. Then fate stepped in. Hurrying up an outside stairway in my sandals, I stubbed a big toe against the front of a metal step. Within hours it was almost too swollen and painful to walk on.

I could have retreated to my cabin and had our obliging steward Dusit bring me sustenance, but even I knew when I was being thrown a lifeline. Besides, several days of two codeine four times a day had taken the edge off my appetite. I limped up to Deck 15 and the Horizon Court for main meals only, ate modestly for a change, and within days I’d won the battle of the bulge, or at least halted it.

Back in Auckland, I found I had put on three kilos — not good, I know, but a far better outcome than it could have been, thanks to nature’s curve ball. Will we cruise again? Absolutely, though I’ll try not to fall into the trap of visiting the food court six times a day on sea days. Oh, and I may keep my trainers on when I’m not in the pool.