First impressions of fine dining on board an Oceania cruise ship
One of Food and Travel’s food writers tries her first cruise on a ship that promises ‘the finest cuisine at sea’. Will it pass muster? Join her on her maiden voyage to find out
Name: Rosemary Barron Travelling with: Friend Usual holiday: Exploring, anywhere and everywhere Favourite food: Greek Type of cruise: Mid-size ship, ocean
Captain Duane isn’t how I’d imagined him. He doesn’t have a hat, there are no epaulettes on his shoulder and no starched white shirt. His uniform consists of Bermuda shorts, a vest and a grin that hasn’t left his face since he fired up the motor. OK, so Duane isn’t in charge of Oceania’s luxurious 1,250-sleeper Marina cruise ship, but on his small fishing boat, he’s the man in the know.
That’s the first thing that surprises me about cruising. Where I expected formality and anonymity, it’s this kind of personal, small-group excursion that immerses you in the destinations you pass through. Duane cuts his boat’s motor on Belize’s Harvest Caye lagoon as Curtis, our eagle-eyed guide cries, ‘Look to one o’clock’, to make sure that we see the manatees. Although these mammalian gentle giants are vegetarian – they paddle along the shallow lagoon bed, uprooting and dining on water hyacinths as they go – the mangrove-lined shore is home to crocodiles, water snakes and barracudas as well as magnificent flocks of blue herons, pelicans and cormorants. It’s a true incarnation of the Belize I’d imagined and read about.
We’d set sail from Miami four days earlier. Our transfer from the hotel had been painless, but my friend and I become alarmed as we approach the ship: it looks enormous. Yet check-in is swift – all done and dusted in half an hour. Equipped with identity cards and an information pack, we take a lift to the eighth deck (there are 11 guest decks) and wonder how we will find our way around without roller skates. I appreciate the size of our cabin though. There’s room to manoeuvre and a veranda large enough for us to spend a happy hour at our table watching the dolphins in the bay, while the ship prepares to depart.
I soon learn that all roads lead to reception, which is useful. If, like me, you are new to cruising, it’s a good idea to embark early, explore the ship, and linger over lunch in the Terrace Café while you do a little people-watching. Suitably settled in, and with a safety drill behind us, we look forward to our first on-board dinner, and to revelling in the warm night air on deck as we travel south-west under the stars to Key West.
Having studied cuisine for most of my adult life – and heard mixed reports of on-board food for nearly as long – it was the prospect of taking most of my meals at sea that had turned me off cruising. Indeed, while some of the food here tries to cater to everyone’s tastes, like the buffet restaurant that serves solid globe-trotting dishes, it’s the local touches such as bringing fruit back from excursions like my one to the mangrove in Belize that make you feel a part of the destinations you visit.
These local flavours inspire cookery courses in the ship’s Culinary Center, too: I choose a practical, hands-on workshop – ‘Amore: Love of Lemons’ – to take full advantage of the abundant Caribbean fruit. We’re taught by Kathryn Kelly,
executive chef and director of culinary enrichment, how to preserve them, and how they add delicate depth to a chicken sauce; how to use the juice to make limoncello and a gloriously gooey cake. Several very able instructors are at hand to help our class of 14, so first-timers to cookery classes can enjoy themselves as much as those with more experience. This is an ideal arrangement for John, a London banker, who considers cake making a more complicated task than reading a spreadsheet. Chef Kelly persuades him otherwise and he’s delighted with the result, even though he adds double the quantity of booze. Classes on offer – knife skills, fish or pasta, tapas, Sicilian or Greek cuisine – vary with each cruise. All this, rather surreally, takes place in a large, attractive workshop with a view of the ocean gliding past and soundtracked by a gentle engine-hum; I muse through some of the less salubrious classrooms I’ve cooked in.
I’m also surprised at the sheer variety of different restaurants. For a group of four well-heeled Americans who can take only short bursts of time off work, the food is ‘the real clincher’ in choosing a cruise. I meet them in Jacques. Named after Jacques Pépin, master chef and author of two excellent practical books on French cuisine, La Technique and La Methode, it transports us back in culinary time. I try a Dover sole, prepared exactly as I’ve enjoyed it on past French travels, with lemon and caper butter. The others choose 28-day dry aged fillet steak, bouillabaisse (fish and lobster stew with saffron broth) and herbed roast chicken, followed by chocolate mousse and tarte aux pommes à la frangipane. We paired this with a 2013 Sancerre and 2009 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir.
I confess that, at first, I had misgivings about being ‘contained’ for a week on a ship, but I soon find myself enjoying my release from the minutiae of life. I’m tickled to discover that the Marina, built in 2011, was designed with more galley space than an aircraft carrier. Where cruise ships of old would have a galley servicing all on-board restaurants, each here has its own, alongside an executive chef, menu and brigade. I take advantage of the buffet-style Terrace Café and its fine grilled lamb chops, rotisserie chicken, salads (green, marinated vegetables, pulses), wide choice of tapas and cold cuts, and sushi and pasta dishes made in front of me. You can match your mood to different bars and the elegant art deco lounge in front of The Grand Dining Room has plenty of nooks and crannies for privacy. Artwork, including lithographs, sculptures and paintings, is on show, adding to a feeling of other-worldliness, while the library is a delightful little bolthole on deck 14.
Our cabin is port side so we need to go up on deck to see the low, palm-fringed shoreline and tiny islets that we pass as we approach Key West, our first port of call. Home to Ernest Hemingway, a favourite writer of
mine, his lovely tree-shaded house proves he was no slouch in living well, either. I stop for a whiskey sour on the worn, wooden deck of a side-street bar, and make a mental note to leave in good time to return to the ship.
It doesn’t seem quite so large to me, now that I have my bearings. But I can already appreciate how useful it is to do some pre-planning. Bill, a veterinary dentist I meet from Ohio, now on his third cruise, goes further in his attention to detail: ‘I book a cabin on the eighth deck or above to minimise the risk of spray landing in my cocktails, and on the starboard side for the best sunsets while I’m drinking them.’ Take a look at the ship’s route before you book and bear in mind where the sun will be setting for the majority of the journey.
It’s a good idea to reserve shore trips (and cookery classes) when you book, as they have a limited number of places that fill quickly. Be aware that some of the shore trips, and the spa, can be expensive extras. As an alternative, turn a stopover into an adventure and grab a local taxi to a nearby beach or town under your own steam.
Planning is easy: each afternoon a newsletter is delivered to your cabin detailing the following day’s events and the ship’s destination. An ideal place to study it is over afternoon tea in The Grand Dining Room, while serenaded by a string quartet. Pray to the weather-God, too, while savouring your scones and clotted cream. One day we spend at sea is windy and Yvonne, a Canadian doctor, is feeling a little frustrated: the small pool is full, and the wind-exposed golf area tricky. She heads instead for a game of bridge. If inclement weather threatens, be sure to book indoor, back-up activities ready to try even if you don’t end up turning up – the cruising veterans will be doing the same.
The morning in Roatán, Honduras, I take my favourite breakfast to have at home on my veranda: fruits, yoghurt, eggs and a baguette as good as any in Paris. As the sun rises, I think about the pirates who, a century or two ago, would ply their trade here, near a coral reef that is second in size only to the Great Barrier Reef. Forsaking a trip to the palm-shaded beaches, I choose a ‘Culinary Discovery Tour’. We head along the island’s one main road for a tropical arboretum full of cocoa palms, cashew trees, pineapples, mangoes, several species of banana, gorgeous orchids and trailing vanilla vines. We also visit a new hydroponic farm, where, with a bedrock of limestone and a low water table, the region’s abundant rainfall is recycled for the shallow-rooted lettuces and green herbs that flourish here. There’s hope that this method of farming is the island’s future and it’s this kind of education and access that I really value.
For lunch, we meet talented local chef Samuel. With great aplomb, and a fearsome-looking coconut grater, he shows us how to make an island favourite, coconut shrimp. ‘Grate fresh coconut, and make a batter of one egg, a little milk, flour and Guinness,’ he tells us; the latter ingredient perhaps a gastronomic reminder of a colonial past, or maybe just a nod to clever technique and his personal preference. ‘Dip the shrimp first in the coconut,’ Samuel continues, ‘then the batter, and fry in hot [190C/375F] oil. You can’t fail.’ Yuca (cassava) fritters, salad and local beer complete this feast.
Back onboard, it dawns on me that I’m actually looking forward to my next meal. I hadn’t expected this. The Marina’s food offering is comparable to good city-dining anywhere, both in its range and authenticity. The cookery teaching is first class and I’ve met local chefs and sampled produce I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to on another kind of holiday. Yet the ship’s design provides peace when I’ve wanted it, and its different restaurants, bars and cafés opportunities for meeting new people. Most people appear to be travelling with partners or friends, but I think a solo traveller would be happy here, too.
To friends who appreciate good food and wine and who want to experience the Caribbean’s unique cuisine in one fell swoop, I shall be recommending this cruise giving some advice from Curtis, our indomitable manatee-finder: ‘YOLO’ or, ‘you only live once’. You are so right, Curtis.