A tale of two restaurants

It was the best of meals, it was the worst of meals ...

Actually, not the worst, it just went with the title. Stay tuned on this ...

So our first port day, but not until late afternoon, so we decided to a late breakfast at the buffet. Once again, a lot of choices but I settled on a eggs bennie with some bacon. Because of the drink package, we could get better OJ which was interesting to me. I also liked that the servers came around with a plate of pastries. Nice touch.

During breakfast we heard that the galley tour started at 11. I've been on a few on Princess, but Beth's never been so we headed to the restaurant for that. It started with the Cruise director introducing the various department heads, and then a long q&a while they called groups of 2-20 people for their tour through the main galley. Why the number varied was that as you entered or stood in line to enter, you were given a ticket with a group number. Some groups were very small so I guess people left.

Our group was headed by one of the pastry chefs - I think the head pastry honcho. We went through various salad, main, side, etc stations. As I learned on previous tours, entrees are cooked to order, although some things that take hours are prepared in advance, much like a restaurant. We also learned that they have a completely separate area for preparing food for those with allergies, or gluten issues. The tour ended at the entrance to the specialty restaurants with a redo of the food demos and the crew ready to take your reservations. They do push those restaurants hard.

We then took a brief break before lunch and then headed to the dining room. Lunch is on deck four (we are in fixed and on deck 3) so that was interesting. We were seated at a table for 8 with a group of four from Montreal. We enjoyed talking with them. However, we both ordered the every day beef hotdog, and they brought Beth a sandwich by mistake. The waiter sent the assistant waiter for a hot dog and it took many minutes for it to arrive. And by many, I'm talking over 10 minutes - at one point the hostess from the front came by and asked how everything was - we pointed out that she still hadn't received her food. She went to go check, but it still took a while - by the time she got everyone else was just about done. If this were a restaurant, the meal would have been comped. It did eventually arrive, but with not even an apology. The servers also slightly messed up the desserts as well. Overall the service has been very good, so this was surprising. ,br>
From the table, we watched the sail in to San Juan. After lunch, we decided to head to Cafe Bacio (notice this is becoming our favorite hangout) to meet with some Cruise Critic folk to head into town for drinks for us, drinks and dinner for them.

A couple of people showed up, but it was supposed to be 6 of us. We waited about 15 minutes, then gave up and headed off the ship. Luckily, we were docked in Old San Juan, so walking distance from just about everything. Beth wanted a Walgreens and there was one right there. We didn't know where the bar was that our group was going to, but Michelle (one of our group) knew the name, and I had google maps and Waze, so we found it. It's on the rooftop of a small hotel. When we got up there, the rest of our group was there, so we settled in for some conversation and really good strawberry mojitos. We also order some fried cheese balls to have something to eat with my drink. It turned out it was happy hour, so two for one Mojitos. Whoo hoo!

After a while we left to do the drugstore run and headed back to the ship. We opted to skip the comedian for the night, and just did a Cafe Bacio run followed by in room relaxing before dinner.

We fully expected our tablemates to be there tonight since none of said we were eating in town. We headed to our entrance and were told it was closed, because there was only open seating due the late departure. They then told us to go up a deck to the open seating level. When we arrived, we asked to share a table for 6, not 8. They told us they only had tables for 2, and took us to one in the back area of the dining room. It was a a table for 4, so they could have added a couple of people. They handed us the menu, and in looking at it, we realized it was the menu that was listed as the menu for the next day on the onscreen menus. We decided that was the least appealing menu, and that's why we'd booked specialty for it, so maybe we'd leave and throw ourselves on the mercy of the specialty restaurant host to see if we could move the night.

On arrival, they said they were booked, but if we could wait until 9pm they would likely have a table for us. Another host came by and pointed out a table we could have. We were in!

Dinner was in Murano, the steakhouse/french restaurant. We had a great server from Serbia, who explained you could either have the 5 course fixed menu or the a la carte menu. Both were the same price, it was just how you ordered. We opted to start with 3 shared appetizers - a poached pear in phyllo, a goat cheese souffle and caprese salad. All were excellent, although the caprese salad was the least interesting. We skipped the optional caviar course, and went straight to entrees, rack of lamb for Beth, veal for me. Both very good. For dessert, we did the souffles (Grand Marniar for me, Chocolate for Beth) and also split a strawberry crepe, with the sauce flambed table side.

By this time it was after 11 and we were sailing - up to the room, actually call Glen, and bed. Tomorrow - St. Thomas.