Late Night at the Windjammer

We had a long first day on our Quantum trip. An early wakeup time, embarkation, ship exploring, more steps and flights of stairs than we had had in quite a while, followed by a multi-course dinner and a full-length Broadway performance of Mamma Mia. The show was fantastic (the entertainment, for the most part, was one of the standout parts of the Quantum experience), but by the end of it, we were feeling a little bit peckish, so we headed up to the Windjammer, since we had heard they were open 24 hours (even though the daily itinerary listed their dinner closure at 9 pm, so it was all very confusing).

There wasn't a whole lot of food out. There was some hot and cold stuff that looked like it was leftover from lunch and dinner, and of course, the famous fresh-baked cookies. We had heard rumors of some 24 hour grill, but we didn't see anyone grilling anything as we looked around, and whole sections of the buffet were closed or roped off. So we just filled up a couple of plates with some snacks from the food we did see laid out.

M's plate:

I got a chocolate chip cookie (still too crispy for me) and a cookie that looked like it should be a soft and chewy sugar cookie, but was really a crispy, sugar-free, sugar cookie-looking cookie (flavorless and disappointing). I also got a small spoonful of baba ghanoush (pretty good), some string bean salad (fine), a spoonful of a sliced meat salad (I forgot what meat was on the label, but it was okay), and a little bit of a DIY salad with some spinach leaves, tomatoes, and shredded mozzarella with oil and vinegar (fine). After our heavier dinner, I was clearly gravitating towards things that were light (other than the cookies). Overall, my buffet plate was fine, but nothing special.

A's plate:

I also got a flavorless, hard, sugar-free sugar cookie, and I paired it with a white chocolate chip and cranberry cookie which was just okay. I also got that lunch meat salad which I enjoyed more than M. I thought it had a decent vinegar kick to go with the cabbage and salty processed meat. I then picked up one single mozzarella ball and some beef shawarma. The mozz ball was good enough, it was mozz. The shawarma was a bit dried out and tough, and it didn't have that much spice to it either. Oh well.

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We found out later that apparently the section where we were getting our food was the 24 hour grill and that the guy there would make whatever you wanted on the grill. The only problems were that we learned that after we got home and we didn't remember seeing anything made-to-order like that on our first day. We weren't the only ones confused by the "24 hour option" on this cruise, and since we weren't that impressed by it on day 1, we never went back there for another late night snack, opting for the Cafe Promenade and Sorrento's combo (more on that another time) instead. This wasn't like other cruises we'd been on (like the Carnival Glory) which set out a bountiful late night buffet. This just looked like leftovers.