Final Quantum Meal

Where to go for our last breakfast (and last meal) on the Quantum was a no-brainer: Devinly Decadence. We really enjoyed the breakfast there so much (even if M was limited in what she could eat compared to a normal day) that we had to return one last time.

M stuck mostly with the meat options and stayed away from the eggs, getting a pork breakfast sausage patty, a turkey chorizo sausage patty, chicken apple sausage with a piece of asparagus, a plain yogurt, and a toasted English muffin. Still playing it safe. Knowing that we had a bit of a wait to get off the ship followed by a drive home, it seemed like the best way to do it.

A got more of the roasted sweet potatoes and turkey chili topped scramble, but this time he added a couple buckwheat blueberry pancakes. He figured that the carbs would be good to tide him over while we waited to disembark the cruise. They were a touch on the dry side, but the blueberries gave it enough moisture to be good. He also grabbed a strawberry yogurt to round things out.

That's it for the Quantum. We've got some wrap-up stuff coming up about our time on the ship and the overall experience, but we're finally done!

Final Windjammer Lunch

M was still taking it a little easy at lunch on our last full day so I just went to Windjammer for one last lunch. I wasn't feeling very inspired as usual so I opted to just get a smattering of random stuff. I got myself a sausage with mustard, a taco, some more curly fries, and some vegetable stew.

Nothing was overly exciting, and after I finished eating I think we both were pretty happy to be done with the Windjammer for this cruise.

Devinly Breakfast Once More

While M was still taking it easy on our final full day's breakfast, we still opted to go to Devinly Decadence because the options for her were better there. The options were mostly still the same. I got another turkey sausage patty, a piece of Devin's Western Eggs, Breakfast Enchiladas, Turkey Chili Topped Scramble Bake, and another Turkey Sausage Scramble.

There isn't much to add to this post since we've written a few times about Devinly Decadence in the past, and this was still a better, healthier breakfast option than the Windjammer. Hopefully if we ever go on another Royal Caribbean cruise they'll have an option like this on the ship.

Windjammer Breadsploration

Since M was still struggling with whatever stomach bug she was suffering from the previous night, I ended up getting out a little later for breakfast and missed the Devinly Decadence time period. I wanted to go to Windjammer anyway, though, to see if I could get M things that would fit BRAT. I was thoroughly disappointed with that and also didn't take pics of what I ate because I was in a rush to get the meager offerings back to M.

We ended up going back to Windjammer for lunch this day as well. After M decided to start skipping all of the not-so-great "fresh baked" cookies earlier in the trip, we'd started avoiding the bakery section until M got sick. I started visiting it more to make sure I could get M some plainer breads while she was recovering, and while up there I also started investigating more of the bread options.

M's mother kept talking about these poppy seed triangles of bread on other Royal Caribbean ships that she loved, but they weren't here. The closest things were just loaves of bread with poppy seeds. On this plate I opted to get a couple slices to see what the deal was. I also wanted some more vegetables so I got some beets and green beans. I'm pretty sure the green beans were meant to be stir fried, but whatever, they were fresh and clean. I also got some rice and topped it with some butter chicken and vegetarian curry. Finally I grabbed a small scoop of chili con carne.

The bread was pretty good, and I could definitely see why M's mother liked it so much. The curry was fairly tasty, but I found that some of the vegetables, eggplant especially, were a little old and tough. The chili con carne was actually quite tasty, but it was also sometimes cool when you got it. The beets and green beans were the clean eating that I desperately needed.

On my next plate I decided that I'd had enough health food and got some curly fries where I witnessed yet more horrible human behavior. Basically some fat lady yelled at the worker for not having the curly fries out and ready when she got there and proceeded to load up two full plates after he finally got it in place. It's this type of disgusting behavior that we saw all over the ship from ultra-entitled guests that really turned us off cruising for a while. I also grabbed some feta and tomato salad and some roasted chicken so that M could try some of it. Finally I got a nice big bowl of watermelon since I love it so much.

Late Windjammer Breakfast

Day 8 of our Quantum voyage brought us to another new country for us, St. Kitts and Nevis. We were in port beginning at 11 am, so we went for breakfast at the Windjammer instead of Devinly Decadence. We don't quite remember whether DD was closed that morning or whether we took advantage of our late start time (the last three ports were 8 or 9 am) to sleep in after our fun (and sunburned) day in Barbados.

St. Kitts looked beautiful from our window seats at the Windjammer, but the food wasn't all that different from past visits. I got pan-fried fish (which was a bit overdone and dry), scrambled eggs with shrimp and peppers (my notes state that the peppers were new and this was "not only in Asian section," whatever that means), corned beef hash (one of the few things I really like at breakfast that was not available in DD), hash browns, a link of pork sausage, some smoked salmon with onions (good and not as salty as the pastrami cured salmon from the other night), and some mushrooms and sautéed spinach.

We think that maybe A got some of the same stuff for his first plate but we don't quite remember and didn't take pictures, other than the first picture up top. I do know that this next picture is of his plate though, since I'm (clearly) not big into breakfast foods. On this visit, he tried a raisin pancake and plain waffle, neither of which he thought were very good and wouldn't get again, as well as some oatmeal. There was no brown sugar in the oatmeal because they ran out (this will be a running theme from here on, in case you haven't realized it) so it was kind of flavorless. To remedy that, he added some toasted coconut and cinnamon but it did very little. Disappointing.

Outside of the smoked salmon, corned beef hash, and vegetables, we didn't see many reasons why the Windjammer was better than DD for breakfast other than their late opening hours. This was my last real visit to the Windjammer for breakfast on this trip, but I had had enough of it that I certainly don't miss it!

Return to the Solarium

The first thing we did on day 6 of our Quantum cruise was head up to Devinly Decadence in the Solarium for breakfast. We were really excited since we had really liked the breakfast options the day before and wanted to see what they would come up with this time.

We found that the buffet was almost exactly the same as the day before, and we picked up a lot of the same stuff. Unlike other buffets where the repeated dishes could get tiresome after a while, we liked the breakfast buffet here so much that we didn't mind if the same dishes were there every single time. There was so much variety to begin with that if you really wanted to, you could eat something different every day (instead of a little bit of everything like we usually did). And the flavors were just so much better and more interesting than the Windjammer. We tried to make it a point to get up early enough to come here for breakfast every day after that.

Devinly Decadence

One of the places we were most excited to eat on the Quantum was Devinly Decadence, the "healthier" restaurant on the ship. Unfortunately at the time that we sailed, lunch and dinner there cost extra, and only breakfast was included. They eventually changed that and made it another free option, but not soon enough for us.

On the fifth day of our trip, we finally got up early enough (they closed before the Windjammer) to make it to Devinly Decadence for breakfast. We were really happy with what we found. Most of the breakfast was a buffet but we found far more interesting things in this buffet than the one was the Windjammer. So many of the dishes had so much more flavor and were made with healthier ingredients. We pretty much decided then and there that any day we could get up early enough, we'd be here for breakfast instead. It also wasn't as crazed as the Windjammer since they didn't have some people's breakfast essentials like bacon and egg yolks.

Some of the stuff we got on our first visit included turkey chili-topped egg white scramble, breakfast enchiladas, sweet potatoes o'brien, turkey chorizo patties, asparagus-chicken apple sausage scramble, and another turkey sausage crumble. Lots of chicken and turkey mixed with seasonings, spices, egg whites. What a difference from the Windjammer.

There was also plenty of yogurt and some sweet snacks (although M greatly preferred eating all the savory stuff they had). A also found the yogurt and savory items far more interesting.

We were really happy with our breakfast. It was great to eat something different and so tasty, and it was the perfect fuel before we headed off for our day in St. Maarten!

Light Salad Snack

Our visit to San Juan was nice, although brief. It's always tough when you're only in port for less than 6 hours, and those hours are in the evening. It really limited what we could do since attractions started closing and there really wasn't enough time or daylight to travel much. Working with the schedule we had, we did have a good time strolling the city, touring the governor's mansion, and having some dinner (that delicious mofongo!) and yogurt.

Once we were back on the ship, for some reason I felt like I really wanted a light snack. I don't know how I could have possibly been that hungry after eating a full dinner and then some yogurt for dessert, but maybe it was that whole "always eating while traveling" feeling I've mentioned before. (To be fair though, it had been at least 2.5 hours since dinner.) The easiest thing to do to try to satisfy those cravings was to head back up to the Windjammer.

I got some more of the tabouli, since it was my favorite thing from lunch, along with some of the chana chaat from the day before and some vegetables from the taco bar. Looking at what I got, it was clear that what my body wanted were things that were light, fresh, and full of vegetables. It was a pretty big contrast with the meat and potatoes people we were people-watching were eating while we were there. (It was truly amazing to me how people could eat solely meat and potatoes and in such a large quantity. I'm clearly not built that way.) It was definitely the type of clean snack I was looking for after our time in San Juan and hit the spot. An hour later, we were back in Sorrento's eating some (less healthy) pizza, but after 26,000+ steps and 100+ floors (according to my Fitbit) that day, we earned it.

Eat'n Park

We were completely exhausted when we finally arrived at our hotel in Uniontown, and our first task was to figure out what to do for dinner. There weren't a ton of options near our hotel, so when I did all the research before the trip, I had bookmarked places as far away as Ohiopyle (about a 30 minute drive) and Morgantown, West Virginia (about a 40 minute drive). We were pretty tempted by a Kenyan restaurant in Morgantown (since there were no Kenyan restaurants that we knew of in NYC), but in the end, we were just too tired and sick of being in the car (and we had an early morning scheduled). There was an Eat'n Park down the street, so we decided to just go there. While A had been to other outlets of theirs before, I had only ever seen them from the interstate. Since they're a small chain only in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, it seemed appropriate that we would visit them during our Pennsylvania road trip.

Eat'n Park turned out to be the perfect place to grab dinner after a long day on the road, mostly because of their salad bar. Each of our orders that night came with one side, and instead of a side, we could substitute the (unlimited) salad bar for a few extra dollars. Unlimited soup and salads, tons of fresh vegetables after an exhausting travel day? Perfect. Of course we were going to do that.

There were a bunch of soups at the buffet bar, and I went straight for the wedding soup. Chicken broth, pasta, meatballs, vegetables, just a really soothing choice. It was getting really cool out when we arrived in Western PA (just a couple of days after near 100 degree temperatures in the middle of the state) and this soup was so incredibly comforting and warming.

In addition to make your own salad stuff which was all really fresh, there were also a lot of prepared salads at the salad bar, like cole slaw and beet salad and corn salad and many more. This was exactly what we wanted after a not so healthy (but tasty) lunch and all that time in the car.

After some soup and salad, our entrees turned up. A got the mushroom and onion burger, which they proclaimed had taken first place at some national hamburger festival. It came with grilled onions and mushrooms, as well as a choice of cheese (A got pepper jack). While the burger itself tasted fine, A wondered what other burgers it might have been pitted against to win that festival. It was good but nothing special.

I got the habanero chicken sandwich, which was described as "spicy cajun seasoned grilled chicken with our own jalapeno sauce, crisp lettuce, and topped with grilled bell peppers, habanero jack cheese, and thinly sliced red onions." The sandwich was pretty good - very basic but a good combination of fresh ingredients. It was a nice healthy choice, and I was all about trying to eat healthy that night.

Our sandwich and burger didn't come with any sides since we did the salad bar option, so we continued going up to the salad bar even after our entrees arrived. There was more soup to be had, like this chicken noodle soup, also perfect for a cold night.

We just couldn't get enough of all the fresh vegetables at the salad bar. It's not always easy to find affordable salad or fresh vegetable options when traveling (or even at home, really), as so many restaurants are so starch and meat based, that we loved having this as an option on the trip.

When we were leaving, we passed by a Smiley cookies display. I didn't know much about these at the time, but Smiley is apparently like a mascot for the restaurant, or as their website puts it, "a life-sized representation of Eat'n Park's commitment to making people smile." That's a philosophy I can get behind. The world needs more smiles.

We got a cookie on the way out to eat back at the room. It got a little cracked on the way back to the hotel. It was raining really hard when we were running from the car to the hotel's door, and I clenched hard on the cookie instead of just putting it in my pocket. From what I remember, this was like a frosted sugar cookie. It was a little bit harder than a standard sugar cookie, but it was obviously not so hard that it didn't crack.

We were pretty happy that we decided to stop at Eat'n Park that night instead of traveling further away. The food was good, and it gave us a chance to relax in a casual, comfortable spot close to our hotel. It was just what we needed before heading to Fallingwater early the next morning, and we were glad we went.

Almost to San Juan

We went to the Windjammer again for lunch on day 4 of our Quantum trip, but not because we had planned on it. After our unsatisfying lunch at Two70, we were hoping that the Windjammer would have something else to eat that would hopefully be tastier.

I picked up a lentil salad (lentils not cooked enough), tuna nicoise salad (okay), tabouli (good), baba ghanoush (good), a little salad that I put together myself (fine), Asian stir fry vegetables (okay), and egg and ground pork fried rice (okay). It wasn't amazing, but some of it was still better than Two70.

We finally remembered to take a picture of what A got this time. He hadn't been impressed at all by the Windjammer any day we had gone before and found plenty of things he didn't want to get again. He was also getting increasingly annoyed by all the names of the different buffet stations. Why bother naming sections different things like "Cafe Rustica" or "International Flavors" when pretty much every section was the same? Even the "fresh and crisp" section was a bunch of canned fruit in syrup. There was nothing fresh or crisp in that section. Regardless, A pieced together a meal whenever he was there, and despite the lack of pictures, he did find a way to eat enough.

This plate consisted of one spare rib, some potato salad, an actual "fresh" salad with oil and vinegar, and some butter chicken. Everything was, as noted, just okay, but not so amazing that he needed to go back for seconds. The salad was nice enough since fresh vegetables were good to have when stuffing your face with heavier foods every night.

One of the best parts about this lunch was that we were sailing in to San Juan (can't believe it's taken us so long to get to this point) and got to see our first glimpses of the island from the big windows in the Windjammer. Finally, our rocky sea days were going to be over and we would be hitting our first port!

Jacob Restaurant

We were up in Harlem a couple of weeks ago looking at some open houses, which made it a perfect opportunity to try out a new place for lunch. We tried heading over to a Yemeni restaurant first, but we forgot it was a Muslim holiday weekend, and they were closed. Same thing for the Senegalese cafe we tried to visit next. After walking to both of those, we were running short on time so we hit up one place we had seen open during our travels - Jacob Restaurant, a "soul food and salad bar" with seating in the back.

According to the history in the window, Jacob Restaurant was the first black owned buffet in the area, and they prepared all the food without trans fats. We could totally get behind both of those. Not only that, but as we filled up our boxes at the buffet, we could hear live music in the back room, so it seemed like a great atmosphere. (While sitting back there eating, the music was pretty loud for such a small room, but it was still nice.) If you're wondering, it's not an all you can eat place, but they charge by the pound. The rate was quite reasonable, though, compared to places in Midtown.

M's buffet plate:

I got a lot of different things from the buffet, all from the hot section, little bits of lots of dishes so I could try as much as possible. I think I walked around the hot section 3 times to make sure I didn't miss anything and tried everything I wanted to get. In the end, I got Jamaican rice and peas, baked chicken, baked salmon, lima beans with smoked turkey necks, okra, mac and cheese, collard greens with turkey, spaghetti with meat sauce, green beans, onions and peppers from the curry goat dish, jerk chicken, and chicken stuffing. I also tried a little of A's cornbread, which I found to be much sweeter than I was expecting.

If you're wondering why I got lima beans considering my dislike for them, I thought maybe lima beans cooked by a professional would make me like them (I haven't completely given up on that quest), but it turned out they weren't the little green lima beans that I'm not a fan of, but the bigger white ones like in my favorite fasoulia. Out of everything I picked up, my favorites were probably the chicken stuffing and the baked salmon, but it was nice having so many vegetables in the meal.

A's buffet plate:

I knew a lot of the things that M would get so I tried to get some other things as well to have a little variety. I was in a fried chicken mood so I ended up grabbing a couple drumsticks, and I also got one piece of curry goat and a carrot that was in the stew. The last big thing that I got that M didn't, aside from the cornbread she mentioned, was the candied yam. I also got the mac and cheese, collard greens, stewed okra, green beans, stuffing, and lima beans.

The fried chicken was good but not spectacular. The breading didn't have much overall seasoning, but it was a solid fried chicken. I probably didn't need two drums, but I just really like fried chicken. The curry goat was a little on the dry/tough side. The flavor was there, but I think the meat had been sitting in the steam tray too long and ended up overcooking. The carrot was nice because stewed carrots soak up so much flavor when they cook. The candied yam was mostly just for a treat. I like using that as something of a dessert when I see them. It had a really nice, sweet syrup flowing over the tender yet firm sweet potato chunk.

Overall review:

Our meal at Jacob Restaurant was fine, but not amazing. It definitely served its purpose, filling our bellies before the open houses and a long afternoon of walking around upper Manhattan, but nothing stood out as so extraordinarily good that we'd have to go back very soon. Many of the steam table items were solid, but we've had better versions before (like better jerk chicken at Freda's (how have we still not written that post?!), better soul food generally on our Savannah road trip, etc), so it was hard not to compare. They do have tons of options though, so it would be a good place to go if you're trying to satisfy a lot of different palates. Overall, although our ears may have ached a little when we left due to sitting right next to the musicians at the only table left, we were pretty satisfied with lunch.

Jacob Restaurant is located at 2695 Frederick Douglass Blvd (at 143rd Street). It looks like they have another branch on Lenox Avenue in the 120s, but we haven't visited that one.

Morning in Moosic

For the first leg of our road trip out to Chicago, we drove from home to the Poconos. It was only a couple of hours away so we didn't make a ton of progress in terms of mileage, but for our road trips, we usually try to get out of the city at night to avoid traffic issues and get an earlier start the next day. We didn't see much of the Poconos while we were out there since it was truly just a stopover on our way to the Midwest, but we did have our first meal of the road trip there.

Our hotel ... not the Ruby Tuesday

We booked our hotel - the SpringHill Suites in Moosic, Pennsylvania - on Priceline, and were pretty happy when we saw online that they had free breakfast included in that rate. Of course, by the time we got to PA, I had completely forgotten that until I saw the breakfast setup in the lobby. Even if the breakfast were basic, it was still free!

Messy waffle bar that we didn't get to try

When we got down to breakfast in the morning, it was pretty crowded and the food stations were a bit messy from all the people. But we were pretty impressed to see how many options there were. There was a waffle station (of course by the time we tried to make a waffle, they were out of batter), fruit baskets (they ran out of bananas but brought more out later), cereal dispensers covering a range of cereal from Kashi to Froot Loops (which were in various states of emptiness but later refilled), hot food stations including sausage patties and scrambled eggs, a small toppings bar with salsa and cheese, toast machines and bread, a selection of pastries and muffins, and a big vat of oatmeal (basically empty). While it sounds like most of the pickings were slim while we were there, I should note that there was a guy who was running around trying to fill things up, but there was only so much one person could do at a time and it was getting near the end of breakfast time anyway. They probably weren't inclined to fill up a ton of new stuff just for the last half hour, especially hot food that wouldn't keep for another day.

Cereal and egg options

On my first time through the buffet line, I picked up some scrambled eggs topped with salsa and cheese, a sausage patty, a piece of (toasted) whole wheat toast, and a blueberry muffin, along with a glass of orange juice. The eggs were your standard out of a carton eggs, but they were fine. I appreciated that they had the salsa and cheese toppings, because I probably wouldn't have gotten those types of eggs otherwise. (They remind me of dining hall brunch, which was my least favorite meal of the day.) The sausage patty was fine but nothing special. The muffin was pretty good. I tried to go back up to get some oatmeal, but as I said before, it was basically empty. I just decided to quit then since it was more than I usually eat for breakfast anyway.

My breakfast and juice

For A's first plate, he got 2 sausage patties, the same eggs with salsa and cheese, and the same muffin, along with some coffee (which was fine but nothing special). I tried to get some orange juice for A later on when I went through the buffet line again, but they were out of cups. He also went up a second time to get some cereal (Kashi), but they were out of milk, so he basically ended up eating a bowl of dry cereal.

A's breakfast plate

Overall, our breakfast wasn't very exciting, but can't really complain because (a) it was free and (b) not only was it free, but it was a hot breakfast, not just pastries and fruit like some continental breakfasts. It was pretty standard fare, nothing very special, but we weren't really expecting much except a good base to get us out the door and on our way. This definitely fit the bill for that.

We had a good stay at the SpringHill Suites even if it was only for one night. It was one of the best hotels we stayed at during the entire trip (it looked relatively new or newly renovated). The room was huge and comfortable, the bathroom was bigger than the one we have at home, they gave out free Chupa Chups in the lobby, and on the night we got there, we were treated to surprise (for us) fireworks from the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders (Yankees minor league) game down the street. And then there was free breakfast in the morning. It was a pretty great start to our trip.

A Better Windjammer Lunch

Before we left the Windjammer at breakfast, we wandered around the lunch offerings to see what they had to offer. We weren't really hungry enough to start eating lunch, but at least we could find out what they had to see if we wanted to go back later or eat somewhere else. Most of what was out at that point was the Asian food, which was perfectly fine for us since we love Asian food (and figured the chefs might do better with that anyway, since many of them are from South and Southeast Asia).

We saw biryani, which looked pretty good, as well as an array of Asian vegetable salads, which would be great for counterbalancing all the unhealthy food on board. We spied a chickpea salad, a green bean salad, and other mixed vegetable salads and dishes. We were pretty sure we would return later once lunchtime rolled around for us and we had freed up some stomach space.

A couple of hours later, after resting outside in the ocean air and watching a short DreamWorks performance in the esplanade (they do these mini-shows and this one was a fun one about Kung Fu Panda), we headed back up to the Windjammer for lunch. Of course, we forgot to take a photo of A's plate, but we tried a lot of the same things.

There was biryani, butter chicken, chana chaat (the chickpea salad), and an Asian pesto salad on the plate. I also picked up a carrot raisin salad, ratatouille, chicken shawarma, and a couple of other salads. Most of the food ranged from "just fine" to "pretty good," and the quality seemed to be better than our Windjammer lunch on the first day. Maybe it's because we concentrated more on the Asian food, maybe not. If I remember correctly, my favorite part was the chana chaat, which is completely unsurprising given my love for chickpeas and chickpea salads.

For dessert, I picked up another coconut cookie (my favorite of the cookie varieties), as well as a few desserts from the light and sweet section (supposedly healthier desserts). From there, I got a coconut macaroon (okay, but not great), a vanilla and blueberry roulade (pretty terrible), and a light chocolate chocolate chip loaf (very good and good enough to take extras back to the cabin for snacks).

This is probably a good point to mention that this was the last day I ate cookies from the Windjammer's freshly made cookie bakery. There was nothing wrong with the cookies, other than being a little too crispy for my preference, but I was starting to feel like I had eaten way too many cookies since we would pick them up every time we walked by the bakery. With all the butter and not really healthy stuff in the cookies, they were starting to take their toll. I could feel myself dragging and feel how heavy the cookies were, and I just knew that I would feel so much better if I stopped eating them. So even though the freshly baked cookies were something I was really looking forward to before the cruise, I cut them out cold turkey after day 3 (ironically, day 4, the day I stopped eating the cookies was National Cookie Day). I felt so much better and cleaner inside once I stopped the cookies and I didn't regret it one bit. They weren't bringing me that much joy anyway, as they weren't the soft and chewy cookies I loved, so why would I keep eating something that I only sort of liked?

I honestly have no idea what we did between going to the Windjammer for lunch and our dinner later that night, and it's only been 2 months since we were on the Quantum. (Got to pick up the pace on these recaps!) I guess a lot of the sea days started to blend together. We have no photos of anything other than a soccer match on TV at a bar, so I'm guessing we rested, watched some soccer, and maybe took naps (especially since A wasn't feeling great with the ocean movement). At least our Windjammer lunch this time was much more satisfying than the first time!

Even More Windjammer

Day 3 on the Quantum was another day at sea. We were in the Atlantic Ocean at this point, far from any coastlines, and you could definitely feel all the movement on the ship. We were feeling a little bit off, as the moving and rocking in our cabin was worse than any other cruise we had ever been on, and we got up to breakfast even later than the previous day, so once again, the only available option was the Windjammer. We were there so late that they started closing off sections of the buffet to prepare it for the lunch rush while we were still eating.

My buffet plate overlooking the Atlantic Ocean

We were excited to see what new things would be in store for us at the Windjammer breakfast, especially the Asian items, but were a bit disappointed when we saw that almost the entire breakfast spread was exactly the same as the day before. Some of the items that made repeat appearances on our buffet plates were the scrambled eggs with shrimp, the Indian spiced eggs, the Asian-style pan-fried fish, fried rice (which looked a little different from the previous day, but didn't taste any better), sauteed spinach, corned beef hash, pork sausages, and hash brown triangles.

A's breakfast plate

One of the new items that popped up in the Asian section was a smoked mackerel that was pretty good. Near the sauteed spinach, we also spotted some sauteed mushrooms, which were tasty, but sauteed mushrooms are fairly difficult to screw up. But that's all we really found that was new. Even the stuff we didn't usually pick at breakfast buffets all looked the same as the day before. We had been hoping for more variety but we didn't get it.

Some of our favorite Quantum art

We stayed at the Windjammer a little longer for breakfast this time. We were seated in the back section which was much less crowded since people had left (or were sitting in the front for a shorter walk to the food), and it was actually kind of pleasant. It also gave us the opportunity to admire the art in that section of the room in peace, and it was some of our favorite art on the ship. They were works by Alberto Seveso (some of our favorites in the photo above) and we were glad to have the opportunity to appreciate them while people weren't rushing around with coffee and bacon.

Once we finally got up, we were still feeling the effects of the ocean movement (it was a pretty breezy day) so we wandered the ship a little bit until we got to the lower decks and rested outside for a while in the calming fresh ocean air. We knew we'd see the Windjammer soon for lunch!

Desayuno

Our fourth day in Cancun was our last full day there and we intended to enjoy every minute before going back to cold NYC. We woke up to blue skies and hoped that we might finally get a day without rain or storms, that we could finally have that perfect weather day. 

We started the day off at World Cafe like every other day, raiding the Mexican section of the buffet for as many tasty treats as we could get. We had really started looking forward to breakfast at the resort and ate until our bellies were full, since this was the best food we had had at the resort up to that point.

They had a lot of the same things we had seen in the past - refried beans and a couple of trays of chilaquiles - but this time they also had chorizo tostadas, so we grabbed those and topped them with some salsa and guacamole. I also got another Yoplait apple yogurt, but since that looked exactly the same as the last breakfast, no need for another photo. (Still haven't found that here in the States.) We also indulged in the juice bar.

We were so happy with our chilaquiles and tostadas and went back up for seconds. Sadly, they were running out of everything, so there weren't any more tostadas to get. Instead I made a plate out of refried beans and a ton of pico de gallo, which was completely fine with me.

Our meal wasn't that different from the offerings on previous days, but like always, we left our World Cafe breakfast very full and very satisfied. If only we could have a buffet like this every day for breakfast at home...

Right Back to the Windjammer

When it's time for breakfast on a cruise, we usually don't head for the buffet, but instead go to the main dining room. (Remember our trip on the Carnival Glory when we had breakfast in the dining room every single day except the last day because the buffet was all there was?) On those ships, you pretty much had 2 options - the buffet or the dining room - and one was peaceful and one was chaotic, so we always chose a calm start to the day. (Also, you're paying and auto-tipping for service, so why not go for waiter service when you can?) The Quantum was a little different. 

View from our room before breakfast on our first morning at sea

On Quantum, there were 4 free options for breakfast (we refuse to count Coastal Kitchen as we were not permitted access because we were not special enough), but the issue was that they weren't all open very late in the morning. On the first sea day, we're often still getting adjusted to the ship and being on vacation, and are a bit slow to get up and move around. The Windjammer was generally open until 11, but Devinly Decadence (the healthier buffet) and Cafe 270 (lighter breakfast sandwiches and stuff) closed up at 10:30 am (9:30 am for Devinly on port days), while American Icon Grill (the closest option to the old main dining room) ended at an astonishingly early 9:30. On top of that, American Icon can only fit a little over 10% of the cruise passengers at any given time (for the size of our sailing), so there isn't exactly as much space as the old dining rooms.

Needless to say, for our first Quantum breakfast, it was right back to the Windjammer, the same spot where we had ended our day less than 12 hours earlier. We were looking forward to seeing what they had though, since we had seen some pics on Instagram before the trip which made it look like there was a lot of variety and also maybe some Asian breakfast options. We love more interesting breakfast choices.

Our breakfast plates looked pretty good, but were a mixed bag in terms of quality. On M's plate (above), she got: 

- turkey sausage (terrible and could not finish it)

- pork sausage (good but was soaking in a vat of oil on the buffet line)

- corned beef hash (good, just like out of the can)

- baked beans (also like out of the can, but nothing special)

- sauteed spinach with onion (good)

- hash brown triangle (good and nicely fried)

- Indian spiced eggs (fine but expected more, as they were basically scrambled eggs with not much spice at all)

- scrambled eggs with baby shrimp (fine, but a bit bland)

- fried rice (average, rice was hard and kind of bland), and 

- an Asian-style pan-fried fish (pretty good flavor and not dry). 

The turkey sausage was really awful and there were a few mediocre items, but at least there were a bunch of legitimately good things to eat for breakfast on that plate.

A also got a large portion of corned beef hash to go with some hash brown triangles, one pork sausage, one turkey sausage, some sauteed spinach, the same Asian-style pan-fried fish M got, and what he thought was a biscuit with sausage gravy.

The corned beef hash was good, but it didn't have that nice crisp you can get off a griddle. The hash browns were nice, but they were nothing special. The pork sausage was oily, but that was because he got one of the last ones that was sitting in the dish full of grease. The turkey sausage was rather flavorless, and A regretted getting it. The spinach and fish were very tasty. The fish was flaky and tender, and the spinach was cooked nicely. The "biscuit" with sausage gravy was a disaster. A saw that the sign said scones, but he thought that maybe it was just a mislabeled item. Nope. There was no buttery biscuit covered in gravy; it was a dense, flavorless brick of starch. The sausage gravy also had no flavor whatsoever. In the end, that was an incredibly disappointing selection.

Overall, our breakfast at the Windjammer wasn't terrible, but we hoped we would be able to get up earlier on future mornings so we could try all the other options as well.