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 Quantum Dinner

Our final Quantum dinner was at Chic, the third time for A and the second time for M. We were kind of over Dynamic Dining at that point, seeing the same menu, having ingredients substituted everywhere without warning because of shortages, and just the general headaches.

The meal started with the same basket of dinner rolls and breadsticks, but this time, M was thankful for that given her recent troubles. She started off with a dinner roll which was okay. We also got some ginger ales at the table to calm our stomachs with the rough seas.

A started with the plum tomato tartare. It was diced up plum tomatoes with red onion, green beans, herb oils, and sea salt. M was sad that she couldn't try this because it was one of the appetizers we didn't have room for in our order on the first night and it looked really good, but there were way too many raw vegetables to introduce into her stressed system so quickly after her food poisoning episode. The tomatoes were fresh and delicious, and the green beans were cool and creamy. The red onions were nice and sharp, and overall the dish was very tasty.

M got the same Catalan shrimp as her first visit to Chic, but with just the grilled shrimp, figuring that was safer. This was fine, and she was glad they were willing to modify the dish to only give her the shrimp. The shrimp was the best part of the dish the first time around anyway.

For the main course, A once again got the chicken. Does he feel bad about not branching out further? Nope, he knew he liked it, and he wanted to make sure he enjoyed his last meal.

M went straight to the Simple Tastes menu for her entree, choosing the baked salmon with new potatoes and dill hollandaise, but without the hollandaise sauce. What arrived was the same salmon strudel from the first dinner, which she specifically didn't order because of the strudel and the vegetables. When the server returned, she kept insisting that they were the same dish despite M showing her the Simple Tastes menu and the differences in the descriptions. Sure, the dill hollandaise, the part being left off the dish in the first place, was the same, but "new potatoes" didn't look a whole lot like "sweet carrots and green asparagus" to us, nor did the Simple Tastes menu have any mention of strudel.

M and the server went back and forth on this for way too long with the server repeatedly telling her she was wrong, until finally M had enough and was just like, "I can't eat this. I'm sick!" That was the only thing that finally got her to agree to have it redone. Although it still came out with the vegetables, at least they just seemed steamed so the entire dish was pretty safe to eat. The server was a head waiter too, so if the head waiter didn't know the difference between a Simple Tastes order and a regular order, why did the Simple Tastes menu even exist? How could we expect anyone to actually honor what you wanted to order? It was an incredibly frustrating experience.

We decided not to get dessert as M was still recovering, and we also had to pack and go to one last show before our cruise ended. Overall, we were hoping to have a relaxing last dinner, but due to the complete lack of training and empathy from the wait staff, it ended up being an very frustrating experience. As with many things we experienced on this cruise, everything just seemed completely mismanaged and unprepared.

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.

American Icon Not Very Iconic

For dinner on our 10th night on the cruise, we went back to American Icon. M still wasn't feeling that great, but she toughed it out as best she could. The meal, as always, started with the bread basket. It wasn't any different from the time before.

For my appetizer, I got the salad that M had gotten last time. It was really good when I tried it, and I was really looking forward to having my own. Unfortunately, they ran out of the spinach (shocking!) that was supposed to be in the salad and subbed in shredded lettuce. It was watery and completely devoid of any flavor or texture. It made the salad as a whole feel a bit soggy and bland. I was pretty disappointed.

For my entree I got the Cola Braised Short Rib with Root Vegetables and Mash. I honestly don't remember much about this dish so you can tell how great it was. I'm sure the short rib was tender and the mashed potatoes were fine, but after so many disappointments on this trip regarding the food and lack of ingredients, I can't imagine this being spectacular enough for me to remember it.

In the end I don't think I ordered a dessert, and if not for her post, I wouldn't have remembered what M ate either. It was just another in a line of okay but not great meals. At least we liked our servers.

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.

The Quantum BRAT Diet

As A mentioned in the last post about dinner at Chic, I got sick on Day 9 of our Quantum vacation. Based on all the symptoms (which I won't get into here), I'm pretty sure it was food poisoning, but from what, I have no idea. It's pretty impossible to determine, especially when you're eating and drinking so many different things from so many different places made by so many different people over a short period of time. Whatever it was from, it happened, and I had to figure out how to deal with it on the ship. Trying to cope with this on a floating vessel in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean was much more difficult than being at home where you have a lot more control. I pretty much spent the next day and a half (until dinner on Day 11) trying to follow the BRAT (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) diet to recover, so I'm going to combine all of my meals from that time into this one post.

I skipped breakfast the first day after the incident. I was still recovering from a really late night of food poisoning and spent the entire time in bed. (Actually, pretty much spent the entire day in bed, thankful for a channel that played DreamWorks movies all day.) A went up to the Windjammer and looked for things to bring back for me. The ideal thing would have been bananas, but it was only 75% of the way through the trip, and the entire ship was out of bananas. How do you run out of bananas? It's not exactly the type of thing that's menu-dependent. Three days of no bananas? Someone's calculations were pretty off. That made trying to do BRAT a little difficult.

At lunch, I still didn't have much of an appetite but went up to the Windjammer anyway, partially because we had to vacate the room for the stateroom attendant to clean. I ate some rice (buttery, so not good), the insides of some French bread, and some really dry roast chicken. Not exciting, but it was what I needed. I pretty much just picked at it and ate very little. There were no bananas, no applesauce, and no toaster, so this was going to have to do. I would normally not have moved to chicken within 12 hours, but not a lot of options.

We spent most of the time between lunch and dinner just resting in the room, watching movies, napping, and trying not to feel sick, between my food poisoning issues and really rough seas. We were in the front of the ship, and for whatever reason, you could feel all of the swells way more than we had on any other ship. Sea bands didn't really help either. Adding the seasickness on top of the food poisoning after-effects was not fun.

Dinner that night was at American Icon, which A will write about more later, but I went straight for the Simple Tastes menu there. I still didn't have much of an appetite but I knew I had to eat, so I went for the grilled chicken which seemed safe. The one on the Simple Tastes menu came with root vegetable mash and steamed green beans, which on a normal day would sound good, but I ditched those and asked for a dry baked potato. What arrived also had some sort of brown sauce on it, which I wasn't expecting and didn't ask for, but it turned out okay. I thought it would be plain grilled chicken since the menu didn't mention a sauce, but I guess the restaurants couldn't turn out anything that plain. I think my digestive system was so beaten up and I still had so little appetite that I couldn't even finish this.

The next morning, I ate half of a banana after getting up. I think my parents, after they heard that there weren't any more bananas anywhere on the ship, gave us a banana they had stashed in their room earlier. Then we went up to the Solarium for breakfast. I was starting to feel a little more normal (other than the rocky seas) so I tried eating some more - a little bit of a turkey chorizo patty, a toasted English muffin, a toasted piece of white bread, and a few spoonfuls of yogurt. I was pretty glad Devinly Decadence had a toaster. Although I wasn't reacting badly to food anymore, I didn't want to stress my already irritated stomach while not at home, so I was trying to play it very safe. I really just wanted to eat bananas and toast for the entire time since this started, so at least I finally got some of both. A also managed to find some pears for me at the Windjammer for a snack, since that was the closest thing I could think of to applesauce. Trying to follow BRAT on board the ship was so much harder than doing it at home. After breakfast, more movies.

We went back to the Windjammer for lunch that day. I thought I would branch out and try some chicken and vegetable broth, thinking that could be good for an irritated stomach. After a tiny spoonful of broth, I stopped, because it occurred to me that I had no idea what vegetables would be included in their vegetable broth. What if it was one that I already have issues with, like broccoli? My brain had totally blanked out on that possibility when I was walking around the buffet, but at least I remembered before I had more broth. I thought I'd eat the crackers instead while waiting for A to get food, but they were soggy and stale.

After ditching the broth, I got a little more buttery rice, a turkey burger patty, a hot dog bun, some baguette pieces, and a very dry piece of grilled salmon. It was so bland and boring (other than the turkey burger), but seemed fairly safe. We rested through the afternoon again, watching more movies and napping some more, as the seas were still rough. By dinnertime, I was feeling well enough to stop trying to do BRAT and just make careful choices with regular foods, so I'll pick up with those meals in our regular posts.

So how hard was it to deal with food poisoning on the ship? It was pretty difficult. They always recommend a bland diet like BRAT when you're recovering, but the ship had (1) no bananas, (2) buttery-tasting rice, (3) no applesauce, (4) only occasional access to a toaster, and (5) stale crackers. (On other trips where there were always bananas everywhere, this might have been easier.) I pretty much had to stick to various forms of (untoasted) white breads and dry grilled chicken or turkey or fish, which is usually not where I start after an episode like this. Luckily I was able to recover enough to be able to eat somewhat normally two days later, but those two days were pretty difficult. Hopefully this won't ever happen again.

Chic On My Own (sort of)

After seeing the awesome show Sonic Odyssey, I had a late dinner with M's parents. M had been feeling increasingly sick over the course of the day (so much that she almost missed the show), so she went back to the room to rest. It was so late that I didn't really want to eat too much. Also, I was worried about M so I didn't want to stay away from her for too long.

One thing we've never mentioned before is the Simple Tastes Menu. Every restaurant on the Quantum had a main menu that we'd been ordering from the whole time, and also a Simple Tastes menu that we had ignored. Simple Tastes was different in each of the restaurants, but it was, as the name implies, a simpler menu for people who weren't necessarily into the more exotic flavors of the main menus.

From this Simple Tastes menu I ordered the roasted chicken noodle soup. It was described as "slow cooked chicken broth with rosemary, thyme, and vegetables." I wanted something clean and light, and this sounded like the right thing. I also ordered one to go for M since she wasn't feeling well. Funny thing, there was also an arugula salad on the Simple Tastes menu, but I opted against this as there was no arugula left on the ship.

I also got another order of the chicken I got every other visit to Chic because I liked it so much. Other than that, I got no dessert because of how late it was and because I wanted to get M her soup.

The meal was exactly what I wanted, light and quick. M was really thankful for the soup, and tried to have a spoonful or two of the broth. Unfortunately, she could barely stomach any of the soup because of her illness, and it ended up being a harbinger of things to come.

SeaPlex Dog House

We didn't make it to the SeaPlex Dog House until the final set of sea days, even though we had been really interested in going from the start. From what we remember, there were constantly long lines there and they kept very odd hours. Often we would walk by during off, non-meal hours only to find them closed. The Dog House was basically a hot dog stand where you could choose the type of sausage, toppings, condiments, and sides. Conceptually it wasn't anything special, but the idea of a hot dog stand at sea just appealed to us. Day 9 ended up being the perfect time for us to stop by for an early lunch when they opened before another one of the shows/parades on the esplanade.

We ordered two different sausages and sides to split. The first was the "Smoke House," a smoked bratwurst made of pork with traditional spices on a cheese roll, which we topped with sautéed peppers and onions, and also some German mustard. We thought this was fine, but nothing special.

The other dog we got was the "Coney Island," a classic American all-beef Kosher hot dog, which we topped with onions, sauerkraut, and mustard. Again, our assessment was fine but nothing special.

The two sides we got were the only two offered, potato salad and cole slaw, and both came in really, really tiny cups that you would normally use to put sides of sauce or other condiments. The potato salad was okay but didn't have much flavor and was kind of boring. The cole slaw just didn't taste very good, and it wasn't because of the strange inclusion of the raisins.

We were kind of unsatisfied with our visit to the Dog House, which came not longer after our unsatisfying breakfast. Since we were headed down to the esplanade anyway, we stopped by the Cafe Promenade for some snacks after this. At least those were good.

An American Breakfast

On the first of our return sea days, we decided to go for a leisurely sit-down breakfast at American Icon Grill, the only non-buffet breakfast location on the ship. It was pretty crowded since it seemed most people had the same idea. On most cruises we've been on, we've usually gone for the sit-down breakfast most days, with this cruise being the exception, so we were excited to try what sounded like a good menu.

To start with, we both got cereal with sliced banana and milk. M got Cheerios and A got frosted flakes. M had thought about getting the "Seattle granola with seasonal fruit salad topped with natural yogurt," but when the server said the seasonal fruit was predominantly melon, she passed.

M chose the Southwest huevos rancheros for her breakfast entree, which was described on the menu as "fried eggs, tomatoes, avocado, jalapeños, sour cream, and salsa picante." M was expecting those ingredients to be combined into something resembling every huevos rancheros plate she'd seen before and even made at home, but what arrived was exactly what the description said. Slices of tomatoes, avocado (3 pieces), and jalapeños with a dollop of sour cream, a drizzled circle of salsa, and some fried eggs on top. This was the strangest version of huevos rancheros she had ever seen. Probably should have been called fried eggs with vegetables instead. It wasn't great and she wouldn't get this again.

A got the eggs benedict, toasted English muffins with country ham, hollandaise sauce, and poached eggs. He found this odd. The hollandaise sauce was foamy, thick, and congealed, and not an actual sauce. The ham had no flavor. We had read a lot of message board posts prior to our cruise to get a feel for what people thought, and one thing that kept coming up was people complaining about the lack of eggs benedict on the menu. They would go on and on about how it was a staple of cruise breakfasts and that the Royal Caribbean version was so good. After having ordered and tasted this, A was confused as to what people were complaining about with it not being on the menu and also why they thought it was good. This was easily one of, if not the, worst eggs benedict he had ever eaten.

We didn't particularly like our breakfast at American Icon and had no plans to return on any other sea day. We thought it would be pretty easy to get a good meal with standard breakfast stuff like huevos rancheros and eggs benedict, but we were wrong. Maybe we should have picked the "bodega breakfast" (bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich) or the old bagel and lox standby, and it would have been better, but no guarantee.

Goodbye to the Grande

We had an early dinner at The Grande after our day in St. Kitts. We hadn't initially booked any restaurants for that night, figuring that one of the points of Dynamic Dining was to figure out what you liked and then make arrangements later. This proved to be much more difficult than it sounded, since when we tried to add a second dinner at The Grande for day 8, they kept telling us there was no availability until we persisted and they finally allowed us an early time. Very "dynamic," for sure. We had originally only booked one dinner at The Grande because of the more formal dress code, but our first dinner was good (and better than some other restaurants) so we wanted to return and were glad we were able to.

While the menus had a lot of options at each of the restaurants, and in most we tried lots of different things, at The Grande we found ourselves gravitating towards a lot of the same dishes as our first visit. The meal started off with some champagne and also the same bread as the first dinner.

We also both ordered the prawn cocktail again, which was fine.

For a second appetizer, we both (at least we think it was both of us) got the bacon and egg salad. M had really liked this the first time, but this one wasn't as good. The arugula had been replaced with shredded lettuce, and that substitution just wasn't up to par. We weren't sure how it was day 8 out of 12 and the ship was out of arugula, but that certainly seemed to be the case. Even the servers weren't certain why the greens had changed, but said people had been asking them about it.

M chose to get the eggplant napoleon again for her entree. It was tasty, light, and healthy just like the first time, one of the real standouts from the dinner entrees across all the restaurants.

A got the roasted beef tenderloin this time, which was served with duck pate, asparagus, puff pastry, and truffle-madeira sauce. He ordered it rare, but it came out closer to medium rare. He mentioned it to the waiter while also saying it was fine, but the waiter went ahead and had another order made, and this one was cooked up properly. He really didn't need two orders, but, eh, it's a vacation. The meat was very tender on both cooks and had good flavor. The meat had the right bit of salt but could have used more pepper. The pate was rich and paired very nicely with puff pastry and the meat. 

There was also a truffle-madeira sauce that came on the plate and some asparagus. Having never had this type of sauce before A wasn't sure what it was supposed to taste like, but it was good with the steak and all other ingredients combined. The asparagus was welcome since there was so little vegetable matter on the dish.

For dessert, the chef sent out a special dairy-free dessert because M's mom can't eat dairy. It was an almond cake with a raspberry sauce that was also topped with raspberries and blackberries. This was delicious and reminded us of an almond cake we had tried in Barcelona (but have not yet posted about). This was one of the best desserts we got on the ship, and while it was nice for the chef to create this special for the dairy-free folks, we wished that it was on the regular menu and we could get it all the time. Especially since A had to use the restroom after the desserts came out, and by the time he returned, M had eaten almost all of the almond cake.

We got a chocolate cake off the regular dessert menu, which was pretty much the same as last time and fine, but we didn't finish it because we were so much more interested in the almond cake. The key lime tarte was pretty much the same too. As with most key lime tartes (good or bad) A couldn't help but finish it.

We had a nice dinner at The Grande, even if some of the dishes didn't live up to the first night. Most of that could be explained by the ingredient shortages though. It's funny how we thought that we wouldn't want to spend that much time at The Grande for formal dinners, yet it became one of our favorites. At the end of the day, it seems that cruises still just do their best work with formal dining.

Port Zante

After our lunch at Ballahoo, we strolled around Basseterre some more and made our way back to the ship. M's parents were calling it a day, so after we parted ways, we went off to see more of the village around the port since we hadn't investigated it much earlier in the day beyond buying a couple of postcards. The area was called Port Zante, and not only was it where the cruise ships docked, but there were restaurants, bars, and shops all around the terminal. After a bit, we decided to go for a snack at a place called Scoops (which seemed to support all New England sports teams, but we won't hold that against them). Scoops was a local ice cream shop that, from what we remember, advertised themselves as being completely homemade.

A loves ice cream and it was a pretty hot day, so some ice cream and sorbet sounded great. We tried a couple of flavors and then decided to get a cup with two different flavors. One was Cookie Monster, of which we got two scoops. This was basically cookies and cream with a fudge swirl in it. We also got a scoop of guava sorbet because M really wanted that, thinking that guava would be better in the Caribbean. It was nice since it was so late in the day that they just gave us the rest of the sorbet that was in the tub. The sorbet was more icy than some others because it clearly was made from real fruit. We weren't sure how well they would mesh together in one cup, but they were surprisingly good together.

We also got some ginger ale to drink which was actually made and bottled in St. Kitts. This was good with a really natural ginger flavor, not as strong as the Bruce's one that has real ginger in it. A was hoping there would be more ginger flavor to it but thought it was refreshing and not too sweet. It was very carbonated though, which limited how much of it M could drink.

As we headed back to the ship from Port Zante, some sadness set in as our vacation was ending. This was our last port and soon we would be back on the ship for a few sea days and then back home to cold, gray December. We had a nice time at the ports, even if we didn't get to do everything we would have wanted, and they were definitely one of the highlights of this Quantum trip.

Ballahoo

We didn't have a lot planned for our time in St. Kitts. We had an earlier dinner so we didn't want to travel too far from the ship, and we decided not to take a taxi to the beach, as much as we love beaches especially in winter, because we had gotten quite a bit of sun (and sunburn) the day before in Barbados. We spent most of our time just strolling around parts of Basseterre with M's parents and then stopped in at Ballahoo, a very centrally located spot, for lunch.

We didn't have much experience with Kittian cuisine so we weren't sure what to expect. Some sites on Google that we are looking at now tell us that it is Caribbean with Trinidadian and British influences, which makes sense to us now that we've tried it. (As a side note, unclear if it is Kittian or Kittitian, and if it's the second, this is not meant to be offensive, but Google isn't giving a definitive answer.) We just went with what sounded good.

M ordered the chicken roti which she really liked. The flavoring and sauce on the inside tasted a little like the chickpeas from Trini-Paki Boys, which was good because that's one of our favorite parts of the chicken over rice there. (We absolutely noticed similarities with Trinidadian cuisine, even if we didn't know about it then!) Inside the roti wrapper, there was shredded chicken with mashed up curried potatoes and carrots, and then the whole thing was very lightly griddled. The curry flavor here was so good. The fries were fine, nice and crispy, but especially good when dipped into the extra curry sauce on A's plate.

A got the lunch special which was chicken curry. The curry flavor in his dish didn't taste the same as M's roti, but was more of a yellow curry with coconut milk. The chicken was a leg and thigh, and the meat was so tender that it fell off the bone. On the side, there was a generous helping of green beans and carrots and some rice with green peas, both good, along with a salad of romaine, tomato, and cucumber with olive oil and vinegar that was nothing special but refreshing. It was a very hearty lunch plate with great flavor.

After eating, we couldn't decide which curry we liked better between the roti and chicken curry. Both were so good, but different. We were very pleased with our dishes at Ballahoo. M's parents got a barbecued chicken leg and a chicken avocado club sandwich, and seemed happy with those. We were pretty happy we went for the Caribbean dishes though.

Not only did we have good food at Ballahoo, but we had a nice view looking out into town and people watching, basking in the sunlight of a beautiful Caribbean winter day. We would recommend a visit here.

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!

Final Time at Silk

Our day in Barbados came just over halfway through our Quantum cruise on day 7. Our dinner that night was at Silk, and after our experience there on the first night, none of us were really looking forward to it. The horrible service and issues with food allergies and mediocre food were still pretty fresh in our memories, but we tried to keep an open mind since maybe they were just first night jitters. Also, this was before Quantum started swapping the menus halfway through, so the options were going to be exactly the same as last time. That was one of the big drawbacks of the (now defunct) Dynamic Dining plan if you're the type who tries a lot of things in one sitting (like we usually did).

Appetizers

The off-menu starter was papadums with sweet chili sauce. We had to request these unlike the wonton chips we got the first day, and the wonton chips were better. It probably didn't help that this arrived after our appetizers, so it wasn't there to snack on while we waited.

The other appetizers we got were:

Crab rangoon with spicy mango preserves: These were pretty good, very crispy, and filled with actual crab. We got two plates of these for the table and were pleased with the choice. Maybe our mistake the first time was not getting as many fried appetizers, since the fried food seemed to be okay there.

We also got the shrimp shumai but those were the same as last time, so not much more to say about that. At least they were good.

Chicken egg drop soup with scallions (M): M's mom ordered this last time. M tried it and generally liked it, but did not like the crispy (soggy) noodles that were on top, so she ordered it this time without them. So much better. The soup was very light and clean, exactly what she was looking for, and she was happy with her choice.

Hot ramen noodle with chicken, bok choy, mushrooms, and spicy ginger broth (A): Since soup is hard to share, we both ordered different soups and just tried a little bit of each other's. This spicy ramen had a nice broth with a good hit of spice. The noodles were chewy, not too firm, but not mushy. There were also sliced mushrooms and bok choy, which contributed to this soup tasting very clean and healthy. Overall this ramen tasted clean, but it didn't have the richness that we normally expect from ramen broth. That's not a bad thing, just different.

Green papaya salad with pea shoots, coriander, peanuts: We ordered this one last time and it was M's favorite appetizer that night, despite the fact that it was orange papaya and not green and that it was one of the most bizarre "papaya salads" we'd eaten. This time it was still orange papaya, but the grape tomatoes had been replaced with sliced up regular tomatoes and there was shredded lettuce instead of arugula. The salad itself was bigger, but it was still strange. We didn't realize it at the time we were eating our appetizers but this was the first sign that the kitchen was starting to run out of ingredients.

Entrees

We don't really remember what M's dad got for an entree, but her mom got the same salmon as last time. Unfortunately this time, it was drier, and for some odd reason came with broccoli instead of bok choy. It seemed like maybe the kitchen had run out of bok choy for the salmon dish and was saving it for the soup (in smaller amounts). Everyone's seemed to come out with broccoli, so M was glad she hadn't ordered the salmon. Looking back and comparing to the first night, the shiitake mushrooms also seemed to be missing. 

M ordered the chicken tikka masala with coconut jasmine rice and mango chutney as her entree, because the one A had gotten the first night was really good. Sadly, this was not as good as the first night. The chicken part was saltier, and the coconut rice just didn't have as much flavor. It was unfortunate that one of the few hits from the first night fell short this time. The kitchen was pretty inconsistent.

To share, we ordered the Thai beef salad with "marinated sirloin, tomato, onion, cucumber, lime-cilantro dressing." No idea who wrote the menus for Royal Caribbean, but it should have said "marinated sirloin, snow peas, celery, basil, red onions, carrots, and cucumbers." Our initial bite of this salad was good, but it got very monotonous just eating lightly seasoned raw vegetables. The beef itself wasn't that great, so it didn't make the salad much better. It just felt like a chore eating this even though based on the ingredients, we should have liked it. There was just a complete lack of flavor/seasoning.

A ordered the hibachi steak which was teriyaki steak and wasabi mashed potatoes with stir-fried vegetables. The sliced steak was cooked medium rare which A thought was perfect. The wasabi mashed potatoes had a good hit of wasabi but it wasn't overpowering. The flavoring of the dish was basically just like pepper steak. As for the stir-fried vegetables, they were red peppers, onions, snow peas, and carrots. This ended up being a good dish. Everything was actually seasoned well and cooked properly.

Desserts

We didn't really like either dessert that we tried on our first visit, so we got two new ones this time.

M chose the cardamom pot au creme with chai spiced palmiers. The cream here was very rich, but we thought it would make for a good ice cream flavor. Sadly the cookies didn't have much flavor. We had been looking forward to the chai spices, but they were barely there. Like most of the dishes from Silk this night, it lacked flavor.

A picked the chocolate lychee tart with fortune cookie crust. This was very rich, but nowhere near as rich as the chocolate dessert from the night before at Chic. The fortune cookie crust didn't taste like fortune cookie. The lychee was salted which was really disappointing. A was hoping for, at the barest minimum, a sweet lychee to eat.

Overall, our second (and last) meal at Silk was okay. The handling of food allergies was still a bit of a mess, but it was better than the previous visit where no one had a clue. The service was a little more attentive, but that was mostly due to our server constantly dropping by and asking us to tell his supervisor that he was doing a good job. The food itself was hit or miss again as far as flavor which was disappointing. On top of all that, we saw some dishes on other tables that looked good, like spring rolls, but hadn't seen those on the menu. On our way out, we learned that all the stuff that looked better was on the kids menu. If only we had known that in advance, we might have had better meals there. We were pretty glad that we wouldn't be returning to Silk based on what we did eat, but if we had another one scheduled there, we would have definitely been investigating the kids menu.