December 28, 2023

My plans for the day at sea were fun and relaxing with a wonderful galley tour in the afternoon.

It started with a final cooking class at 10 AM. The rest of the family went to a morning trivia session.

The cooking class was Passport to the New World and it was all about foods that came to our country from other countries and those that came to us. Noelle was very interesting as usual. She pointed out that for example tomatoes were unknown in Europe until Columbus brought them back. So no pizza in Italy before that! The tomato was known as the poisoned fruit because sailors died after eating it. But it turned out that the cutlery they were using at the time interacted with the acid in the tomato.

We made new world black bean meatballs with creamy roasted red pepper sauce, smoky gazpacho, pan seared scallops in pecan brown butter, allspice crepes with spiked creme fraiche and DYI ginger beer with a kick. All delicious. In fact, everything I made in the 5 classes I took would be recipes I will make at home.

After lunch, I played in the blackjack tournament. I was in the first qualifying round and Mark came to this one and played in the second qualifying round. The top 6 players from each round play in the final. Mark knocked me out of the final with his score! Yay for Mark. He came in second in the final but on this ship it is winner takes all. $360 in this case. But it was fun and he did great.

At 4:30 we were all invited on the gallery tour with our executive chef, Rafaelle and our food and beverage director, Susanna. First they gave us all a glass of champagne and later on the tour we got some special sweets,

The tour was so interesting. We got to see all of the refrigerated store rooms and the whole galley operation. They make all of the breads except the bagels and English muffins on board. They could make them but the time and effort to get the quality they want makes it better to buy them. The bakery works all night. We saw the chefs in a huddle tasting items from the menu before dinner. Much more I could say but these pictures will have to tell the story. It is a well coordinated operation for sure.

Susanna said that the two places that they use to stock the ship are Miami and Barcelona and most items except the most perishable are shipped from there around the world to the ships.

We were lucky to be invited on this tour. Adam told me that he has 400 pictures and can give me more information to post at another time, but this gives you a taste of the massive operation to run the food service on the beautiful Vista.

We missed afternoon trivia today but it was well worth it! We met in Martinis for drinks and then went to the grand dining room for dinner. After dinner, Mark, Adam and I went to the show which was the second one by Linda Gentille.

A very nice sea day. Tomorrow will be Great Stirrup Key, Bahamas before heading back to Miami.