6/8/23
After the Sail Away Celebration, we went back to the cabin to get ready for dinner and unpack some. Our Main Dining Room dinner time was scheduled for 5:15 p.m. every evening. If you are not familiar with cruising on Royal Caribbean, there are two dining times…First Seating around 5:15 p.m., and Second Seating around 7:45 p.m. There is also My Time Dining between 6:30 -9:00 p.m. You can choose times before boarding or just show up and wait in line once at dining room. We never saw this line to be very long when we were leaving our dinner. My family seems to like the early dinner time so we can enjoy all of the evening activities. However, if the cruise is port intensive, I would probably opt for later dining so we aren’t rushing back from any excursions to make it to dinner on time.
You can find your dining table on your SeaPass card. Once arriving at the dining room, on the first night, the wait staff is on hand to help you find your table for the first time. This is your same table for every night, and you have the same wait staff. Our waiter was Richie, and assistant waiter was Delex. We loved them! They were very attentive, and made good recommendations. We were never short on bread, drinks, or cookies! One note also, soda is not free on Royal Caribbean. Except they gave it to me for free at dinner time without a soda package. I have read it both ways, so not sure on the official policy!
Royal Caribbean just recently changed all of their dinner menus. This was our first night menu:
And this was the Kids’ Menu, which was the same every single night:
Anyone (child or adult) can order from either menu. With the change to the new menus, there was a lot of buzz around the different Facebook groups about only being able to order one thing, no substitutions, etc. Prior, you could order as many apps, entrees, or desserts as you wanted. I was interested to see for myself exactly what the policy was on this particular ship.
We were on Deck 5. Deck 4 is the large main dining area. This was the view from our table:
Bread basket…THE SOFT ROLLS! The ones on the top were called “soft rolls.” Ummmmm, quite possibly my favorite roll ever. By the end of the cruise he was bringing 3 baskets of bread! You can always ask for more bread if you need it!
I ordered the Classic Caesar Salad. It was your basic caesar, and it was good.
Someone else ordered the Spinach and Artichoke Dip. This was also good!
My mom ordered the Crispy Crab Cake. She said this was really good!
My one daughter ordered from the kid’s menu…Chicken Fingers and French Fries. The fries were good, the chicken was just okay.
I ordered the New York Strip Steak with Herb Butter. I ordered this multiple times throughout the cruise. It was very good and cooked just the way I like it!
My other daughter ordered the Spaghetti Bolognese. She loved this so much, she ordered it two other nights that it was on the menu!
My cousin ordered the Southern Fried Chicken. I think the verdict was that this was just okay. Not terrible, not outstanding.
I had to have the Key Lime Pie. It was delicious! I loved it.
My youngest daughter had Chocolate Chip Cookies (every single night). And they were great. She couldn’t eat them all, so she took the extra along with her to eat during the show later.
My oldest daughter had her absolute favorite…the Royal Cheesecake! On our last Royal Caribbean cruise, she had this every night. Now it wasn’t on the menu every single night anymore. She loved this as usual.
After dinner, we lingered around the Centrum, where the Just Us Duo was performing. They were really good! And we enjoyed them poolside all throughout the week as well.
The Welcome Aboard Showtime started at 7:00 a.m. It was Royal Comedian Bruce Gold. It was a great start to the cruise!
We also took nightly photos of the sunset or out on deck after dinner.
From there we just hung around the Centrum until it was time for Welcome Aboard Karaoke! We have so much fun watching this. Some people are really good!
Up next…Day 2 on the Vision
Taryn's Mad Hatter Adventures 