I’ve blogged before about the little shits called calories that sew up your clothes at night, well let me tell you I’ve discovered there’s a particularly virulent gang of these bastards that operate exclusively on cruise ships. Well it’s either them or perhaps the fact that it is genuinely possible to eat your own body weight in food 5 times a day for 5 days while cruising and that’s gotta go somewhere!
I wish I could say that all the excess food was stored in my cheeks like a hamster, but alas it gets stored in other inconvenient places like the tum and the bum… in fact the only cheeks that this food decided to hide in were my ass cheeks. But no matter, my new year’s revolution is not to sweat the small (big??) stuff and just buy bigger clothes! Some inside info; if you are looking to invest some extra bux, invest in stores like Donna Claire, Big and Tall and Outsize Outfitters because their shares are going to SOOOOOOAR!!!
When I left the ship a lady walking next to me commented to the person who was there to meet her that “the food wasn’t that great… it’s stuff she cooks and eats at home anyway!” I had to agree with her; after all I also start my day with the choice between 3 different eggs, pancakes, omelettes, various cereals, ham, tomato, pork sausages, 5 different types of croissants, muffins and enough varieties of fruit to keep liqui fruit in business for a year! More than that, every night at 12am I also lay out a pastry buffet for my family consisting of little milk tarts, cake, fruit sculptures, biscuits, petit fours, puddings from various countries and ice-cream. I mean who doesn’t?
Enjoying the Midnight buffet!
The midnight buffet fascinated me because in general 95% of the passengers would usually be asleep at this time when on land (considering the average age of the cruise was roughly 60!) But low and behold when the clock struck 12, there we all would be queuing up and piling our plates like we hadn’t eaten in days (when in reality we all ate about 4 hours ago). But I wasn’t there to judge, I joined the queue and ate a plate of food at 12am like it was the most natural thing in the world to do!
Ah yes, it's 12:05am I had better eat!
“Food one cooks at home” – my cruise enhanced ass! If the Melody served food we all cooked and ate at home there’d be toast and peanut butter for breakfast (with Marmite and Jam being optional extras at the beginning of the month). Lunch would be toasted cheese (ham an option – again at the beginning of the month) and supper would alternate between fish fingers and chips, burgers and chips and braai! Had this been the case on the cruise, I think Captain Michele Lombargadi and his kitchen staff would have had to deal with some serious mass action and we all know how vocal and spirited South African mass action can get. Add to that some hungry men with a few toots in them and the Captain and his crew would have seen something REALLY special from his South African passengers! But in the words of the great Nelson Mandela “There is (was) no need. For the Mass Action. At all.”
But lucky for them (and us), fish fingers weren’t on the menu. I would say almost every other conceivable food item other than fish fingers was. It’s hard to explain the amount and variety of food that is served on a cruise – but take it from me – it’s a VAST amount and a HUGE variety! Anyone who says the food wasn’t that great and they cook that kind of food at home must have spent the cruise either high on anti-nausea meds, permanently drunk or was suffering from serious delusions caused by an extreme case of cruise sway!
So now back on terra firma… I need to once again work on getting myself “terra firma”! I also need to somehow reset my internal appetite clock to not expect food at 12am, something it got used to surprisingly quickly!
So thank you to all the wonderful chefs onboard the MSC Melody... your food was aggettivo delizioso! So all together now in Cruise tradition, wave your serviette in the air as you salute the Melody Chefs and loudly sing "Volare oh oh, Cantare, oh oh oh oh !"
The talented Melody Chefs
Our fabulous waiter Gusti from Indonesia
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