Regal Princess Baltic Cruise Day 2 - Oslo, Norway

Today's Patter:

Another suite perk is breakfast in Sabatinni's. This menu never changes unlike the daily main dining room menu. When we've had the best service, they no longer require checking your cabin number after a day or so and they remember we'd rather drink orange juice than coffee. This trip, only one waitress Christina remembered our juice preference near the end of the cruise and one morning she even had to take our order and tell our waiter because our table's assigned waiter was ignoring us.

This morning I chose the French toast. You can choose several things on the side including sausage, bacon, toast etc. Or all of the above. The big circular plate pictured on the bottom here is one they have at every place setting and the circular dishes fit nicely nestled on top when you're served. This shape of dish just rocked back and forth like a table with a wobbly leg. The pool of syrup covered everything, especially drowning the cinnamon apples that come with the dish and usually are in a small cup so the flavors don't mix.

Here's the underlying plate by itself in comparison to what I call the "shot glasses" of orange juice.

They took Club Class dining seriously and the promise of no wait seating. One evening we randomly chose to sit at a four top and halfway through our meal, the headwaiter went into a minor panic because he knew a group of four diners would be arriving for their dinner soon. They made do by putting two nearby two top tables together. The whole setup also seemed a little more upscale with a separate color motif for the tablecloths, napkins, and menu covers. We found during the cruise that the first set of wait staff who worked the side closest to the entrance was much more efficient than the pair who worked the far side. 

This is Chef July, pronounced like Julie, who was in charge of the "tableside" prepared extra dish just for Club Class passengers. It's an extra dish never listed on the menu so your waiter is supposed to tell you what it is each night but that was hit or miss. The entire Club Class crew did a great job interacting with passengers. Each night you would get a tableside visit from Chef July and later the head waiter just to see how things were going and if you needed anything. It was from Chef July's visit one evening that we learned he was only told to cook seafood dishes. Dad told him that he won't eat any seafood and Chef July would often remember that and talk up the beef dishes to Dad. The two big drawbacks of the tableside prep this trip was 1) if you didn't have a clear view of his station, you couldn't enjoy the presentation of a tableside prep and 2) as the cruise went on, the extra dish would randomly include sides or not and it went from whole entrees to just being "get this sauce instead of the normal one that comes on tonight's steak entrée." To me an extra dish should be something totally different, not just serving the regular item with a different sauce. Guess not every extra dish had to be seafood after all!

This side of the dinner menu was the "always available" items. You can not only pick from these items instead of but in addition to the current evening's items. Everything food wise in the dining room is included in your cruise fare so you can have 5 appetizers if you really wanted to. I'd heard recent reports of people being refused if they asked for more than one dining room entrée or being told they had to wait until finishing the first. I wanted to test this out but never had the occasion where I had more than one entrée I wanted to try. Also, if there's something you want to try in the entrée list that you're not sure you'll like or if you can't decide between two choices, you can get one of them in an appetizer portion. It took until I assumed the explanation under "Princess Gourmet Beef Burger" was a typo a couple days into the trip that I realized it actually includes a rotating list of unique toppings. You can always get it as a regular cheeseburger without the special toppings if you so desire.

The right side of each night's menu changed as the cruise went on. This top half of the menu showed a combination of appetizer style items, soups, and salads. Tonight was one of those nights where I got two items from this list.

Tonight I had the Warm Crab & Artichoke Dip (left) and it was delicious! I'm guessing the other dish was the Smoked Haddock & Potato Chowder (right).


Below is the scampi style prawn that was tonight's chef prepared tableside dish. Certainly the biggest shrimp I'd ever seen and delicious. I thought it would have sides with it like an entrée, especially since the waitress gave me a look when I ordered it in addition to an appetizer and soup. Chef July did offer to make me another but I declined simply for knowing I still had a regular entrée to come. Could have definitely been happy on just a dinner size plate full of these shrimp!

The bottom half of the right side of the menu featured the entrée choices. Frequent cruisers can spot trends in menus as the cruise goes on and tell by the end of a voyage what the ship's inventory may be relying on in terms of food left. The running joke is that if there's a meat dish you missed having earlier in the cruise, check out the meatloaf dish on the last night. We've both made the mistake of choosing that on past cruises as it definitely tastes like all the leftover beef meals got mushed together. Tonight I went with the Oriental-Style Black Pepper Beef (pictured below) and it tasted essentially like a good stir-fry.

Dad ordered the Surf & Turf and asked for two turf rather than the prawns. The wait staff took the proper time to ask Dad to check whether his steak was done to his liking and Dad assured them it was after cutting into the first filet. Time goes by as we eat and Dad starts to cut into his second filet only to find it raw inside! He alerted the wait staff and they promptly brought him another whole entrée plate so he ended up with a belly full of 2 1/2 steak filets. We guessed that with his special request of a 2nd steak, the wait staff just randomly pulled a second filet off another plate not realizing that it was cooked to order as rare.



The dessert menu features after dinner drinks and specialty coffees/teas for a price on the left side but the staff always offers the chance for regular coffee/tea for free if you enjoy that with your dessert. The top section on the right side of the menu features a rotating selection of desserts. With the partnership with Norman Love chocolatiers, many of the dessert menus will highlight a special dish from their products. This menu is rare in that it doesn't offer one of those fancier dishes. We both chose the Sugar-Free Milk Chocolate Mousse Cake and it was yummy. Didn't taste "diet" at all.

This bottom half of the dessert menu stayed the same and over the years I've tried everything except the fruit and cheese plates. There is a children's menu that includes a big banana split sundae for dessert called the "volcano." You really have to love ice cream to get through that one!