Day 4 of the cruise - Hilo - Part 3

Tonight for dinner Dad wanted to try out the Liberty dining room. Same menu as Skyline but in this restaurant, the dress code of needing full pants versus shorts and collared shirts on the guys applies. When it was close to the reservation time Spencer arranged for us, Adam called Spencer to ask that their next bottle of wine be brought from where it sat all this time chilling in their cabin fridge to the Liberty dining room. When we had called to ask Spencer to make the reservation, we asked for 6PM. He told us that the restaurant reported only 5:30PM or after 9:30PM was available which was a surprising change from the "use your butler and get past the front people saying no" concept which had worked the other night. However, when Spencer called us back to tell us this, he said he'd make the reservation for 5:30PM but feel free not to show up until 6PM. We ended up heading down there a little early anyway but by the time we figured out the steps to reach the dining room, it was closer to 6PM. When we approached the hostess, you could tell there might be an issue when she took a bit of extra time looking up our reservation and she lost that polite smile. Soon we breathed a sigh of relief though as she suddenly pronounced that she'd "found" the reservation after doing a bit of feverish typing and printed off a receipt for the waiter. She was obviously too professional to say anything but what we suspect was that they'd dumped our 5:30PM reservation when we hadn't shown within 15 minutes like they warn with all reservations. Rather than get on our case, she made up a reservation on the spot and we were directed to a 6 top table right between the waiter's station and the tables for 2 by the windows.

Upon being seated, we were greeted by our waitress Grace who handed us our menus. An assistant waiter poured water for us. Amy and Adam told Grace about the bottle of wine they'd had Spencer bring down and she agreed to get it right away. In the meantime, she tended to the couple at the table for 2 by the window. Soon she rushed off and I watched her come back with the same bottle of wine Adam and Amy had requested and put it in the chilling bucket between their table and the other 2 top. I expected her to then return to our table to pour the wine and take our order but instead she presented the wine to the other couple. They must have ordered the same wine or were enjoying a happy surprise because they made no attempt to turn it down. I watched Grace run back and forth to fetch food orders for her other tables and to get drinks from the bar yet we still sat waiting to even place our order. We've cruised enough, chatted with the crew, and seen many backstage tours to understand that she was doing the tasks meant for her assistant waiter which would prevent any table from having to wait as long as we did. At one point when she finally bothered to come back to take our order, she realized that she had yet to serve our table any of the requested wine. Both Amy and I overheard her telling her assistant to run and get another bottle. Only once he came back, did Grace come pour wine for our table and she did so from this second bottle. Right away, Adam and Amy could tell that this second bottle was not the bottle they'd had Spencer send down because it wasn't cold at all. Amy didn't like the taste and left the rest for Adam to drink anyway. Never once did Grace admit that she most likely gave the other couple our bottle or make any sort of apologies for the delay.

Service level continued to go downhill as we waited nearly an hour just for our appetizers to come out. Several of us ordered the Cheesy Mashed Potato Croquettes and I also went with the Shanghai Pork Pot Stickers after Dad had enjoyed his the other night.

The potato croquettes were good but the pot stickers were cold and tough, almost to the point of leather. I had to saw with my knife just to cut into one. We continued to have another long delay waiting on our entrees to arrive. When we finally got Grace's attention enough to have her refill water glasses, Dad asked her why she doesn't have an assistant. She replied "Oh I have an assistant, he's the one getting all my orders" and laughed as she walked away again from our table. I believe her assistant must have been doing the work of 5 assistant waiters leaving her to do some running of her own. Finally we'd had enough of the wait and motioned over one of the crew members wearing a suit. We all tried explaining about the wine bottle not being the one we'd had sent because it wasn't cold but this woman was focused on our complaint being about the wrong kind of wine or the wrong bottle because it had less in it than when we used it last. I told her what I'd seen Grace do with the first bottle and this crew member did a lot of that "I'm gonna nod and say uhuh a lot so it looks like I'm really listening." However to her credit, she did go over to the chilling bucket after talking to us and compared the two bottles. She confirmed that our service should have been better and since our table was right by the waiter's station, we were in full view of her talking to Grace about our report. After that little talk, it was like someone lit a fire under Grace and we had the fastest most attentive service possible.

Dad had been looking forward to trying the Mediterranean Sirloin Beef Brochette but was disappointed when it came out looking only slightly larger than a beef cube on skewers and just as tough to chew. I ordered the same 3 Cheese Baked Ziti I'd admired from when Amy ordered it the other night. Once it came, Amy wanted to know what I thought of it because she found hers to be very bland. While I enjoy stronger flavors in my food than the rest of my family, the fact that this was a simple tomato sauce based cheesy pasta tasted fine by me. Could it have used some more flavor? Sure.

While Adam and Dad went with desserts off the menu, Amy and I asked simply for ice cream. I chose vanilla and Amy ordered both chocolate and vanilla. What we were delivered was small glass bowls with a single scoop of ice cream in each. Grace brought Amy one with the scoop of chocolate ice cream and one with the vanilla ice cream. Amy dumped the chocolate scoop from the first dish into the dish with the vanilla scoop as we laughed at the absurd presentation. Guess we weren't deemed worthy of the nice tall glass of a few scoops of vanilla ice cream Amy got on the first day as her lunch dessert in Cagney's.

We later reported the disappointing dinner when we next saw Thomas our concierge. We certainly didn't expect anything from it after the fact, especially since this wasn't one of the restaurants we paid to dine in but we do feel it's important to share when we've encountered issues so that changes can be made. Whether those changes are bringing in extra help (some cruises have had two assistants per waiter) or some more training for the crew member to help prevent the next cruiser from having such a bad experience. Thomas was apologetic and also confirmed that we should have had better service but left it at that.

After dinner we tried out another suite perk of being escorted to reserved seats in the Hollywood theater. The seats were fairly good view wise and we had no issue using the perk once we showed our card but Dad feels that the seats in the back sets of rows in the corners are better for easy access in and out of the theater. Dad's favorite shows on cruises are comedians and magicians so we split off with Adam and Amy to see "Wonders! A Magical Experience" featuring a full show performance by magician Charles Bach. Dad loved it all but I found that it was a little predictable. Guess I've been watching too much of Penn & Teller: Fool Us with Dad.