A whole day in Killarney - Day 3

Here is Viking's description for our one full day at the Killarney Mountain Lodge:

Day 3 - Killarney

After breakfast, admire the windswept pines, exposed pink granite bedrock and the clear waters of Georgian Bay as you cruise by boat to Fox Island. Upon arrival, enjoy free time to explore on your own. You may choose to relax on board or set off to explore the shoreline. Alternatively, you can go swimming or kayaking. Later, hike along the rugged Georgian Bay coastline through a mixed forest of pine, red maple, and spruce for sweeping views over the bay at the Killarney Lighthouse. (B, L, D)

Unfortunately, by the time we woke up this morning, it was pouring rain. The rain got heavier as the morning wore on with occasional thunder and lightning leading to the lodge's management to cancel the lighthouse walk and boat ride we had signed up for the day before. Obviously weather is a factor no one can control. 

Dad and I headed into the main restaurant within the same building as the check in desk to redeem our breakfast vouchers. Our guide Tina came in for her breakfast so we invited her to dine with us. I had to sample the eggs benedict of course and we all had a good laugh when Dad's order of some kind of sampler platter came with enough food to feed four people. Service did seem to go a lot smoother when the wait staff only had a couple tables of small groups each. Or perhaps it was that being breakfast time, not many people came to eat at the same time. 

 

I applaud the lodge employees for having guest safety in mind when they defended the option of not trying the walk when the rain eased off in the mid afternoon because it meant having to walk through muddy woods over slippery wet rocks. I also commend the lodge's activity director Amanda for doing what she could to throw together an impromptu trivia game for us. The funny thing is that I ended up winning the trivia simply because I was young enough to be familiar with some of the name that tune themed questions. The unfortunate thing is that there was no easy way to let the guests not currently gathered in the lobby to know that the trivia game was planned. Several of our group chose to do their own thing like work out in the gym or try the walk on their own.

For lunch, several of our group gathered in the main restaurant at a long table to dine together. Dad and I both ordered the soft pretzel appetizer with beer cheese dipping sauce. The pretzels were overcooked and tough. The cheese sauce was good and I kept it to enjoy with my burger and fries.

 

During lunch, Amanda checked in with Tina to suggest offering a painting class since she was going to school for art. They settled on a mid afternoon time and several of our group took them up on the offer. Dad and I wandered into the lodge's game room which housed a uniquely shaped slightly warped pool table, a ping pong table, and a bookcase full of toys/board games. When we tried to start a game of pool, we could only find cues with broken tips. Amanda searched for another cue herself and sent her assistant to try to find one in storage. Coming up empty, she discovered a broken cue with a good tip in the trash and jury rigged the good tip from that one onto one of the cues that was fine except for the broken tip. We played a fairly wobbly game of pool sharing a cue that wouldn't shoot in any direction we intended. We soon gave up and moved on to trying ping pong which did have all the parts once we found a few decent balls mixed in with the toys on the shelves. There must have been some killer ping pong games at the lodge recently because they had a whole crate on the shelf full of smashed in ping pong balls.

I opted to wander the grounds as the rain had eased off. This is the lighthouse shaped portico that sits out in front of the main lobby building.

Sidney arranged for our group to have a wine tasting and food pairing lesson on a screened in side patio off of the main restaurant. That sweet charismatic young lady ran herself ragged having to fetch bottles and walk through the main room to come back out on the other side of the porch when dispensing each serving. The small patio barely fit us and the two tables. While I don't normally go for wine or drink much at all, I did participate in small sips of each wine offered. It led to a lot of silliness as the tasting went on with several group members cracking us up with their reactions to the food and wine options. By the time we were through with the tasting presentation, we realized it was a little past our scheduled group dinner time in the adjacent restaurant. Sidney assured us that the wait staff knew we were coming and would be ready whenever we were. 

While our table was ready and available, it seemed that the chef and the wait staff were not. Besides our table, the restaurant had a table of 6 and a couple small tables of 2-4 people each dining over the course of our meal. Several times, we had to approach a wait staff member to ask that they stop casually chatting with each other or the other tables and come take our orders. It did not seem specific to us however as over time, we watched the table of 6 give up and leave as well as several small tables not getting served. There was some confusion over whether we could order from the regular menu or stick to another pre-determined menu like the night before. Once it was decided that we could order from the main menu but limit ourselves to one of each course, service seemed to pick up with everyone's order taken. Then the service level went down to zero as the wait staff continued to chat amongst themselves. When we asked about our food, they assured us that the kitchen was definitely working on it. "They're really back there cooking, I swear, haha!" Soon some of our starters would trickle out to the table. Others who ordered some of the same choices were left waiting for long stretches of time. 

My first course was the grilled watermelon. I loved the idea of grilled fruit but this really missed the mark. The grilled was more like charred and I couldn't understand the addition of onions and some sort of granola style crumble on top. No one at our table including myself lasted more than a couple bites before pushing it away.

Time continued to tick and our patience grew thin waiting for the main course to be served. Two of our group members who had chosen to eat light with a salad as their entree opted to give up and leave. Finally two hours after our starters were delivered, our entrees arrived. We had reached the point of speaking up to the management and it helped pick things up a bit. 

My lamb tagliatelle was quite tasty with good consistency and flavor:

Another few members of our group opted to forgo dessert when we hit another lag in service. At this point, I think a lot of us were overtired and full of more wine than food because we'd moved on from irritation to cracking jokes over the situation. "Is dessert going to become breakfast?" "Should we put in our breakfast orders now so they'll be ready before we leave tomorrow afternoon?"

We were finally served our chocolate cake slices for dessert shortly before midnight. I'm not normally into eating a lot of chocolate at once so this chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate shavings was too much for me to finish. Otherwise it was quite tasty. 

We bid our few remaining group members a good night as they vowed to finish the entire slice after waiting so long to get it. During dinner, it was announced to the group that Tina had helped facilitate doing the boat ride before we left the next day. The option of being driven on the paved road for a quick lighthouse visit was proposed. Those of us interested opted out when a fellow group member who'd done it on her own told us that it takes walking on an uncleared muddy stretch just to get to the path and paved road that runs along the path. Exhausted bodies and finally full bellies made for a slow walk as we tried to find our cabin in the pitch dark.