We headed over to the main lodge for dinner and was told that no in fact, your group's dinner was to be held in the other venue known as The Ranch House. During the chaos of signing up, we had each been given a lanyard with a plastic pouch containing voucher cards for our meals at the lodge. We started wandering the grounds trying to find this Ranch House and spotted a sign reading "Viking group this way to fish fry" which angered Dad to think we were stuck having to eat seafood. We stumbled upon a much more helpful lodge employee named Sidney who explained that the fish fry sign was for the other Viking itinerary that visits the lodge as a port excursion visit, not us. She personally led us to the Ranch House and told us not to take what our group host says at face value since he'd only been on the job for 15 days.
Pro tip: As this was our first Viking Cruises experience, I was not familiar with the use of terms like "Jon Viking" and "JonView." When we asked Killarney Mountain Lodge employees questions it was always "Are you part of the JonView group?" I'd reply, "Well, we're part of the Viking group" and they'd just nod. Wasn't until I saw JonView listed as the header on tonight's dinner menu that I realized that's how our group was booked.
The Ranch House is a venue that I would liken to a steakhouse. Tonight's dinner was to be altogether at a long table. Thanks to Sidney's help, we were the first to arrive. Soon after, the rest of our group found their way and joined our table. Our waiter, who really should have had some assistance for a large group, kept walking around assuring us that a welcome cocktail would be coming soon. When we questioned what was in the cocktail, he had to go ask. When this Raspberry Gin Fizz arrived, our attempts to say no thanks fell on deaf ears so we left it sitting there while we drank water. Those who ordered additional alcoholic drinks and coffees were given a check to sign.
For this dinner, we had a preset menu of limited choices.
For starters, we both went with the Kale Caesar Salad - kale, bacon crumb, parmesan tuille, and poached egg. This had very little dressing and tasted more like two giant kale chips. Took a lot of coaxing to get Dad to try it since it didn't look like the typical Caesar Salad. Definitely reminded me of a typical "fancy" salad presentation common at steakhouses but I'm not sure this visual of baby kale being made was the intent.
We both chose the Ribeye 12 oz for our entree. The menu says all of their steaks come with mashed potatoes and seasonal vegetables. I ordered my steak medium while Dad ordered medium well. The service level during dinner dropped off to the point that several people were getting next courses while others were left waiting for starters. When the waiter arrived with a ribeye steak, Dad immediately spoke up to claim it. I was left to wait a while longer for my steak to arrive. In the meantime, Dad started eating about half the steak complaining that it wasn't cooked medium well. When mine finally arrived, I realized in the first couple very tough bites what mix up had occurred. Dad was so tired of waiting he didn't give the waiter a chance to finish saying "steak cooked medium." When I pointed it out, Dad offered to swap plates. A 2/3rds eaten medium cooked steak in exchange for a well done steak I gave up trying to eat after 3 bites, umm no thanks. I offered the rest of my steak to him without the trade. He was too full from my steak and busy protesting that the seasonal vegetable turned out to be broccoli to accept the offer. I never did understand why the sauce seemed like they used the leftover beets from the Beet Risotto entree choice.
The sole dessert option for everyone was strawberry shortcake. Dad told the waiter that he can't have strawberries so the waiter said he would go "ask the chef if it was okay to serve something else." He came back with the option to bring Dad the chocolate pavlova that was on the normal restaurant menu. Dad loved it and there was no way a bowl of whipped chocolate placed in front of Dad was lasting long enough to get a picture.
The strawberry shortcake the rest of us had was the one dish of which I enjoyed every bite. The shortcake was presented as cut up cubes that were slightly fried so they had a crisp bite without being crunchy.
We asked our waiter about our meal voucher cards. We asked whether he would be collecting them or should we just leave them on the table. Our waiter had no idea about the vouchers and kept assuring us throughout the meal that he would find out. We never got an answer and opted to leave them sitting at our plates when we finished. No other wait staff seemed to know either during the rest of our meals at this lodge so we kept following the pattern of leaving them behind at our place settings. No one ever asked us to sign a check or give our room number either. I choose to believe that it was more that one of us at the table was most likely wearing the lanyard at any given time and the staff knew not to charge any of us.
Note how our meal voucher lists the Ranch House and the instruction for "Please provide your server with this ticket upon ordering." Something I only noticed after we'd finished this first dinner. I also noted how someone had stacked up these vouchers so they were in everyone's lanyard pouch in order of occurrence. The next ticket in the stack was always going to be the one for the current meal. I say that the lodge should give the person responsible for this aspect a leadership position so they can train the rest of the staff.
After dinner we headed back to our individual rooms to get some rest. We made a plan to get up early enough for breakfast before our signed up time for the morning lighthouse walk. Before heading to bed, Dad took the time to call our credit card company and verify that our card was fine. The customer service rep looked up the account and gave us the real explanation of what had happened. The inexperienced employee checking us in at the front desk kept adding extra zeroes to the total to charge our card. A $300 hold was inputted as $3,000, then again at $30,000. Then when it didn't work, she continued trying to push the charge through. Our credit card company flagged it as fraud and blocked the charge. We were assured by the company that our card was fine to use for any further purchases in Canada. We confirmed upon returning home after the cruise that the hold dropped off our debit card as expected.
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