When I first set foot on board my Alaskan cruise ship for a
family reunion last week, I couldn’t help but notice how
similar it was to college.
Not the cabins, which have a view of the ocean instead of the
Dykstra parking lot. Not the parties, as most of the passengers
were age 55+ and went to bed before midnight. No, fellow Bruins,
I’m talking about the constant availability of food.
Let me try to paint an accurate picture, if you will, of this
ravenous college student’s culinary heaven.
Cruise ships are renowned for their fine dining, and my ship was
no exception. The most formal eatery on the ship was the main
dining room, where we had five-course dinners that spanned two
hours and included appetizers, soup, salad, the main course and
dessert. Daily dining choices ranged from quail and filet mignon to
salmon and penne carbonara. In fact, you could even order items
that weren’t on that night’s menu ““ I had the
shrimp cocktail as an appetizer every single night.
After a few of these large dinners, though, I could feel the
infamous “freshman 15″ start to resurface faster than
you can say “Bon appetit!”
Of course, this being a cruise ship, the dining options
didn’t stop with the main dining restaurant. About half of
the ship’s twelve decks contained at least one restaurant or
cafeteria-style dining area. Among others, there were special ice
cream stations, a poolside grill that made cheeseburgers to order,
and a buffet-style restaurant that was eerily reminiscent of Covel
Commons.
The problem with having so much food around is that eating
inevitably becomes one of the ship’s main
“activities.” No longer did I pay attention to art
gallery talks or pilates classes listed under the next day’s
schedule ““ I was noticing items such as “sushi-cooking
class” (ironic?) or “themed Russian lunch
buffet.” It’s no wonder that with all the hype about
food on the ship, I stepped on the scales at the end of the week
and was shocked to discover that I’d gained weight faster
than Renee Zellweger prepping for her role in “Bridget
Jones’ Diary.”
In fact, if you were to read my diary about the voyage, it would
read something like this:
Day 1: Breakfast. Mid-morning snack. Italian buffet lunch.
Alaskan wildlife seminar. Mid-afternoon snack. Dinner. After-dinner
snack. Sleep.
Day 2: Continental breakfast. Breakfast. Sit by the pool and
read a book. Poolside snack. Thai buffet lunch. More pool snacks.
Dinner. Post-dinner pizza. Sleep.
And so on.
Cruise ships have also found ways to make passengers even more
comfortable, thus enticing them to eat even more. It’s gotten
to the point where you don’t even have to walk anywhere to
find the food anymore; the food will come to you.
Case in point: One day I was sitting by the pool, reading a
Chuck Palahniuk book, when one of the ship’s staff came up to
me with a complimentary glass of white chocolate mousse and set it
on the table next to me. I figured I might as well eat it while I
read my book ““ until I noticed that as soon as I finished,
another one was set there in its place. While not paying attention,
I had consumed almost four mousses.
In fact, by the third day, we were so conditioned to eating that
during the pesky hour between 10 and 11 a.m. when they have to
clean up the breakfast mess and prepare for lunch ““ Bruins,
you know what I’m talking about ““ we ordered room
service to mollify our grumbling stomachs.
This room service is perhaps the ultimate devil in cruise food
gluttony. Upon learning that the 24-hour room service was free, my
brother and cousin decided to order it at all hours of the night.
At one point, they ordered quesadillas and chicken sandwiches, ate
them, and then went to dinner half an hour later still feeling
hungry.
To make matters worse (or better, if you’re my brother),
passengers were able to order the unlimited amounts of room service
food on the TV screen in their rooms. After a few clicks on your
remote, 30 minutes later a steward will appear carrying eight
pizzas, three cheesecakes and two prime ribs.
But just like too many Rieber pizzas, even the room service
triple-decker burger started to lose its luster after the fourth
day. Unlike college, though, on the cruise ship I was able to order
items that I wouldn’t have touched with a 10-foot pole only
five days before ““ such as escargot or frog legs ““ out
of sheer boredom.
I won’t be eating them when I get back to school, but for
the record, frog legs really do taste like chicken.
If you’re a frog fan like Fylstra, e-mail her at
jfylstra@media.ucla.edu.