We call this day zero because we left Rome at 5 pm and spent a day at sea heading to Santorini. We took advantage of some of the shows onboard to pass the time.

We started with a magic show by J Alexander. J was a bit funny with his magic tricks and the show was entertaining and worth the visit (once).

After the magic show, we headed to O’Sheehans Bar and Grill. It is supposed to be an Irish theme sports bar but the food features was the typical American fare: burgers, wings, nachos, cobb salad…

I ordered the burger and true to form I was thoroughly disappointed. The meat patty tasted and chewed like it came from a frozen slab a beef from the 19th century. The slice of cheese had white streaks which I presume came from frost from a frozen slab of individually wrapped cheese slices.

The tomato and red onion were the only good thing on this burger.

The next morning we headed out to breakfast at the Garden Buffet.

The buffet eggs had that powdered egg look and feel so I opted for an omelette with tomato, ham and cheese. It was edible but not delightful. The eggs werent fresh but from some some liquid state. I later found out you can request fresh eggs so I will try that next time.

The bacon was a bit greasy and low quality and sausage was bland.

We opted to do the wine tasting at noon. You would expect that on a cruise from Italy to Greece we would taste Greek or Italian wines but you would be wrong. We ended up tasting 4 wines and 4 chocolates.

Port – Portugal

Pinot – Oregon, USA

Zinfandel (Kendal) – USA

Cabernet Sauvignon – USA

At the wine tasting we had an interesting conversation about the cruise choices for wine with others and the sommelier. We wondered why if we are on a Italian/Greek cruise are they serving wine from California and Oregon? Further in the discussion is why all the food is “Americanized” on the ship. We have visited 4 restaurants (Savor, Taste, Garden, O’Sheehans) and the menu is primarily “Americanized” food. Yes there are some “Italian” or “Asian” options but hardly anything truly Italian, Greek or Asian.

After the wine tasting we had lunch at restaurant named “Taste”. I ordered a veggie bowl taco salad. You would think it would be hard to screw up a salad but Taste did it by putting too much ranch dressing on it. The veggies would have been ok were they not drowning in sauce.

The restaurants do a fine job in asking if there are any food allergies but do a horrible job in accommodating those allergies. One member in our group had dairy allergies, we asked if we could get “Chicken Flautas” with no cheese and it was impossible indicating the mixture was preprocessed and bundled chicken+cheese. We asked if we could get the “Milanesa” and the waiter advised it may have dairy! A milanesa is supposed to be breaded cutlet of chicken or beef so not sure how dairy got into it.

The manager suggested we call ahead to accommodate for allergies so we asked for the dinner menu. We asked if they could prepare spring rolls on the dinner menu ahead and manager said no because it was from offshore prepackaged food and could not tell if it had dairy or not. We inquired about another item and received the same answer.

The only item on the dinner menu was filet mignon which came with a $25 up charge.

We decided to try another restaurant for dinner.

The Manhattan Room

This is the largest restaurant on the ship we have eaten so far. The restaurant features live jazz band ambiance but the singer couldn’t be heard over the double bass, cymbals or piano.

Spring rolls – The rolls were crisp and savory but just a tad bit too oily.

Pepper crusted roast beef was a bit tough, unsalted, and not peppery. The spinach was overcooked.

The breaded fried flounder had no seasoning and tasted rather bland.

The tartar sauce did not help the flounder as it lacked a tartar taste. It seems the default option on the ship is to make foods as bland as possible.

Asked waiter for Chianti and we got a Merlot so sent it back and got the Chianti.

Steak and fries – fries tasted as they came right out of the freezer bag.

We finished the evening with a production show at the Theatre called “Burning Floor show” which was truly delightful and entertaining. The show was essentially ballroom dancing but set to modern music. We enjoyed the show.

At this point we wont be doing any more food or restaurant reviews. The pattern of poor quality, poor prep and poor cooking has become abundantly clear, the food is mediocre. FULL STOP.

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