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| Dinner line at The Berlin |
The food on the ship is not fancy like on a cruise. Personally, I find it awfully nice to have somebody else shop and cook and clean up for four months. The food is perfectly ok, nutritious, and well-prepared but honestly gets pretty monotonous after weeks and weeks. But it’s like eating at a good cafeteria in a dorm. You’re going to want to bring a lot of snacks!
Three meals are served each day in two different restaurants: The Berlin on Deck 6 aft and The Lido on Deck 9 aft. The restaurants serve identical menus. There aren’t specific “seatings:” you just go and eat when you want to during the times they’re serving. At busy times there can be long lines, but at other times you just breeze right through.
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| There's a 24-hr snack bar in the Library |
At breakfast there’s always fresh fruit, eggs, oatmeal, pastries, cereal, toast, juice, and coffee/tea among other things. At lunch and dinner there’s always a salad bar and usually a soup. Entrées always include a vegetarian option, usually a fish dish, and some kind of meat. There’s always PB&J at the lunch counter. And there are usually a couple of desserts.
Other than the dining halls, you can always buy a snack in the Library on Deck 6 or from the Grill up on Deck 9 aft. There are delicious smoothies and other snacky stuff for sale at the pool deck.
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| You NEED one of these if you despise instant |
The Four Seasons on Deck 7 is for “fancy dining.” A very nice fixed menu including appetizers, salad, soup, entrée, and dessert costs $35 per person. Good wines are available. The décor is nice, though the restaurant is also a classroom during the day so it’s kind of surreal to be served a nice dinner in the same space where you took art history in the afternoon. The fixed menu doesn’t change very often, so don’t go twice on the same sea crossing. We’ve only been to the Four Seasons maybe two or three times on the whole voyage.
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| "Fancy dinner" at the Four Seasons |
Of course when you’re in the countries, you can do all sorts of culinary exploration! Fine dining in Vietnam and India is amazing and ridiculously affordable. Street food is an adventure too. We were just blown away by the food in Vietnam when we spent 11 days there in 2020. Kenya, South Africa, Morocco – yum!
The Chappy on Deck 7 aft is a very nice refuge for staculty and LLLs. They serve real espresso, but sadly not before mid-morning. The bar isn’t open until later, but people hang out in there all day to work in a quiet place where students aren’t allowed. There’s indoor seating in the cool with the lovely woodwork and also outdoor seating in the shade. It’s a great place to read or work. The day before each port, we get treated to a lovely spread of country-specific appetizers at Happy Hour in The Chappy.
Bartenders at the Chappy and the Pool Bar are super friendly and will get to know you. Lots of staculty and LLLs frequent the Chappy at Happy Hour. It can be boisterous but not rowdy. In my experience there is not much drinking culture on the ship – but of course I don’t drink alcohol at all.
Student use of alcohol and drugs is a major concern of the Student Life staff. Students and their luggage are searched very thoroughly every single time they board the ship, and their access to alcohol is very limited. Technically they are all “of legal age” by the Law of the Sea, but in past decades drunken students caused terrible problems including violence and even death on the ship. They are limited to rations of a maximum of two drinks per week at sea, and only on special occasions like dance parties on the pool deck.
On the other hand, students are pretty much unsupervised on land. This can lead to all kinds of behavioral problems, many of which include alcohol and drugs. Student Life maintains a hot line and has staff on call 24/7 when the ship is in port to help students who get into trouble. There’s a “drunk tank” in the Medical Center where students can sleep it off under medical supervision. A tiny percentage of students cause a disproportionate fraction of trouble.