Lunch in the Verandah

Thursday 7th December


I have sailed with Cunard so many times that I get quite a few free perks. One of them is a free lunch in the Verandah restaurant, the fancy place where fees are charged for meals. It is fun to find other people with a free lunch and to meet up with them to experience the fancy dining. I had planned to meet with Hazel, Vi and Vivian.

Unfortunately I could not remember what time we were meeting, so had to phone Hazel that morning to check. We were booked for 1pm, after the dance session. I decided I'd better only have fruit for breakfast, in preparation for a three-course lunch.

When we met up I found that Vi had decided not to go. The Verandah is a nice atmosphere but I feel the waiters take everything too seriously. I was not impressed by the food. I remember that David was not impressed by it last time. Things are too fussy, with lots of combinations and sauces. My sole was not as nice as the one I had in the Britannia Restaurant a week earlier. I was disappointed that the staff did not have the grace to open Vivian’s complimentary bottle of champagne for her, unless she was prepared to pay a charge. It was obvious that she had received it as a gift from her travel agent (she had the card that went with it) but they did not recognise the brand and insisted it could not have been a Cunard gift. We are surprised that Cunard would allow a travel agent to send a gift onboard. Wouldn’t that be a security risk? Usually Cunard organises such gifts. Anyway, we did without it.

It was a lovely experience, and a relaxed way to eat lunch with friends. I'm happy to do it once on a cruise for the experience, if not for the food. For someone as fussy as I am, the menu is a bit limited and all a bit too ostentatious, relying on fussiness rather than good food.

After lunch I did most of my packing, interspersed by afternoon tea, once again meeting up with Catherine and Philip (from our dining room table) and Brian.

I walked back to my room via the other staircase in order to see how it had been decorated for Christmas.




Surprisingly that evening the band kept playing until midnight, instead of ending early as they often do. That meant that I missed the midnight deadline for getting my cases out. I undressed and packed as quickly as I could and put the bags outside with a few American dollars as an apology for being late. The bags had gone within 5 minutes.

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