Once we were checked into our room on Friday, we met Silvia (our male cabin concierge) and we explained the issues with the lights and the doors. He was very familiar with the issues and promptly taped the locks and light switches and the refrigerator light.
Before going down to eat, we went to see the Shabbat service that was advertised in the "Celebrity Daily Event" bulletin...there were about 40 people assembled davening and making kiddush...
There are a number of other dati people on the ship, but not enough to make a minyan.
We entered our dining room "Blu" for our first Shabbat meal, which actually took place before we were mekabel Shabbat ...we figured that would be much easier that way and then we could make kiddush and hamotzi after lighting candles and davening. We met with Joel Bautista who is the restaurant manager and after introducing ourselves and explaining that we would be eating kosher, he responded that he knew all about kosher having dealt with many kosher travelers before us and also because his wife and his 4 year old son are Jewish.
He took our order for the packaged kosher meals and took us to our table, explaining that the first night is always a bit slow because they like to have the orders the day before to get everything in place. Well it was slow....and the food was not great. But they did prepare a great plate of fresh veggies and fresh fruit for us...we gave our order for shabbat lunch and seudah shlishit and and we left about half an hour before candle lighting to get ready for Shabbat. We davened in our rooms and then all gathered in josh and Liz' room to hear kiddush and make hamotzi. By this time we were quite tired from the long day and hit the sack.
Shabbat morning I was up quite early and went for a long walk on the deck, had an early morning coffee, caught up on some newspaper reading and when I returned to the room at 7 am, Fran was up. So We davened and then we made kiddush in the room before heading off to the cafe (which is open 24 hours a day) for our second shabbat meal.
In terms of where we were at this point, we were traveling on the inside passage which on Shabbat morning was in the middle of a very wide strait, we could see land on both sides but it was far away. Over Shabbat, the straits got narrower and narrower and then late on Shabbat it seemed we were in the open sea again. All around it was mountains and forests, with almost no sign of human life. Every once and a while we would see a boat in the distance.
From a selfish standpoint, the weather was mostly overcast, so we weren't missing a lot of photo opportunities... To take pictures because of Shabbat.
Back to breakfast....Josh and Liz and Shabsie and Ruthie were already there and we were joined soon thereafter by Joel and Leeba Salzmann from Hashmonaim for breakfast. There were many items in the buffet that were kosher, including yogurt, cheese (cottage and cream), lox, cereals, herring, fruit, veggies, bagels etc....the staff knows all about kosher and they are constantly telling us that we should not worry as "this product has an OU ". The service here is great.
At 10:30 there was a tour of the kitchen led by the head chef Jason Banyon and by his team of chefs. He explained how an operation of this size works and took many questions from the large audience. It was fascinating. While in the kitchen we were able to see that all the cut up fruits and veggies are done in a special station completely separate from the rest of the operation.
They showed us where they make all the ice cream for the ship and while there I asked the ice cream head if it was kosher. He promptly produced the OU certification for the stabilizers that they use and then told us which flavours did not have supervised flavouring. We then watched a pastry girl make marzipan roses which are used to decorate cakes made on board. They showed us the kosher area which is only used when they have a large kosher group who bring in their own cooks and mashgichim. It was a great tour.
At a bit after noon, we went to lunch and the Salzmans joined us. We had some more of the same packaged meals which really leave much to be desired. Again the salad and fruit saved us...
We had a nap, Fran and I davened mincha, played a few games of Bananagrams and Backgammon and then we gathered for dinner/seudah shlishit back in the Blu dining room.
Over Shabbat our maitre d who seemed a bit distant at the beginning was beginning to warm up and at each meal he spent more time with us. By this time, we had a long discussion with him about his life on the ship away from his wife and son for 6 months at a time, and he shared with us many details about the ship and the restaurant that he manages, Blu. We began to speak about kosher and queried him on some of the items that we were seeing on the ship. He placed a call to the executive chef Jason and within minutes, we had the head chef Jason Banyon at our table. Originally from Wimbledon UK, he is responsible for all the food that is served on the ship, some 9000 meals a day!!! He knew an enormous amount about kosher including issues of bishul akum and preparing food on Shabbat and was definitely familiar with the fact that there were many different opinions in areas of kashrut, which he respected. We shared with him the fact that the packaged meals were not that great and he made a number of suggestions of things that he had done and could do to prepare meals for us that would be within the guidelines of halacha. On Sunday night we will have fresh salmon that he will spice with OU teriyaki sauce, OU garlic and all kosher spices and steam in the microwave double wrapped together with many vegetables as side dishes. He will be preparing some special ice creams and fruit mixed with ice cream and some salads that will incorporate OU artichokes, OU capers etc, ....he indicated that over Sunday, he will be experimenting with a number of was to prepare this for our benefit.
It was truly impressive that he took the time to spend with us to discuss our meal needs....
After we davened maariv and made Havdala we went to the theatre where there was a musical presentation ugh lighting broadway tunes...Fran and I were quite tired, so we stayed for a while and then went back to our room/cabin/stateroom for a well deserved shloof.....
It is now 6 am Sunday morning (Alaska time....4 hours different than Toronto time) and we have pulled into our first stop...Ketchikan ....today we will stroll the town in the morning and then take a seaplane flight into the "Icy Fjords" national park area....we will continue later....have a great day
Kol toov from Alaska
Fran (still fast asleep) and David
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