I like to watch the working ship work; the unloading and loading of cargo is another thing that makes the Lofoten unique. It is not a tourist re-creation of sepia-tinted photos of the original working ferries that delivered people and goods up and down the coast to places that were difficult, or impossible, to reach by road; it is still the real deal.
I saw the bundles of Christmas trees brought aboard. I saw boxes of lettuce heads, not bags, heads; our salads are handmade.
We have three meals a day; breakfast and lunch are buffets and dinner is always a four-course sit-down meal (except for the five-course dinner at the end of the voyage). The service is impeccable and the staff and crew do everything they can to make sure we enjoy our meals.
At home my “three meals a day” are coffee and maybe a banana for breakfast; I often only have lunch on weekends because at work I don’t make the time, and supper is anything quick and easy and usually cooked in the microwave. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so well or so healthy for twelve days straight in my life as I have on the Lofoten. I never feel hungry (and usually feel full) and I always feel well. That is significant. Who doesn’t feel at some point leading up to the holidays, bloated, off, or downright sick from overindulgence? Isn’t that the Christmas and New Year tradition?
I avoid gluten and meat and the chef comes up with amazing ways to make vegetables gourmet entrees. One of the servers is vegetarian and he makes it his job to make sure the food lives up to my standards (as if I have any standards; the food has set a bar that I never bothered with before). All the passengers agree–we are taken care of.
My two favorites on the ship are the to-die-for soups and the homemade ice cream. What I realized is that I thought of being a vegetarian as a choice to deny myself a category of foods. I come away from my meals on the Lofoten with a new perspective: being a vegetarian is discovering a whole new category of foods to enjoy. Being a vegetarian isn’t about what you don’t eat; it’s about the endless variety of food you choose to eat.
At home a good meal is something I often forget and then settle for whatever is handy. Good food combined with good company providing good conversation while dining in a classic ship looking out on mesmerizing scenery is the perfect storm (probably not the best choice of words to use on a ship) of culinary experience.
What so many passengers say draws them to the Hurtigrutin cruises again and again, is that you can be alone when you want to and you can be with people when you want to and, more remarkably, you can silently sit by a window surrounded by people with the unspoken understanding that being with people doesn’t mean you have to talk all the time.
When we dine though, it is a shared experience in more ways than one. As fellow passenger Phil said, “It’s about the people.”
The food is just a small part of the memories we will always share.
Journeys 