It’s always nice to dress up for dinner and indulge in all the pampering that goes along with it such as doing your hair and make-up, spritzing on your favourite perfume, and donning your high heels. Our hotel room was a veritable hive of activity as The Flock got on with the serious business of primping and preening for a night out.
We had booked a dinner cruise with Entertainment Cruises aboard their “Spirit of Washington” cruiser, and what a beauty she turned out to be; three decks to relax and enjoy ourselves on. The dockside crew welcomed us aboard with cheery smiles and handed us over to the onboard crew, who took us to the window seat table that we’d reserved.
Courtney, the marketing co-ordinator at Entertainment Cruises, had been exchanging tweets with us in the weeks prior to us leaving for the U.S and had very kindly arranged for a bottle of Champagne to be placed on our table. Thank you Courtney, it was very kind of you, and much appreciated :)
Our server for the evening was Jacarra; a sweeter girl you could not wish to meet. She literally couldn’t do enough for us, even tracking us down to an upper deck to see if we wanted any more coffees after the buffet dinner.
The buffet itself was delicious and had a big enough spread that catered for every taste bud, but not so big that food would be indiscriminately wasted. There were soft, rich dinner rolls and fresh pats of butter to help yourself to first and then a variety of hot vegetarian and meat dishes were in large tureens waiting to be sampled. Broccoli with garlic and Chilli was one of the vegetable sides; mashed potato, pasta spirals with green Pesto, and a Sweet corn dish were other options.
There was separate counter that housed salad items and the dessert selection. I got another platter for my salad to keep it from the hot items, and went to join His Nibs and The Chick at our table. The Short Rib Beef was amazing; it was just falling apart and had a superb flavour to it, we all commented on how tasty it was. I also had the grilled Fish in a Tomato and Caper sauce and it was delicious; the fish was moist (as you know I hate dry over-cooked Fish) and the sauce had a great deep flavour to it, I loved the partnership of the rich Tomato and saltiness of the Capers.
The Man Bird and Chickadee had the Chicken portions in creamy sauce and both said how nice it was. In fact, we all paid a second visit to the buffet counter to get some more food, it was that good; compliments to the Chef and his team :)
All the salad dishes were very fresh, the leaves were crispy and crunchy and the other salad vegetables were nicely chilled. I especially liked the Beetroot salad and the rice salad, and I ladled some tangy Blue Cheese dressing over my leaves (well I am on holiday) :)
The Flocks’ new favourite dessert is Red Velvet cake (all your fault, Founding Farmers!) and when combined with Chocolate Chips it goes to a whole other level of fantastic-ness. Needless to say the first lot got polished off at a pace Usain Bolt couldn’t even match, and the second batch swiftly followed suit into our tummies.
There was a great camaraderie between guests, who came from all around the world, including Peru, and even some Kenyan Embassy people. Birthdays and anniversaries were being celebrated so the on-board photographer was being kept busy bless her. Richard the D.J had a voice like liquid silk, very Barry White or Isaac Hayes in timbre; he kept up a relentless pace on the dance floor, ensuring it was boogie central on-board the Spirit of Washington. So good was he that I even managed to get The Man Bird up for a boogie, and he hasn’t danced in public since we got married!! Yes, there is evidence of this rare event; The Chick cunningly filmed us on her phone, gotta love female cunning :)
As darkness had fallen we saw the bright lights of D.C in all their glory, and it looked beautiful. The whole cruise had lasted about 3 hours, give or take a couple of minutes; although it seemed like only 5 minutes because we’d had such a great time.
Thank you to the Captain for such a smooth trip and to Entertainment Cruises for such a great experience, it’s one I would thoroughly recommend to anyone who visits Washington D.C. One last mention again for our wonderful server, Jacarra; from the moment she greeted us to the moment we left she made us feel incredibly special
