Afternoon Tea at Sea

One of my favorite things to do on board is make surer I plan time to have afternoon tea. This never happened on my last cruise Allure of the Seas. Lets be honest the Americans dont quite get all the lovely cakes and pastries we have on offer. The best they come up with is a cheesecake or pound cake! No Victoria sponge on cucumber sandwiches.

This got me thinking as I am off on Balmoral in May and have been recommend to have afternoon tea in the observatory whilst we are scenic cruising the Norwegian Fjords. This will be another to add to my list.

Not all Afternoon Teas have offered an amazing experience. Lets start the the worst. I love the ship and had no problems any where on board and the food everywhere else was fantastic but Ventura your afternoon tea was a disappointment! I was on board a few years back and I was pretty disappointed with the whole afternoon tea experience. I also suffered the same on board Azura the following year. It took place in the main dining room, the service seemed rushed but the worst thing was the food. The sandwiches were dry, small selection of cakes tasted funny!!  and the scones were as flat as pancakes. Come on P&O pull your finger out you know us Brits like a good bit of cake and a cuppa!!

Next on my list I wouldn’t say it was bad however it certainly didn’t exceed my expectations (maybe they were a little too high?)  I headed off to South Queensferry just outside of Edinburgh for an afternoon on the Queen Elizabeth. The atmosphere was fantastic. Afternoon tea is served in the Queens room, there was a harpist playing and the staff were all with their white gloves on but…. where was the cake stand?? There wasn’t one!!! So we have a little hiccup maybe they had just forgotten about us? No they don’t have any so the waiters bring round trays of sandwiches and cakes and you chose what you would like the downside with this was that I saw someone on another table get something which I would have liked to have tried but when they came to me there was nothing left. Opinion on Queen Elizabeth it was nice but with a few changes it could be great.

Now onto my favourite and in my opinion one of the best afternoon teas I have experienced. Top marks go to Azamara. It was a couple of years ago I was on board Azamara Journey but I have been reliably informed it hasn’t changed and is still as good!

Off we headed to the speciality restaurant Aqualina we were taken to our table whilst a harpist played in the background. There was a huge choice of teas to choose from and then the waiter brought over two full cake stands between four of us. Everything was really tasty and when we managed to empty both cake stands the waiter brought over another!

I really loved my afternoon tea on Azamara!