Afternoon Tea, a delight or not your cup of tea at all?

This week saw me and my sister heading off to Belfast for the night to watch The Script in concert. We had a great night and the band were brilliant but we had a equally lovely experience planned for the next day. When we stay in Belfast we love staying in the Cathedral Quarter with its quirky bars and cafes and gorgeous buildings. The most eye catching of these buildings is the Merchant Hotel.

The hotel was originally an Ulsterbank building and was opened in 1860. It was then turned into a hotel and underwent a £16.5 million pound extension in 2010 which means the hotel is now enjoying its new incarnation as a five star luxury hotel.

The Afternoon Tea is held in the Great Room and what a room it is. You can still see some of the charm left over from its previous life as a bank but the room really has the WOW factor.

We decided on a table for 2 o’clock and were ready for all the delicious things we were hoping would come our way. We were not disappointed. From gorgeous sandwiches to the most gorgeous carrot cake, scones and chocolate pastries.

The experience was lovely and it got me to thinking about Afternoon tea on board cruise ships and how it used to be one of the most enjoyed experiences each day. I’m not talking about the afternoon dessert selection at the buffet, its the white gloved, 50 million different types of tea and trays and trays of lovely afternoon treats. i enjoy the experience but a few people I have spoken to said it wasn’t really their cup of tea, sorry for the pun lol, and that it was just too stuffy for them.

I decided to do a poll on Facebook to see what the customers that follow my cruise facebook page thought. I asked for people to vote for either cruise lines to get rid of afternoon tea as it was too stuffy or to keep it as they loved it. I ran the poll for 48 hours and as you can see from the left hand side – 100% of the people who voted said they loved it – people after my own heart

Whilst afternoon tea is now only found on the higher end lines like Oceania, Regent, Silversea etc I feel if anyone gets the opportunity to experience this you should jump at the chance