Judging by the photos entered for the Onboard Food competition it looks like afternoon tea and the midnight buffet were very popular.
They were ! i rarely missed any of them in my years onboard. Afternoon tea was such a delight,until you saw the staff filling up the tea pots from urns just behind the Queens Room. Now did they empty out the tea bags each time or simply add more water. Having worked in hospitality it does kinda spoil things when you see how it really works behind the scenes. the sandwiches could have been made an hour before or at 6am and just cling wrapped , or the night before and covered with a damp towel , mercifully l never saw cling wrap on any sandwich tray. but once unwrapped the edges do go hard quite quickly. The dinky oven scones were always lovely, and nice that they have the uneven shape, Harrods in London do beautiful ones and each one perfect, but its crazy how many are rejected as not perfect. l personally loved the fruit slices with jelly on top.
I do remember away back in 1986 and scanning the brochures and wondering what on earth was the things they were serving at Afternoon Tea , my delight was seeing them first hand, Chaux Pastry Swans , not as intricate as what they could be , but nice all the same and serving tea from the square Tea pots
For me l could live of Afternoon tea, and an afternoon tea done well is a masterpiece. Back in 1991 Tea at the Ritz was £17.50 with two servings 3 and 4.30 and booking was a must months in advance. Progress what it is they now serve from 11.00 to 7pm , its a conveyor belt , it moves in a finely tuned mode but 90 mins and thats you out. Grosvenor House on Park Lane l have taken two lady friends over the years and we had such a hoot, right by the window , the beautiful crockery, we only had one lemon posset atop the cake stand, surely we were not expected to share, so our lovely waiter bought another, we had refills galore of fresh tea, the sandwiches so dainty and replaced so quickly, and at the end a little box to go, but l think the banter made that possible, and you were certainly not rushed .
After one crossing, in the early 90s l made a pact with a lady friend from onboard to do Afternoon Tea and we ended up at The Savoy, beautiful and lovely as it was, it just didn't have the panache of QE2, not that there was anything wrong
A few years ago, l had a day out with an ex and ended up at Gleneagles, start to finish it was a fiasco and the Vegetarian sandwiches we were told depended on what the Chef had. Anyway we left, Mark was impressed by it all and shocked l wasn't leaving a tip . I told him why , the cracked cruet set, the tarnished water glass, the waiter dropping a knife on the floor, the fact we could have been taken to any empty table, yet were seated at a table fresh from being wiped clean , near an open door and a maitre D that gave attitude .I felt their standards had decidedly dropped since 1989 , 2005 and 2018, but credit where its due their breakfast was up there with some of the great and the good.
On a Med cruise, l think 2006, l was friendly with an Irish Man and we were late getting to The Queens Room and were relegated to Tea in The Lido, ( l still never got over the shock) as chance had it one of my waiters was serving so we sat where he was serving and one of the onboard lecturers Glynn Christan (a TV cook ) was passing though, we thought it might be daring to ask him over "For Tea and Sponge Finger " and were quite shocked when he said he would be delighted, it was a terribly camp affair and lord knows what the tables next door thought but we had a good old scream of time and Glyn with his most devilish sense of fun has us in hysterics. He came to one of my cabin parties later on in that voyage , he was in Britannia Grill and made great fun at being allowed down to steerage and 9 of us in an inside single , l had to put the chair into the bathroom over the toilet it was so cramped, but when the bubbles were flowing it just added to the fun, It happened it was a new very young officer hosting our table that night, Captain Bates told us later he thought it would be a good introduction for him, it was ! , the wine flowed like it never flowed before, usually it would gently stop but at the Captains Party later on , the officer confided to us he was nervous at hosting his first table and told the wine waiter not to let their glasses get empty, and true to form the wine was never ending then we were offered liqueurs. Unheard of in my experience of a hosted table, but such good fun, Then he took us through to the Golden Lion , where at least despite his protests we could buy him a drink and congratulate him on passing with flying drunken colours from our point of view . We did all make a point of mentioning to Captain Bates the night he hosted , of what a very good host he was , in his own style he laughed and said "Oh l told him, get them drunk and you will be fine, " and added "l just didnt realise how much drink it would take"
Who couldn't resist a turn around the midnight buffet, quite often on late sitting in the Mauretania it was a drink after dinner and head to the Midnight Buffet . They used to "set up a table" in the Columbia which was nice, but the Lido allowed more space and options, and lm sure any waiter in their right mind doesn't want to be setting up tables for breakfast at 1am in any location.
So yes for me anyway Afternoon Tea and The Friends of The Midnight Buffet l do sorely miss, it does seem so terribly long ago now.
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