I just wrapped up my first ever cruise, which was on Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas for a round-trip itinerary departing from the World Cruise Center at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro, California and making stops in Cabo San Lucas and Ensenada, Mexico.
Last week, while I was still on the cruise ship, I published a blog post outlining my experience with embarkation day; at the end, I explained how seasick I was, and I questioned whether I would just be bedridden the entire trip. I am happy to share that my seasickness mostly went away starting from the second day, and I deem the cruise to be a success. I have a few more cruise-related blog posts planned for publication over the next week: two from specialty restaurants (including this one), and one giving an overall overview and concluding thoughts about the cruise.
This one covers Wonderland, a restaurant focusing on imaginative and experimental dishes with an integration of molecular gastronomy. Being classified as a specialty dining venue, Wonderland usually bills an additional cover charge of US$55.00 per person per dinner. However, because I purchased the unlimited specialty dining package prior to sailing, I was able to eat at Wonderland for no extra fee. Wonderland had the kind of unique dining experience I enjoy, so I had two dinners at Wonderland; this blog post includes both of them.
Upon arrival, I was given a blank menu, a paint brush, and a small jar of water. In order to reveal the menu, I had to wet the paint brush and draw strokes on the white piece of paper, which dampened the surface and caused the ink to appear. The menu was split into five different elements: sun, described as “radiant vegetables playfully reinvented”; ice, “chilled to exhilarate the palate”; fire, “emanating wonderful warmth”; earth, “dishes grounded in whimsy”; and sea, “oceanic inspirations from the tide of the imagination.”
When my waiter arrived during my first dinner, I asked him how the system works, i.e., how many dishes I am allowed to order. At first, the waiter replied that he would pick the dishes for me. Confused, I asked him if this was a prix fixe tasting menu designed by the chef, to which he replied that it was not. He then clarified that I was able to pick one item from each of the elements. When I went through and made my selections, he told me that two of my selections were incompatible because they were both considered larger dishes. After some more confusion, I ended up skipping an earth dish and ordering two sea dishes instead so that my meal would fit their requirements.
During my second dining experience, I let the waiter know that I had already been to Wonderland before, and I picked out dishes that I did not have during my first meal a few days prior. Both this waiter, as well as the waiter from my first dinner, did not write anything down when I made my selections. Both of them apparently had lacking short-term memory, because in both instances, they mixed up some items, did not give me a few things I ordered, and gave me a few things I did not order.
From the fire menu, this was the Mad Hatter’s Purple-Potted Shrimp. This was basically a jumbo fried shrimp wrapped with more crispy breading shaped as thick straw. This had all the positives of fried food without tasting greasy, and the shrimp was still juicy and tender. It came with a scotch bonnet sauce, which went well with the shrimp.
Also from the fire menu, this was the Bird’s Nest, a smoked deviled egg topped with a few drops of hot sauce. This is one of the items that I did not order, but received anyway.
The menu said that this has blue cheese, but it did not, which is great, because the smell of blue cheese makes me want to vomit. It came with a lid that trapped in the smoke, which the waiter removed after he brought it to my table. Funny enough, the smoke was incredibly intense and heavy, and the smell lingered around my table a lot and made me cough, but the deviled egg seems to not really have absorbed much of the smoky flavor, because it just tasted like a straightforward deviled egg.
Last from the fire menu was the wonton soup with asparagus and jelly noodles. The dumpling was good, the asparagus was decent, and the noodles were interesting because they were extra smooth and slippery, so it made for an intriguing eating experience. However, the soup was unpalatably salty to the point where it was borderline bitter. I think the soup could’ve been diluted with two parts of additional water and it still would’ve been salty.
Moving onto the sun menu, the first item was Baby Vegetables in the Garden with “soil” and “pebbles.” The vegetables were fine, but the waiter poured an insane amount of what appeared to be a variant of very salty ranch atop the dish, so that completely overwhelmed any of the vegetable flavor. The “soil” had a very strange texture, and I couldn’t quite figure out what exactly it actually was. It was both soggy and crumbly at the same time. When drenched in ranch, it clumped up a bit, but it still maintained the crumbly component of its texture, which felt weird in my mouth.
The next item from the sun menu was the Reconstructed Caprese with a gelatin-like tomato, cheese, liquid olives (made with reverse spherification), ricotta powder, and basil paste. This was actually surprisingly delicious. I’m usually not a fan of cheese because I think it smells like mold, but the cheese provided with this dish was mild and clean in flavor.
The presentation of this dish was incredibly confusing. The bulk of the food was crammed inside a small sliver running down the center of the plate, while the largest two portions of the plate were occupied by two droplets of marmalade on one side, and the “soil” from before on the other side. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to eat this effectively, but considering that this was supposed to be a reconstructed caprese salad, I cut up the tomato into smaller pieces, moved everything over ton one of the larger compartments, and mixed it all together.
The third and final sun menu item was Tomato Water with pepper spherification and bread foam, served in a test tube. I wasn’t really sure how to consume this either, so at first I took a sip of the tomato water, then later jostled the test tube around so the liquid pepper and bread foam would mix with the tomato water without overflowing. It made sense that this was named tomato water, because it literally tasted like what a tomato would taste like if it was in water form.
Along with this came an item from the ice menu, a crispy crab cone with avocado mousse. The menu said that it was also supposed to come with cilantro and ohba leaf, but I wasn’t able to taste either of those. Overall, I thought this was a solid and straightforward avocado and crab fried cone, and I enjoyed it.
Next is what I believe to be the Citrus Seas Shhhh, which was supposed to be spicy tuna along with a floral yuzu granité. However, the spicy tuna was not spicy, and it came inside a gutted lime. Flavor-wise, it was still good.
During my first dinner, I ordered the Sashimi of Red and White Tuna. When this came out, I wondered whether they didn’t quite know what “sashimi” was supposed to mean, and prepared it like this instead. I looked at the other menu options and didn’t think that it matched the Citrus Seas Shhhh because it was not spicy, so I was thoroughly confused.
For the second dinner, I thought I had gotten the Sashimi of Red and White Tuna for the first dinner, so I ordered the Citrus Seas Shhhh to add variety, only to find out that I got a repeat of what I got during my first dinner. I suspect that this means that my first waiter brought out the wrong item for me.
From the sea menu, I got liquid lobster with bone marrow and caviar. This was an explosion of umami flavor and was probably my favorite dish from Wonderland.
For my main entrée for my first dinner, I got Halibut Cooked in Clear Paper. I assume that the “clear paper” was just a heat-resistant transparent cooking film (or, alternatively, I guess it is technically not impossible that they just used a regular clear bag and served the dish with a side of mushrooms, potato, and microplastics).
I’ve never had fish prepared like this before, and it does seem logical as to why someone might want to cook it this way, but flavor-wise, I couldn’t really tell much of a difference from regular poached fish. The juices were also way too salty and detracted from the overall flavor profile of the dish.
For the main entrée for my second dinner, I got the Chicken and the Egg, served alongside some crispy chicken skin, vegetables, and potato purée. The chicken was extremely dry and underwhelming.
I did not receive a dessert menu, so I was at the mercy of my waiter. For my first dinner, I got The World, a chocolate sphere that melts after the waiter pours warm caramel sauce on top of it.
The caramel sauce and the contents of the chocolate sphere were good, but the chocolate itself was excruciatingly sweet.
During my second dinner, I let my waiter know that I had previously tried The World and requested something different. He came out with the Forbidden Apple, which was basically like an apple gelatin shaped into a small apple, served alongside some pie crust crumbs, a ball of whipped cream, and a few small portions of fruit. This wasn’t exactly bad, but I’d say that the apple gelatin was somewhat unremarkable and didn’t really have a strong apple flavor to it.
Here are some photographs of the interior of the restaurant.
This is what the pathway to the entrance of Wonderland looks like. There was a professional photographer posted in front of this throne under the Wonderland sign who was offering to take photos. I declined because I heard that actually accepting your photographs costs somewhere around US$20.00 per shot, even if you only retrieve the digital versions. If they haven’t already, I am guessing that they will need to start decreasing those prices soon, considering that high-end cameras are much more accessible nowadays and people will likely want to just take their own photos instead.
And now, for a strange story.
For some context, Royal Caribbean forces you to pay extra gratuity on almost everything. I purchased a specialty dining package, and during checkout, I had to pre-pay a mandatory 18% gratuity on top of the cost of the package. To be clear, that is absolutely not how the concept of “gratuity” works. Royal Caribbean also nonconsensually adds a daily US$18.50 gratuity per person that gets added to your daily running SeaPass bill. This gets distributed to all staff, including your stateroom attendant and other service team staff.
At the end of my first dinner at Wonderland, the waiter brought me my check after dessert. Because I got the unlimited specialty dining package, my grand total for the meal was $0, but they still need to receive my signature to confirm that I dined there. However, the waiter added a bit of commentary—he clarified that the gratuity I already paid goes towards the staff, and (his literal words) “not to me.” He specified that if I want to tip him, I will need to add an extra amount to the “additional gratuity” line of the check.
I was confused but didn’t really care enough to think more deeply about this, so I added an extra US$10.00 tip to the check and signed off on it.
Later that day, I thought back to what the waiter told me, and it clicked in my head that he was either being extremely misleading or straight-up lying. I did some research online about how Royal Caribbean’s gratuity system works, and I confirmed that my waiter would absolutely count as the “staff” towards whom the pre-paid gratuity gets distributed. I realized that I got scammed by this man who mixed up my order and couldn’t even properly explain how the Wonderland menu selection system worked.
During this research process, I also found out that you are allowed to adjust the US$18.50 daily gratuity if you speak with Guest Services. I marched straight downstairs and asked them to remove the daily gratuity from my SeaPass bill.
Not only did I permanently have the “do not disturb” sign on my door and skipped housekeeping services for the entirety of my cruise, but I also technically paid double for my cruise because I sailed solo. (If you’re not familiar with how cruise pricing works, they market the cost as “per person,” but when you go to buy the cruise, the expectation is that there will be two people per room, and if you mark that you are going solo, the price doubles because you are basically paying for two people’s worth of a cruise by yourself.) I had already given Royal Caribbean plenty of my money and already pre-paid my mandatory dining gratuity, so I had no issue “retaliating” against this waiter’s lies by removing all the extra fees from my cruise that I could.
Anyway, I’m glad I checked out Wonderland on my cruise. As you can tell from my split reviews, the food items were sort of a hit-or-miss, but overall, I like restaurants that are brave enough to experiment with their dishes and try something new, strange, or unusual.
They obviously need better wait staff, both in the sense of integrity and training, but other than that, if you are a food enthusiast, I would lean towards the extra specialty upcharge being worth it for trying out Wonderland one time.
