If they book the “right” ship, business groups can gather in floating resorts, which now offer more ways than ever to include culinary theatrics in their programs, and even team-building, says Jo Kling, president and co-founder of Coral Gables, Fla.-based Landry & Kling.
Kling’s firm specializes in fulfilling meetings objectives at sea, beginning with ship selection. Ships, she says, are never that far behind resorts when it comes to staging tantalizing culinary events.
“Few resort hotels can match what cruise lines do with individually ordered menus,” Kling says. “And the group gets so much more for their money. They don’t have to pay extra for a good-looking ballroom or the cooking demonstration that’s already scheduled.”
She cites the new culinary arts centers that Holland America Line (HAL) has installed on all of its ships. The centers are a cruise industry first, and resemble show kitchens used by TV chefs. They feature theater-style seating and large plasma-screen TVs that provide close-ups of celebrity chef demonstrations.
The HAL centers can also be used as team-building platforms.
“Our culinary theaters can accommodate up to 200 people for demos and up to 50 for participation events,” says Rob Coleman, CTC, HAL’s director of incentive and charter sales. “We’ve found that using culinary in events appeals to people at several echelons in an organization—beginning with top executives and others who may not want to do a strenuous kind of team-building exercise or something that forces them to move out on an uncomfortable limb—learning to barbecue is okay.”
Larger (between 450 and 900) groups can have their own dining hours on HAL vessels, he adds.
HAL also offers passengers a new Signature Master Chef’s Dinner that combines cuisine, service and entertainment in a fine dining occasion at sea. Musicians tune up for the evening on “foodical” instruments such as drum-shaped cakes sitting on bread-stick stands, a banana sax and a pear-shaped bass. The show moves through a “Waltz of the Napkins” when the staff delivers napkins in a choreographed waltz, and a “Show Salad Spectacular,” when stewards juggle colorful vegetables into an oversized salad bowl, and on and on.
