Afternoon Tea at the Empress...do we have time?

[lorielucks]

Hello,

We will be docked in Victoria from 7 am to 2 pm. We want to have Afternoon Tea at the Empress hotel. The earliest reservation we can get is for 11:30 am. I figure that we should be headed back to the ship by 1 pm In order to make the 1:30 all aboard. Is 90 minutes enough time for the tea service? Are they usually pretty good about seating you punctually? I'd hate to rush through the service or worse yet, miss the ship. Any input would be very much appreciated.

TIA,

Lorie

[Putterdude]

I just asked Dudette who has tea there a number of times and she tells me 90 mins would be an absolute minimum...2 hrs would be better.

[martincath]

You'll also have the issue that everyone else on your ship will be in the same boat timing-wise, pardon the pun - service will not be swift as the experience is well-known, popular, and as you've discovered only the earliest seating will actually get you in and out in time to get back to the ship.

 

Anyway, the whole point of afternoon tea is to take it between lunch & dinner - it most assuredly does not replace a proper lunch despite the hefty pricetag at the Empress! Pretty much everything you'll have to eat is empty carbs that are not going to fill you up unless you upgrade to the Royal package - and even then it's only three rather small portions of cheese...

 

So why not have an even more British experience by lunching in the Bengal lounge instead? Curry is the real national cuisine of Britain; the room will be less crowded; still get a view of the gardens; you'll have a much more substantial meal for literally less than half the price; you can drink the same teas as in the Empress room for a few bucks; and you don't even have to eat curry if you're one of those poor souls who doesn't appreciate it - they offer a full range of a la carte food too. Win-win in my book...

[chefestelle]

The Bengal Room is quite lovely and the food delicious. But tea at the Empress is a nice, traditional experience. While it's better to take your time, you can do it in 90 minutes if you tell the server that you only have 90 minutes. Enjoy!

[lorielucks]

Thank you for the replies. My 12 year old DD would never forgive me if we did not do Afternoon Tea. While curry sounds fabulous, it is the ritual of Afternoon Tea that we are after. We could have booked Tea as an excursion through the ship which would have gotten us in to the Empress a bit earlier, but it would have cost an additional US$100 per person. I don't think the bus ride to the hotel is worth the extra US$50. So it sounds like we will have to let the server know of our time constraints and enjoy the time we do have.

 

Thanks again for the input.

[martincath]

I really hate to see an expensive experience compromised due to timing - while of course you *can* get in and out in time, you're going to miss out on the full enjoyment of the experience. You'll barely make a dent in the nicely-ironed collection of newspapers in that time!

 

Since taking a formal tea is obviously something that you & your DD really want to do, why not do it somewhere else closer to home and do something unique to Victoria with the time instead? The Fairmont in San Francisco also offers afternoon tea - in fact they've been doing it a year longer than the Empress...

 

Even with the current poor Canadian dollar it would actually still be a little cheaper at US$39 a head, and I assume if you're cruising out of SF on a RT that you live there or close by. This way you could at least have tea in as leisurely a manner as you choose, even including the same Fairmont blends.

 

Or you could go to the Palace hotel, spend even more than at the Empress, but get a more substantial menu in the absolutely-gorgeous Garden Court.

 

By taking tea elsewhere, you'd open up the realistic possibility of visiting Butchart Gardens independently or via ships tour, with enough time to actually do it justice - and since you're lucky enough to be on an all-daytime-stop instead of the short evening ones that are all-too-common on Alaskan RTs you'll have good light the whole time for pictures. DD might also enjoy the very old-school carousel.

[Putterdude]

I don't for a moment dispute anything others have said about the curry in the Bengal Room, however there is only one Empress and only one tea at the Empress. You ask anyone who had been and they can remember when and why they had at Tea at the Empress....not my cup of tea, but an experience to be remembered. If you are comfortable with the time constraints .... go for it.