Midnight buffets bite the dust

ABOARD CARNIVAL LIBERTY – Towering displays of chocolate tortes and gooey pies. Winged ice carvings so grand they could anchor a town square.

Elaborate butter sculptures, radishes carved into rose bouquets, watermelons carved into sailing ships – all set up for crowds to photograph and devour.

What time is the midnight buffet?

On most cruise lines today, it’s never.

“The midnight buffet is a relic,” says Stewart Chiron, a cruise industry expert. “It’s almost nonexistent.”

In a world where the food police might shoot you for eating a slice of Boston cream pie, eating behavior has drastically changed since the indulgent “Love Boat” days.

Cruise passengers still stuff themselves. But not quite so much. And not at midnight.

“The midnight buffets used to be extravaganzas, four times as big as they are now,” says Debbie Valdez, a cruise veteran from California.

“They used to have escargot and shrimp and extravagant things. A midnight buffet was the highlight of a cruise.”

Now they are on their last gasp. Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth 2 still has one. Also clinging to tradition on cruises of at least seven days are Carnival with its Grand Gala Buffet, and Royal Caribbean (its Culinary Gala Sensation Midnight Buffet is probably the most elegant one left). Celebrity has them on a few vessels.

But the QE2 is retiring in 2008, and so will its midnight buffet. Celebrity’s newer deluxe ships don’t have them. Princess dumped its midnight buffet at least a decade ago, replacing it with a late-night bistro and 24-hour room service.

Norwegian has a “Chocoholic” buffet – but not at midnight. Holland America has a similar “Chocolate Extravaganza,” at 10 p.m.

When the last midnight buffet bites the dust, will anyone mourn?

“Not really,” says Claudia Korenic, office manager at Cruise Holidays in Shelby Township, Mich.

Korenic has taken 18 cruises and attended a midnight buffet only once.

“When we cruise, we eat at the late dinner, and the last thing I want to do after we get done eating at 10 o’clock is go look for more food at midnight,” she says.

The first nail in the coffin, Chiron says, was Carnival’s groundbreaking move to offer 24-hour pizza stations in the late 1990s. Then came Princess’ introduction of 24-hour dining. Then came bigger buffet areas, open seating, fancy alternative restaurants, all-night grills and coffee bars.

“As these were added, it was eroding the demand for midnight buffets,” Chiron says. “Cruise lines were doing them, but nobody was showing up.”

So every-night midnight buffets shrank to once-a-week events. Ballroom-sized midnight buffets shrank to classroom size. Gradually, most of them morphed into earlier events focusing on chocolate, or simply vanished.

But the midnight buffet is not dead yet. Carnival has no plans to get rid of its midnight buffet, a beloved tradition with passengers, spokeswoman Aly Bello says.

The 2-year-old Carnival Liberty carries about 3,000 passengers. On seven-day cruises, it holds a Grand Gala Buffet on Thursday evening at midnight.

Chefs work for days preparing 910 pounds of food for the gala – platters of such delicacies as duck, kim chee, intricate salads, ice sculptures, fruit and vegetable bouquets. A groaning pile of exotic desserts and other goodies are on a table near a fairly modest ice sculpture.

Carnival Cruise Lines chief pastry chef Venkat Sivalingham is proud that the line maintains the tradition despite the time, cost and effort.

“You come to Carnival, and you get the Gala Buffet,” he says, standing before a backdrop of black and white tarts with shimmering toppings. “So many other cruise lines have stopped.”