Day 11 - Wed., April 16, 2025 - Nibbling Through Ghent

That's right Donald!!

Today was our first early morning of the cruise. With alarms set at 7, we got up, I (Kara) went and got coffee and our colored tour cards for the day, and we got ready and headed to the lounge for our first tour which departed the ship at 8:15am.

Today’s plan was to do two different walking tours of Ghent. The first is the Fairytale City of Ghent Walking Tour with Canal Cruise. The second is the Nibbling through Ghent tour.  Unlike most days, today’s blog post will follow geographically with some chronological deviations in the storytelling. We saw several places on both tours - thus it’s easier to talk about each specific place when we first come to it. 

Our first tour was the Fairytale City of Ghent Walking Tour with Canal Cruise. Here is the description from Disney:

Enjoy a privately guided walking tour of Ghent, often described as a fairytale city due to its enchanting medieval architecture, picturesque canals and cobblestone streets. You’ll also enjoy a delightful cruise along the city’s canals.

Our local guide was Peter. Peter is a teacher who decided to make a career change a couple of years back and started doing tour work - particularly in German. His English was impeccable. I so envy people who have talent with languages, as it is a gift I do not possess. What little language proficiency I have is incredibly hard won.

Our local guide Peter

Peter walked us through Ghent - the city of three towers. Two of the towers belong to churches - Saint Jakob and Saint Nikolas (of Turkey). The third tower is owned by the Government and is a bell tower. Throughout history it has had some other roles including being the fire watch tower.

The three towers of Ghent. This is from a bit later in the day on our walking tour. Providing this here to give an overview of the three towers.

Peter toured us through the Friday Market area - which for centuries has hosted a market on Fridays. It now spills over into Saturday as well. Here you could also see the Socialist party at work in the large socialist building where people can go and get food, health support, and more. 

We were able to go into St. Nikolas Church and see some of the beautiful marble statues & stained glass. Unfortunately, we did not have time to see the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, which is the most famous piece of art in this church.

One of the unique aspects of Ghent - particularly in comparison to Brugges, which is a UNESCO world heritage site - is the juxtaposition of old and new together. You saw this in features like the graffiti that adorned some walls and one entire alleyway. You also saw it in architecture like the Sheep Shed (as those who don’t like it refer to it), which is now a center for town celebrations. On that one street corner you have architecture from the 15th, 16th, 17th, 19th, and 21st century. 

Several buildings including a side of the city hall (which actually has facades from two different centuries as they ran out of money after starting the building and by the time enough money was raised architectural styles had completely changed) and the town’s meat hall were being remodeled (into a bicycle parking garage!) during our visit and so we didn’t get to see them entirely. 

We saw, at various points on this tour as well as our afternoon tour, some of the oldest buildings in Ghent. The first set of two buildings feature engravings that depict two completely different sets of lifestyles. The building on the left feature Biblical engravings that depict six ways you are supposed to care for other people. The seventh changed depending on which tour guide you had. The building on the right featured symbols of a “good” life like rich food and other symbols of prosperous wealth. 

The Castle in Ghent has some interesting history attached to it. It was occupied by an “enemy” three times - the last of which was in the 1950s when students took it over to protest a 100% overnight increase in the price of beer! They lasted three days before they ran out of the beer they had brought with them and had to give up their protest. 

As a part of our morning walking tour, we also took about a 30 minute canal tour. There are two rivers that come together in Ghent - the Leie and the Scheldt. We were able to go down both of them. One of the buildings they highlighted as a part of the original port of Ghent was the building that now houses the Marriott Hotel. It has two swans depicted on it - facing away from each other. It was a bath house that offered other services to sailors who were away from their wives. We also got to see three of the original buildings involved in grain trade in the area. The first building is where they weighed the grain, the middle small building is where the taxes were collected on the grain. The third grey building is where the grain was stored. 

The Ghent Marriott. Note the two gold swan decorations on the building. They are swimming away from one another.

Buildings involved in Ghent's historical grain industry

Along our canal tour we also saw some local birds which included a few ducks as well as Grebes and Coots. The Grebes never exit the water - even building floating nests - during their feeding and nesting seasons. We got to see some baby coots. The momma coot shuffled her babies away and then chased off our boat. The presence of all of the birds was a sign to the locals in the late 18th and early 19th century that fish had returned to the canals after years of devastating pollution from human and industry waste. 

A photo of a grebe downloaded from the Internet because none of our photos of them were that great.

We opted to return to the ship for lunch as it was quite chilly. Had we not had a second tour in the afternoon as well as a second day in Belgium, we would have opted to stay in town to do a little shopping. However, given the weather and another full day tomorrow, we returned for lunch. 

Gayle - A Note about the Weather: We haven’t talked much about the weather, because it’s been pretty perfect the entire trip. Until today. I had always planned to pack layers, but it was just the week before we left that Kara supported/encouraged my taking a new longer, lined raincoat vs the slightly shorter, unlined raincoat I had been wearing regularly in Indiana. After reviewing the low temps instead of focusing on the high temps, I agreed. And wow was that a good decision! While I had gloves and could have used them, I just kept my hands in my pockets. When we left the ship the “feels like” temp was 42-45 degrees, as there was also an all day wind of 10 MPH. I ended up with my hood up all day simply for warmth. I now know what my current lower bound temperature limit for travel is - at least without my winter coat & boots! 

Due to enduring the weather in the morning, I had to debate our waiter to order a cheeseburger & fries (on the menu) for lunch. However, the best part was the drink server offering to go upstairs to the magical beverage machine (that makes a wide variety of hot beverages) to fetch me hot chocolate! Kara had beef stew. 

Kara: After lunch, it was back to our room to quickly reset our bags and then to the lounge to get set for tour number 2 which was the Nibbling through Ghent tour. When we walked into our room, my stuffed Pluto who has traveled all over the world with us was hanging out on top of the lamp!

Back to the tour. For this tour, we met our local guide John (pronounced Yon). He did a nice job of making sure he tried to tell us new stories and tried not to repeat locations too much since all of us had been on a morning tour (although not in the same group). Before we get too far, here is Disney's description of the Nibbling through Ghent tour.

Savor the flavors of Belgium on this privately guided walking tour where you’ll sample world-famous Belgian chocolate, buttery baked goods, local beer, charcuterie nibbles and a variety of artisanal mustard with a recipe dating back to 1790.

That is a complex aspect of these experiences. In the morning, there were four different “Walking Tour of Ghent” groups. Each had a different local guide so we each got a different experience. This afternoon, we had two nibbling through Ghent groups so all of us from this morning were mixed up in these two groups and realized we heard different things on both tours. This doesn’t detract from the experience in any way - it just demonstrates the complexity of trying to make sure that no person hears the same story two or more times. 

We began our nibbles with a sweet option at one of the two old houses with the engravings on the side. This house and its candy shop, Temmerman, have been owned and run by the same family for about the last 180 years. We had four different sweets here:

1.  A uniquely Ghent Nosen (which is the one shaped like a purple head). This is, as one of our fellow adventurers called it, a large jelly bean with an extra thick shell and a very soft center. This one was supposed to be raspberry flavor, but I mostly got sweet and sugary without a specific flavor.

2. The round cookie was an almond cookie. Very light and simple.

3. The third was a cinnamon pillow. It was not pillow-y, but instead was very hard. 

4. The fourth - which is in the gold wrapper - was a piece of hard caramel that got soft as you let it sit in your mouth. It was, by far, the best of the four.

The store was charming on the inside and also had some chocolates and other treats. 

Our next stop was for some beer. This was at a local Brouwerij (Brewery) which is named after Van Artreuetor who is featured on the statue in the Friday market. We were taken upstairs to a private dining area and able to order off of a menu with four beers and several non alcoholic options. I opted, as I do any time I have an opportunity to do so in Europe, to have a Fanta. This time, it was served with a glass of ice with an orange slice in the bottom - so lovely! They also had some pub snacks on the table which included some nachos with lots of toppings as well as one of mine and Gayle’s favorite snacks which are dried chickpeas. These had a smoky barbecue salt on them and we both just adored them!

Our next stop was a local chocolatier who has won awards for his awesome chocolate creations. His Yoda was very cute as were the Easter bunnies on display for the holiday. Here, we tasted a chocolate filled with spiced passion fruit and a second that was said to be salted caramel. The one with spiced passion fruit did have spice but I got very little passion fruit flavor from it. The salted caramel was just chocolate with some goo inside of it. Gayle and I both agreed that you buy these for the beauty rather than the flavor. 

This brings us to our final stop on our nibbles tour which is to a place called OOOST. OOOST features local Flemish specialties. They ship gift baskets all over the world, cater to tour groups like ours, and have a little gift shop you can buy from. Here, we tried a local mustard made with horse radish as well as a smoked ham and a ham that is cooked and features honey. All was quite, quite good. The smoked ham especially should replace prosciutto on every charcuterie board in the world. 

Gayle’s Take on the Nibbles: I am lucky to just interject my opinions after Kara did all the hard work of remembering, looking-up, and narrating our tour experience! Compared to our amazing, albeit much longer food tour in Amsterdam, this didn’t hold a candle. The sweets were ok and the chocolate disappointing. GASP! I don’t love ham, but that was pretty delicious. I really need my chocolate experience to be better in Antwerp tomorrow! 

Kara: I couldn't agree more with Gayle's take on the experience. Good, but nothing compared to what my bar is for Disney experiences.

With our nibbles all finished, we headed back to the ship to get ready for the evening. Gayle grabbed a quick shower while I checked in back home and got to chat with my two sweet great nephews Gene and George who were visiting with my dad and sister today. 

Tonight we dined at the Chef’s table. This is a special “reservation” restaurant that is included in your cruise if you wish to dine there. You only need to make a reservation for your preferred night by stopping at the reception desk. 

The Chef's Table "invitation" is placed in your room the morning of your reservation.

Gayle: Chef’s Table is a six-course tasting menu in a separate, smaller dining room at the Aft of the ship with 180 degree windows. Tonight there were only 10 of us at Chef’s Table so, very small gathering. All of the courses were quite tasty, but nothing was amazing. For all my Disney Cruise Line folks, can I compare it to Palo (& keeping in mind I’ve never dined at Remy or Enchante by Chef Armaud Lallement )? Umm, I think that’s what they were going for and I can’t fault what the chef did as being one person in a very small, glass-viewing kitchen, but overall it's a no on the comparison. While not up to Disney Cruise Line standards, it had to be good, as I’m a picky eater and ate at least part of every course, so well done!

Side notes:

1. We were at a table of four with a lovely mother and daughter. However, the other table of six were so loud and boisterous you’d think they were in a family basement. It was rude and disruptive to the venue, staff, and fellow diners.

2. As I had read, AmaWaterways(TM) sailings in Belgium feature a Chocolate Buffet, which I presumed would be tomorrow night. Wrong. Only at the end of our dessert in Chef’s Table the waiter mentioned this to us and that it would probably be open another 30 minutes. We made a respectful quick exit, but by the time we got back to the Main Dining room, they had already dismantled the chocolate buffet. This offering was never announced and wasn’t highlighted in our Daily Cruiser document. So if you are counting, this is now the 2nd time I’ve missed a desired dessert on this sailing. Not a good way to end a demanding day.

Kara: After dinner, they are having a Family Feud-style game which we will again skip in order to get some rest before another full day tomorrow in Antwerp.  

Here is Kara's video from the day:

P.S. Today also had a Photo Contest with the theme of Hidden Mickeys. 

Next up… An Appetite for Antwerp

On that note… Disclaimer: I (Gayle) am a travel agent with Authorized Disney Travel Planner agency - Off to Neverland Travel. Contact me today for a no-obligation quote!

As to Disney artwork, logos, and properties: ©Disney | Ship Registry: The Bahamas | CST# 2090317-40 / Fla. Seller of Travel Ref. No. ST37203