The cruise dining experience often takes advantage of the ship being at sea, with vast windows or al fresco seating overlooking the ocean beyond.

A recent trend, though, has seen cruise lines investing in designs meant to transport the diner away from the vessel.

One of the newest ventures is sticking them on a train. Royal Railway – Utopia Station is a featured restaurant coming on board Royal Caribbean’s Utopia of the Seas when it debuts this summer in Port Canaveral.

Cruisers will climb aboard a simulated train to experience what traveling on a dining car is like, complete with passing different countryside scenes projected on digital screens.

The first sailings will be limited to an adventure themed to the America’s Wild West for a 90-minute trip that mimics the sights, sounds and feel of a moving train car. Other themes in the works are based on the Silk Route trains that traveled through Asia and 30-minute offerings.

Diners start with pre-dinner drinks on a station platform, and when the train whistle sounds, board the dining car where a cast of performers play out an interactive storyline involving outlaws attempting a train robbery. Royal Caribbean put on a sample version of the experience at its Miami headquarters on Thursday.

Media tried out a test version of dining venue Royal Railway – Utopia Station at Royal Caribbean’s Miami headquarters on Thursday, May 24, 2024. The interactive dinner experience is coming to Royal Caribbean’s Utopia of the Seas when it debuts at Port Canaveral in summer 2024. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

The menu leans into ingredients from New Mexico and California. Hard drinks are thematic to the Old West (think pisco sour) as is the soft drink of sarsaparilla served in a flask. Entrees include river trout, braised short ribs and quail-esque roasted poussin. Appetizers include corn chowder, an empanada trio and “Fart & Dart Baked Beans.”

A little juvenile humor does make its way into the performance, as do some dad jokes and over-the-kids-heads jokes.

“It’s like a caricature. It’s good old-fashioned fun,” said Royal Caribbean President Michael Bayley, but he said the performances and approach may depend on when cruisers are seated.

“In the afternoon into the early evening, it will be more kid-immersive. As you move later on into the evening, it will be more sophisticated,” he said.

Media tried out a test version of dining venue Royal Railway – Utopia Station at Royal Caribbean’s Miami headquarters on Thursday, May 24, 2024. The interactive dinner experience is coming to Royal Caribbean’s Utopia of the Seas when it debuts at Port Canaveral in summer 2024. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

The main draw to the experience are the continuous digital screen projections that include frontier towns and desert and mountain landscapes that could be right out of an Albert Bierstadt painting.

The final product resolution will be in 4K, but even the test run’s digital renderings were impressive, minus the few hiccups like a horse floating over the cliff.

Royal Caribbean’s chief product innovation officer Jay Schneider said relying on computer-generated video proved to be the better choice over real landscape videos,  although teams did visit actual railways in the West for inspiration.

“Now we can flip a switch and make this winter and make this nighttime,” he said. “That definitely kind of unlocked a lot of possibilities.”

A trio featuring a singer, piano and stand-up bass perform during the three-hour dinner in the 1920s New York-themed Empire Supper Club aboard Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas, seen here on Jan. 22, 2024 ahead of the ship’s debut from PortMiami. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

There’s also the $200, three-hour-plus dining experience at the 38-seat venue Empire Supper Club that debuted on the world’s largest cruise ship Icon of the Seas that began sailing from Miami in January.

It transports diners to the roaring ’20s of New York City amid an eight-course meal with each course paired with a unique cocktail.

Diners enjoy music from the American Standards Trio with a vocalist, piano and stand-up bass.

The details such as the rotary phones in the lobby and the uniformed waiters and hostess wearing a sultry dinner gown add to the ambience. The menu delves into some not-so-common options such as oysters Rockefeller and a leg and loin duo of rabbit. More traditional fare is offered, too, including steak, seabass and Caesar salad.

The cocktail pairing approach means no wine, and that’s OK for the venue, said Linken D’Souza, vice president of food and beverage for Royal Caribbean International.

“We went through many iterations of the cocktails to make sure that they’re well balanced. … They paired exceptionally well with the food,” he said. “So that’s not E for everyone. And that’s OK. It’s just a unique niche experience that we want people to really be adventurous.”

Royal isn’t the first to venture down the thematic dining road, which has in some ways been dabbled with over the years, including dinner theater in-the-round venues on some Norwegian Cruise Line ships such as the short-lived magic-themed Illusionarium on Norwegian Getaway and the celebration of 1980s teen films from John Hughes on Norwegian Escape.

And Disney Cruise Line’s rotational dining has always served up a variety of thematic overlays. Its newest ships, though, have taken it to the next level.

That includes the Worlds of Marvel dining venue on both its latest ship Disney Wish, and its upcoming Disney Treasure debuting this December, both sailing out of Port Canaveral. Disney Wish also debuted Arendelle: A Frozen Dining Adventure, a vast food hall that expanded on similar approaches to dining themed to “Tangled” and “Princess & the Frog” on older ships Disney Magic and Wonder.

For Disney Treasure, the line is shelving “Frozen” in favor of the Disney-Pixar film “Coco.” The new overlay will feature a five-course meal with a modern take on traditional Mexican fare.

It will feature live performers telling the story of Miguel and his familia being offered up with different-themed seatings per voyage, as it’s tied to a seven-night sailing. The first night takes diners to Mariachi Plaza with Miguel’s parents Enrique and Luisa as well as Abuelita Elena. The second night takes diners to the town square in Santa Cecilia through where Miguel and his ancestors including great-great grandparents Hector and Mama Imelda celebrate Día de los Muertos.

“The adventure takes you through [those] heartstrings, and pulls you back into family, right?” said Carlos Jimenez, a managing producer with Disney Cruise Line Entertainment. “Doesn’t matter if you’re coming from the Mexican culture or any other culture. Family’s at the center – la familia es todo. So family is everything and we want to make sure we’re telling that beautiful story.”

360: An Extraordinary Experience is available on two Princess Cruises ships, the Discovery Princess and Enchanted Princess. The multi-course meal takes diners on a sensory trip across the Mediterranean (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel).

Princess Cruises also debuted a suite-level guest offering called “360: An Extraordinary Experience” on board Enchanted Princess and Discovery Princess.

The line carved out a small rotunda venue with two half-circle long tables facing one another for 20 diners to serve up a seven-course meal that hits all the senses over an hour and a half.

Diners begin seated within a dark room surrounded by digital screen snapshots of Mediterranean destinations about the circular enclosed walls, What follows is a combination of storytelling of a culinary adventure from Greece to Italy to Spain and into France with an assist from actress Brooke Shields leading the way.

It’s a narrative device to get the real stories told, the source of the various culinary delights presented with white-glove service from course to course, whether it’s the Spanish divers who take the red varietal Grenache and age it underwater or the French lavender farmer who explains where the distinct honey flavor comes from.

Along the way, and intense and detailed projection about the room and onto the dinner service plates invites diners to interact with their meal settings before the actual food is presented, such as virtually smashing some Greek plateware or digging up their own Spanish truffle.

The scents of the food while dining could suffice, but an effusive olfactory accompaniment hits here and there such as the lemon aroma ahead of the tasty Italian dish pasta al limone while its recipe is projected upon the screen.

“What happens here in 360 is you can be anywhere in the world and we’re going to transport you into the Mediterranean,” said Princess Cruises President John Padgett during the experience’s debut event. “We have immersive video, storytelling, food and wine that intersects with the story.”

 

 

P.J. Fleck picked up a local pledge Monday, when Forest Lake defensive lineman Howie Johnson committed to the Gophers immediately after Fleck and Co. extended an offer.

Johnson becomes the second committed member of the Gophers’ 2026 recruiting class, joining Rocori offensive lineman Andrew Tout. Johnson’s offer came at one of the program’s camps.

The 6-foot-4, 255 pound defensive lineman is currently listed as a 3-star recruit by 247 Sports. He was dominant as a sophomore at Forest Lake, tallying 80 tackles — 28 of which were for loss — for the Rangers’ stingy defense. Johnson had seven sacks and a forced fumble, while also blocking a kick.

Johnson wrote the following in a social media post Tuesday morning announcing his decision:

“I just want to say thank you. Thank you to everyone who has helped me in this process, growing up, pushing me, coaching me, and teaching me to be a better man. ,,, Thank you Minnesota for giving me this chance! RTB, SKI-U-MAH!!!!”

Johnson told Ryan Burns of 247Sports that he committed to Fleck after a quick, five-minute chat with his parents after he received the offer.

“Coach Fleck said he wanted to offer me because I fit the program,” Johnson told 247Sports. “He says I was a perfect fit for him and his coaching staff because I have the heart and the drive. And I elected to take the offer immediately because I’ve grown up a Gopher fan for years, and it was my initial inspiration for playing Division I football. And from the first time I stepped onto campus, I felt at home. I felt like I belonged. … It’s a dream come true. It means that there’s more work to do, and we can’t, and won’t, slow down.”

Johnson also said he’s now finished with the recruiting process.

“I’ve got everything I need right here in my backyard,” he told 247Sports.

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In the action comedy “Thelma,” 94-year-old actress June Squibb plays the title role, a grandmother who one day gets a call from her “grandson” who claims he’s in jail and needs her to send $10,000 or things will get really bad.

Thelma sends the money and then she discovers she’s been scammed. She’s so outraged that she recruits her friend Ben, played by the late Richard Roundtree in one of his final roles, and sets off across the San Fernando Valley on a two-seat electric scooter to get her money back.

The so-called “grandparent scam” is a common con perpetrated on seniors who instinctively want to help their grandchildren out of trouble.

And for writer-director Josh Margolin, it got personal when his own grandmother, Thelma Post, now 103 years old, was targeted about a decade ago with a call purportedly from Josh in jail.

“It just really shook up my sense of her,” says Margolin, who admired his grandmother for her seemingly unstoppable ability to care for herself. “She has always been so unflappable and so sharp and so tough in a way. So to see her get duped, especially with my name being used, it just felt like maybe we were entering this new moment.”

For Post, the scam was caught before she actually lost any money. But Margolin, who’d been filming his grandmother almost as a documentary subject for years, the “what ifs” of that moment set his imagination in motion.

“I started wondering what might have happened if she sent it and then set out to get it back, which I think is something she very well may have done,” he says. “Many of the things June did (as Thelma in the movie) are things she might have done if given the chance.”

The movie he wrote celebrates the grit and determination he admired in his grandmother. It mines the humor in the family dynamic – Squibb and Roundtree are far more capable than her hapless heirs, Thelma’s daughter and son-in-law, played by Parker Posey and Clark Gregg, and grandson Danny, played by Fred Hechinger.

And it lets the film’s Thelma be an action hero, albeit one moving a little slower, OK, a lot slower, but just as gamely as Tom Cruise, whom she’s seen watching in a stunt-filled movie early on.

“That cocktail of things is what sort of got me really excited about it,” Margolin says. “It made me realize I had to write it.”

But first, he’d need to find his leading lady.

A star is born – at 94

Squibb says she was on board to play Thelma by the time she reached the final page of the screenplay.

“My initial reaction was: I must do this,” she says. “I think I just reacted to her. I understood her age, certainly. And I felt that I would probably do these very things if something was done to me. It was just all there.”

For Margolin, Squibb, who was nominated for best supporting actress for 2013’s “Nebraska,” wasn’t just No. 1 on his list. She was his entire list.

“I had her in mind because I’ve just been a longtime fan of her as an actress,” he says of Squibb, a character actor whose films include “The Age of Innocence,” “About Schmidt,” and “Far From Heaven,” as well as dozens of guest star turns on television. “She just has a wonderful mix of qualities that to me felt essential to the character, and at a certain point, I had a lot of trouble imagining anybody else doing it.”

Margolin and Squibb were mutual friends of the actress Beanie Feldstein, who not only had worked with Squibb in “The Humans” but knew Margolin’s grandmother too.

“She basically said, ‘Well, I hope you’re going to send this to June,’” Margolin says of Feldstein. “I said, ‘That’s my dream casting,’ and she very generously read it and then sent it to June, and we connected from there.”

Squibb’s early life was spent on stage; in 1960, she appeared in the original Broadway run of “Gypsy.” She made her film debut at 71 when she was cast in Woody Allen’s 1990 movie “Alice.” Supporting roles and character parts kept her busy ever since. Now “Thelma” is her first-ever leading role.

“I think that’s funny,” she says of making her debut as a leading lady at 94. “It never occurred to me I was doing a leading role, something different.”

“The biggest difference is probably that you’re on set more days in a row,” Margolin says.

“I think I was on set 27 out of 29 days or something like that,” Squibb replies.

“I think for us, or for me, having you as the lead just set the tone,” he adds. “Being the leader, your presence on set was what set the lone.”

Can you dig it?

Squibb wasn’t the only one breaking new ground with “Thelma.” For Margolin, the film was his feature directing debut, a task he says was made easier by the veteran actors in his cast.

“I think a big part of having a cast that you trust, and who are kind of these consummate pros, who show up and really give themselves to the work, it puts you at ease,” he says. “You realize there are times when you can take a step back.

“There are times when you’re obviously going to get involved to make sure things are the way they need to be,” Margolin says. “There’s other times where if something’s not working, sometimes they know that at the same moment you do, and they’re like, ‘Let me take that again.’”

In addition to Squibb, Posey and Gregg, “Thelma” also features Malcolm McDowell as the scammer that Thelma finally tracks down. But it’s Squibb and Roundtree who share the most screen time, becoming something like the classic partners in a buddy movie – Thelma charging ahead, Ben more cautious – and their chemistry shines throughout.

“He was a wonderful, warm human being, and such a good actor,” Squibb says of Roundtree, who died in October at 81. “You never forgot, though, that he was Shaft. I don’t think there’s any way you could. He is so strong and so straight and so noble in his own way.

“Riding that scooter, I just was so aware, always, who was on the back of the scooter with me,” she says. “We had a great time, we really did. I think we ended up with a wonderful relationship, he and I.”

And she does stunts!

About that scooter – in most scenes, the driver really is Squibb, who like Tom Cruise, did most of her own stunts, even if they were performed at much lower intensity than Cruise works in the Mission: Impossible franchise.

“In reading it, I got all excited that I was going to be able to drive that scooter,” Squibb says, laughing. “I was a dancer in New York for years, and I physically kept my body going. I swam a lot. I do Pilates now. And I just felt I could do most of the things that I was reading, that Josh had written.”

Margolin and his stunt coordinator were nervous, though, she adds.

“But I proved to them in my complex here that I could drive the thing,” Squibb says. “I had the stunt coordinator running alongside me the whole time. He was so frightened that I was gonna kill myself. But you know, after a while they relaxed, and they got used to the idea I could do this.”

When your star is in her 90s, it’s natural to want to keep her safe and healthy, but Squibb says she surprised the crew more than once with her abilities, climbing atop a bed to reach on tiptoes to the top of a cabinet to retrieve a gun in one scene, crashing her scooter during a chase scene in another.

“The scooters were supposed to clash, and they told me, ‘Now don’t do that, just go up to it and we’ll fix it,’” Squibb says. “I decided, ‘Well, what the hell.’ So I clashed with Richard’s scooter, and everybody, ‘Oh my God!’ You could just hear the reactions going on.

“But I did it, and I zoomed off afterwards. And the only thing I could think was, ‘Well, they got that on camera.’”

Respect for the elders

One of the loveliest aspects of “Thelma” is the dignity with which it treats seniors of different ages and abilities. Yes, Thelma fell for a scam, but that doesn’t define her as much as her go-get-’em attitude does. Sure, some of her friends in the film need more assistance as they age, and that’s fine, too.

“I think both Josh and I look at film as reality, and we want to see lives shown to us that are somewhat real,” Squibb says of the realism the film portrays even when she’s on the hunt on that scooter. “If they’re not, they can become funny, and it’s not good.

“I just think we both went into this with the attitude that we wanted to show this woman in her reality,” she says of the real-life Thelma. “She’s a hell of a woman, Thelma herself is. She could sit and talk to you probably longer than Josh or I could, and she’s going to be 104.”

Margolin, who says Grandma Thelma has slowed down a little as she entered her second century of life, agreed.

“Her old age, to your point, is not a monolith,” he says. “Like, she’s been ‘old’ my whole life. She’s gone from 70 to 103, and each chapter had its own needs, its own stories.”

The inclusion of seniors in the film extended to one of its key shooting locations, the Motion Picture and Television Fund’s independent and assisted living campus in Woodland Hills. It’s where Squibb and Roundtree have their scooter chase,  and some of its residents, all of them veterans of film and TV careers, show up in passing shots.

“There’s a ton of people there with these incredible, sort of storied careers in film and television,” Margolin says.

“They know what you’re doing,’” Squbbs says of the interest of residents in the film shoot.

“Exactly,” he replies. “People know, ‘Oh, we’re gonna be in the shot, we’re gonna go this way.’ They were all so interested and curious and excited that it was happening there.

“Some of the residents appear in some of the establishing shots, which was fun. This one old guy who crosses frame I found out later was the assistant director on ‘The Godfather.’ You’re like, ‘Oh, amazing!’”

‘Thelma’ and Thelma

Residents of the Motion Picture and Television Fund community recently got their own special screening of the film partly shot where they live. Grandma Thelma also has seen a finished cut of the film, Margolin says.

“I think she’s both very touched by it and excited about it, and also, it’s a little bit surreal,” he says of her reaction. “Kind of out of body, like, ‘What is this? There’s a movie? And it’s my name.’ “

Not long ago Squibb got to meet the woman whose she loosely inhabits in “Thelma.” They hit off famously, not least in their mutual pride in what Margolin accomplished with “Thelma.”

“She’s proud of you,” Squibb tells Margolin. He laughs.

“When I walked in I said, ‘I’m Thelma Post,’” Squibb says of their meeting. “She said, ‘No, I’m Thelma Post.’ And we laughed.

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A tornado watch has been issued for much of Minnesota on Tuesday, including the Twin Cities.

The watch will be active until 8 p.m., according to the National Weather Service. Thunderstorms are expected to return this afternoon and evening and could be severe.

Large hail and damaging winds are possible. Some areas could also see heavy rainfall.

There should be a break in the rain Wednesday and early Thursday, but more rain and storms are expected late Thursday through Saturday. Flash flooding will be possible and river flooding will increase through the week, leading to moderate or major flooding at some locations, the weather service said.

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