While sailing on the biggest cruise ship in the world, I tried out a food hack that really improved a favorite snack.
Star of the Seas has so many great restaurants that cost nothing extra, but adding flavor to enhance them is an idea I saw on Tiktok to try.
Two of the restaurants are great on their own: Surfside Bites and El Loco Fresh. But what if you combined the two?
The idea is simple, but I was impressed how good the end result was after trying it.
Here's how it works and why you should give it a whirl.
Hot and spicy popcorn chicken
Surfside Bites is located within the family neighborhood of Star of the Seas. Frankly, too many people avoid Surfside because they don't have kids and they're missing out on some good eats.
The food hack is to take the basket of popcorn chicken and then top it off.
I went to Surfside, which is right in the middle of the neighborhood near the carousel.
There are just a few items on the menu, but the idea is to quickly grab it and be on your way.
I ordered a basket of popcorn chicken as the start. The popcorn chicken is pretty good on its own, but because it's aimed at kids, flavor is at a minimum.
What I mean is the food is good, but I like some kick to my popcorn chicken.
I took the basket and headed up to deck 15 and stopped at El Loco Fresh. It's not a short distance, but because of how well the destination elevators work on Star of the Seas, it's probably only a few minutes to get there.
El Loco Fresh is another included restaurant that has Mexican food for a quick meal.
I walked past all the tacos, burritos, and quesadillas on the buffet and right to the salsa bar.
The food hack is to grab your favorite hot sauce. Royal Caribbean provides a few different hot sauces of varying heat levels.
My favorite hot sauce is the Tabasco Chipotle Pepper Sauce, but you can certainly pick whichever you like best.
Pour the hot sauce on the chicken as liberally as you prefer.
Then grab the ends of the paper the chicken comes in, close it up, and shake it up so the hot sauce gets applied evenly.
I was skeptical how much different the chicken would be just from the hot sauce.
The result is hot popcorn chicken and I was impressed how much better it tasted. Adding more flavor really kicked it up a notch.
I then added to the spice level by adding jalapeño peppers from the toppings bar and it was the best bar snack I've had in a while!
You could go crazy and add the various toppings to make it your own hack.
The only downside to this hack is the distance between Surfside and El Loco Fresh. The elevators make it easier, but it's not quite as close as I would have liked.
Almost as good as the first food hack I tried on this ship
I was inspired to find a new food hack after running across my first one earlier this year.
While on the first sailings of Star of the Seas, I heard about an idea to combine two foods that sounded too good to be true.
In this case, it was at Basecamp and to start with the tater tots. Just like the popcorn chicken, they're served in a basket and fine on their own.
Basecamp is even closer to El Loco Fresh than Surfside. There's just a short walk down a nearby staircase, so it's quite convenient.
Once at El Loco Fresh, top the tater tots with hot sauce, salsa, or anything else you like.
I was worried it might make the tots too soggy, but since I was eating it almost immediately, it wasn't a problem. Plus the toppings made it taste so much better.
The key is to try to eat it while the tater tots are still warm. Once they cool down, I don't think the tots aren't nearly as good.
