{"id":60791,"date":"2013-02-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/dining-services-transforms-hope-commons-into-titanic\/"},"modified":"2013-02-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-14T00:00:00","slug":"dining-services-transforms-hope-commons-into-titanic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2013\/02\/dining-services-transforms-hope-commons-into-titanic\/","title":{"rendered":"Dining Services transforms Hope Commons into Titanic"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tStudents amazed by splendor, authentic touches<\/p>\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 February 14, 2013 \u2013 For a few hours recently it was April 15, 1912 in the äçÐÄvlogÃâ·ÑBÕ¾\u2019s Hope Commons dining center.<\/p>\n


\n\tIn fact it was A Night to Remember, as Dining Services transformed all of Hope Commons dining center into the RMS Titanic. Staff members dressed in costume and greeted students as they entered with, \u201cWelcome aboard the Titanic.\u201d Students were even invited to the event with a White Star Line Boarding Pass.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe menu was titanic too. It featured lobster, steamship round of beef, shrimp cocktail, salmon and a raw bar provided by a local vendor. A huge assortment of pastries, along with a 4-foot Titanic cake, made up the dessert menu.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe main lobby to Mainfare was decorated like the deck of the Titanic.

\nBut that was only the beginning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a set of the bow of the ship so students could pose for a photo op like they were Leonardo DiCaprio in the \u2018king of the world\u2019 scene from the movie, complete with period costumes for students to wear,\u201d said Dining Services Director Steve Mello. \u201cWe set up a bar downstairs in front of the Corner Store, where we served Razzbulls (Red Bull with raspberry flavoring) in plastic champagne flutes.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\u201cAs the students climbed the lighted stairway, they were greeted with a scene of water and sky, deck chairs and lifeboats,\u201d Mello said. \u201cDining Services staff served Razzbulls there as well.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\u201cWe turned Rhody Market into the steerage where we had Irish music, root beer floats, and an artist who was doing portraits sitting on a Victorian couch. A student could request to wear a Heart of the Ocean Necklace, just like Kate Winslet did in the movie.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nMello visited tables, asking students about Titanic trivia. Winners received necklaces, shirts, hats and books autographed by Oceanography Professor Bob Ballard, discoverer of the Titanic.<\/p>\n

There was one spontaneous element to the event. \u201cA student offered to sing the signature Celine Dion song, My Heart Will Go On. It was a show stopper.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI didn\u2019t expect it to be so lavish,\u201d said Danielle Sanda, a junior public relations major from Warwick. \u201cWhen they have theme nights, they\u2019re usually nice meals around the holidays. Most kids were wondering why they did something like this, but maybe it\u2019s because they care so much. They showed the movie Titanic and a documentary. The quality of the food was spectacular.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cMainfare was decorated with chandeliers, ice sculptures and pictures of the cast of the movie Titanic,\u201d Sanda said.<\/p>\n


\nFreshman Brandon Maxwell said, \u201cIt was a cool change of pace. It was packed all night.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI felt like we were on the actual Titanic,\u201d said Megan Donnelly, a junior kinesiology student from Warwick.<\/p>\n


\n \u201cIt was nicely decorated and the food was great,\u201d said Carrina Chin, a junior kinesiology student from Warwick. \u201cI loved that the staff wore costumes. It was a really nice touch.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI thought that the decorations were really good and it was a cool atmosphere,\u201d said Emily Degerstrom, a sophomore textiles, fashion merchandising and design student from Shrewsbury, Mass.<\/p>\n


\nMello said there were lots of extra touches to make the night fun and educational.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cWe even had a captain\u2019s table that was reserved for our student employees of the month,\u201d Mello said. \u201cWhile we had a lot of fun, it was also a way to convey knowledge of the tragedy. We gave out a $50 prize to the student dressed in the best Victorian garb. We gave out wrapped Lifesaver mints, and we had a violinist playing to replicate what happened when the ship went down.\u201d<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students amazed by splendor, authentic touches KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 February 14, 2013 \u2013 For a few hours recently it was April 15, 1912 in the äçÐÄvlogÃâ·ÑBÕ¾\u2019s Hope Commons dining center. In fact it was A Night to Remember, as Dining Services transformed all of Hope Commons dining center into the RMS […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60795,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}