cgolf1

That was the same itinerary we did and it was amazing. We had a hotel close to the port and we walked to the port, and got some really nice photos. So different than sailing out of a US port. The MDR food on HAL was very good as was the prime rib. For me equal to X in flavor. The difference was HAL never ended up having escargot, they replaced it with something else the one night and my wife seemed to prefer the food we had on the Edge vs HAL. It’s hard with food because we all have different tastes.

They didn't have them in the MDR last February, but the buffet ones were good. Veggies and potatoes are plate fillers to me so I don't get excited either way. Mashed would be better than a bunch of beets that taste like dirt to me;)

We might try a larger HAL ship in the future, but our traveling companions on that cruise who sailed HAL before the Zaandam had better entertainment in the past on that ship. Honestly we love that size of ship, knowing there are some trade offs of course. We really enjoyed the Connie last year as well.

We do sail insides. The onboard entertainment on X is much better. HAL had a dance group multiple nights and one night played part of the BBC Earth show with some live musicians playing along. HAL did have a really funny comic though on our sailing. How HAL handles Gluten Free is way behind X and I ended up just eating at the burger bar most days for lunch, and grabbing mashed potatoes from the buffet, not kidding as I always grab mashed potatoes on X as well for lunch. The difference on X is the have gluten free gravy which is a treat. HAL ran out of gluten free buns in the burger bar with three days to go. They also ran out of amaretto, which in my eyes is inexcusable, as booze doesn’t have a shelf life. my wife wasn’t impressed by the buffet either, and found desserts went quick and weren’t always refreshed. The way HAL handled the seating in the dining room was chaotic and we never had the same serving team. Being gluten free it is nice to have the same service team every night. We like a quickly paced meal. overall it just wasn’t as smooth as an X cruise, but we would sail them again for a unique cruise, but if X has a similar cruise we would sail X.

Nope it isn't. We sailed HAL like 2 months after our Edge cruise. After all the excitement died down from an amazing cruise because of the port intensive itinerary, it dawned on me that while HAL is an option for us in the future, X was the far superior cruise line, even with the cuts. But wow that Canada New England cruise was amazing, and I really liked the design of the Zaandam and the ships we have sailed from that have come from that builder in that time frame.

I hear prime rib is back. In February, on an 11 night cruise on the Edge Prime Rib was not offered at all. Also have heard the nigh time buffet has improved. As someone that eats a gluten free diet, the night time buffet in February would have been a challenge for me to get a proper meal.

To the Ops question I say bring it on with the kids. We are so used to it with Disney and RCCL that it has really never bothered us and we did cruises with just the wife and I on those two lines. I know it does bother some, but not us. IMO it might lighten up the crowd. I like X the cruise line, but the crowd is different than the other lines we have sailed.

When my daughter was in her teens we found ways to make it work with inside rooms on Disney. It is tight at times, but since we weren't in the room much we were able to deal with it. X has well thought out storage so room for clothes should not be an issue. One thing we did find was that sideways inside rooms with the door on the middle of one side had a much better layout and more floor space, not sure if X has these.

Curious what is wrong with a Sirloin? Don’t get me wrong, a ribeye, porterhouse, or T-bone are my favs, but with the ridiculous prices of them this year I have been getting fresh sirloins from a butcher and they have been very tasty and tender. That said they are thicker cut and a 2-3 lb steak, so super easy to get a perfect medium rare cook on them. Just curious to learn from others. My steak preferences may be different than many as I prefer flavor over texture, so a filet is quite low in my list of steaks. The only texture I hate are tough and chewy ones that end up just short of beef jerky.

Wasn’t trying to in this instance. In my Edge thread I started from our February cruise, I gave a review with each nights menus and what we ate. I didn’t get in depth on the food as you mentioned, but tried to share menus. I am not a foodie so I don’t generally go into great detail on the food, because everyone’s tastes are so different. My generalization above was that the boards and Facebook had me thinking it would me the worst food ever in February and we wouldn’t find anything to eat. At that point people who hadn’t cruised this year, would thank people for their honest opinion if they said the food was the worst and basically not believe anyone that posted positive. It was pretty toxic, not all that different when they released the Edge. Heck on FB I mentioned the gluten free options were less this year on our cruise and someone told me I shouldn’t be cruising with my food allergy lol. That is why I think it is important not to judge on other’s comments and to find out for yourself. The only issue is regardless of what line we sail it is an expensive gamble. I am just glad to hear it hasn’t changed much from February, so that helps me set my expectations.

Or get lucky and find someone who was onboard when you were last and then more recently to give you insight if it was similar. I lucked out today and found out it’s similar, so we are good for now. Food is so subjective it’s almost impossible to judge another person’s opinion. Especially if this is the first time they have sailed post shutdown. I think everyone needs to find out for themselves, because back in February my bar was so low based on the boards, that I was pleasantly surprised by the MDR, but I definitely had critical comments, but it was no means school lunch food.

For the most part agree with this. One of our favorite local restaurants kept the same price for the entree, but now sides are 3-4 bucks a piece for the sides that used to be included. So we aren’t getting out of there at the same cost pre Covid. The outlier seems to be some of the supper clubs we go to. There prices seem to be the same as pre Covid even with the steaks. Not sure how they do it, but it’s a win for us, 3 old rashioneds, rib-eye and baked potato, wife had White meat fried chicken and hash browns plus all the supper club extras for under 80 with a 20%+ tip included in that. If the supper clubs can do it on volume of customers, you would think cruise lines could too.

I have been guilty of doing mashed potatoes at every buffet meal on our 3 X cruises. The reason isn’t the potatoes, it’s the gluten free gravy. In the last 12 plus years since I have been gluten free X has been the only place I can have the gravy:) The true saving grace for me with the buffet was they had the minute steaks all but one day and they were precooked so that you could pick a thicker cut and get a nice medium rare piece. The Indian food was very disappointing on the buffet. I am hoping it gets better by 2025, our next X cruise, or sooner if we decide to do a second after our Galapagos cruise next year. Thought about a third this year, but just too many misc things going on to fit it in.

Was it about the same? We were on the Edge in February for the partial Panama Canal cruise and did not see Prime rib on the menu at all, even with the extra nights (heard they added it back). We also felt the options in the lunch buffet were less varied and simpler dishes than we have seen in the past. Of course the MDR was more limited too for options. That said we did enjoy the food we ate, I just missed the normal variety in the MDR and buffet.

I am curious, if you think this cruise would fit our style. We generally eat MDR, because my wife isn't very adventurous with her food choices, like the stage shows and comedians, will do an activity or two during the day, and the rest we just love to chill out and play cards or read a book and watch the ocean go past. Mid to late 40's and somewhat boring people lol. My thoughts are VV may be too something, not sure what the right word to put here is, for us. We have sailed RCCL and Disney and did enjoy those when we sailed.

If you can find good deals it is worth it, although the product itself has changed a lot over the years we sailed. When we priced out insides last year, it was much more than X. X also does food allergies in the buffet better than Disney, MDR is about the same. We also sail best deals on lines we are ok sailing, and for a lot of years that was Disney. Now they are about 2x above either X, RCCL, or HAL when we look to book. We don't do specialty dining or drink packages minus the 2 on X where that was our only option at booking. We did enjoy the Palo Brunch on Disney and getting it free at platinum was nice. We don't sail for food as a highlight, so if it is decent we are happy. If I have to hunt for food on the buffet like I did on HAL I am less happy. Our issue was Disney changed a lot over the time we were sailing them and raised prices a lot while we were there, sound familiar to X;), so we moved on. We did sail them 2-3 times without our daughter and enjoyed the trips a lot. What is crazy is your verandah cabin in 2019 was more than what we paid for a Cat V concierge room on the Fantasy in 2014 for 7 nights, in hindsight the Cat V rooms were a steal if you liked that kind of thing back then.

So you complain about Celebrity, but not DCL's prices and their cuts over the years and recently? We still look and their prices are way over Celebrity, at least for the inside rooms we now book. Around 2015 DCL basically doubled the concierge room prices. We were in them at the lower prices in 2013 and 2014, but we were going back to insides even if they lowered those rates for 2015. I guess it is possible that with the retreat price increases that X has surpassed DCLs prices.

Nope, but my luck they would hit a monster wave while I was getting my tattoo🤣

My point was it is just a plate filler, and I would rather have more main than plate fillers. The only exception might be asparagus lol. It is easy to drop more veggies or mashed on the plate to allow for a smaller cut of meat or fish, but still make the plate look properly full. I am just glad that it sounds like they added stuff like prime rib back now. Not sure if our February trip was rock bottom, or if the definition changes monthly.

I guess I am missing something here about mashed potatoes, and yes I grew up in the Midwest eating mashed potatoes my whole life. Shouldn't we complain about baked potatoes too? They are even easier to make and look terrible on a plate. Isn't throwing some extra broccoli, green beans, asparagus, carrots, etc the same thing? All of the above are super easy, even I can make them. Or is it a how it looks on the plate thing that asparagus, etc, looks better than mashed potatoes? Basically they are filling the plate to cover for smaller portions, or the lack of prime rib and other stuff that was missing from our menus back in February.

We were briefly tempted to do a 3rd cruise this year and found VV to be above the price point we want to pay for a cruise, but we are pretty thrifty so I know that doesn't apply to all. Like others have said their itineraries really didn't jump out at us either. That said X didn't fair well either in that search and we would have ended up on HAL or most likely Princess. I have a coworker going on VV soon, so I will be interested to hear what he thought of it. VV sounds like an experience heavy cruise with an active nightlife. We go on a cruise to relax and not do much other than puzzle books and a few of the ships activities and shows, so VV may not be a fit for us, but we will try it some day.

We are now looking into a Princess cruise, to try them out as well. If the price is right we will book it as we like the itinerary. This is not a reflection on X, just that we want to see how many good options are out there for us. We looked at Oceania and Viking and those prices are more than what we want to pay for a cruise. The key for us trying lines like HAL and Princess, is to see how they handle my food allergy and if they do well, they will be added to our search list. Currently the list is X, RCCL, and HAL. We do look at Disney, but saw that a 2 night cruise in an inside room was 1700$ which is insane, so they have pretty much fallen off our list for price and other reasons.

We aren't, especially since I have heard that the food options have bounced back a little since our trip in February on the Edge (think we were around the rock bottom point before many complaints altered it some). Also, our trip on HAL showed us that it was an option for us, but not a primary option, Celebrity beat it in many ways. That said since we sail insides or oceanviews and don't do AI or eat in specialty dining, so far the changes have been minimal for us. I also am not going to stop giving X my money because of changes to other classes of rooms that have no impact on us or that we will never book again. We tried suite class twice and it was not a style of cruising that we enjoyed. Once the changes really impact the class of rooms we sail we will jump like we did on Disney, but to what I don't know since all lines seem to be transitioning.

I can't speak to suites, which it seems most are interested in, but for insides in 2023, X was the superior line for us. I did enjoy our HAL cruise a lot, but now that I am further away from it, HAL wasn't even close. I would sail HAL again for the itinerary. One plus for HAL, was the Vaandam was an amazing small ship that we really liked including the full circuit promenade deck.

I was impressed with HAL's MDR food on the Vaandam this year. The dishes were well cooked, presented, and seasoned. I would say it was pretty even overall to Celebrity MDR dishes this year. One big miss though was never got escargot on HAL, don't believe they had it. For us the HAL buffet lacked compared to Celebrity with very little change day to day, especially for me being gluten free. I ended up getting a burger or hot dog each day with sides from the buffet. Also HAL ran out of gluten free hamburger buns with I think 2 days left lol. Hal seemed to be running their provisions pretty close, as the also ran out of amaretto with a few days to go to.