foodsvcmgr

I see lots of people moving up to or considering “O”. How is Azamara food and overall product vs Celebrity? Or as an option to Oceania? I see an itinerary that interests me at a decent price.

Beware Magdalena Island is often inaccessible due to high winds and seas. I was shoehorned into a seat on a ferry for hours only to have to turn back while finally in sight of the island.

Was the Normandie statue in the MDR relocated to a different ship or just removed whereabouts unknown?

Queenvee that’s what I also interpret it to mean, would be thrilled to be wrong. The whole story is rather ambiguous, are Ocean Bar trios only on the Vistas and LCS only rotating on Pinnacles with wrap around screens? Not being presented in a manner that is easily understood.

The canal boat and train is an enjoyable tour. We stopped at a banana farm on ours.

On the HAL board it was reported that Oosterdam was able to call in the same Antarctic areas as in 2020. So encouraging news so far……

I think there may be some confusion with pasteurized liquid eggs which are near universally used in food service except for eggs up or over and powdered eggs which are occasionally a baking ingredient.

So at present only Edge class has eliminated the fixed dining option? Anyone hearing that the other ships will follow?

Open is not for me, but good to hear it is functioning smoothly with minimal waits. Read the HAL and Celebrity boards, open is typically a nightmare. Interesting that Cunard seem to have it sorted when the others have been doing it for years and so many issues.

Let’s be glad the reflagging is Madeira not St. Kitt’s and Nevis…….

Sadly the answer may be whenever she is ultimately sold out of the fleet and her new owner decides to renovate.

I would suspect Hake, a cheap flavorless substitute for Cod.

No but was reporting what HAL told him, he didn’t imagine it.

The new menus look better than the initial test. I’ll be more interested in the overall quality and hopefully the corn in the photo is not representative of portion sizes. Also hope it won’t be an issue getting four courses still, I want salad plus soup or shrimp to start. If they (not me) are pressing for speed I’ll take the first two courses at once if need be.

We also like Cunard in addition to HAL and Celebrity. Celebrity is getting crushed on CC this week about the latest round of cuts. Cunard seems to be garnering few complaints, can any recent cruisers report and compare?

Reverting to the classical piano/violin duo in Explorers and rotating the larger Lincoln Center groups ship to ship would be a lot more palatable than just eliminating classical music altogether. Hopefully what you are experiencing on ZUIDERDAM now will be the new model. Much better than the news story implied.

If the elimination of traditional dining on Edge class is true and permanent, I hope it does not spread to the older ships. Much as I dislike the idea, I understand the reasoning in that the Edge class has more dining rooms to support any time only. The rest of the fleet needs to continue offering traditional and open. Could be a selling point for traditionalists like me. Look no further than the Princess dining debacle.

HAL’s death by 1000 cuts continues as Lincoln Center Stage will be eliminated later this year as a regular quartet on each ship and will now be a rotating headliner act that moves from ship to ship. Thus you may or most likely will not encounter it on your particular sailing. Source - Points Guy.

Rich yak as prmssk says in theory traditional dining “might” be replicated, but I’d prefer the real deal. I have zero interest in begging a MD, trying to battle a poorly functioning app, carrying a buzzer or waiting to eat.

Elimination of traditional fixed dining eliminates me as a customer.

If Celestyal’s investors are serious about upgrading their fleet, AIDAaura will be available this Fall. Similar size to Olympia and 20 years newer. Seems like a no brainer, but of course so did Costa NeoRomantica and we all know how that ended, just not exactly why.

Been cruising since 1978 but over the last ten years an equal mix of Celebrity, HAL, and Princess. Celebrity pricing for the most part is the highest of the three and with high non refundable deposits. However I’m willing to give my cruising dollars to Celebrity if they demonstrate less cutbacks to food and service than the competition.

Thanks for your review, looking forward to sailing Liberty to Bermuda in May.

Agreed, makes no sense for the entry level line to offer more than the superior mass market line. Runs contrary to basic marketing. Currently RCL is experiencing food and service downgrades while Celebrity is not (for specific items that differentiate the two).

Is the free ferry an NCL exclusive or do other cruise lines offer it as well?