Just Got Off the Breeze 10/8-10/15

I'm in the car heading back to Dallas as I type this (don't worry, not driving).

My wife and I stayed in a balcony cabin on Deck 7 forward. We were near the "secret" deck. The cabin was adequate and I thought quite roomy with storage space. Our room steward, Christine, was wonderful. She did ask if we wanted our room made up in the morning or evening. We opted for both. She was more than happy to accommodate.

The balcony was standard but to be honest, I'm not sure I'll book another again as my wife wants it, but doesn't spend much time out there. This was our 3rd balcony cabin and we spent maybe 1.5 hrs total out there. Think I'll stick with an OV next time.

Entertainment was good. We saw Flick, the Motown Show, and the Country show. The entertainers were talented, but at times you could tell the songs given were beyond their capabilities, such as Adele's Skyfall and Aerosmith's Don't Want to Miss A Thing. No biggie. There's a reason they're performers on a cruise ship and not selling out arenas. They definitely gave it their all and the effects and production values were great. They've certainly come a long way since my last cruise 7 yrs ago.

Unfortunately though, it seems the food has gotten worse. I'm on a low carb diet and figured I'd have no issues avoiding carbs. Well the quality of meats left A LOT to be desired. The flat iron steak that was a staple on the dinner menu was inedible it was so bad and even though I ordered it medium rare, it was more medium well. I only made the mistake of ordering it once.

The eggs on the lido deck were watery and the consistency was disgusting. The bacon **** would dish out 2 strips and i'd say I'm on a low carb/high fat diet, so can I have plenty please? That would garner me another 2 strips. I didn't feel like having to beg the unsmiling, unfriendly bacon server for more bacon, so gave up on Lido deck breakfast. There were pork link sausages I liked on the lido deck, but they disappeared by Thursday to be replaced with some hot dog looking sausage that was not good imo. The pork links never returned.

The breakfast in the dining room was good, but the hours didn't always coincide with my sleep schedule, so I skipped breakfast altogether most of the time.

Ate most lunches at the Mongolian Wok skipping the sauces and noodles. That was very delicious, but the lines were always very long. Did Guy's burgers (bunless) a few times as well.

Something else I noticed is that the lido deck inside dining areas would fill up and it was VERY hard to find a clean table. There just weren't enough bussers to keep up. I saw tables sit dirty for 45mins at 1pm. That is just unacceptable to me. I'd bus them myself, but there was literally no where to put the dirty dishes. Guess the number of servers/bussers/waiters has been cut back? Seems like a mistake to me as I've never experienced poor service on any cruise I've been on until this one. I was only asked if I wanted a drink twice the entire cruise. I had to wait upwards of 20 minutes for a drink at the Atrium bar. Dinner service in Sapphire dining room was extremely slow and not as attentive as I'm used to. Like no one asked if we wanted drinks besides water with dinner. No one came by to ask how everything was. It took a good 15 minutes from time the hostess sat us until a waitress came out with the menus. We were sat twice(once at breakfast and once at dinner) at tables that weren't prepped for new guests. Overall just not happy with the service and believe me, I am not picky. Just smile and be friendly and I'll cut most mistakes some slack.

We ate at the steakhouse for my birthday and that was wonderful. The NY Strip was fantastic and perfectly cooked. Had the tuna tartare app which was delicious. And the cheesecake was still on the menu Yay!(yes, I did cheat on my birthday)

Speaking of my birthday, I did receive the $50 gift card to the spa. Never got a chance to use it. Also received a birthday cake in my room from the steakhouse. Our steward, Christine, also wrote Happy Birthday on the cabin mirror and made sure to tell me Happy Birthday and hug both me and my wife. It was very sweet.

She was definitely the bright spot in a mediocre cruise, but even a mediocre cruise is better than a week at home (except I cook better food with higher quality ingredients:D)

I think my wife and I, who are entering our 40's may have outgrown Carnival though. The lack of service and subpar food really stood out to me this time. We're booked on RCCL for Alaska, but I may begin looking into Holland America, Celebrity etc in the future.

Thank you for your input. Take a look at Celebrity..think you may find what you're missing.

Thank you for the review, I agree totally regarding the food, first I find an abundant of carb foods something that we also try to avoid eating, but lets face it, its filling and cheap! We do dine at the steakhouse every evening for dinner and I am glad you tried it and had a wonderful experience there.

Did you get the drink package, I am hearing that drinks are being watered down, quite honestly, I never thought so but my last carnival cruise was a year ago because we much rather cruise RC ships, much better quality of food overall, but remain to dine at the specialty restaurants for dinner.

Thanks for the feedback.

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I'm glad you enjoyed parts of your cruise. I agree the quality of the food has declined. Thank goodness we have always had excellent service in the MDR.

I hope your next cruise is more to your liking.

Regarding food, good quality beef is a problem on most of the major cruise lines. Did you try the chicken and fish? I hope the Blue Iguana grilled choices are good. Did you do the seaday brunch?

Agree we can be spoiled by what we cook at home. True at about any affordable restaurant.

Thanks of the report.

So-so food on a cruise is still better than a week at work, in my opinion. Seriously though, I'm sorry to hear about the lackluster experience. We are departing on the Breeze in 6 weeks. I'm looking forward to Guy's Burgers and the Bonsai Sushi bar. And I agree...what is it with the Bacon Police???

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the review.

Regarding food, good quality beef is a problem on most of the major cruise lines. Did you try the chicken and fish? I hope the Blue Iguana grilled choices are good. Did you do the seaday brunch?

 

Agree we can be spoiled by what we cook at home. True at about any affordable restaurant.

 

Thanks of the report.

I never could seem to find plain grilled chicken like they used to offer on the Lido grill back before Guy's Burgers. We did sea day brunch on the last sea day. I got an omelette and bacon. It was good. I'm not a big fan of fish, other than fresh tuna, which I did get as my app at the steakhouse. Guess I could just eat there every night, but I think I'm going to try other cruising options instead.

I guess I shouldn't complain too much as I probably lost 2 or 3lbs this past week since I just went hungry sometimes rather than eat sub par food just b/c it was "free". I've cruised Carnival 4 times prior to this, but 7 yrs ago was the most recent. I thought the food was fine back then. Nothing special, but decent. This experience was not that.

So-so food on a cruise is still better than a week at work, in my opinion. Seriously though, I'm sorry to hear about the lackluster experience. We are departing on the Breeze in 6 weeks. I'm looking forward to Guy's Burgers and the Bonsai Sushi bar. And I agree...what is it with the Bacon Police???

The bacon police was in full force and she was not a happy camper at all. Guy's was good, but one can only eat so many burgers before they get sick of them.

I did try to get creative and ordered a pizza figuring I'd scrape off the cheese & pepperoni and just eat that. That plan didn't go so well since they now skimp so much on toppings.

The sushi bar must have been great as it was always packed. There was even a wait at times for a table. I did have the miso soup and that was fantastic.

We are not picky people either and don't go around looking for problems with things but I agree about the declining quality of the food in the MDR. On our first cruise we would look forward to dinner every night in there, the food was fantastic and the service was even better. 5 cruises and 5 years later the service and food quality have steadily declined in the MDR to the point that it's just mediocre dinner with mediocre service. Not bad, but not as great as it used to be.

That being said, we can always find plenty of good food at the sea day brunch, Dr. Seuss breakfast, lido buffet for both breakfast and lunch although we've never eaten dinner in there. We also really enjoy the indian food, mongolian wok, Guy's burgers, pizzas, sushi, seaside bbq grill, and the Blue Iguana Cantina.

We've never eaten in the Italian restaurant for dinner or in the steakhouse although we may give the steakhouse a try on our next cruise.

We also have a gluten free person in our group and it has never been a problem finding plenty of suitable food. Carnival's attempts at gluten free bread and pancakes is not great but there's plenty other great things to eat.

I never could seem to find plain grilled chicken like they used to offer on the Lido grill back before Guy's Burgers. We did sea day brunch on the last sea day. I got an omelette and bacon. It was good. I'm not a big fan of fish, other than fresh tuna, which I did get as my app at the steakhouse. Guess I could just eat there every night, but I think I'm going to try other cruising options instead.

 

 

 

I guess I shouldn't complain too much as I probably lost 2 or 3lbs this past week since I just went hungry sometimes rather than eat sub par food just b/c it was "free". I've cruised Carnival 4 times prior to this, but 7 yrs ago was the most recent. I thought the food was fine back then. Nothing special, but decent. This experience was not that.

Sorry to hear about your experience. We were just on the valor and I thought, "how great if I were low carbing". In the sea day brunch, I got an omelet each day filled with bacon, cheese, mushrooms and spinach. For lunch, they had carved turkey on the buffet and a lot of salad options. I don't know if you do veggies, but that would have been good. For dinner, in the mdr, they had grilled chicken breast each night, grilled pork chops, and a fish option. My husband had the grilled sea bass and said it was excellent. . He also had a flat iron steak each night and he is very picky but enjoyed it. I see that you don't like fish much, but there were other things. Sorry, it's hard when you can't find good food options. I didn't have a problem getting more bacon but we ate sea day brunch on two of the five days.

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Enjoyed reading your trip report.

Keith

Thanks for posting your review! I can always find something to eat on a cruise but I have to agree with you the quality has gone down the past few years.

Thanks for posting your review! I can always find something to eat on a cruise but I have to agree with you the quality has gone down the past few years.

I totally agree with you on the food. I have been on over 20 cruises and have never had a problem with food until my cruise on the Breeze 9/24! My first night in the dining room I ordered the flat iron steak and it was so tough and flavorless that I sent it back. A couple nights later I ordered another piece of meat and that too was so tough that I sent it back. The best meal I had was some pasta and the lobster. The sides were pretty good as well as the desserts. Besides the food my cruise was fantastic.

I understand this. part of it. The amount of food that I saw wasted was just staggering. People would fill the large platters of food and then take a few bites. Bacon ain't cheap. I know, we buy a lot of it on the low carb diet. They never hesitated to give me more if I wanted it. I just didn't ask for 20 pieces. I usually got 5 or 6 and that was to share with my kids as well.

So-so food on a cruise is still better than a week at work, in my opinion. Seriously though, I'm sorry to hear about the lackluster experience. We are departing on the Breeze in 6 weeks. I'm looking forward to Guy's Burgers and the Bonsai Sushi bar. And I agree...what is it with the Bacon Police???

We were on the Breeze a couple of weeks ago, had a blast as usual! My thoughts on the food: everybody should know and expect that the buffet food will not be great - like most buffets, it just isn't! So, my husband and I avoided the buffet almost the entire week, only ate a couple of quick bites in there but otherwise we stuck to the specialty places, MDR, etc. and had pretty good food all week! Any time you can choose food that is being cooked while you watch as opposed to food that's sitting in a warming tray, you stand a better chance of a good outcome! I really like Guys, Blue Iguana, Italian (free at lunch) sea day brunch. We also ate at the sushi restaurant and Italian one night. Even the pizza and deli are good options!

Try NCL. We found the food excellent on that line. With that being said, I plan to book the Breeze for 2019 because I need to book a Carnival cruise to cash in reward points, and I've actually heard nothing but great reviews on the Breeze, until I read yours. But still booking it. Besides NCL, I've also cruised RCCL and 5 different Carnival ships. Although I haven't cruised Carnival since 2007, I felt their food was far better than on RCCL. But loved NCL!!

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And the buffet food on NCL is the BEST we've ever had at sea! Excellent buffet!

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Just got off the Breeze 11/19-11/26. Had the best time. The ship was clean, staff was friendly, food was good, drinks were great, and the CD Mike was amazing. I didn't want to leave. I hear Mike is moving on in April, so that is a sad bit of news. I loved the Guys Pig and Anchor! Nothing to complain about! Stellar time!:D:D:D

I have to agree about the food, but it's not just on the Breeze, as you can see from my signature we have been cruising for quite sometime and there has been a steady decline in both food and service on Carnival for several years. It's nothing like it used to be which is really a shame, both used to be excellent.

Doug