Dining on Holland America

[ES.]

I'm hearing the quality of the food is slippin on HA./ Say it ain't so!

[Keith1010]

Welcome to Cruise Critic.

 

You will get answers here but you will get even more on the HAL Cruise Line Board.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=171

 

Keith

Edited November 21, 2013 by Keith1010

[Hlitner]

Although you will find some discussion of this on the HAL board, it is the typical subjective issue where some say the quality of the cuisine is declining and others say its as good or better then ever. IMHO, having cruised about 300 days on HAL (much of it in the past 4 years) we think the cuisine is so variable that it's hard to answer the OPs question. On our most recent HAL cruise (28 days on the Veendam...which ended last week) we thought the food in the MDR was generally very good and an improvement over some other recent HAL cruises. On the other hand, we think that the Lido buffets on HAL are not as good as many other lines. But we have also found a lot of variance in quality of food from ship to ship.

 

Hank

[CruiserBruce]

Agree with Keith...the best place for your research is the HAL board.

 

Also agree with Hlitner. Food is tremendously and totally subjective. I might think it is great, you might think it lousy, and we could be eating the same meal. We happen to think HAL does steaks VERY well. Other things average. We have been sailing on HAL for almost 20 years, for over 200 days. Overall, we don't think the food has slipped.

 

If you were to read all the cruise line boards, you would find something has slipped on all the cruise lines as we went thru the recession, and prices were cut to fill ships.

 

You won't go hungry on a HAL ship.

Edited November 21, 2013 by CruiserBruce

[sail7seas]

We have over 800 days on HAL and have sailed 14 of HAL's 15 ships currently in the fleet...... most of them repeatedly.

 

We found the food on some ships to be less to our taste and expectation than on other ships but there was no pattern or particular explanation. It wasn't necessarily 'class of ship' but our most recent cruises, we enjoyed the food more than we had on some of our recent past.

 

We sailed Veendam in August and found the food to be more to the standard to which we were accustomed and found most of our dinners to be very good.

 

Some of the more costly food choices are not as frequently offered (or not offered at all) as they used to be. There are some noticeable omissions but for the most part, we found plenty to enjoy for breakfast, lunch and dinner. :)

 

I do not think HAL is uniquely in this position. I think most of the mid range cruise lines are in the same circumstance.

 

[Roz]

Something I've noticed on HAL, Carnival, and Princess is that in order to keep down costs, they will use less expensive cuts of meat and offer an entree or two that's more in the "comfort food" category, such as meatloaf or turkey and dressing. The food still tastes good, in my opinion. Don't know if that's what you mean by quality.

 

Roz

[sail7seas]

By quality, I am referring to things like type of fish offered ie dover sole is no longer on HAL menus but talapia is. They now offer a number of types of fish I never heard of but am reasonably sure are less costly than other fish I used to see on the menu.

 

The fish is decent quality but not as 'luxurious' a choice.

[alexspepa]

By quality, I am referring to things like type of fish offered ie dover sole is no longer on HAL menus but talapia is. They now offer a number of types of fish I never heard of but am reasonably sure are less costly than other fish I used to see on the menu.

 

The fish is decent quality but not as 'luxurious' a choice.

 

we took a TA on Hal last October - quite frankly the food in the MDR was mediocre at best - not just our opinion but everyone's at the table.

 

the specialty steak restaurant was great.

[sail7seas]

sail7seas

By quality, I am referring to things like type of fish offered ie dover sole is no longer on HAL menus but talapia is. They now offer a number of types of fish I never heard of but am reasonably sure are less costly than other fish I used to see on the menu.

 

The fish is decent quality but not as 'luxurious' a choice.

 

 

 

we took a TA on Hal last October - quite frankly the food in the MDR was mediocre at best - not just our opinion but everyone's at the table.

 

the specialty steak restaurant was great.

 

 

?? Don't understand the connection between your quote of mine and your post? :confused:

 

Edited November 21, 2013 by sail7seas

[slidergirl]

By quality, I am referring to things like type of fish offered ie dover sole is no longer on HAL menus but talapia is. They now offer a number of types of fish I never heard of but am reasonably sure are less costly than other fish I used to see on the menu.

 

The fish is decent quality but not as 'luxurious' a choice.

 

Perhaps they are buying by what is "in" or popular at the time. Dover sole is an old classic fish, talapia is one of the most popular fish offerings now. Talapia is farm-raised and cheap (especially when they buy from China - yikes!) where true Dover sole is still wild-catch and, for awhile, was in the "overfished" category in the US and subject to limits.

[sail7seas]

I am aware talapia is a popular fish and regularly make it at home.

The HAL dinner menus offer fish varieties I've never heard of. I literally googled them prior to dinner so I could discover where they found those frozen beauties. :D

 

Talapia is not one of the previously unheard of variety. ;)

Dover Sole is costly and that is likely why HAL removed it from their menu.

 

 

Edited November 21, 2013 by sail7seas

[Roz]

Prefer Dover sole to tilapia any day. Guess that's because I'm an old classic. :D

 

Roz

[cruisin'girl]

Tilapia is on sale almost weekly at our grocery stores' seafood counters and is quite cheap, probably the reason it appears to be popular. The price of better fish is high nowadays. Surely HAL can offer better than tilapia in the MDR.

[alexspepa]

?? Don't understand the connection between your quote of mine and your post? :confused:

 

 

my bad...meant to quote the OP.

[navybankerteacher]

Perhaps they are buying by what is "in" or popular at the time. Dover sole is an old classic fish, talapia is one of the most popular fish offerings now. Talapia is farm-raised and cheap (especially when they buy from China - yikes!) where true Dover sole is still wild-catch and, for awhile, was in the "overfished" category in the US and subject to limits.

 

After salmon, tilapia is the most abundant farm fish. Both are primarily sourced from China - where they are fed on Chinese garbage. It may be that HAL only buys wild caught tilapia, but somehow I am inclined to doubt it. If you were to compare your local fish market's prices for tilapia and Dover sole, you can readily see why HAL has switched.

 

Like every other business in the world, managers are pressed to increase net income year to year. This is done by increasing revenues or reducing costs - or both. Given the ever-expanding capacity of cruise ships in service, and obvious to we who book cruises regularly, fares have not moved up much lately - meaning that cost control has to be a major element in boosting the bottom line.

 

Of course the quality of MDR food has to suffer -- hopefully in small ways. I do not mind getting slightly smaller portions - and occasional well-prepared meat loaf is find in lieu of steak. I can buy better steak at home - and prepare it better than any mass production galley, so I don't mind some changes. It is the comfort and ease of good service rather than any expectations of gourmet cuisine which I seek on board ship anyway.

[CruiserBruce]

After I read your post, I did some research. There are several articles on line which back you up, several mentioning the Monterey Bay Aquarium allegedly bashing China raised tilapia. However, in actually reading the section of the Aquarium's website, here:

 

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/SeafoodWatch/web/sfw_factsheet.aspx?gid=69

 

Chinese farmed tilapia is a "good alternative". Not "Best", but acceptable.

 

As much of our bulk seafood, like shrimp, is farm raised outside of the US, if we are going to eat seafood, we need to expect this.

[navybankerteacher]

After I read your post, I did some research. There are several articles on line which back you up, several mentioning the Monterey Bay Aquarium allegedly bashing China raised tilapia. However, in actually reading the section of the Aquarium's website, here:

 

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/SeafoodWatch/web/sfw_factsheet.aspx?gid=69

 

Chinese farmed tilapia is a "good alternative". Not "Best", but acceptable.

 

As much of our bulk seafood, like shrimp, is farm raised outside of the US, if we are going to eat seafood, we need to expect this.

 

I never said farmed tilapia was harmful to your health, merely that it was bound to be cheaper than wild caught sole, and therefore logical for HAL to serve in place of sole. While not a health nut, I like to avoid mass produced food from China - there have been too many cases of poisonous plastics in infant formula, etc. to feel completely comfortable. And, yes, I know that sole are bottom feeders and eat whatever happens to sink to the bottom - often the leftovers that upper level predators let fall -- but I still feel that such random offal makes better feed than human consumers' garbage.

[CruiserBruce]

You don't think you implied that Chinese tilapia was not good for you just a wee bit;):confused:?

Edited November 22, 2013 by CruiserBruce

[LandlockedCruiser01]

After salmon, tilapia is the most abundant farm fish. Both are primarily sourced from China - where they are fed on Chinese garbage. It may be that HAL only buys wild caught tilapia, but somehow I am inclined to doubt it. If you were to compare your local fish market's prices for tilapia and Dover sole, you can readily see why HAL has switched.

It's highly unlikely to find wild-caught tilapia. Tilapia is a freshwater fish native to Africa. The logistics of capturing it from the wild are prohibitively expensive. You have to: (1) find a politically and economically stable country to operate the fishery in, (2) come up with a cost-effective way to transport fish from inland rivers in Africa to US cities, and (3) protect the wild fish from poachers. Taking all that into account, wild-caught tilapia can easily become more expensive than Dover sole.

 

So I'm pretty sure HAL would be using farm-raised tilapia, despite the noticeable change in taste. It would be better if HAL switched to pollock (a fairly low-cost fish) instead of tilapia. Pollock and sole are both from the cod family, so at least it would taste similar to what they used to serve.

[pris993]

By quality, I am referring to things like type of fish offered ie dover sole is no longer on HAL menus but talapia is. They now offer a number of types of fish I never heard of but am reasonably sure are less costly than other fish I used to see on the menu.

 

The fish is decent quality but not as 'luxurious' a choice.

 

We eat fish a lot at home, so when we board we ask the Matre'd or Assistant what fish is available on board and then special order what we like the best. Some fish is better than others, when we find what is good we stick with it. This basically true on all lines, we cruise Princess, Celebrity, HAL, Cunard and NCL. On NCL we don't bother with the MDR, not real service, so we do the buffet and pick what we like. Sometimes on Celebrity we do the same thing finding the buffet more to our to our tastes.

[Krazy Kruizers]

I'm hearing the quality of the food is slippin on HA./ Say it ain't so!

 

Welcome to Cruise Critic.

Food is very subjective. What you like, I may not like and vice versa.

JMO -- we have sailed for years on HAL and we have seen a decline in the quality of food in the main dining room.

[navybankerteacher]

You don't think you implied that Chinese tilapia was not good for you just a wee bit;):confused:?

 

Of course I did - at least a wee bit. More to the point, I implied that wild caught fish was likely to be better for you than farmed.

 

There have been a number os cases of deplorable quality-control problems arising from China's rapid industrialization -- from chemically destructive wall board installed in houses damaging wiring, piping and fixtures to infant formula containing toxins. Other things being equal - natural is better. Call me a jingoist, but I would prefer to support a Gloucester fisherman than an Asian fish farmer.

[Roz]

The politics of food....

 

Roz

[cruiseapril]

We have enjoyed most of the meals on HAL and have been selective. We usually order chicken, non-fish seafood, or beef and have had many well seasoned and well prepared meals.

 

We found the meals to be better than many other lines, in general. So far, we haven't experienced a decline in quality- but perhaps we avoid the less flavorful choices.