NCL newbie -- dining questions

[oma&opa]

We will be on the Dawn over Christmas. Are the Speciality Restaurants open for any meals other than dinner? For those of you with experience, is it worth it to buy the Dining package for a 7 day cruise? I assume Christmas eve or Day will have special menus in the main dining rooms. What types of foods are available at the buffet for breakfast? Any specialities of NCL that shouldn't be missed? Thank you.

[Redheel Girl]

The Specialty Restaurants are only open for Dinner. I hear there is a Buffet in LeBistro one day where you can sample food from all of them! I am going to try that on my Oct Jewell Cruise! I have never bought the Dining Package or Drink Package! The Buffet serves a large variety foods for Breakfast. Eggs fixed various ways and on the Ships that have a Great Outdoors they have a small Buffet and cook the Omelets out there. Lots of cereals and fruit. The big Main dining room serves Breakfast and has a good Menu!

[KeithJenner]

If you are new to NCL then I really don't see any reason to buy the dining package. Unless you eat at Cagneys a lot then it isn't a massive saving, and you will never know whether you like the free options unless you try them. If you miss the speciality restaurants for a night or two then any saving the package may give you has gone.

 

Try everything, you'll probably enjoy most of it, and then next time you can make the division based on your own experience.

Edited October 10, 2014 by KeithJenner

[kingoftheicedragons]

If you plan to eat in the specialty restaurants a lot, then you may want to buy the dining package. We did not buy it for our cruise. I'm willing to bet our cruise was a little different than others because of the time/itinerary that we chose--New England/Canada in September.

 

You will always have the option to go to the MDR to eat. While I wasn't too excited by the description of the food on the MDR menu, the food was always good. We did eat in the Asian restaurant one night on our cruise, but there wasn't much need or desire to other nights.

[SuiteTraveler]

On our last NCL cruise, on the Epic, I didn't buy the specialty restaurant dining package and we wound up eating in specialty restaurants every single night - except the one night we ate at The Epic Club. However, on our previous NCL cruise we ate in the MDR at least 4 times and it was very good in every case, although the service was a bit disorganized - something I found amusing - our waitress brought our meals to the table next to us while they were attempting to eat dessert. Stuff like that doesn't upset me. Everyone makes mistakes and everyone has to learn and it was obvious our waitress was new and had not got her table numbers down yet. The look of horror on her face when she brought things to the wrong table was hilarious and she would snatch the plates back up and run off and after much discussion with another waiter, bring them back to us. The second time she did this, I clued her in when she brought our food to the wrong table - right next to us. The MDR food is good, I give high praise to the prime rib and also the curries. The food at Cagney's and Le Bistro is even better. If you are in a suite, like we were, the restaurants for the suite guests which vary by name by ship, are great! Teppanyaki is your typical hibachi place - like Benihana - not all that special to us, but it is fun to experience at least once. Moderno is extremely good. We also enjoyed Shanghai and one night, when we weren't too hungry we ate at Wasabi - which was average quality sushi and sashimi.

 

The buffet was particularly good for cheese options and their famous pretzel rolls in the late afternoon - otherwise we didn't eat there. I meant to try their ice cream at some point, but never got a chance as we were so busy for the entire cruise. I'm sure the ice cream was good, though.

 

If you are in a suite, you tend to have breakfast and lunch at the dining room for suite passengers, so I never really got out to try other venues at these meals if I was onboard except for one experience in The Garden Cafe. In the dining room for suite guests the eggs benedict on crab cakes and fillet mignon at breakfast are particularly well known among suite passengers. The breakfast buffet for suite passengers is great with smoked salmon, fresh fruit, yogurt, and anything you could possibly want to order off the hot menu as well. You are truly spoiled for choice. I understand that the Garden Cafe buffet has a lot of these choices as well - although not the crab cakes benedict or filet mignon. Still, I'm certain that you will not have any problem finding something great to eat in there. An important tip is that if the Garden Cafe seating is full in the morning, they open La Cucina so you can go in there with your food from the Garden Cafe and eat in an even nicer venue! Also, the silverware rolls do not contain spoons, so if you get a yogurt or coffee with cream or whatever you might need a spoon for, be sure to pick up a separate spoon.