RCR food against Princess food

[FRANCOIS]

Never tried RCR food.

Coimpare to Princess or Carnival is good?

 

Thank you

[negc]

Opinions about food are very subjective. Some people might find a particular dish "too spicy" while others might find it "too bland". I am pretty much a meat and potatoes guy and not a fan of exotic sauces, but others consider the presentation and the complexity of the food offerings in judging the food. As long as hot foods are served hot and chilled foods are cool, and the food is edible, most food served on the various lines is very similar. Sometimes I think that posters base their opinions on the menu descriptions which are frequently more of a tribute to the menu writer than to the chef.:)

[ducklite]

I found the food on the Mariner to be fair to poor. Chops and Portofino were good, not great. (I ate at Emerils last night, now that was a great meal!)

 

In fact the quality of the food is one of many reasons we'll never cruise with RCCL again.

 

Anne

[PTarbay]

I have sailed all 3 and I find RCCL to be better than Carnival but I thought Princess was a little better but the food on RCCL is pretty good.Make sure to try Chops or Portofino.They are both excellent and have great service.

[FRANCOIS]

You did the 3 cruiseline, and the answer I got are very mixed.

Some people liked and some wont cruise with RCR because of the food!!!

 

On pricess you had the dinner menu with about 4 choice of meal and still if you didnt liked it you had what is call les incontournables meaning every day there was on the left page on the menu, the same menu every day and there was the most popular meal like steak, shrimp cocktail, ceaser salad. That was fun because if you didnt liked the daily meal you could pick up something in the most popular page.

 

thank you in advance

 

frank

[YoungZaphod]

On Princess you will find baked beans on the breakfast buffet.

 

On RC you will find hot dogs labeled as breakfast sausage on the buffet.

 

Go on both, you can have beanie weanies. :)

 

My opinion: Princess has better dining room and buffet, RC has better alternative restaurants.

[thatbloominplace]

food on both lines are comparable. whether you like one line over the other usually depends on your own personal preferences compared to the offerings in trhat ship that particular week. i feel that both lines do a good job of presentation, quality, taste, and choices. portofino is a wonderful restaurant and a worthwhile option if you are on rccl. i personally enjoyed rccl better than princess, but i would not say that princess wasn't comparable. i just enjoyed the food better that particular week.

[negc]

You did the 3 cruiseline, and the answer I got are very mixed.

Some people liked and some wont cruise with RCR because of the food!!!

 

On pricess you had the dinner menu with about 4 choice of meal and still if you didnt liked it you had what is call les incontournables meaning every day there was on the left page on the menu, the same menu every day and there was the most popular meal like steak, shrimp cocktail, ceaser salad. That was fun because if you didnt liked the daily meal you could pick up something in the most popular page.

 

thank you in advance

 

frank

Royal Caribbean's dinner menus have the same feature. If you don't like the day's offerings you can always order a pasta, steak, chicken or fish item, as well as caesar salad, baked potato etc. You can also order dinner in your stateroom through room service and order from the same menu being offered in the dining room - and at no extra cost (except for whatever you choose to tip the room service waiter).

[Guest Jaxmania]

We cruised Mariner in Nov.2004 and just returned from Mariner on 10-16-05.

There was a lot of difference in the food this time. The food was good but we did not eat anything that was "wow this is good" not even the Vidalia Tart that we thought was outstanding in November. Everything else on the ship, the wait staff, room steward, cruise director, entertainment, etc. was excellent. We had a wonderful, fun cruise.

We were on Caribbean Princess in Feb. and the food was excellent. The best food we have had on a Princess Ship. Everyone in our party remarked about the quality and variety of lunches in the dining room that they could have been served at night in the dining room.

If we were with younger people we would sail Mariner because there is so much for them to do and food is not as important to them but when we sail by ourselves; we are seniors, we prefer Princess or Celebrity.

We would not let food be the determining factor whether we enjoyed the cruise or not. To us the food is just part of the cruise experience. Many times we have had so much fun at dinner we hardly paid any attention to what we were eating.

[Casey2]

We were on the Star Princess last year and the Radiance last month. I thought the food was comparable but would give a slight edge to the Radiance. However, there was a larger and more varied dinner menu on the Star. I have numerous food allergies and Princess was more accomodating with substituions the Radiance. I ended up eating chicken and steak almost every night. If it wasn't for our wonderful tablemates I probably would have eaten dinner in Winjammer where the selection was more varied.

[Casey2]

We were on the Star Princess last year and the Radiance last month. I thought the food was comparable but would give a slight edge to the Radiance. However, there was a larger and more varied dinner menu on the Star. I have numerous food allergies and Princess was more accomodating with substituions the Radiance. I ended up eating chicken and steak almost every night. If it wasn't for our wonderful tablemates I probably would have eaten dinner in Winjammer where the selection was more varied.

[PTarbay]

I was reading one of the cruise guides today.It rates the ships in several different categories.It gave the Radiance class ships a little better rating in the food department than the Voyager class.

[rolloman]

The food on Princess was far better than Royal Caribbean, especially in the alternative restaurants. I think Princess has a better format for the alternative than Royal. I will also say the food has gone down hill on all cruise lines in the past 5 years. This all being said, I typically sail Royal Caribbean as I have more fun on the RCI ships.

[ducklite]

You can also order dinner in your stateroom through room service and order from the same menu being offered in the dining room - and at no extra cost (except for whatever you choose to tip the room service waiter).

 

That is completely incorrect! We were in the Royal Suite and were denied ordering anything not on the room srevice menu for dinner last week. one of the many reasons I'll never cruise RCCL again.

 

Anne

[Cruising89143]

That is completely incorrect! We were in the Royal Suite and were denied ordering anything not on the room srevice menu for dinner last week. one of the many reasons I'll never cruise RCCL again.

 

Anne

 

That is not incorrect. I have ordered off of the menu and have never had a problem. As long as you stick to what is on the dining room menu or room service menu for lunch or dinner. For breakfast you have to stick to the room service menu. The only thing that I have seen them not have for room service is lobster. Makes no difference in your room category. Inside or Royal Suite, you get the same service as you should.

[jkrislc]

I've always said that there are more similarities than differences between the two lines. However, when it came to the food, Princess won hands down. Food was always very good to excellent, whereas it was good to very good on RCI. I also remember Princess having superior buffets in terms of food quality and quantity and a better selection on the dinner menu.

 

Notwithstanding, RCI makes up for this in other areas and I've never gone hungry or lost weight on a cruise.

[PTarbay]

That is completely incorrect! We were in the Royal Suite and were denied ordering anything not on the room srevice menu for dinner last week. one of the many reasons I'll never cruise RCCL again.

 

Anne

We were in a D1 balcony cabin and we could order anything from the diningroom menu for room service for lunch and dinner except lobster.In the book that is in your room with the room service menu etc. they also had the dinner and lunch menus from the diningroom.We never had a problem at all.After we ate at Chops one night I mentioned to the maitre'd how delicious one of the desserts was and when i got back to my cabin later that night there was a slice of mud pie waiting there and it wasn't on the room service menu.

[ducklite]

That is not incorrect. I have ordered off of the menu and have never had a problem. As long as you stick to what is on the dining room menu or room service menu for lunch or dinner. For breakfast you have to stick to the room service menu. The only thing that I have seen them not have for room service is lobster. Makes no difference in your room category. Inside or Royal Suite, you get the same service as you should.

 

Glad you had the experience you should have. We didn't. We were told "no". We won't be back. In fact we're taking the money we were planning on spending on a 14 day HI cruise on Celebrity and cruising on RSSC instead. I'll never cruise with RCCL or an associated company again after the fiasco we had.

 

Anne

[ducklite]

We were in a D1 balcony cabin and we could order anything from the diningroom menu for room service for lunch and dinner except lobster.In the book that is in your room with the room service menu etc. they also had the dinner and lunch menus from the diningroom.We never had a problem at all.After we ate at Chops one night I mentioned to the maitre'd how delicious one of the desserts was and when i got back to my cabin later that night there was a slice of mud pie waiting there and it wasn't on the room service menu.

 

We didn't have dining room menus in our room. Only room service. When we asked about gettign something off the DR menu, we were told "no". But then again I think RCCL has been watching too many of those David Spade commercials, because pretty much all wekk we heard "No".

 

Anne

[cmason]

Odd, we were in an inside, and could order off the dinner menu for room service...but only at dinner time. In fact, on both EOS and NOS, the room service dinner menu was on the RC TV daily, and it matched the dining room very closely....

 

 

 

 

Anyway, I see this question often, and I for one think it is a bit odd ...it is like asking: Is food better at Marriott, Hilton, or Sheraton? Cruise lines are similar to large hotel chains: food is not their specialty, though they do it well. Trying to determine which ship has better food is as silly as trying to figure which TGIFridays, or Olive Garden has better food.

 

Also, like hotels, the food varies by property and by day, mostly because the food is not prepared by machines, but by humans. Therefore, there will be variances in consistancy, including those originating from the produce that is available at the time of year you are vacationing.

 

These ships are large hotel properties: they have hotel managers, food and beverage managers, chefs etc. The only major difference is that rather than groundskeepers, a ship has a crew. Otherwise, if you assume that your ship is a hotel, then the comparisons make sense. Few hotels offer mindblowing food. Some do, though typically, these are high-end hotels with celebrity chefs, properties that I would compare to cruise lines such as Raddison, or Seabourne.

 

Do not assume that your ship is offering five star dining, nor five star food, at least not on RCCL, Princess or Carnival. They do not try to, so you should not expect it. Will you get an elegant meal, served well, and well prepared? Yes you will. Will it be celebrity chef or award winning food? Most likely not, but I suspect it will be better than chain restaurants or even what most of us eat daily, and certainly enjoyable indeed.

 

So go on the cruise that best meets your style, what you want to do and where you prefer to go. The food will be there, and be good and plentiful. If fine dining is your thing, you may wish to consider Greenbriar or a five star hotel instead. The cruiselines are simply large hotel chains, not floating restaurants.

[PTarbay]

We didn't have dining room menus in our room. Only room service. When we asked about gettign something off the DR menu, we were told "no". But then again I think RCCL has been watching too many of those David Spade commercials, because pretty much all wekk we heard "No".

 

Anne

I'm sorry you had such a bad experience.I read your other posts and know you had the Royal Suite. This was my first cruise with RCCL after many cruises with several other lines.I was so impressed with the service and staff that I booked the same cabin on the Radiance for this January while onboard.The only time we were told no was when asking if lobster was available for room service.Our cabin steward went out of her way to make sure everything was just right.I don't think I ever saw her without a smile on her face.When room service forgot to deliver lunch one day and by the time they realized it what we ordered wasn't available anymore the manager sent chocolate covered strawberries and a fruit basket the next day to apologize.I thought that was very nice especially since we didn't expect it.We had a couple of light bulbs go out and when i called they were fixed within a half hour.The menus for the diningroom were in the book with the room service menus,policies etc.I didn't notice them at first.When they said you can only order what's on the room service menu maybe they were referring to these pages.There were a couple of things like lobster that were on the diningroom menu that weren't on these menus.Like you,I only have 1 RCCL cruise so I don't have another one to compare it to yet.I don't know about the other ships but I can tell you our service on the Radiance was incredible.I had absolutely no complaints in that area.It is also an incredibly beautiful ship.

[muscleman]

I should start a thread on how many people go cruising for the food. The subject of which cruise line has the best food always come up every couple of weeks. Lets face it everyone has different taste of food. Some of us might always dine and some fancy restaurant and some of us dine at the low end restaurant and save our money for cruising.

[ducklite]

PTarbay-

 

The pages you refer to WERE NOT in our book. We looked carefully through the whole thing when we first got to our cabin. There was a room service menu, it was more along the lines of the right side of the menu with the items you can get daily, the NY Strip and herbed chicken, plus an assortment of sandwiches and salads.

 

Anne

[PTarbay]

PTarbay-

 

The pages you refer to WERE NOT in our book. We looked carefully through the whole thing when we first got to our cabin. There was a room service menu, it was more along the lines of the right side of the menu with the items you can get daily, the NY Strip and herbed chicken, plus an assortment of sandwiches and salads.

 

Anne

It sounds as if they dropped the ball with you all around.I assumed if you were in the Royal Suite they would make sure you were taken care of.I can only imagine how disappointed you were especially after spending that amount of money.Have you written to RCCL and told them about your experience?I would be interested in knowing how they handle this.

[ducklite]

The letter is being written this weekend, and will go out via FedEx on Monday.

 

Anne