Comparing RCI Windjammer to HAL Lido

[bay guy]

There's always lots of discussion on these boards about food quality and preparation so I thought I'd make some comments comparing the above two dining venues on these cruise lines. Some background on me first. My DW and I have been avid cruisers for almost 40 years. We're D+ on RCI but have also cruised on several other lines. Most recent RCI cruise was on Harmony last August. Our most recent cruise was on HAL's MS Amsterdam. This was the first HAL cruise we'd been on in about 30 years.

 

We're not food snobs but do appreciate well prepared tasty food made with good ingredients.

 

Let me sum up our Windjammer experience on Harmony. Good variety of foods available for all meals with very few "made to order" items available. Food quality was OK, being equivalent, IMHO, to something along the lines of Piccadilly Cafeteria or other buffet type restaurants. Food quality was mediocre, as was the preparation. I'm sure that this was affected by the fact that everything was basically sitting on steam tables to keep it warm. Quality of meats used was not that good. Beef items tasted like those highly processed steaks that you might get some chains. Everything was self serve for the most part.

 

Let's look at HAL's Lido on MS Amsterdam. First of all, other than some pastry items, the majority of the food was served by kitchen line staff behind a counter. This definitely cut down on those cruisers who like to pick at the food they serve themselves and sometimes return to the serving dishes after putting it on their plates and thus decreases the risk of Noro. (Note I said "decreases" and not eliminates.)

 

Made to order items on the Lido were things such as the following: Omelettes, all salads, pancakes, French toast. Want 2 eggs over easy, you got it. There is a sandwich/deli bar where the staff makes your sandwiches to order while you wait and will grill them if desired. Dinner usually offered a pasta bar where staff would custom make a pasta dish for you with a selection of sauces, pastas and ingredients that they would sautee together for you. For dinner, if you wanted a medium or well done NY strip, they'd take a rare steak from the tray and throw it on the grill to cook it to order for you.

 

I could go on but I think you get the general idea of what I'm saying here. Hands down, the Lido on HAL was head and shoulders above Windjammer for both food quality and preparation. On our cruise, the Lido offered the same menu as in the main dining room but offered you the option of choosing the sides you wanted with your meal versus those predetermined for the menu in the main dining room.

 

I realize the difference in preparing meals for 6000 passengers versus 1500 but if the underlying quality of your ingredients is subpar, as they've become on RCI, then the meal quality is going to suffer even on a smaller ship.

 

We'll still cruise RCI because we enjoy the ships and entertainment, but we're definitely going to cruise more often with HAL as well.

[Thorben-Hendrik]

Thank you for the report!

[George C]

We cruised Hal several times , really thought at least for lunch it was not better than rccl, they had a Italian section for lunch buffet , remember my wife getting some dish that said it had Italian sausage, turns out they used hot dogs instead of sausage. We did celebrity a couple of weeks ago and there buffet was excellent , mussels in wine sauce , steak cooked to order etc