Disappointed

[Groovybusybee]

As a Yorkshire girl I’ve eaten a fair few Yorkshire puddings. We were served them last year on the Silhouette. We had dined in Tuscan the first night so it was our first night in the dining room.

 

They were cold and hard. The waiter spotted that they had been left by all three of us and enquired why, when told that they were cold he replied that’s how they should be served. I politely said he was misinformed. I thought that was the end of the matter until be brought the Maitre ‘d over who also insisted that the correct serving was cold. He was quite bolshy about it, so much so that it sort of put us off returning to the MDR. As we had a speciality dining package plus quite a few dinners in the buffet and so we hardly dined in the MDR, three nights I think out of the fourteen. Of the three nights we had one great meal, one average and one I would have been ashamed to serve - fatty tough meat that was masquerading as leg of lamb, at least the waiter had the grace to admit it wasn’t leg of lamb.

 

Whilst it was a great cruise and the food in the specialities and buffet was very good to excellent I really think the MDR was sub par.

 

Debbie

[Bo1953]

4 minutes ago, Groovybusybee said:

As a Yorkshire girl I’ve eaten a fair few Yorkshire puddings. We were served them last year on the Silhouette. We had dined in Tuscan the first night so it was our first night in the dining room.

 

They were cold and hard. The waiter spotted that they had been left by all three of us and enquired why, when told that they were cold he replied that’s how they should be served. I politely said he was misinformed. I thought that was the end of the matter until be brought the Maitre ‘d over who also insisted that the correct serving was cold. He was quite bolshy about it, so much so that it sort of put us off returning to the MDR. As we had a speciality dining package plus quite a few dinners in the buffet and so we hardly dined in the MDR, three nights I think out of the fourteen. Of the three nights we had one great meal, one average and one I would have been ashamed to serve - fatty tough meat that was masquerading as leg of lamb, at least the waiter had the grace to admit it wasn’t leg of lamb.

 

Whilst it was a great cruise and the food in the specialities and buffet was very good to excellent I really think the MDR was sub par.

 

Debbie

Well, you were very gracious about it because my question would be "which country's Yorkshire Pudding are you trying to replicate, obviously not Great Britain, as I Am from and live in the origin place of YP" .... that would have taken the M d' aback I Am sure...

 

bon appetite and bon voyage

Edited May 16, 2019 by Bo1953

[wpgcycler]

Reflection - 2014 (the exec chef at the time was a Brit)

 

 

[Bo1953]

10 minutes ago, wpgcycler said:

Reflection - 2014 (the exec chef at the time was a Brit)

 

 

A variation, to be sure...

Was it tasty as expected?

bon appetite and bon voyage

[wpgcycler]

7 minutes ago, Bo1953 said:

A variation, to be sure...

Was it tasty as expected?

bon appetite and bon voyage

 

It was superb - the perfect accompaniment to the juicy, medium rare beef!

[villauk]

18 minutes ago, wpgcycler said:

Reflection - 2014 (the exec chef at the time was a Brit)

 

 

 

 

There’s the answer then: A Brit! I have to say, our experiences have been more similar to Debbie’s above.

[wpgcycler]

12 minutes ago, villauk said:

 

 

There’s the answer then: A Brit! I have to say, our experiences have been more similar to Debbie’s above.

 Yes, the Chef at the time was Darren Ridley - he was a former exec chef at Buckingham Palace and also worked for Gordon Ramsay for a spell.

[Groovybusybee]

Holy moley, that looks good!

 

Well he may be a Brit,  but not a Yorkshireman - an accompaniment?? They should be eaten as a separate course! 

 

I’m only kidding, whilst strictly speakers they are a starter served with an onion gravy to fill you up so you don’t eat much beef, they are more usually served as an accompaniment these days.

 

That does indeed look like a good Yorkshire pud.

 

Debbie 

[wpgcycler]

21 minutes ago, Groovybusybee said:

I’m only kidding, whilst strictly speakers they are a starter served with an onion gravy to fill you up so you don’t eat much beef, they are more usually served as an accompaniment these days.

 

 

I had heard that a long time ago and asked a Yorkshireman I worked with at the time for verification. He told me "Bl**dy H*ll, we eat it with every course, mate - including afters". 😂

Edited May 16, 2019 by wpgcycler

[bengaltiger1]

23 minutes ago, wpgcycler said:

 

I had heard that a long time ago and asked a Yorkshireman I worked with at the time for verification. He told me "Bl**dy H*ll, we eat it with every course, mate - including afters". 😂

When times were hard my late mother in law served up YPs as a dessert with a dollop of jam. 

[wpgcycler]

On 5/14/2019 at 11:04 AM, twodaywonder said:

What I do not understand is that the food quality and grade on Royal ships are far better than the upscale Celebrity ships. Every Royal ship we have been on had excellent food. Every Celebrity ship we have sailed on had good to below average food. That is my experience. What about you? I am not talking about the Specialty restaurants.

 

Sorry to drag this thread up as it's past it's "best before date" but, I just happened across this comment you made in a recent thread about Reflection and I must admit, I am beyond flummoxed how food on can be both "below average" and "excellent" at the same time.

 

"Took the same cruise, Apr 1st and was blown away by the MAXX show. Awesome. Such exquisite choreography. yes, the food, the ship, the crew everything was excellent. Only one problem we had and that was our room steward. other than that. Unbelievable wonderful cruise. Worth every penny went home having a wonderful cruise. Now anxiously awaiting for the Equinox June 22."

Edited May 16, 2019 by wpgcycler

[ALWAYS CRUZIN]

21 minutes ago, wpgcycler said:

 

Sorry to drag this thread up as it's past it's "best before date" but, I just happened across this comment you made in a recent thread about Reflection and I must admit, I am beyond flummoxed how food on can be both "below average" and "excellent" at the same time.

 

"Took the same cruise, Apr 1st and was blown away by the MAXX show. Awesome. Such exquisite choreography. yes, the food, the ship, the crew everything was excellent. Only one problem we had and that was our room steward. other than that. Unbelievable wonderful cruise. Worth every penny went home having a wonderful cruise. Now anxiously awaiting for the Equinox June 22."

Guess I should have clarified that. Until we cruised on the Reflection that was our experience with the food on Celebrity. The EDGE for us was the only one below average. The Reflection was by far the best ever on Celebrity. We will see how the Equinox compares. Our review and opinion only. I am sure many loved the food on all the Celebrity ships. The last two sailings with Royal was the Serenade of the Seas and the Harmony . Both had awesome food. So I was just comparing our experiences. nothing else. Comparing Carnival and Princess. About par with one another. Maybe Princess a slight bit better. HAL better than both.

[wpgcycler]

16 minutes ago, twodaywonder said:

Guess I should have clarified that. Until we cruised on the Reflection that was our experience with the food on Celebrity. The EDGE for us was the only one below average. The Reflection was by far the best ever on Celebrity. We will see how the Equinox compares. Our review and opinion only. I am sure many loved the food on all the Celebrity ships. The last two sailings with Royal was the Serenade of the Seas and the Harmony . Both had awesome food. So I was just comparing our experiences. nothing else. Comparing Carnival and Princess. About par with one another. Maybe Princess a slight bit better. HAL better than both.

 

Ah, splendid. Do come back and let us know how Equinox works out. I'll be the one on the edge o' me seat.

[jkgourmet]

On 5/15/2019 at 9:18 PM, capsplace said:

For  what it is worth, on our last Celebrity cruise, I attended a discussion with the head chefs, the sommelier’s, etc. where they described how they approach their menus for a particular cruise. Be it at the main dining room or the buffet or Blu or Luminae.  They have demographics of all the people who are expected to be on a particular cruise, months in advance.  With that information, again months in advance, they said they design their menus to the demographics of the passengers expected to be on a particular cruise. For example, we had a majority of Brits on our SE Asia cruises.  So, more than once, especially at the buffet, the main food selections were geared for Brits. 

 

Sorry, but I'm not buying this.  We returned from a 14 day Japan/S Korea cruise in April, 2019.  There was significant population of Asians on that cruise.  Many did not even speak English and translators were available with posted hours.  We even had scheduled excursions in Japanese.

 

Besides the usual Asian buffet items, Not one single Asian item turned up in MDR or buffet.  Except in Sushi on Five, of course.

 

PS the Asian food in the buffet was pretty bad; however, the Indian food was unusually good.

Edited May 17, 2019 by jkgourmet

[J_Kepler]

Well, that and I don't go on a cruise as an American and hope to eat bacon/eggs hamburgers and fried chicken.  I would prefer crepes, escargot, butter chicken, and even tripe.

 

Hope they don't do this my next sailing is out of Jersey and a larger number are locals since the cruise sold so bad (what a deal we got)....so I guess I will be eating jersey dogs and new york pizza 🙂

 

 

To me that sounds like a good sales pitch.  Not saying they wouldn't make changes by season, but cruise to cruise seems like too much adjustment.

[Groovybusybee]

I have had a similar conversation with an executive chef some years ago, but I interpreted it slightly differently.

 

Yes they do indeed know the nationality of guests prior to the cruise and use this information to influence their purchasing decisions. This is the example that I was given, so apologies if it offends anyone but generally ........more Americans on board = more beef provision needed, Europeans more lamb and fish, more children again changed the ratio of provisions required, but it didn’t alter the menus just the amount of guests who were likely to choose a given meal.

 

I hope that this makes sense.

 

Regards Debbie

[Bo1953]

17 minutes ago, Groovybusybee said:

I have had a similar conversation with an executive chef some years ago, but I interpreted it slightly differently.

 

Yes they do indeed know the nationality of guests prior to the cruise and use this information to influence their purchasing decisions. This is the example that I was given, so apologies if it offends anyone but generally ........more Americans on board = more beef provision needed, Europeans more lamb and fish, more children again changed the ratio of provisions required, but it didn’t alter the menus just the amount of guests who were likely to choose a given meal.

 

I hope that this makes sense.

 

Regards Debbie

Makes sense to me, based on my 'limited' world travails...

 

Now if they will only apply an analysis for having a variety of vegan offerings beyond what is being offered currently on-board X's vessels...

 

bon appetite and bon voyage

[AlibearNS]

I'm glad this thread was dragged up again because I haven't been on the boards just lately and I just want to say we were on the Eclipse 17th April sailing and LOVED the food in the MDR. We've been telling everybody how good it was. I guess you would call us pescatarians, we mostly eat vegetables dishes and occasionally fish. Now, either we have low standards (and I don't think we do - DH is very fussy) or the problem was with the red meat and chicken, which we don't eat anymore.

We were in anytime dining, and everyone around us seemed  happy with their meals. I never saw anyone complaining.

Please people, don't be put off sailing the Eclipse because of this thread. We had a fabulous cruise, best cruise director ever (Alejandro), best captain ever (Captain Leo), best crew ever, and in our opinion, after 26 cruises, best service & food we've ever had on a cruise!

[Stateroom_Sailor]

6 hours ago, AlibearNS said:

I'm glad this thread was dragged up again because I haven't been on the boards just lately and I just want to say we were on the Eclipse 17th April sailing and LOVED the food in the MDR. We've been telling everybody how good it was. I guess you would call us pescatarians, we mostly eat vegetables dishes and occasionally fish. Now, either we have low standards (and I don't think we do - DH is very fussy) or the problem was with the red meat and chicken, which we don't eat anymore.

We were in anytime dining, and everyone around us seemed  happy with their meals. I never saw anyone complaining.

Please people, don't be put off sailing the Eclipse because of this thread. We had a fabulous cruise, best cruise director ever (Alejandro), best captain ever (Captain Leo), best crew ever, and in our opinion, after 26 cruises, best service & food we've ever had on a cruise!

 

I realize you are already on a pescatarian diet, but that was a great move.  Two of our main complains were the poor meats and missing vegetables, it actually wears on you over time, where all you want is a plate of veggies for lunch.  Switching to vegetarian dishes at dinner may have been our best bet.

[QCAZ]

On 5/15/2019 at 11:19 AM, cruisingdelt said:

Sometimes these threads decay into flame wars and I am not trying to do that but would like to put things in perspective.  DW and I started cruising in 2001 and have pent most of our cruises on a Celebrity ship.  Have things changed in 18 years, absolutely!  Many of us miss the elegance of the cruises 20 years ago.  The food quality is not what is once was but considering they are cooking for 2000+ people it is really not bad.  We now also have Martini Bars, some great specialty restaurants, internet service, sometimes good internet service, and drink packages.  One thing that hasn't changed is the level of service on Celebrity.  You are still treated as an honored guest by all the crew.  No company gets this correct 100% of the time but Celebrity is close.  Celebrity is a business and must turn a profit or they will not be a business.  They drive people to packages because they make more money.  We all have the option of not getting the packages.  They make changes to draw a younger crowd.  Some of these changes may not make people of my age happy but Celebrity needs to attract people to replace us when we can't cruise any longer (may that day never come!).  In the end, when the line no longer serves our needs we should walk away and try another one.  I tried RCL last year and did not like it but that is me.  We will try it again this year and also do some Celebrity trips.  One last item, cruising is still a bargain even with the nickel and diming and increases.    To everyone, make the best of things and just enjoy cruising on whatever line you like.  Life is too short to argue! Bon voyage.

 

Well said ..... thank you!😊👍

[QCAZ]

9 hours ago, AlibearNS said:

I'm glad this thread was dragged up again because I haven't been on the boards just lately and I just want to say we were on the Eclipse 17th April sailing and LOVED the food in the MDR. We've been telling everybody how good it was. I guess you would call us pescatarians, we mostly eat vegetables dishes and occasionally fish. Now, either we have low standards (and I don't think we do - DH is very fussy) or the problem was with the red meat and chicken, which we don't eat anymore.

We were in anytime dining, and everyone around us seemed  happy with their meals. I never saw anyone complaining.

Please people, don't be put off sailing the Eclipse because of this thread. We had a fabulous cruise, best cruise director ever (Alejandro), best captain ever (Captain Leo), best crew ever, and in our opinion, after 26 cruises, best service & food we've ever had on a cruise!

 

We also were on this cruise and totally agree ..... we had a fabulous time!  Found the food in MDR very good, had select dining,  and tried a variety of seafood, lamb, beef, chicken.  Some dishes we enjoyed more than others,  but all were quite good, nothing was bad.  Also went to Sushi on Five for dinner and lunch, Murano and le Petite Chef for dinner and all were excellent.  Didn’t care for the buffet, not so much about the food, but seating during peak times quite scarce,  never tried it during dinner hours, also we aren’t buffet fans, but did enjoy the ice cream a few afternoons and pizza one afternoon, bar service was good, though we sat on the bar side.   Cruise director Alejandro, Captain Leo, and the crew were all great 👍.  We very much enjoyed the entertainment and the several matinee shows on sea days. Plenty to do to keep busy.    Ship is very nice, in good condition, and for the number of people on it really never felt crowded.  

So if you’re booked on Eclipse or contemplating it .... don’t be put off by the negative views ..... go in with an open mind and enjoy your cruise .... we certainly did!😊

Edited May 17, 2019 by QCAZ

[mek]

15 hours ago, QCAZ said:

 

We also were on this cruise and totally agree ..... we had a fabulous time!  Found the food in MDR very good, had select dining,  and tried a variety of seafood, lamb, beef, chicken.  Some dishes we enjoyed more than others,  but all were quite good, nothing was bad.  Also went to Sushi on Five for dinner and lunch, Murano and le Petite Chef for dinner and all were excellent.  Didn’t care for the buffet, not so much about the food, but seating during peak times quite scarce,  never tried it during dinner hours, also we aren’t buffet fans, but did enjoy the ice cream a few afternoons and pizza one afternoon, bar service was good, though we sat on the bar side.   Cruise director Alejandro, Captain Leo, and the crew were all great 👍.  We very much enjoyed the entertainment and the several matinee shows on sea days. Plenty to do to keep busy.    Ship is very nice, in good condition, and for the number of people on it really never felt crowded.  

So if you’re booked on Eclipse or contemplating it .... don’t be put off by the negative views ..... go in with an open mind and enjoy your cruise .... we certainly did!😊

Just goes to show you how people view food differently.  I had a wonderful time on this cruise, but for the most part did not enjoy the food in the MDR.  I was on the same ship one year ago and had a totally different experience with the food as I also did on Eclipse. IMO, something was off on this one, but I do agree with you - people should not rely on others opinions of food as it's so subjective.

[ALWAYS CRUZIN]

Food is subjective, but what about the presentation? Especially temperature, barley warm or even cold for items that should be very hot, dried out, everything you try way over spiced. I agree, for some way over spiced is excellent as with my son who puts hot sauce on everything. Most everyone likes finger food. But cold? Not for me. My opinion.

[davekathy]

If we don't like the selection we ordered that's on us. Do we ask for a substitute. If it's the entree, yes. If our selection isn't prepared the way we ordered it, cold or the seasoning isn't to our liking, we would send it back. 

[ALWAYS CRUZIN]

I was told by many that work in restaurants, not cruise lines. That a chef, cook or server hates when something comes back. Does unthinkable things to the food. I would think on a cruise line you would not have to be concerned about that. At least I hope not.