Comparing cruise line dining

[kitty9]

After doing more than 100 cruises, on nearly every line out there, and some that no longer exist (Royal Viking, Sitmar) I can agree with one thing the OP wrote.  We were on Riviera for a total of 41 days so far this year, and I can say that we are more and more disappointed in the Terrace and their choice of food in the hot items area during lunch.  Instead of focusing so much on Theme Lunches, why not stick a bit more to the basics?  I can tell you that there didn't seem much interest in Greek, Indonesian, African and Middle Eastern food items, as you didn't see a lot of people walking up to those areas and getting those items. As a matter of fact, on some days it was so crowded at Waves that they had to bring in staff from the buffet to work the grill and salad areas, and serve the orders.  On some days, there was a wait as long as 25 minutes to get the food from Waves because it was so crowded, and Terrace was empty.  I will say that the salads and the pasta station was always busy, and that's what we usually ate when the hot items didn't appeal to us.  My one other complaint is the lack of caviar, unlike what you find on Crystal and Seabourn.  I don't care if they charge a premium for it, but it should be available in one or more of the specialty restaurants.

 

I've found Regent's food to be lacking at times and quite unimaginative.  Seabourn's food is excellent in every area, and they put other lines to shame with their breakfast and buffet items.  Crystal's food used to be good, but since Genting's takeover, I can say I feel their food has declined.  They no longer do the wonderful Grand Gala Buffet (totally outstanding), and their Asian restaurant and sushi bar has really gone downhill.  Silversea has very, very good food, but I've found service to be greatly lacking.  On the three cruises I've done on Silversea, service in all areas has been poor.  We've cruised in QG suites on Queen Mary and Queen Victoria, and found the food on both ships to be below average, especially in their buffet, where the food was downright nasty.  

 

I'm not a huge fan of the GDR on Oceania, so we don't go there a lot for dinner during a cruise.  My biggest complaint is how slow the service is.  On a few days, we went to the GDR for breakfast, and despite the fact that there were very few passengers dining there, it took an average of 45 minutes to get our order.  Lunch in the GDR is a lot better and we find ourselves going there a lot more than the Terrace.  

 

I'm a San Pelligrino drinker, and never did I have a problem getting it served.  After the first few nights on board, the wait staff saw us coming and the San P was right there.  

Edited July 30, 2019 by kitty9

[docmark]

"After doing more than 100 cruises, on nearly every line out there, and some that no longer exist (Royal Viking, Sitmar) I can agree with one thing the OP wrote" ……….

 

After reading many positive and few negatives in this thread, find THIS one much more objective....obviously "regular" Oceania 

'WRITERS" are more positive, and probably at least " a little"  less objective... Agree with the statement that ONE should try own experience and decide 

[LHT28]

3 hours ago, kitty9 said:

After doing more than 100 cruises, on nearly every line out there, and some that no longer exist (Royal Viking, Sitmar) I can agree with one thing the OP wrote.  We were on Riviera for a total of 41 days so far this year, and I can say that we are more and more disappointed in the Terrace and their choice of food in the hot items area during lunch.  Instead of focusing so much on Theme Lunches, why not stick a bit more to the basics?  I can tell you that there didn't seem much interest in Greek, Indonesian, African and Middle Eastern food items, as you didn't see a lot of people walking up to those areas and getting those items.

 

I am surprised people did not like the themed  lunches

A lot of complaints before about how they  never offered themed lunches...  just same old  stuff

 

I guess the cruise lines are going  to have to send out menus weeks in advance so people can choose what they want   a week Tuesday like they do in Retirement homes 😎

 

We have had some interesting dishes during Themed lunch or dinner buffets on other lines

JMO

[Redtravel]

I like Oceania’s food. My favorite cruise line for food is Windstar. 

[Sny]

Different strokes...  I dislike the crowds at breakfast in the Terrace.  Room service or MDR are always my breakfast choices - room service, if we have a shore excursion in the a.m.  I love the casual, slow service in the MDR in the morning.  Hope that the MDR is still trying the themed lunches on our Riviera cruise in January.  Definitely like the bigger ships with the four specialty restaurants.  Would only go to the Terrace as a last resort for dinner - not because of the quality of the food; but because of the crowded conditions (and the bad manners of some pushy passengers at the buffet/s).  My husband is a San Pelligrino drinker and never had trouble getting it in any restaurant on Riviera, Regatta or Marina.  Perhaps it has something to do with how one asks?

[Mura]

SNY, we are with you about avoiding Terrace for breakfast.  We vastly prefer the GDR or room service.  The one recent exception was in June 2016 when we accepted a downsell from a PH.  Since there wasn't adequate room in our B1 cabin for in-cabin dining we'd go to Terrace for breakfast on tour days.  It wasn't terrible!

 

OTOH we DO like Terrace for dinner, especially on the "big" ships ... but we like it as well on the "R" ships.  We just haven't found the bad manners you refer to.  Maybe we were lucky!  Then again, if we are having dinner in Terrace we tend to to in later when crowds have abated.

 

Mura

[Paulchili]

58 minutes ago, Mura said:

SNY, we are with you about avoiding Terrace for breakfast.  We vastly prefer the GDR or room service. 

Mura - you and I agree 99+% of the time but not this time 😊

I love my berries for breakfast and in the Terrace I can get a larger bowl and have it filled with lots of berries that I choose (more raspberries, please, etc); in the MDR it’s a small bowl of a few berries they choose for me. Then I can add anything else I want (chocolate croissant, pick my own cold cuts, herring, etc, etc) a lot easier in the Terrace than from a fixed menu in the MDR.

Just goes to show you - to each their own 😁

That said, an occasional relaxed and leisurely breakfast is OK in the MDR on a sea day.

[Mura]

Paul, the main reason we don't like breakfast in Terrace is because of the frequent difficulty in finding a table!  We are very happy with the food provided.  When we were on Nautica in July 2016 and didn't have the nice in-room breakfast we are used to (!) we were not unhappy with breakfast in Terrace ...

 

Am I forgiven?

 

Mura

[clo]

29 minutes ago, Paulchili said:

Mura - you and I agree 99+% of the time but not this time 😊

I love my berries for breakfast and in the Terrace I can get a larger bowl and have it filled with lots of berries that I choose (more raspberries, please, etc); in the MDR it’s a small bowl of a few berries they choose for me. Then I can add anything else I want (chocolate croissant, pick my own cold cuts, herring, etc, etc) a lot easier in the Terrace than from a fixed menu in the MDR.

Just goes to show you - to each their own 😁

That said, an occasional relaxed and leisurely breakfast is OK in the MDR on a sea day.

We'll only have one sea day out of 10-12 but won't be doing any 'formal' excursions.  We'll walk off and on.  No rush.  So will likely have breakfast in the GDR.  Although that big bowl of berries - with some yogurt? - sounds mighty good.

[Paulchili]

26 minutes ago, clo said:

We'll only have one sea day out of 10-12 but won't be doing any 'formal' excursions.  We'll walk off and on.  No rush.  So will likely have breakfast in the GDR.  Although that big bowl of berries - with some yogurt? - sounds mighty good.

What I would suggest is that early on in the cruise have one breakfast in the MDR and one in the Terrace and then decide which one YOU prefer. If you do it early, you'll have a chance to eat where YOU prefer more frequently during the cruise.

Those berries are the best (as are the croissants - plain, chocolate or almond) 😉

[LHT28]

I like WAVES for breakfast

I do not eat a lot at breakfast  so the area  works for me  & we come a bit later  so not really that crowed

of course on the TA in April  I had to endure the Terrace (too cold at Waves)  or get up early for the GDR 😉

[clo]

Just now, LHT28 said:

(too cold at Waves) 

What do you consider "too cold"?  Seriously I don't stop wearing short until temps are dependably below 55 🙂

[Paulchili]

3 minutes ago, clo said:

What do you consider "too cold"? 🙂

Would snow on the pool deck qualify as being too cold? 😉

That is what Lyn experienced on a couple of days on her TA.

[LHT28]

5 minutes ago, clo said:

What do you consider "too cold"?  Seriously I don't stop wearing short until temps are dependably below 55 🙂

probably 50F

& then we had the problem where  decks  was closed   due to snow

 

 

 

[clo]

1 minute ago, LHT28 said:

probably 50F

& then we had the problem where  decks  was closed   due to snow

 

 

 

Cool 🙂

 

[LHT28]

2 minutes ago, Paulchili said:

Would snow on the pool deck qualify as being too cold? 😉

That is what Lyn experienced on a couple of days on her TA.

How true  then in Cobh it was  wet, cold  & blowing rain  for 2 days

what  a great cruise  NOT!!  😲

[clo]

28 minutes ago, LHT28 said:

How true  then in Cobh it was  wet, cold  & blowing rain  for 2 days

what  a great cruise  NOT!!  😲

Whereas that sounds  great to me 🙂

[Jay23]

Slow service in the GDR is in fact relaxed dining.   We're not in a hurry and enjoy spending a couple of hours with new friends at the table.  Of course everyone doesn't care for that.  Also I have no interest in caviar (sorry) and I don't have patience to shell prawns (shrimps).   We can bring wine on board and take it to the dining room and as we don't drink spirits or cocktails it works well for us.   So there you have it, Oceania offers us what we like,  most of the time, and what we don't like we can avoid without it spoiling any part of the cruise.    The least favourite part of cruising is lumpy seas......... sadly neither Oceania nor any other cruise company can do much about that can they?    J

 

[happy cruzer]

You can bring wine onboard many lines with lower corkage fees than O.  For example, NCL and Princess.  Most of the newer ships on any of the lines have upgraded their buffets to include more freshly prepared items so opinions on buffets based on cruises from 5+ years ago may not be accurate.  It is nice to know the options out there.  FYI, O's specialties have been our favorites of any line so I not trying to bash O.

[Mura]

Howard always orders the mixed berries in the GDR as his first course for breakfast.  It's a very generous portion ... plus there is also a fruit plate if I'm remembering correctly ... and you can always order yogurt on the side if you wish!

 

But there is no denying that it IS slower in the GDR than in Terrace or Waves to get in and out.

 

Mura

[Winters Gate]

1 hour ago, Mura said:

Howard always orders the mixed berries in the GDR as his first course for breakfast.  It's a very generous portion ... plus there is also a fruit plate if I'm remembering correctly ... and you can always order yogurt on the side if you wish!

 

But there is no denying that it IS slower in the GDR than in Terrace or Waves to get in and out.

 

Mura

I agree. The fresh berries in GDR are lovely, with some greek yoghurt and nuts or why not like this with swedish pancakes and wipped cream!

Edited July 31, 2019 by Winters Gate

[clo]

9 minutes ago, Winters Gate said:

swedish pancakes

Are they different than crepes?

[Guindalf]

11 minutes ago, clo said:

Are they different than crepes?

 

Of course! They're made from meatballs and you have to assemble them yourself! 😉

[kitty9]

2 hours ago, clo said:

Are they different than crepes?

 

They're one in the same.  In my language, Hungarian, it's called Palacsinta.  They're made in basically the same manner with eggs, flour, sugar, milk or cream, and vanilla extract while some recipes will add a touch of melted butter.

[keithm]

On ‎7‎/‎29‎/‎2019 at 7:03 PM, masscruiser2010 said:

A year ago, after a decade of primarily sailing on the better mass-market cruise lines like Celebrity and Holland America, we decided to sample the six-star lines to see if they are that much better.

 

We have now tried Seabourn, Crystal and Silversea (still trying to find a cruise we want to take on Silversea), and while all three have pluses and minuses, the food on these generally is a serious cut above the larger ships.

 

But every time we got into a discussion back home of who had the best cuisine at sea, Oceania loyalists insisted the food on the Oceania ships was second to none.

So earlier this month, we tried a cruise on Oceania's Insignia.

 

To get the news upfront, there is no possible way one could assert that the food on Oceania is better than the food on Seabourn and Crystal.

 

The disappointments started at breakfast time.  Oceania offered someone wanting a dark or grain bread one (!) type of dark bread, frequently served slightly stale, and not the array of wheat, rye, multigrain and nut breads found on most other cruise lines.  The juice was even more pathetic -- grapefruit juice served out of a carton that was more or less brown in color, and did not come even close to tasting fresh.  And if you took breakfast in the buffet, the trays that held bacon and fruit slices were never refreshed until they ran out (how appealing is that) -- with the servers trying to serve you the last scraps rather than sending for a refill.  One morning, when we declined the tiny scraps of bacon and asked for some actual slices, we were told a half hour before buffet closing that they had run out (!). 

 

At lunchtime, while the dining room when open was a pleasant option though with a limited menu, the buffet was even more disappointing.  The food options offered each day did not even measure up to Royal Caribbean, much less to the luxury lines.  As a matter of fact, we would even rate the buffet of NCL -- Oceania's mass-market sister -- as better than the Oceania buffet.  The Insignia's sandwich choices were pathetic, the cheese selection was the same day after day, and the organization of the buffet -- with the grill clogging traffic in the middle -- was such that the scene was generally one of chaos.

 

The best of the dining on Oceania came at dinner in the main dining room, which we actually found better than the specialty restaurants.  The entrees in the main dining room were generally pretty good.  The best choice for those dining in the specialty restaurants is the veal chop in the Italian restaurant, which was excellent.

 

But the restaurants and specialty restaurants were certainly no better than those on Celebrity or Holland America.  And none of the restaurants was better than The Haven restaurant on the larger NCL ships.

 

None of this is to say that this was a bad cruise.  It wasn't.  The ship, though the staterooms and bathrooms are relatively small, has recently been tastefully redecorated -- and the staff of the ship on the whole was cheerful and had a wonderful, can-do attitude.  The shortcomings and problems we encountered were, as some say, First World problems.

 

But Oceania appears to have a cadre of loyalists who take cruise after cruise on its ships, and who have little or no recent experience with any other cruise line.  While that is just fine, all I can say is enjoy your cruises -- but stop telling people Oceania has the best dining at sea, better than any of the luxury lines.  It doesn't.

Okaay, I'll field this one. We're both in the food industry & considered "gourmands". We have cruised 6 times on Cunard(QM2/Victoria). Done 3 on Celebrity Eclipse. One on Regal Princess. Two so far on Oceania Riviera & another scheduled for Feb. 2020. On the QM2, two cruises were in the Grills. The Britannia MDR was excellent in 2004, but gradually declined each year we cruised. The Queens Grill was & is still our favorite. If it was not on the menu, and I requested, it was prepared. Britannia was decent, but not outstanding. Especially on Victoria, where it was rather standard dining. Todd English(now gone)was very good overall. Being from fairly close to Boston, we were very familiar with a number of his restaurants. 

 Our first trip on the Celebrity Eclipse, we  dined in Moonlight Sonata. The food overall was very good. Definitely a step above the last few "Britannia" cruises on Cunard. Murano/Tuscany/Qsine were very enjoyable, but no where near the Grills in quality or attention to detail. By 2017, the food quality in Moonlight Sonata was the lowest quality we've seen on a ship. Not terrible, but not what you seem to think is "premium". Thankfully, the specialties were still very good & had not(at the time)suffered cutbacks. Our one time on the Regal Princess(2016)had by far the best buffet we've seen on any ship. The MDR had food that was easily the equal of Celebrity(2014-2015)The desserts, however, were rather bland, obvious use of Sysco/US Foods type standardized ingredients. The Norman Love desserts were the exception, however. The specialties: Crown Grill/Sabatini's had nice ambience, but with the exception of outstanding Chilean Seabass, had rather standard steak offerings of no higher than "standard" grade quality& not "choice," as I would have expected for the price.

  Now onto Oceania..I have to use our 2 trips on Riviera as comparison. Quality can vary among ships in the same fleet. For this reason I recommend trying Riviera/Marina over the smaller ships. We found the GD to be superior to Moonlight Sonata, but service & attention to detail far above Celebrity. The specialties have been absolutely outstanding. Only the Queens Grill on the QM2 surpasses & only just slightly(2009-2010 QM2 v/s 2018-2019 Riviera). The Terrace had cold water Lobster available many nights, along with Dover Sole(my favorite)cooked to order. Breakfasts were quite similar on all the lines, though more custom orders were available in the Grills & on Riviera. Lunch was generally better in the GD than on the other lines again exception the Cunard Grills.

 NCL, with the exception of the Haven is widely known to have the worst food of any major line. I'm talking MDR, not specialties. Seabourn has dropped considerably in quality, due to management from HAL taking over in the past few years. As someone who purchases millions of dollars in quality ingredients for our business, unless you're in the same culinary fields as me & my spouse, I can't give you too much credit for your review. Only in Crystal would I tend to agree with you, but that's about it. I suggest you purchase the "Berlitz guide to cruise ships & cruising" to get an unbiased comparison of all the lines. Does Oceania have the best food at sea? No. Then again, it's NOT a luxury line. I would have to classify it more as a premium plus line. If you really want to go all out in comparisons, try Hapog-Lloyds' Europa ships.

Edited July 31, 2019 by keithm
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