Orion Alaska dining questions

[islandchick]

We have booked an Alaskan Orion cruise for 2023 to celebrate our 20th Anniversary. This will be our first Viking cruise, but we have sailed Regent, Crystal, Seabourn, Celebrity, Royal Caribbean, Princess, and Carnival. One of the main draws for this ship was the great reviews about service and food. Now I have been reading some concerning info on the boards about the food such as no crab or alaskan salmon on the destination menus, only halibut as well as no king crab or good shrimp anymore at the world cafe, and no more whole grilled lobster in the dining room.  These are some of the things we were really looking forward to. If anyone has been on the Orion recently I would love to hear your input on the menus in the restaurant as well as current selection at the world market. Also if anyone has the menus it would be great if they could post. I have seen a couple of posts about a seafood buffet for lunch one day on some itineraries, has this happened on Orion and if so which day? 

[Pushka]

We sailed on Orion to Alaska pre Covid and there was King Crab available. Maybe it's just a current supply issue post covid. 

Edited September 16, 2022 by Pushka

[dburns1231]

We just got off the Orion on our recent Alaskan cruise. Plenty of salmon daily as well as days with king crab legs, shrimp, etc. In fact, I had salmon eggs benedict every morning in the World Cafe. Lobster tail was offered one night in The Restaurant as I recall but it was paired with a steak and it was small. Lobster is more of a New England (Maine) thing in my opinion. Everything was available in the World Cafe and in The Restaurant. The food is great and there is always a lot of variety. I noticed on this trip there was always a large sushi section in The World Cafe which I haven't see before. It was very popular.

[Jjg34219]

And there was a big seafood night at the buffet on like day 2 or 3 of the cruise on our early August cruise

[PlanoTim]

We sailed on Viking Orion (south-north) a couple of weeks ago.  There was Alaskan king crab in the WC at least one night.  We didn't dine there, but I heard mixed reviews on it.  Grilled lobster and steak was offered one night in The Restaurant, as was lobster thermidor.  There was a lobster or crab mac & cheese (I forget which) that was pretty good.  I had it as an appetizer one night.  The poached Norwegian salmon is always available, but that tastes like canned salmon to me.  However, they are happy to grill a piece of salmon if you prefer.  There was a seafood buffet on the aquavit terrace on the day we visited the Hubbard Glacier in Yakutat Bay.  They were grilling salmon, shrimp, and scallops to order.  They called it a barbeque.  Being from Texas, that isn't the term I would use. 😋  It looked nice, though.  We didn't have any because the line was pretty long.  We were traveling as a party of 8 and I believe everyone enjoyed the seafood they had.

Sorry, I didn't capture any of the menus.

Tim

[islandchick]

Glad to hear about the bbq, that sounds nice. As far as the salmon, everyone that has responded has mentioned that you can get salmon but I was wondering if they ever served alaskan wild salmon- there is a big difference. Also, can anyone who has been on this cruise remember what types of dishes they offered on the regional menu in the dining room?

[PlanoTim]

On 9/23/2022 at 7:46 PM, islandchick said:

Glad to hear about the bbq, that sounds nice. As far as the salmon, everyone that has responded has mentioned that you can get salmon but I was wondering if they ever served alaskan wild salmon- there is a big difference. Also, can anyone who has been on this cruise remember what types of dishes they offered on the regional menu in the dining room?

It was a few days into our cruise before we saw the first destination menu.  I think it was only on 2-3 nights that we noticed.  My wife chose all the selections one night and had a crab cake, baked fish (halibut?), and a chocolate dessert.  She said all three were good.  I think another night had borscht on the destination menu (maybe the day we were supposed to go to Sitka?).  We ate in the specialty dining rooms two nights, so the destination menu may have been offered those nights.