MDR Arvia

[Bazrat]

3 hours ago, Megabear2 said:

All well and good ICF but they actually have to available and more importantly eatable for you to pay that money.  For instance the lunch and evening buffet cold selection on Britannia was the same every day.  I shall list - it's pretty small!

 

Lettuce 

Chopped tomatoes

Shredded carrot

Shredded beetroot

Cucumber 

Potato salad - sometimes with chives

Coleslaw (not every day)

 

There were also small ready prepared bowls with things like quinoa

 

There were also slices of ham, pieces of mackerel, Lancashire cheese, Danish Blue and occasional cheddar. Other cold meats were Danish salami, mortadella and a whole glut of sliced Turkey after Christmas day.

 

None of this changed in 14 days.  Stupid things not available like cream cheese and sweetcorn totally non existent.

 

 

Sorry to say the standard's obviously dropped from October when we was on there, we found the selection to be good but obviously we are your normal average couple.

[Camberley]

3 hours ago, Megabear2 said:

 

Potato salad - sometimes with chives

 

 

 

What a culinary frisson to get the chives: P&O really are pushing the boat out.

[grapau27]

4 hours ago, zap99 said:

Sounds yummy. When choosing cheese I occasionally chose cheddar, so the occasional cheddar was probably P&O taking up my suggestion.

Cheese in Epicurean on Azura in November.

[zap99]

21 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

Cheese in Epicurean on Azura in November.

Looks nice. We are on Azura in February. Chinese take away and champagne tonight

Happy new year to you and Pauline .

Everyone else on cc as well🥳

 

 

 

Edited December 31, 2022 by zap99

[grapau27]

2 minutes ago, zap99 said:

Looks nice. We ate on Azura in February. Chinese take away and champagne tonight

Happy new year to you and Pauline .

Everyone else on cc as well🥳

 

 

 

Happy new year to you two nice people too.

We are eating at home tonight.

[zap99]

2 hours ago, Bazrat said:

Sorry to say the standard's obviously dropped from October when we was on there, we found the selection to be good but obviously we are your normal average couple.

We found everything was fine in October. Perhaps we should complain.

[Megabear2]

40 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

Cheese in Epicurean on Azura in November.

Indeed I found Epicurean to be good, howevernif you read Pennib's comments she did not think so.

 

I only dined there for Christmas day but believe others had good experiences with all the specialty restaurants.

 

Regarding main dining rooms the food was fine if a little uninspiring for my taste. 

 

Unlike most on here we do not eat out a lot, probably no more than 4 or 5 times a year so can only speak as we find.

[Bazrat]

One of the problems is if you had inspired choices on the menu, people would complain especially on here about there favourites not being on the menu now, the classic example the cheese wheel debate we had on here.

[Megabear2]

51 minutes ago, Bazrat said:

One of the problems is if you had inspired choices on the menu, people would complain especially on here about there favourites not being on the menu now, the classic example the cheese wheel debate we had on here.

My experience is you couldn't make a wheel with the three slivers offered in the MDR the past fortnight so they must be whistling in the dark already!  Actually as someone with a smaller appetite I quite liked the less generous portions but must admit with the hundreds of cheeses that could have been offered the repetitions were a little boring.

[wowzz]

3 hours ago, grapau27 said:

Cheese in Epicurean on Azura in November.

If I was offered that on shore, I would send it back. On board, not too bad, but hardly inspiring for a speciality restaurant.

Was the insect on the bottom of the picture coming or going ?

[grapau27]

6 minutes ago, wowzz said:

If I was offered that on shore, I would send it back. On board, not too bad, but hardly inspiring for a speciality restaurant.

Was the insect on the bottom of the picture coming or going ?

That was a crumb from the speciality bread @wowzz.

These were our starters and mains in Epicurean.

They were delicious.

Edited December 31, 2022 by grapau27

[grapau27]

3 hours ago, Megabear2 said:

Indeed I found Epicurean to be good, howevernif you read Pennib's comments she did not think so.

 

I only dined there for Christmas day but believe others had good experiences with all the specialty restaurants.

 

Regarding main dining rooms the food was fine if a little uninspiring for my taste. 

 

Unlike most on here we do not eat out a lot, probably no more than 4 or 5 times a year so can only speak as we find.

We like a table for 2 and because of my severe knee and hip arthritis i don't like standing around and feel the quality of food and intimate atmosphere is worth paying for.

Our last 6 cruises since August 2021 totalling 42 nights we have done 35 nights speciality and loved every minute.

Graham.

[wowzz]

42 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

That was a crumb from the speciality bread

The wait staff should have decrumbed the table! 

But, overall, looks like an excellent meal. 

Happy cruising in 2023 ! (And don't forget the factor 50 !)

[Megabear2]

50 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

We like a table for 2 and because of my severe knee and hip arthritis i don't like standing around and feel the quality of food and intimate atmosphere is worth paying for.

Our last 6 cruises since August 2021 totalling 42 nights we have done 35 nights speciality and loved every minute.

Graham.

All looks very nice.  I feel guilty if I book speciality restaurants on P&O more than twice on a cruise because I read so many on here who never get in! I do however book the speciality dining packages on other cruise lines if I'm with others apart from my husband or alone as they go on sale before departure and everyone gets a fair shout. Our Christmas dinner cost us £50 each plus the wine upgrade of 7.95 each and our two Limelight club visits were £50 and £70 respectively. Unfortunately our budget doesn't allow us to dine speciality every night on P&O.  We spend most of our money on good wine, excursions and a couple of spa trips for me. Even with our OBC of £610 we had a further bill of £480 onboard plus pre booked excursions and Limelight Club of £1,100 as we wanted to guarantee our places on several tours.  I love Epicurean but my OH would be amazed if I spent £60 a night for us to dine there every night!  Neither of us can eat spicy food for health reasons so we never use Sindhu, although I did dine there on a Strictly cruise with the dancers when Aktul Kocha cooked for us. It was interesting but apart from the soft crab starter I paid £75 to watch the cooking and chat to the Strictly stars.

 

We eat early for the same health reasons and thankfully always get a table for 2 without a wait.

Edited December 31, 2022 by Megabear2

[wowzz]

2 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

All looks very nice.  I feel guilty if I book speciality restaurants on P&O more than twice on a cruise because I read so many on here who never get in! I do however book the speciality dining packages on other cruise lines if I'm with others apart from my husband or alone as they go on sail before departure and everyone gets a fair shout. Our Christmas dinner cost us £50 each plus the wine upgrade of 7.95 each and our two Limelight club visits were £50 and £70 respectively. Unfortunately our budget doesn't allow us to dine speciality every night on P&O.  We spend most of our money on good wine, excursions and a couple of spa trips for me. Even with our OBC of £610 we had a further bill of £480 onboard plus pre booked excursions and Limelight Club of £1,100 as we wanted to guarantee our places on several tours.  I love Epicurean but my OH would be amazed if I spent £60 a night for us to dine there every night!  Neither of us can eat spicy food for health reasons so we never use Sindhu, although I did dine there on a Strictly cruise with the dancers when Aktul Kocha cooked for us. It was interesting but apart from the soft crab starter I paid £75 to watch the cooking and chat to the Strictly stars.

Good point. Graham obviously enjoys good food, but taken the extra cost of eating in a speciality restaurant every night,  why not  just book a ciuise on Azmara on Oceania where the food is so much better.

I presume it is because of limited options from Southampton. 

[grapau27]

18 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

All looks very nice.  I feel guilty if I book speciality restaurants on P&O more than twice on a cruise because I read so many on here who never get in! I do however book the speciality dining packages on other cruise lines if I'm with others apart from my husband or alone as they go on sale before departure and everyone gets a fair shout. Our Christmas dinner cost us £50 each plus the wine upgrade of 7.95 each and our two Limelight club visits were £50 and £70 respectively. Unfortunately our budget doesn't allow us to dine speciality every night on P&O.  We spend most of our money on good wine, excursions and a couple of spa trips for me. Even with our OBC of £610 we had a further bill of £480 onboard plus pre booked excursions and Limelight Club of £1,100 as we wanted to guarantee our places on several tours.  I love Epicurean but my OH would be amazed if I spent £60 a night for us to dine there every night!  Neither of us can eat spicy food for health reasons so we never use Sindhu, although I did dine there on a Strictly cruise with the dancers when Aktul Kocha cooked for us. It was interesting but apart from the soft crab starter I paid £75 to watch the cooking and chat to the Strictly stars.

 

We eat early for the same health reasons and thankfully always get a table for 2 without a wait.

Pre pandemic we always ate around 20.30pm on board.

Now we eat at 18.00pm and it is quiet.

Menu 1 in Epicurean is excellent but we are not impressed with Menu 2.

We don't normally eat Indian food at home but Ventura in October and Azura in November we enjoyed several meals in Sindhu.

Glass house food was a pleasant surprise.

[Megabear2]

9 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

Pre pandemic we always ate around 20.30pm on board.

Now we eat at 18.00pm and it is quiet.

Menu 1 in Epicurean is excellent but we are not impressed with Menu 2.

We don't normally eat Indian food at home but Ventura in October and Azura in November we enjoyed several meals in Sindhu.

Glass house food was a pleasant surprise.

We do use Glass House a lot. I love the Scotch eggs made with salmon and the tempura prawns and we often have the most reasonably priced 3 dishes and a bottle of wine for lunch and skip dinner.  Excellent value .. the fish and chips are rather moreish too!

[grapau27]

1 hour ago, Megabear2 said:

We do use Glass House a lot. I love the Scotch eggs made with salmon and the tempura prawns and we often have the most reasonably priced 3 dishes and a bottle of wine for lunch and skip dinner.  Excellent value .. the fish and chips are rather moreish too!

Glass house.