Food, glorious food!

[pcur]

Instead of trying to find my posts over the last month while I was cruising, I decided to do a food recap in a new thread.  Sorry for any redundancy.

 

I was on the Enchantment for 20 days, and the Anthem for 8.  I till update this thread the latter part of March, as I am on the Oasis, Grandeur, and Vision for about 4 weeks.

 

The Enchantment, IMO, has problems with food prep and the new menus.  In the MDR over 3 weeks my travel companions and I found a) the food came out barely warm-to-cold, with 5 of us with raw-to-semi-cooked salmon one night.  Variety was an issue with the new menus, and eliminated items hit several of us hard.  The Windjammer as an alternative was hit or miss.  I went there for dinner twice and found the food to be very similar to the lunch offerings, which I found to be mediocre.  I don't eat hamburgers or hot dogs, I eat a lot of fish, veggies, and fruit.  I avoid chicken that is served in restaurants because it usually ends up overcooked.   Desserts were also Windjammer-ish, and hit-or-miss.

 

The additional issue is the description of the food was frequently incorrect.  Much to my delight a chocolate dessert at dinner one night turned out to be the RCCL flourless chocolate cake!!  

 

I believer the Enchantment is dealing with the Food and Bev Manager skimping too much on ingredients, and the cheaper alternatives are not tasty.  Yes, you will get sweet; yes you will get chocolate.  However, I felt like I was not eating anything that special or different from what I could pick up in my local grocery store.

 

On to the Anthem:  HUGE difference!  A spectacular Windjammer with specialty cook stations, creative salads, really good desserts, and great tasting entrees.  One of my favorites on the former dining room menus was the vegetable tempura.  The Anthem Windjammer had it as an entrée one night, and I loved it!  I ate all but one of my dinners in the Windjammer to accommodate my travel companions, and was very happy the whole cruise.  I especially liked sitting out on the aft open air eating area on warm evening.  Very nice!  

 

I got the impression that the Anthem was using MUCH better quality ingredients, and the food was so much better for it.

 

(And, an extra special non-food treat was we got to watch a rocket launch in Port Canaveral before we left one evening.  WOW!)

Edited February 14, 2023 by pcur

[paross4]

Interesting.  Thanks for sharing.  

I wonder (and I'm not a cook or anything) but do you think the age of the ship could have an effect on the food? (Enchantment 1997 - Anthem 2015)  By that I mean, are the galley's on the older ships equipped to handle the new menu's and how the food is to be cooked, prepped and served?  

I know, age of ship, galley size and equipment probably doesn't have any bearing, but still....

[taglovestocruise]

52 minutes ago, paross4 said:

Interesting.  Thanks for sharing.  

I wonder (and I'm not a cook or anything) but do you think the age of the ship could have an effect on the food? (Enchantment 1997 - Anthem 2015)  By that I mean, are the galley's on the older ships equipped to handle the new menu's and how the food is to be cooked, prepped and served?  

I know, age of ship, galley size and equipment probably doesn't have any bearing, but still....

We were on Ovation late Sep. 2022. All food venues were serving excellent food every day and night.  WJ stood out as the best buffet food in a long time.  The only Dog House on any cruise that was very very good. Three day later we boarded Quantum. Quantum stands out as the absolute worse food on any ship we have sailed. It was bad every day for every meal, Cafe two70 served absolutely garbage. Vintages on both ships had some of the best bartenders of any cruise.  

[nelblu]

3 hours ago, pcur said:

Instead of trying to find my posts over the last month while I was cruising, I decided to do a food recap in a new thread.  Sorry for any redundancy.

 

I was on the Enchantment for 20 days, and the Anthem for 8.  I till update this thread the latter part of March, as I am on the Oasis, Grandeur, and Vision for about 4 weeks.

 

The Enchantment, IMO, has problems with food prep and the new menus.  In the MDR over 3 weeks my travel companions and I found a) the food came out barely warm-to-cold, with 5 of us with raw-to-semi-cooked salmon one night.  Variety was an issue with the new menus, and eliminated items hit several of us hard.  The Windjammer as an alternative was hit or miss.  I went there for dinner twice and found the food to be very similar to the lunch offerings, which I found to be mediocre.  I don't eat hamburgers or hot dogs, I eat a lot of fish, veggies, and fruit.  I avoid chicken that is served in restaurants because it usually ends up overcooked.   Desserts were also Windjammer-ish, and hit-or-miss.

 

The additional issue is the description of the food was frequently incorrect.  Much to my delight a chocolate dessert at dinner one night turned out to be the RCCL flourless chocolate cake!!  

 

I believer the Enchantment is dealing with the Food and Bev Manager skimping too much on ingredients, and the cheaper alternatives are not tasty.  Yes, you will get sweet; yes you will get chocolate.  However, I felt like I was not eating anything that special or different from what I could pick up in my local grocery store.

 

On to the Anthem:  HUGE difference!  A spectacular Windjammer with specialty cook stations, creative salads, really good desserts, and great tasting entrees.  One of my favorites on the former dining room menus was the vegetable tempura.  The Anthem Windjammer had it as an entrée one night, and I loved it!  I ate all but one of my dinners in the Windjammer to accommodate my travel companions, and was very happy the whole cruise.  I especially liked sitting out on the aft open air eating area on warm evening.  Very nice!  

 

I got the impression that the Anthem was using MUCH better quality ingredients, and the food was so much better for it.

 

(And, an extra special non-food treat was we got to watch a rocket launch in Port Canaveral before we left one evening.  WOW!)

Rocket Launch video.mov 15.5 MB · 6 downloads

 Sailed Anthem last week and I found the WJ on the Anthem to be superior to Oasis for breakfast and lunch.  For breakfast there are 2 freshly made to order eggs and omelets stations.  In addition, one can see the French Toast and waffles being prepared and many times I would ask the maker to make me fresh ones.

For lunch, Anthem has added a stir fry station(s) to go along with the freshly prepared past stations.

The one thing that turned me off was the so-called tuna, egg and chicken spreads and they looked so liquidly that they did not look appetizing.

 

One day for lunch they served "Italian chicken beef steak."  Crazy, but it was tasty.🤣

 

Ps.  No bananas for the first 3 days at breakfast.  Must have gotten supply in Miami.

[ktbr11crs]

3 hours ago, pcur said:

 

The additional issue is the description of the food was frequently incorrect.  Much to my delight a chocolate dessert at dinner one night turned out to be the RCCL flourless chocolate cake!!  

 

 

Do you remember what they called the chocolate dessert that turned out to be the RCCL flourless chocolate cake? It's one of our favorites.  Thanks!

[Coralc]

Really neat launch video! That must have been truly exciting! ☺️

[schlimazel_traveler]

Thanks for this report. I'm glad to hear that Enchantment wasn't representative of the whole fleet. I am looking forward to hearing your experience on Vision. Our most disappointing overall food experience was on Vision in 2019 or so. (Even more disappointing than last month on Enchantment!) I am assuming the F&B manager has changed by now.

 

I'm also hoping your experience on Grandeur is all that we remember from the Before Times. We had duck and lamb chops in the Windjammer!!

[teddie]

We were on the same Anthem cruise as you, and I agree that the Windjammer offerings were excellent! After all the yammering here about the food going downhill, we were pleasantly surprised.  And my husband lost his mind having a rocket launch in full view 😉

 

teddie

[cruiselvr04]

I’ve posted in other threads how the food on Allure last week was very sub par compared to two separate Grandeur cruises late last year. (We did Oasis in December also but got the UDP.) In reading your post, it seems that quality can vary ship to ship, which to me is a problem.  We aren’t foodies and it doesn’t have to memorable but I do want to enjoy the meal in the moment.  Part of Allures issue was quality and part was the way it was cooked.  Meat quality was awful ( beef tenderloin was chewy and tough, pork was tough, chicken was tough) but lasagne was mushy, pumpkin soup tasted like flour paste, onion tart was mushy too.  Even the mashed potato’s tasted like they used potato water and no cream or butter.  
We are giving it another try in March on Allure.  I want to just get the UDP but won’t give in.  You should still get edible food in the MDR.

[Engineroom Snipe]

Thanks so much for posting. I have an 8 day on Enchantment in April, and it is sold out. How was occupancy and did you @pcur think staff was sufficient to handle the food properly?

 

I know you are not one to exaggerate by your previous posts. I hope they use customer feedback to improve the situation by then.

[nelblu]

2 hours ago, teddie said:

We were on the same Anthem cruise as you, and I agree that the Windjammer offerings were excellent! After all the yammering here about the food going downhill, we were pleasantly surprised.  And my husband lost his mind having a rocket launch in full view 😉

 

teddie

That was once in a lifetime experience.  Many passengers that I spoke were annoyed at the lack of announcements regarding such an event. 

Edited February 15, 2023 by nelblu

[shipgeeks]

By the timing, I'm guessing that the Enchantment cruise was the first one with the new menus.  Do you know when Anthem switched?  I suspect there is a learning curve involved in changing over.

[The Fun Researcher]

Bummer we don't have apples to apples comparison of the MDR between those two ships.  Don't get me wrong though, I'm very thankful for your review of the two ships' MDR and Windjammer.  I hope that those complaining about the new MDR menus are just from particular ships struggling with the change.  We'll be on the Anthem next month and I'll make sure to make a thread specific to our MDR experience, which is where we pretty much exclusively eat for dinner.

Dan

[JupiterTwo]

23 hours ago, pcur said:

Food, glorious food!

 

Passengers relegated to sheepishly asking "Please sir, may I have some more?"

[teddie]

46 minutes ago, nelblu said:

That was once in a lifetime experience.  Many passengers that I spoke were annoyed at the lack of announcements regarding such an event. 

We only knew because we were at the Space Center earlier that day.  Not sure how in tune the ship's staff would be to rocket launches--clearly not so much.

Edited February 15, 2023 by teddie

[teddie]

37 minutes ago, shipgeeks said:

By the timing, I'm guessing that the Enchantment cruise was the first one with the new menus.  Do you know when Anthem switched?  I suspect there is a learning curve involved in changing over.

 I am thinking the Anthem switched for the 2/4/23 sailing, as up until a few days prior, the old menus were still showing on the app

[firefly333]

2 hours ago, cruiselvr04 said:

I’ve posted in other threads how the food on Allure last week was very sub par compared to two separate Grandeur cruises late last year. (We did Oasis in December also but got the UDP.) In reading your post, it seems that quality can vary ship to ship, which to me is a problem.  We aren’t foodies and it doesn’t have to memorable but I do want to enjoy the meal in the moment.  Part of Allures issue was quality and part was the way it was cooked.  Meat quality was awful ( beef tenderloin was chewy and tough, pork was tough, chicken was tough) but lasagne was mushy, pumpkin soup tasted like flour paste, onion tart was mushy too.  Even the mashed potato’s tasted like they used potato water and no cream or butter.  
We are giving it another try in March on Allure.  I want to just get the UDP but won’t give in.  You should still get edible food in the MDR.

I did 4 legs on grandeur and thought it was spicier which made it more flavorful and good. Grandeur also had a station during lunch open of freshly made. Allure had some good things but I agree changes from one ship to a other. 

 

[Engineroom Snipe]

1 hour ago, JupiterTwo said:

 

Passengers relegated to sheepishly asking "Please sir, may I have some more?"

 

I keep hearing Pink Floyd, "If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have your pudding if you don't eat your meat."  😁

[BLiles1961]

On Allure in November, we had most of our meals at Coastal Kitchen. One night I noticed that butter-poached lobster with a champagne sauce was on the menu and thought it sounded pretty good; it took every ounce of self control that I had not to lick the plate clean. It was easily in the top three meals I have ever eaten.

[jencruzin]

On 2/14/2023 at 3:15 PM, pcur said:

On to the Anthem:  HUGE difference!  A spectacular Windjammer with specialty cook stations, creative salads, really good desserts, and great tasting entrees.  One of my favorites on the former dining room menus was the vegetable tempura.  The Anthem Windjammer had it as an entrée one night, and I loved it!  I ate all but one of my dinners in the Windjammer to accommodate my travel companions, and was very happy the whole cruise.  I especially liked sitting out on the aft open air eating area on warm evening.  Very nice!  

 

Rocket Launch video.mov 15.5 MB · 22 downloads

I hope this remains the same when Anthem shifts to Southampton!

[nelblu]

1 hour ago, teddie said:

We only knew because we were at the Space Center earlier that day.  Not sure how in tune the ship's staff would be to rocket launches--clearly not so much.

We found out from the bus driver shuttling us to Ron Jon. 
We found out the rescheduling from 5:32 to 8:32 from Royal dining room staff. 
 

Also, my cabin attendant was very much aware. 

Edited February 15, 2023 by nelblu

[gg255210]

We just did a 4 day on Mariner and a 7 day on Wonder.  Both took place the end of Jan into Feb.  The food was better on Mariner than Wonder.  I was surprised by that.  Both had the themed menu and I do not like the menu but the food was noticeably better on Mariner both in MDR and Windjammer.  The Windjammer was beautiful on Wonder and I really like the aesthetics of it, I just wished the food and options stacked up as nicely.  The Wonder is a beautiful ship and we had a great time but the food and dining experience was so disappointing. The final day on Wonder we (8 of us) decided to try Mason Jar since nothing looked good on MDR menu. The food in Mason Jar was good and we enjoyed the change of pace.  Not sure it was worth $100 per couple extra that we paid for the food.  We all had the drink package so only food was on the bill.  I hope that by changing the quality and options for the food in MDR is not an attempt too make people choose the option of needing to do the specialty restaurants.  If so, we fell for it this time but if things don't change, they will loose long time customers when they start trying other cruise lines to see how they stack up in the food department.  

[Engineroom Snipe]

57 minutes ago, gg255210 said:

We just did a 4 day on Mariner and a 7 day on Wonder.  Both took place the end of Jan into Feb.  The food was better on Mariner than Wonder.  I was surprised by that.  Both had the themed menu and I do not like the menu but the food was noticeably better on Mariner both in MDR and Windjammer.  The Windjammer was beautiful on Wonder and I really like the aesthetics of it, I just wished the food and options stacked up as nicely.  The Wonder is a beautiful ship and we had a great time but the food and dining experience was so disappointing. The final day on Wonder we (8 of us) decided to try Mason Jar since nothing looked good on MDR menu. The food in Mason Jar was good and we enjoyed the change of pace.  Not sure it was worth $100 per couple extra that we paid for the food.  We all had the drink package so only food was on the bill.  I hope that by changing the quality and options for the food in MDR is not an attempt too make people choose the option of needing to do the specialty restaurants.  If so, we fell for it this time but if things don't change, they will loose long time customers when they start trying other cruise lines to see how they stack up in the food department.  

 

The next responses to your personal observations will be:

 

1. "You will not find better on other cruise lines, they are all going through the same reductions."

2. "You just happen to have a crew who will be replaced in the future with a better one and the whole experience will be completely different."

3. "People tend to live in the past and cruising is different now."

4. "You are just asking for too much, don't you know that RCI has to be more competitive and change is going to happen and you just have to adjust?"

5. "All of the cruise lines are dealing with supply chain issues right now. Things will be different on your next cruise."

 

You WILL NOT hear that from me. Thank you for your honest and sincere evaluation. The "Good, The Bad, and The Ugly."

 

Until unhappy customers stop buying future cruises, nothing is going to change. If I had your experience, I would be making your last final statements. I have three cruises this year. My last one in September was completely subpar to my normal expectations. Too many people are reporting the same thing you are on certain ships. I will not be reserving future cruises at the much higher prices being demanded if the service and food are not at least equal to my last good memory of the Anthem in April of 2022.

 

 

[pcur]

On 2/14/2023 at 3:48 PM, nelblu said:

 Sailed Anthem last week and I found the WJ on the Anthem to be superior to Oasis for breakfast and lunch.  For breakfast there are 2 freshly made to order eggs and omelets stations.  In addition, one can see the French Toast and waffles being prepared and many times I would ask the maker to make me fresh ones.

For lunch, Anthem has added a stir fry station(s) to go along with the freshly prepared past stations.

The one thing that turned me off was the so-called tuna, egg and chicken spreads and they looked so liquidly that they did not look appetizing.

 

One day for lunch they served "Italian chicken beef steak."  Crazy, but it was tasty.🤣

 

Ps.  No bananas for the first 3 days at breakfast.  Must have gotten supply in Miami.

Agree about the tuna or egg "salad".  They are a favorite of mine, but the Anthem needs to check for another recipe.

[pcur]

On 2/14/2023 at 4:00 PM, ktbr11crs said:

 

Do you remember what they called the chocolate dessert that turned out to be the RCCL flourless chocolate cake? It's one of our favorites.  Thanks!

Anthem:  The problem is it's one of those "dome" shaped chocolate desserts, and they have several varieties.  I do know it must have been in the Windjammer, because we only ate in the MDR on the first night.