Has anyone noticed a decline in quality of Princess food?

[Cruisintimer]

1 hour ago, Cruise Raider said:

I was just on the Discovery Princess and thought the food ranged from very good to outstanding!  
There is a new lunch menu they are trying out in the MDR with small plates and I have to say, Bravo!  it was one of my favorite meals.  The buffet items were really good!  I have Indian food once that was delish!  
The Salty dog, GiGis and Ocean Terrace were all great.  We also thought he Crown Grill was as good as it’s ever been.  The Bistro Sur La Mer, soon to be changed to The Catch by Rudi, was very good.  I look forward to going there when it is The Catch, which should be in a couple of weeks.  I do miss Sabatini’s old menu, though but the food was still decent.  I miss the sole piccata and fondue soup.  

Agree, Discovery had great food in our opinion too.  

[Ombud]

Just want to note that pre-pandemic i was once given a slab of warmed tofu when I ordered vegetarian.  Now I've got the option of 18 rotating menus with appetizer, salad, soup, main dish, dessert in MDR! Plus a part of the buffet (okay, it was there just lacked imagination). Such an improvement 👏 

[kywildcatfanone]

The bigger the ship, the more options there are as well.  I don't find the food on any cruise line I have sailed with to be outstanding, but I find the food to be adequate, and enough options that it's never really been an issue for me to avoid hunger. 🙂

[memoak]

On 11/2/2023 at 7:12 PM, capriccio said:

On the Coral Princess for 28 days in April the MDR dining was very good. The cruise was Round Australia and the menus included dishes (quite a few Indian dishes and a variety of fish dishes) I've never seen on US, Caribbean, Alaskan, South American and European cruises).  The dinner in the Crown Grill (similar menu to those on ships sailing in other locations) was the best we've ever had and rivaled premium US steakhouses.  On the Caribbean Princess for a week in July the MDR food was good and occasionally very good.  The Crown Grill food was nowhere near the level of the Coral Princess Crown Grill but there were no complaints from our group of 8.  DH and I had been spoiled in April.  We don't go to the buffet so I can't comment on that experience.

You do know there is no Crown Grill on the Coral. The steakhouse there is the Bayou Cafe which has a totally different menu

[capriccio]

36 minutes ago, memoak said:

You do know there is no Crown Grill on the Coral. The steakhouse there is the Bayou Cafe which has a totally different menu

True I forgot it was a different name.  The menu though was not like the one we've had in 2007, 2009 and 2012 that included alligator bites IIRC.  It was a steakhouse menu plus excellent lamb (to be expected in that part of the world)!

[ldubs]

Over the past couple years have done four Princess cruises -- two in Europe and two out of San Francisco. When it comes to quality of food, we have noticed is a marked difference between Princess European cruises and Princess West Coast cruises. European itineraries pretty good, West Coast itineraries not so good.  

[Incognito1]

22 hours ago, Cruise Raider said:

I was just on the Discovery Princess and thought the food ranged from very good to outstanding!  
 

We were happily surprised with an outstanding buffet on the last Discovery cruise.  MDR was good, but boring menus.  Pub Lunch was a highlight, as were the fresh salads.

[love to cruz]

OMG! Yes. We just got off the Caribbean Princess. No strip steak on the daily available. Formal night: no steak, no prime rib, no lobster. The best thing on the menu was orange duck, a very small piece & quite dry. I never thought I would see the day there was meatloaf on an "upscale" cruise line, but I did this sailing. We feel the quality of food has gone way down hill since Covid, and sadly we are paying more to cruise.

The ship was short staffed and it took a minimum of 10 minutes to get a beverage. There were 2 times we never got our drink.

[Cruise Raider]

5 hours ago, Incognito1 said:

We were happily surprised with an outstanding buffet on the last Discovery cruise.  MDR was good, but boring menus.  Pub Lunch was a highlight, as were the fresh salads.

We missed the pub lunch 😞 but they were trying out the new lunch menus with small plates and wow, it was quite excellent!  
I also loved the fresh salsa that I got through room service.  The lettuce was always nice and fresh and I thought the toppings were top notch.  Real food!  
BTW, the breakfast toasts they had in the IC were wonderful.  I’d switch off between the beets, egg and avocado and grilled vegetable.  All were so yummy!  
 

[EDVM96]

5 hours ago, love to cruz said:

We just got off the Caribbean Princess. No strip steak on the daily available. Formal night: no steak, no prime rib, no lobster.

Well, on the last New England cruise before, the Caribbean had all it available in the MDR. Sirloin steak, lobster, Beef Wellington, prime rib, etc. 

Edited November 6, 2023 by EDVM96

[gilboman]

5 hours ago, love to cruz said:

OMG! Yes. We just got off the Caribbean Princess. No strip steak on the daily available. Formal night: no steak, no prime rib, no lobster. The best thing on the menu was orange duck, a very small piece & quite dry. I never thought I would see the day there was meatloaf on an "upscale" cruise line, but I did this sailing. We feel the quality of food has gone way down hill since Covid, and sadly we are paying more to cruise.

The ship was short staffed and it took a minimum of 10 minutes to get a beverage. There were 2 times we never got our drink.

There was steak, beef wellington, huge scallops and yes lobster on formal night when i was on CB in september.  But overall food/ingredient quality has declined from precovid imo 

 

HAL is much better for food and service but too bad lately their prices are like 10-20% higher than princess for similar itinerary/dates so we are on princess still for now 

[kywildcatfanone]

8 hours ago, love to cruz said:

upscale" cruise line

Princess,  or Celebrity are upscale cruise lines.  They are mainstream like Royal and Carnival.   They just cater to a slightly different audience.

[rj59]

If you don't like flavoring, then you can try to articulate to the waitstaff how you would like it improved. "It tastes like it was made by foreigners" probably isn't the best approach. If you want foods made with the expertise of the Indian chefs, you can ask for the Indian menu and try the really excellent Indian foods in the buffet. My mother loved to complain about meat quality on every cruise, which was all we ever heard, not how wonderful the ship or staff or ports or sunsets were, it was only 'my steak was too tough'. My sister and I made fun of her for that, but now she has dementia and will never cruise again, so I promised myself never to complain about any cruise food, especially on here. I'm fairly familiar with most of the Princess menu, so if there's nothing particularly exciting, I might try different things in the buffet, especially on international themed nights, or just focus on appetizers and desserts--I've never felt any lack of taste in a pistachio dome or hazelnut bar. You'll probably find in most American restaurants that the person cooking your meal is not native-born American either, so you can write "My Applebee's steak tastes Mexican!" on some other board. 

[Beth Y]

In the past six weeks I've spent 22 days on the Royal and 7 days on the Crown, and ate most of my meals in the MDRs.  Everything was really good, especially the seafood, the beef tenderloin (which I had four or five times) and the prime rib (twice). The one entree that wasn't good was overcooked mahi mahi which was quickly replaced.  My first Princess cruise after the COVID shutdown was on the Ruby Princess in October 2021, and I joked that the beef must have been in the freezer for almost two years because it was just awful.  Now I think that the food on Princess is comparable to Celebrity's.  My only complaint was too few vegetables, but I just asked for more.  All of these pictures are from the MDR on the Royal.

[Beth Y]

In the past six weeks I've spent 22 days on the Royal and 7 days on the Crown, and ate most of my meals in the MDRs.  Everything was really good, especially the seafood, the beef tenderloin (which I had four or five times) and the prime rib (twice). The one entree that wasn't good was overcooked mahi mahi which was quickly replaced.  My first Princess cruise after the COVID shutdown was on the Ruby Princess in October 2021, and I joked that the beef must have been in the freezer for almost two years because it was just awful.  Now I think that the food on Princess is comparable to Celebrity's.  My only complaint was too few vegetables, but I just asked for more.  All of these pictures are from the MDR on the Royal.

[PMGS247]

On 11/6/2023 at 11:28 AM, love to cruz said:

OMG! Yes. We just got off the Caribbean Princess. No strip steak on the daily available. Formal night: no steak, no prime rib, no lobster. The best thing on the menu was orange duck, a very small piece & quite dry. I never thought I would see the day there was meatloaf on an "upscale" cruise line, but I did this sailing. We feel the quality of food has gone way down hill since Covid, and sadly we are paying more to cruise.

The ship was short staffed and it took a minimum of 10 minutes to get a beverage. There were 2 times we never got our drink.

 

I believe this was related to the fact that it was a 5 day sailing.  I was on the same cruise and did not go to the MDR but I've seen a good bit of discussion around it and that's the impression I walked away with.  I don't think it had anything to do with the CB or Princess in general just the short sailing.  You'd think with a formal night it would still happen, but apparently not.

 

Having said that for the purposes of the overall topic discussion DW and I very rarely go into the MDR at this point.  The hassles and potentially very long wait times are just not worth the quality of the food most of the time.  Not that it's horrible food it's just not worth the time & effort.  We fill the nights with upcharge meals most nights (specialty/casual now I guess) or just go full casual Lido food/buffet.  High quality food is high on our list of priorities so we do a lot of specialty dining and find it worth the investment.  Next on our list of priorities is comfort, ease, and laziness, so we end up living at the two extremes.  I can say that for these extremes the food quality seems on par with where it's always been.

Edited November 7, 2023 by PMGS247

[Trent212]

I'll add my datapoint:

 

My recent Discovery Princess (September 2023) experience was generally very good. Gigi's, Sabatini's, Salty Dog (poutine goes really great w/ the Belgian beer on tap...!), Ocean Terrace, Slice, Bistro Sur le Mur, MDR, and breakfast in the buffet were all quite tasty. Crown Grill unfortunately fell short of our expectations this time on our steaks (everything else was great), because they came out completely unseasoned. Hopefully just a blip!

Edited November 9, 2023 by Trent212
typo!

[rbtan]

We've generally found the food overall is quite poor. We're both in the food industry. When having the Ultimate Balcony Dinner, it was truly outstanding. and show what Princess is capable in putting out. We have been in Club Class(now Reserve) and expect food not like this every night, but far better than the head waiter preparing the nightly special.In this case Spaghetti & Meatballs(seriously?) We ordered from Crown Grill that night. For those in Reserve & the suites the food should be of better quality considering the extra cost. We're booked on the New Sun Princess in a Cabana Reserve mini suite(whatever that is) The Reserve Class & Suites levels will now have rest. dedicated to those levels. Hopefully the quality will match the extra price. Mostly we cruise Oceania where Jacques Pepin is the culinary director. No comparison in food quality here.

[New2cruise2022]

On 11/6/2023 at 2:22 PM, Cruise Raider said:

We missed the pub lunch 😞 but they were trying out the new lunch menus with small plates and wow, it was quite excellent!  
I also loved the fresh salsa that I got through room service.  The lettuce was always nice and fresh and I thought the toppings were top notch.  Real food!  
BTW, the breakfast toasts they had in the IC were wonderful.  I’d switch off between the beets, egg and avocado and grilled vegetable.  All were so yummy!  
 

Salsa? Like chips and salsa?

[Cruisintimer]

36 minutes ago, New2cruise2022 said:

Salsa? Like chips and salsa?

We loved the salsa too, we had it when we ordered the kids cheese quesadilla (kids at heart lol).  Fresh and tasty.   Great snack to share.

Edited November 10, 2023 by Cruisintimer

[Ken the cruiser]

Nope. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, one of the many reasons we enjoy cruising with Princess is because we very rarely ever get heartburn when on a Princess cruise where most of the time we’re eating in the Reserve (formerly Club Class) dining room.
 

OTOH we would get heartburn practically every evening after eating in Luminae when we were booked in a Celebrity sky suite on multiple occasions. And now that we’re in our early 70s, that’s an important issue for us. We also usually never gain any weight after being on a 2-4 week Princess cruise. I know, who would have thought that was even possible!! 😂

[Cruisintimer]

19 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Nope. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, one of the many reasons we enjoy cruising with Princess is because we very rarely ever get heartburn when on a Princess cruise where most of the time we’re eating in the Reserve (formerly Club Class) dining room.
 

OTOH we would get heartburn practically every evening after eating in Luminae when we were booked in a Celebrity sky suite on multiple occasions. And now that we’re in our early 70s, that’s an important issue for us. We also usually never gain any weight after being on a 2-4 week Princess cruise. I know, who would have thought that was even possible!! 😂

We are seniors too, no heartburn but weight gain....hard pass on that subject.  🤣 

[Cruise Raider]

12 hours ago, New2cruise2022 said:

Salsa? Like chips and salsa?

auto correct strikes again.  I do like the pico de gallo that comes with the quesadillas, though.  
I really meant to say salads.  

[eclue]

Just off the Regal - food was great!!

[Lady Arwen]

 My DH and I are so easy to please when it comes to food.  We never complain and we’ve never sent food back in thirty years of cruising.  We’re not looking for haute cuisine, been there done that in our younger days.  
 

We now appreciate being served a decent meal in a nice dining room being waited on by such hard working individuals who try so hard to make our cruise memorable.  Is every meal perfect?  Of course not, but we still enjoy ourselves.