Dining Review after recent return from 2 sailings

[Hopetotravel]

We have a cruise coming up on Mariner and I’ve looked at the new MDR menus and to tell the truth I’ve been thinking we’ll spend more time in the Windjammer. The husband isn’t to adventurous when it comes to food. BTW, a fellow Nova Scotian here also in the lobster business. 

[shirazcruiser]

We just returned from 19 days in a suite on Celebrity and found the new Luminae (Suite Dining Room) and MDR menus options were disappointing...so much that we're rethinking our future Celebrity cruises. It's been a while since sailing on RCCL and with our upcoming JOS sailing, we purchased the UDP after all of the negative MDR menu comments and the extended MTD wait time.  It's so disappointing as we've been loyal to RCCL (D+) and Celebrity (Elite+). FYI: we were surprisingly happy on our May Princess cruise with the CC dining and menu selection...after JOS, we'll be back to Princess.  

[The Sunset Glow]

23 hours ago, LobsterStalker said:

 

I personally would prefer Early to seat in the 5:45-6:15 range. It may not seem a big difference to some , but the extra hour is a lot for us as we find ourselves cutting pooltime short at the end of the afternoon to go get ready for dinner. If there was a functional "MY time"option I would definitely choose it but not after what I have seen recently

The Steak on both ships ( ordered multiple times ) , were horrid cuts , so thin they looked hammered out like a chicken parm or something.... Very disappointing !

 

Cheers

 

We just did a B2B on Explorer and I couldn't agree with you more. We are NOT foodies, by any stretch of the imagination, but we appreciate some decent quality food while on vacation. Our standards are a bit above "well I don't have to cook or clean and I won't starve so I'm good". We, as a minimum, want to at least enjoy what we are eating. I don't like complaining so after a few times I just gave up because I figured this was the quality we were going to get so what's the point? Complaining only to get another crappy meal did nothing but cause more work for the servers and extend our dining time.

 

On our cruises the steak quality hit a low - and I mean low. The New York Strip looked similar to the McDonald's McRib (if anyone remembers that). It looked like fake meat or poached meat with a grill stamp on it. It was only about 1/3" thick and the texture was similar to a sponge - all the beef we tried seemed to have holes(porus like) except the tenderloin but you only got a very small portion of that.

There was no point in asking for another one becasue they were all the same. I suspect the wait staff knew this as well because I took 3 bites of my steak and was done. They took my plate and never asked me why I didn't eat it, nor did they ask if I would like something else instead (but that's another story). I ordered the WARM chocolate cake and it was ice cold. We left that night and went to the windjammer (the food there was slightly better than the MDR but not by much - the beef was too tough to chew).The side veggies in the MDR were always 1 scoop of mashed potaotes, 1 piece of broccoli and 2 slices of carrot. It looked and tasted like something served at a hospital cafeteria - no joke

 

Some of you will say I'm eaggerating, but I'm not. And some will say they were on the same cruise and had a different experience - I'm happy if you were satisfied and all was good for you. It was not good for us - Food was consistantly bad. We've been cruising on Royal since 2000 (when the food was great) and up to this point we've always said the food on Royal was good and we were happy with it.

 

We had MTD with a reserved time of 7:15 every evening but there was always a wait. We often heard the staff that were checking on available tables tell the staff at the podium that there were no tables currently available. 10-15 mins would go by with no one being seated and the line just kept getting longer. Once seated, dinners were at least 90 mins long and up to 2.5 hours one night. It was jsut the 2 of us. We've been doing MTD since it started and, with just 2 of us, dinner was always 45-60 mins. Whaterver they've done to MTD they've completely screwed it up.

 

The food was so bad and the dining room so disorganized, we only ate there twice the second week - both times we had a bad experience.

 

We have one more Royal cruise booked for May and we're hoping things have improved by then. After this last experience we were going to cancel the May cruise but my in-laws are going as well and have already purchased airfare. If the food and MTD experience has not improved by then, our sailings on RC will be very few going forward. I can't believe the drastic drop in food quality - and don't come at me with the excuses of the money they lost with COVID or the cost of food due to inflation - look at what they are charging for cruise fares now! The 5 free drinks per day and 2 days of internet we get for CAS loyalty is not enough to keep me cruising on Royal if this is what they are providing for food and cruise fares through the roof. For us, the value is no longer there. YMMV

 

Sorry about the long, ranting post. I am truly sad about my favorite cuise line's race to the bottom with their food. The bean counters are killing the brand.

 

[LobsterStalker]

23 minutes ago, The Sunset Glow said:

The New York Strip looked similar to the McDonald's McRib (if anyone remembers that). It looked like fake meat or poached meat with a grill stamp on it. It was only about 1/3" thick

There is the description I couldn't come up with , but QUITE accurate ! 

 

Cheers

[LobsterStalker]

25 minutes ago, The Sunset Glow said:

We have one more Royal cruise booked for May and we're hoping things have improved by then.

Keep in mind , one thing that seems very clear from many reports , along with my own experience , the food quality can vary greatly from ship to ship . Therefore regardless of your experience in may I don't feel it would be conclusive to anything . If you have a good experience it is not necessarily indicative of a fleet wide improvement , and vise versa for a bad experience. One thing is near certain ... You won't have an epic "Wow , that dining was through the roof"" experience !

Gl

 

Cheers

[The Fun Researcher]

McRib.  Love it.  Made me laugh out loud, sadly.

[The Sunset Glow]

29 minutes ago, LobsterStalker said:

Keep in mind , one thing that seems very clear from many reports , along with my own experience , the food quality can vary greatly from ship to ship . Therefore regardless of your experience in may I don't feel it would be conclusive to anything . If you have a good experience it is not necessarily indicative of a fleet wide improvement , and vise versa for a bad experience. One thing is near certain ... You won't have an epic "Wow , that dining was through the roof"" experience !

Gl

 

Cheers

 

Totally agree. I wil keep an eye on food reviews and see what the general concensus is throughout the fleet. But if we have 2 bad experiences in a row then the odds are not in our favour and we will switch to something where we have a better chance of getting decent food - If that makes sense. I don't want to spend a lot of money and maybe get decent food. I'll take my money elsewhere.

[graciekelli]

Hello.  I thought I would chime in on our experience on Vision in April.  We purchased the UDP because the food quality in MD was so poor previously.  The specialty restuarants are all what the MD used to be years ago.  However on the smaller ships with only 3 resturants the choices become a bit repeticious, but always delicious and well prepared.  We ate in the MD twice on a 10 day cruise.  Once at dinner and it was good and once at breakfast and it was good for me and bad for my DH.  We both ordered eggs benedict and mine came very nicely prepared.  DH was served his on a burnt (Black) english muffin.  It was inedible.  So DH said go ahead and eat, I'll just go to the WJ. Waiter came around and DH showed him the muffin and he said he'd get him another one.  DH said no, wife is already almost done, I'll just grab something at the WJ.  Waiter insisted and DH relented.  After waiting about 20 minutes, the second eggs benedict came and the yolks were hard.  DH cut into both and both were hard.  We just got up and left.

 

The WJ on Vision was also hospital food grade, flavorless, repeticious and not something either of us enjoyed.  

 

Room service was good believe it or not and I thought that it improved from the "free" days of Room Service.

 

The Solarium Bistro was also very good, but I felt that their hours of operation were too limitied.

 

We are going on Jewel on 10/30. No UDP. So I will see how the Jewel's MD meals are for myself.  

[marci22]

On 10/24/2023 at 11:10 AM, HappyTexan44 said:

I think it is a good thing that we got early traditional dining.    So, we'll have time to send back crappy food and switch to something else if the quality is bad.  

The pro move is to skip dessert and go to WJ. (It opens at 6pm)

Edited October 26, 2023 by marci22

[New2Cruise76]

I find these reviews on the fiod interesting. We've never been on a cruise before, and I've been pouring over both RCL and CCL and both have tons of posts about how bad the food is.

 

I'm a little picky when it comes to food, if it's prepared poorly I'm not very happy. To be honest though, one of my family's treat restraunts pre-covid was Golden Corral (in my defense, it was never my choice, primarily because it's a 40m drive to the nearest one, but you know what they say, Happy wife, happy life). And a special occasion calls for Olive Garden, Red Lobster, or Outback.

 

I'm personally far more concerned about service. The chefs and wait staff have little control over what materials they're allowed to start with, that's a bean counter decision. It seems my backwoods family will probably be just fine with MDR fare.

 

We're also doing a cruise for the ship and the ports, to a lesser extent, and not necessarily the food. But i would hope for at least a slight increase in service and food quality compared to the restaurants above.

[SHIP TRAVELER]

We have a cruise on the Brilliance in May and are concerned about the reactions here.

Many say their service was good but I submit service can't be good if food is cold and there are long waits between courses.  Food gets cold waiting to he picked up in the kitchen or setting under a cover in the MDR service stand.  This may come back to dining room service MANAGEMENT but it is still a service problem.  The MTD tables do not turn so that new people can be seated.  When the MTD people are seated at empty tables in the traditional set time dining area it greatly interrupts the service of those already being served there who are are totally different course.  This causes delays and cold food and makes the tables slow to turn compounding the stress on both the diners and servers.  I think the managers of the dining service came up (were promoted) in the old system and they have no idea how to make the bean counter ideas work.  That's my two cents as a former manager.

Edited October 26, 2023 by SHIP TRAVELER

[zebra36]

On the VOS recently, the beef (prime(?) rib and tenderloin) were certainly a cut(no pun intended)below what has been served in years past. Haven't seen rack of lamb in a while. Just seems to be a downward trend in quality of food offered in the main dining room. I certainly did not go hungry but just getting disappointing.

[mikefromny]

I'm not discounting anyone else's experiences or opinions, however, I seemed to have a very different experience than many others. We've been on Symphony and Oasis this year, both with the new menus, and both times we enjoyed the MDR. I'm not going to say it was gourmet quality food and I will agree that the shoe-sole-sized "McRib" steak was not great. However, we enjoyed at least one entree each night, often enjoying several between the two of us. We also found the service to be terrific. All in all, the MDR is part of our cruise experience that we enjoy.

 

In reference to the cold food for MTD cruisers. Someone much wiser than me pointed out that it seems the kitchen caters to the two main seatings. The further off your MTD time is from these times the less consistent the food quality and temperature. That's not an excuse, if RCL is going to offer off-time MTD then they need to up their game in executing it.

[The Fun Researcher]

13 minutes ago, mikefromny said:

I'm not discounting anyone else's experiences or opinions, however, I seemed to have a very different experience than many others. We've been on Symphony and Oasis this year, both with the new menus, and both times we enjoyed the MDR. I'm not going to say it was gourmet quality food and I will agree that the shoe-sole-sized "McRib" steak was not great. However, we enjoyed at least one entree each night, often enjoying several between the two of us. We also found the service to be terrific. All in all, the MDR is part of our cruise experience that we enjoy.

 

In reference to the cold food for MTD cruisers. Someone much wiser than me pointed out that it seems the kitchen caters to the two main seatings. The further off your MTD time is from these times the less consistent the food quality and temperature. That's not an excuse, if RCL is going to offer off-time MTD then they need to up their game in executing it.

I'll second that.  The food quality that we've received in our 3 cruises since the shutdown (Allure, Anthem, and Quantum) has been similar to what I remember before the menu changes.  Fortunately we've still had good cuts of prime rib, tenderloin and strip steak.  Maybe we're lucky.

 

My problem is the reduction in choices, and the removal of some of the more signature app and entree's, as well as the addition of clearly lower cost options.  I really miss the lamb chops for instance.  Also gone are the scallops...  Stuff like that. 

 

The fact that day one, fried chicken is the Chef's Recommendation is particularly telling.  I've ordered it just to try it, and the portions are tiny and the way the cut the chicken parts is just odd.

[The Sunset Glow]

55 minutes ago, New2Cruise76 said:

I find these reviews on the fiod interesting. We've never been on a cruise before, and I've been pouring over both RCL and CCL and both have tons of posts about how bad the food is.

 

I'm a little picky when it comes to food, if it's prepared poorly I'm not very happy. To be honest though, one of my family's treat restraunts pre-covid was Golden Corral (in my defense, it was never my choice, primarily because it's a 40m drive to the nearest one, but you know what they say, Happy wife, happy life). And a special occasion calls for Olive Garden, Red Lobster, or Outback.

 

I'm personally far more concerned about service. The chefs and wait staff have little control over what materials they're allowed to start with, that's a bean counter decision. It seems my backwoods family will probably be just fine with MDR fare.

 

We're also doing a cruise for the ship and the ports, to a lesser extent, and not necessarily the food. But i would hope for at least a slight increase in service and food quality compared to the restaurants above.

I have not eaten at Golden Corral but Olive garden, Red Lobster and Outback have way better food than the MDR on Royal ships now. I've eaten better food in a hospital cafeteria than what I had on my recent B2B. 

Now, since this your first curise, you may think it's fine but for those of us who have been cruising for 20+ years it is hard to accept the current offerings.Truly disappointing.

[New2Cruise76]

3 minutes ago, The Sunset Glow said:

I have not eaten at Golden Corral but Olive garden, Red Lobster and Outback have way better food than the MDR on Royal ships now. I've eaten better food in a hospital cafeteria than what I had on my recent B2B. 

Now, since this your first curise, you may think it's fine but for those of us who have been cruising for 20+ years it is hard to accept the current offerings.Truly disappointing.

That's kind of a bummer to read. For the price of a cruise, I'd hope for better. It does seem like this is a change across most of the mainstream cruise lines. I'm willing to sacrifice food quality in exchange for a wider variety of amenities for my 3 kids.

 

My viewpoint is that every vacation has tradeoffs. There's a ton of cruise lines out there, and each person has to decide what they want to sacrifice to get something eles they desire.

 

At my stage in life (mid 40s, with 3 kids between 9 and 15), I'm looking for activities for my kids, some entertainment and bars for my wife and I, and the ability to see parts of the world I've never seen. In ten years, my desires are going to be completely different, and my vacation choices will change too.

 

I agree 100% on your last sentence, there is no need to drastically reduce quality levels. Doing that only alienates existing customers, and reduces a brand's reputation. I've never been able to understand why companies do that. I get that they're looking at improving quarterly sales and year over year profits, but the long term effects of that are almost always bad.

 

 

[LobsterStalker]

3 hours ago, graciekelli said:

Hello.  I thought I would chime in on our experience on Vision in April.  We purchased the UDP because the food quality in MD was so poor previously.  The specialty restuarants are all what the MD used to be years ago.  However on the smaller ships with only 3 resturants the choices become a bit repeticious, but always delicious and well prepared.  We ate in the MD twice on a 10 day cruise.  Once at dinner and it was good and once at breakfast and it was good for me and bad for my DH.  We both ordered eggs benedict and mine came very nicely prepared.  DH was served his on a burnt (Black) english muffin.  It was inedible.  So DH said go ahead and eat, I'll just go to the WJ. Waiter came around and DH showed him the muffin and he said he'd get him another one.  DH said no, wife is already almost done, I'll just grab something at the WJ.  Waiter insisted and DH relented.  After waiting about 20 minutes, the second eggs benedict came and the yolks were hard.  DH cut into both and both were hard.  We just got up and left.

 

The WJ on Vision was also hospital food grade, flavorless, repeticious and not something either of us enjoyed.  

 

Room service was good believe it or not and I thought that it improved from the "free" days of Room Service.

 

The Solarium Bistro was also very good, but I felt that their hours of operation were too limitied.

 

We are going on Jewel on 10/30. No UDP. So I will see how the Jewel's MD meals are for myself.  

I never commented on the solarium bistro as I was mainly posting on the MDR , but I will add this . We had never utilized the Bistro before this trip but strolled down to check it out day 2 , and were pleasantly surprised by the lack of chaos (Pretty much the same offerings just on a smaller scale ). We ate there breakfast and lunch day 2 . We routinely just put together a good salad for lunches , and when we returned for lunch day 3 , we arrived to an empty lettuce bowl , and 4 (of the 8 or so) fixings bowls also empty , And a handful of people standing there plate in hand . We waited for about 5 minutes and the only action while we waited was one of the attendants telling someone (That was waiting for dressing ) that there was only honey mustard left , and the others were not available.

Needless to say , we ate our remaining dinners in the chaos of the windjammer. I would have thought with a smaller venue they would have done better , but I guess it's the opposite

 

Cheers

[marci22]

1 hour ago, The Fun Researcher said:

The fact that day one, fried chicken is the Chef's Recommendation is particularly telling.  I've ordered it just to try it, and the portions are tiny and the way the cut the chicken parts is just odd.

I couldn't tell what part of the chicken mine was from. I think the back! Husband got the prime rib and I thought it looked terrible but he said it was ok. That's why I booked Giovanni's for night 1 on our next cruise.

 

On formal night I asked for extra vegetables and instead of the asparagus that came with my meal (tenderloin)  they gave me the standard 1 broccoli floret/2 carrot slices 😆 

 

Also everyone seems to like the lasagna but the pasta layer is always so gummy. I don't get the appeal.

 

One night I got an app and soup as my meal because I didn't like the main choices. 

 

I guess this is my food rant.

Edited October 26, 2023 by marci22

[The Sunset Glow]

36 minutes ago, New2Cruise76 said:

That's kind of a bummer to read. For the price of a cruise, I'd hope for better. It does seem like this is a change across most of the mainstream cruise lines. I'm willing to sacrifice food quality in exchange for a wider variety of amenities for my 3 kids.

 

My viewpoint is that every vacation has tradeoffs. There's a ton of cruise lines out there, and each person has to decide what they want to sacrifice to get something eles they desire.

 

At my stage in life (mid 40s, with 3 kids between 9 and 15), I'm looking for activities for my kids, some entertainment and bars for my wife and I, and the ability to see parts of the world I've never seen. In ten years, my desires are going to be completely different, and my vacation choices will change too.

 

I agree 100% on your last sentence, there is no need to drastically reduce quality levels. Doing that only alienates existing customers, and reduces a brand's reputation. I've never been able to understand why companies do that. I get that they're looking at improving quarterly sales and year over year profits, but the long term effects of that are almost always bad.

 

 

 

Well said. Agree with you 100%. The tradeoff comment is spot on. My tradeoff is I'm willing to give up my loyalty perks with Royal and cruise on a different cruiseline so I can get some decent food. If I have to pay more but get less on Royal then I will look elsewhere for better value/higher quality. 

 

Royal has awesome ships, especially for families, and I'm sure you will have a great time. Our kids are grown and in University so the bells and whistles are not as important as they used to be. My hubby loves the FlowRider but even that will no longer keep us coming back. We've hit the breaking point for us.

 

I hear about lots of Loyal to Royal cruisers that are also moving on. Royal still has record breaking bookings but will those bookings continue? Will the bubble burst at some point and will Royal need those Loyal cruisers again? If that does happen will those once loyal customers come back? Some will, some won't. Some will have found another product that they are happy with. To me they are taking a gamble in alienating their long-time frequent cruisers by focusing on the new cruisers who are willing to pay more for less - and I'm not disbararging new cruisers, I just mean that they don't know what it once was so their perspective is different. Many first-time cruisers are one-and-done - a bucket list item for some. Other first time cruisers will try different cruise lines for their next ones - we did. So how many of the new cruisers will become loyal repeats and will it be enough to offset the loyal cruisers they lose? Time will tell. I hope it works for them - I just won't be a part of this new era.

 

I still remember our first cruise on Rhapsody of the Seas in 2000 - we were amazed! Now that ship is the smallest class they have. So many things have changed since then - but the only constant in life is change. I hope you and your family have an absolutely fantastic cruise. 

[boltnut55]

On 10/23/2023 at 1:14 PM, swoopy2110 said:

Off Liberty last week and felt similar. The food was "ok". Wasn't really hot enough.

 

My Mum had the steak too and it looked pathetic. She said it wasn't good.

 

Comments made to the staff and on the survey.

For the Serenade, I think I ordered pasta 2-3 times and each time it was lukewarm, like even after I mixed it all around (sometimes you do that, and the pasta is steaming - nope).  However, every steak I ordered was great!  That was the best of all the meals.

[firefly333]

12 minutes ago, boltnut55 said:

For the Serenade, I think I ordered pasta 2-3 times and each time it was lukewarm, like even after I mixed it all around (sometimes you do that, and the pasta is steaming - nope).  However, every steak I ordered was great!  That was the best of all the meals.

I dont eat pasta but twice I was sitting with someone else who got it. The Mdr night she was glutton free and they forgot and threw it in some water. She said it wasnt cooked. Another time someone said her pasta also was raw, not cooked. Maybe it's good I dont eat pasta. 

 

I'm doing more pay restaurants. If you had told me a year ago i would have said no, but I'm changing how I cruise a bit. 

[boltnut55]

1 minute ago, firefly333 said:

I dont eat pasta but twice I was sitting with someone else who got it. The Mdr night she was glutton free and they forgot and threw it in some water. She said it wasnt cooked. Another time someone said her pasta also was raw, not cooked. Maybe it's good I dont eat pasta. 

 

I'm doing more pay restaurants. If you had told me a year ago i would have said no, but I'm changing how I cruise a bit. 

Oh no - it's not that hard to make pasta!  I've been on a couple of ships where they threw in some specialty dining... I bet that's a way to change behavior so that we'd try and then pay at some point.

[rg123]

I think the food does vary ship to ship. We were on Odyssey a couple of weeks ago and found the prime rib as well as the steaks to be wonderful. They were perfectly cooked (medium rare), tasty and tender.

 

Our experience regarding the side vegetables matches others though. Other than a few spears of asparagus one night, broccoli and carrots made an appearance just about every night. Not a green bean, corn, pea, Brussel sprout to be found. I love broccoli and carrots, but it got to be a real joke amongst our table mates on our 13 day trip. Ridiculous that Royal can’t be a bit more creative.

[travelberlin]

On 10/25/2023 at 1:56 PM, The Sunset Glow said:

 

We just did a B2B on Explorer and I couldn't agree with you more. We are NOT foodies, by any stretch of the imagination, but we appreciate some decent quality food while on vacation. Our standards are a bit above "well I don't have to cook or clean and I won't starve so I'm good". We, as a minimum, want to at least enjoy what we are eating. I don't like complaining so after a few times I just gave up because I figured this was the quality we were going to get so what's the point? Complaining only to get another crappy meal did nothing but cause more work for the servers and extend our dining time.

 

On our cruises the steak quality hit a low - and I mean low. The New York Strip looked similar to the McDonald's McRib (if anyone remembers that). It looked like fake meat or poached meat with a grill stamp on it. It was only about 1/3" thick and the texture was similar to a sponge - all the beef we tried seemed to have holes(porus like) except the tenderloin but you only got a very small portion of that.

There was no point in asking for another one becasue they were all the same. I suspect the wait staff knew this as well because I took 3 bites of my steak and was done. They took my plate and never asked me why I didn't eat it, nor did they ask if I would like something else instead (but that's another story). I ordered the WARM chocolate cake and it was ice cold. We left that night and went to the windjammer (the food there was slightly better than the MDR but not by much - the beef was too tough to chew).The side veggies in the MDR were always 1 scoop of mashed potaotes, 1 piece of broccoli and 2 slices of carrot. It looked and tasted like something served at a hospital cafeteria - no joke

 

Some of you will say I'm eaggerating, but I'm not. And some will say they were on the same cruise and had a different experience - I'm happy if you were satisfied and all was good for you. It was not good for us - Food was consistantly bad. We've been cruising on Royal since 2000 (when the food was great) and up to this point we've always said the food on Royal was good and we were happy with it.

 

We had MTD with a reserved time of 7:15 every evening but there was always a wait. We often heard the staff that were checking on available tables tell the staff at the podium that there were no tables currently available. 10-15 mins would go by with no one being seated and the line just kept getting longer. Once seated, dinners were at least 90 mins long and up to 2.5 hours one night. It was jsut the 2 of us. We've been doing MTD since it started and, with just 2 of us, dinner was always 45-60 mins. Whaterver they've done to MTD they've completely screwed it up.

 

The food was so bad and the dining room so disorganized, we only ate there twice the second week - both times we had a bad experience.

 

We have one more Royal cruise booked for May and we're hoping things have improved by then. After this last experience we were going to cancel the May cruise but my in-laws are going as well and have already purchased airfare. If the food and MTD experience has not improved by then, our sailings on RC will be very few going forward. I can't believe the drastic drop in food quality - and don't come at me with the excuses of the money they lost with COVID or the cost of food due to inflation - look at what they are charging for cruise fares now! The 5 free drinks per day and 2 days of internet we get for CAS loyalty is not enough to keep me cruising on Royal if this is what they are providing for food and cruise fares through the roof. For us, the value is no longer there. YMMV

 

Sorry about the long, ranting post. I am truly sad about my favorite cuise line's race to the bottom with their food. The bean counters are killing the brand.

 

Thank you very much for your post. I am very sorry to hear that things are so wrong with Royal dining, especially with my time dining. I wish someone from Royal would read and answer this type of comments. I was very much looking forward to my cruise with the Royal but now I am not so sure.

[travelberlin]

On 10/26/2023 at 11:34 AM, New2Cruise76 said:

I find these reviews on the fiod interesting. We've never been on a cruise before, and I've been pouring over both RCL and CCL and both have tons of posts about how bad the food is.

 

I'm a little picky when it comes to food, if it's prepared poorly I'm not very happy. To be honest though, one of my family's treat restraunts pre-covid was Golden Corral (in my defense, it was never my choice, primarily because it's a 40m drive to the nearest one, but you know what they say, Happy wife, happy life). And a special occasion calls for Olive Garden, Red Lobster, or Outback.

 

I'm personally far more concerned about service. The chefs and wait staff have little control over what materials they're allowed to start with, that's a bean counter decision. It seems my backwoods family will probably be just fine with MDR fare.

 

We're also doing a cruise for the ship and the ports, to a lesser extent, and not necessarily the food. But i would hope for at least a slight increase in service and food quality compared to the restaurants above.

Since this is your first cruise, you might want to go for Celebrity if the price is similar.