Muse Dining Reviews

We will be sailing in five weeks on the Muse? I am horrified by the horrible food quality and variety reviews. We have sailed with SS over 70 cruise days. The food has usually been terrific with the occasional hiccup. We will be sailing from Monte Carlo to Southampton with our best friends who are going on their first cruise ever so God help me if this experience is as bad as some of the reviews!

We are sailing on the Muse soon after you and we are excited and looking forward to it. We have sailed on more than 75 cruises and have been on all the SS ships save the Expedition. We have learned over the years -- and especially having been on cruise critic for many years, that everyone looks at their cruise experience differently, through their own lens and their own likes, dislikes, and tastes.....as well they should. Some people hate fish, others don't eat meat. Some folks prefer their food spicy and their wines sweet.... it is just different for all of us. There are some things that go wrong on particular sailings which are not OK and it is helpful to get a heads up. But food and drink are so different -- (even shore excursions). I think it is like going to a theatre performance or a movie-- we all get different things out of the same performance. We are going on the Muse with an open mind and high expectations. I hope you are not disappointment and we hope we are not disappointed either! If we are, we won't be back on SS. Bon Voyage!

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Looking forward to our 14 days Montreal to Fort Lauderdale, September 28 to October 12 this year, 2017. We will report our findings section by section afterwards, as usual.

Hoping for calm seas, good weather, good food and a memorable voyage ... meow!

Dear Meow, I will be on the September 28th sailing too. I like cats and have always felt that your CC contributions have been upbeat and fair. Hope you have signed up for The CC Mix and Mingle. It's fun to put faces to the names!

Dear Meow, I will be on the September 28th sailing too. I like cats and have always felt that your CC contributions have been upbeat and fair. Hope you have signed up for The CC Mix and Mingle. It's fun to put faces to the names!

We are so grateful for your kind compliments ... meow!

Good Morning Maureenh - I too have been watching the comments from the early Guests on The Muse but have not picked up on such extreme comments as you record regarding Quality & Choice of Food - there clearly are some Issues regarding Dining Reservations which I understand from a Silversea Executive are in course of being addressed.

We are also on the same Cruise as you and have many hundreds of days on Silversea, so will be looking to replicate the usual standards. The Ship looks beautiful and no doubt the wonderful Crew will do all in their power to make our Cruise memorable. We know the concept on The Muse is different but are going with an open mind and the intention of having a fantastic time. I hope you also have a great time.

Thanks! We also always go in with an open mind and high expectations but mostly looking for a great time. We are bringing two friends with us, first time cruisers so of course I want the experience to be wonderful for them. We always find that our attitude towards all the staff makes all the difference. We are not complainers and roll with the hiccups. I hear Gilbert is restaurant manager and he is the BEST! So we are excited about the Muse...bigger pool, yeah! See you on board!

We sailed on the Muse in May and had a great time. I have posted on other threads. Just to reiterate, the food overall was of a very high standard, the ship quite stunning and spacious and the crew mostly of the usual SS standard. We did have issues with the booking of restaurants but generally dined where we wanted most nights. The restaurant managers were flexible. The only thing we tired of was the menus not changing but I'm sure that also will be addressed in the fullness of time. Go with an open mind and I'm sure you will all have a wonderful time.

Jane

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Finished our Silver Muse cruise recently, we though the food was excellent, although as has been said many times the unchanging menus would get boring on a long voyage like a back to back. We heard every restaurant mentioned as someone's favorite or someone else's least desirable choice. There is a lot of variety and you will have fun trying them all and making your own decisions. After all if you are hungry later you can always order room service! My favorite in terms of food was Silver Note and my least favorite Indochine. But we enjoyed them all.

Just proves that food is so subjective. Agree with you over Indochine but also didn't rate Silver Note. Probably liked Atlantide best!!

Jane

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DH and I have done 4 SS cruises, last was February 2015, so never on the MUSE. The lack of a MDR and difficulty getting reservations, unless booked pre-cruise, is a bit troubling, though it would favor organized people who like to plan as much as possible ahead of time.

1. If you are in a base veranda suite, on the Muse, can you order room service from any of the various dining room menus, or only from the room service menu, e.g., if you land up without getting a dining room assignment? The room service menu on the ships we'd been on was not very exciting.

2. If you were to be willing to join strangers at dinner, like we previously had an option to do in the MDR on SS ships when we came, and enjoyed, would there likely be no problem getting a seat in the restaurants at dinner? Do they offer that option?

3. Anyone have any pictures of the menus for any of the venues?

3. Anyone have any pictures of the menus for any of the venues?

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Scroll down until you find the topic "Muse Menus?"as a recent passenger posted them there. Also, do a search on username "les37b" and you'll find the walk through videos he posted of various areas of the ship including restaurants.

Why thank you Stumblefoot :-)

Ship walkthrough -

La Terrazza breakfast buffet -

Menus from post 23 - http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2504765&page=2

I have to say I'm quite taken back with the suggestion food on the Muse has mostly extremely bad in reviews. We've all seen complaints about the reservations and non changing menus, but generally the food reviews I've seen have mostly been positive - with a few "average" comments thrown in for good measure.

Everything is subjective. Interesting to note above for instance another poster saying indochine was their least favourite..... but my favourite. I'd wager though we'd both agree the food throughout was very good. I particularly liked this one because I love Asian food. So unless they messed up, it was always going to be high on my preference list.

OP .... you will all have a fabulous time.

PS cat lover, you can only order room service from the 24/7 menu. That said, you can request "special meals" in your suite, so I guess that is a workaround. You definitely can't just order choices from the Muse restaurants. We didn't have room service on the Muse, (so special meals is an assumption) but other SS ships you definitely can.

Why thank you Stumblefoot :-)

 

Ship walkthrough -

 

La Terrazza breakfast buffet -

 

Menus from post 23 - http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2504765&page=2

 

Thank you kindly for sharing.

I have to say I'm quite taken back with the suggestion food on the Muse has mostly extremely bad in reviews.

What doesn't get discussed very often is that "excellent cruise food" is not the same as "excellent food in a major metropolitan area." So if you are new to cruising and you have heard the advertisements about how the dining venues on the Muse are "world class," and you are from London or New York or LA, or even San Diego and used to that form of "world class" cuisine, then you might be surprised with the actual food that you find on the ship. None of the venues on a cruise ship (even SS) come anywhere close to a AAA restaurant in a big city.

I'm wondering if a lot of the bad reviews (I'm talking about food, NOT reservations) are from people on their first cruise who are comparing the advertising spin to the actual food. The food is great, especially for a cruise ship, but it's not something that would impress someone that normally dines in AAA restaurants.

By the way, where does "fresh fish" come from on the Muse?

What doesn't get discussed very often is that "excellent cruise food" is not the same as "excellent food in a major metropolitan area." So if you are new to cruising and you have heard the advertisements about how the dining venues on the Muse are "world class," and you are from London or New York or LA, or even San Diego and used to that form of "world class" cuisine, then you might be surprised with the actual food that you find on the ship. None of the venues on a cruise ship (even SS) come anywhere close to a AAA restaurant in a big city.

 

I'm wondering if a lot of the bad reviews (I'm talking about food, NOT reservations) are from people on their first cruise who are comparing the advertising spin to the actual food. The food is great, especially for a cruise ship, but it's not something that would impress someone that normally dines in AAA restaurants.

 

By the way, where does "fresh fish" come from on the Muse?

Absolutely and you raise a very valid point which rarely gets touched upon.

I would have joked the crew sod off in a tender with their fishing rods when anchored to catch fish, but it does raise a good point on the "fish of the day". The certainly take on supplies when in port, so guess they have an advance shopping list and get produce delivered. As you say, they can never get the aduntandant choices that top City restaurants can make which should tell its own tale. Of course there is always the freezer!!

That said, it's all damned fine to me. Having travelled with the whole family on Carnival Vista, trust me, it's a whole new ball game to compare that, but if you read their reviews peoplecwill desctibe their food as excellent too.

The do sometimes take on fresh fish in port.

What doesn't get discussed very often is that "excellent cruise food" is not the same as "excellent food in a major metropolitan area." So if you are new to cruising and you have heard the advertisements about how the dining venues on the Muse are "world class," and you are from London or New York or LA, or even San Diego and used to that form of "world class" cuisine, then you might be surprised with the actual food that you find on the ship. None of the venues on a cruise ship (even SS) come anywhere close to a AAA restaurant in a big city.

 

I'm wondering if a lot of the bad reviews (I'm talking about food, NOT reservations) are from people on their first cruise who are comparing the advertising spin to the actual food. The food is great, especially for a cruise ship, but it's not something that would impress someone that normally dines in AAA restaurants.

 

By the way, where does "fresh fish" come from on the Muse?

Great points.

Re fresh fish. FWIW as a fish lover I feel strongly that the use of frozen fish is preferable on both land and certainly sea based restaurants simply because frozen fish is frozen when it is extremely fresh and freezing prserves that perfect freshness and it defrosts and IMHO thaws perfectly . I think we are deluding ourselves when we think that fresh fish is better than frozen or that most would be able to tell the difference.

Fish deteriorates very quickly even refrigersted, and from personal experience I find for example that the frozen sea bass I buy and use is far, far superior to the fresh fish I can buy and I hve a property that is a few miles from a fishing port. I have taken time to conclude that contrary to my natural inclination and counter-intuitively that I do not believe that fresh fish is ever actually superior to frozen fish and for most fish I am unable to tell that it has been frozen once defrosted. It tastes and looks like it has "just been caught".

This is even more true with shellfish which deteriorates very quickly once landed and for example shrimp and prawns in the UK are actualy more often than not boiled on the trawler and frozen and are therefore landed cooked and frozen.

Just an opinion. :)

On our last voyage on the Explorer the crew did throw lines out the back of the ship and the fish that night was indeed "today's fish."

Professional chefs will always find it difficult to source really fresh fish because vrtually all fish used in large kitchens doesn't come from day boats but trawlers. Trawlers need to stay out at sea sometimes for a week or ten days and only return when it is profitable and they have caught their quota. The fish is stored in cold rooms with ice thrown over them. They fillet the fish if on a long trawl otherwise it is landed whole with it's inside intact. In that state it goes bad extremely quickly.

By the time it reaches port from a trawler it could be up to a week or so old. That is why fish that is landed into trawler factories where it is fully processed and frozen will generally be a better much fresher option. Much fish sold in fishmongers and supermarkets that is labelled as fresh may have in small writing "Could be from frozen" or something similar. Fresh no longer means that it hasn't been frozen.

.........this for example explains the EU and UK laws and regulations that stipulates that all "fresh" fish used in sushi or smoked salmon (which most customers believe to be extremely fresh) MUST be frozen

https://www.food.gov.uk/business-industry/fish-shellfish/freezing-requirements-guidance

On our last voyage on the Explorer the crew did throw lines out the back of the ship and the fish that night was indeed "today's fish."

Notwithstanding Jeff's culinary experiences, I can attest that freshly caught fish is a sublime experience that cannot be equalled. We regularly fish in the ocean near our home and the joke is that it comes out of the water and lands in the pan. On one trip we limited out on salmon (coho) and in addition to having it for dinner that night, we had the rest flash frozen and brought it home. It was delicious, but the moistness of 'fresh caught today, never frozen' has to be experienced to be believed. The all inclusive fishing lodges on the west coast of British Columbia are highly recommended if anyone wants to do something other than cruise. The cost per day is approximately equivalent to SS.

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Fear not, we do not disagree. :D

The thing is that the dinner venue shouldn't be the highest point of your cruise. Dinner *is* a high point, but because SS is a master at bringing people together before dinner - an excursion, team trivia, solo travelers daily cocktail party, etc, so that dinner is where you continue the party. The food is good. Way better than the cafeteria food they serve on Carnival, as Jeff pointed out that some people will call "great food."

Once you've been on an SS cruise you will probably realize that Silversea food is plenty good; if I wanted a gastronomic vacation, I'd stay in San Diego and dine in a *fine* restaurant every night. That's not what cruising is about.