HALcruiser2001

You almost spilled it when you picked it up. 😉 Masaharu Morimoto is still my favorite Iron Chef

Bruno, My belief is that you will meet again. Our breif existance on earth is barely a momentary blip compared to eternity.

I saw it delivered to the table next to me and decided not to order it since my standards in bacon are much higher. Usually the bacon I cook and smoke is about 1/4" thick and what I saw was 1/8" or even less. I am sure this can change a great deal so YMMV. Bacon is on both my wife and I's diet plan. Much better for you than rice, pasta or bread (IMO).

If someone is eating breakfast, lunch, I cannot conceive dinner eating soup, salad, 2 appetizers, main surf and turf and desert. I am not kidding either, it is inconceivable to me and I do not have gastric bypass. I usually tip $20 for good service in CO , Pinnacle or Rudis. Even with HIA included and the staff knows this. Same for end of day in sea view, R&R and Ocean View. I easily dropped $100/day in tips. Shocker.... every drink and meal was excellent and service was outstanding. Every person near me, staff and pax had a ball and never mentioned a darned word about lack of portions, variety or otherwise. Pretty sure had I been able to consume 2 apps and 2 entrees it would have been delivered no charge. But there is no way that I can maintain under 200lbs at 5' 8" and do so, let alone fit it in my belly. Even my weight is considered obese my waste is 36ish.. Think about that next time you are on a HAL cruise at the pool.

I thought that I replied to this. Which menus which ships and which restaurants? I did not notice this on ms NS, but you MIGHT be correct. If you are correct, all I can say is that the other entre were perfectly acceptable to me. I generally ignore pasta.

When the price of food has risen in your local grocery store over the past few years do you not expect the same on a cruise?

What is going cheap mean? I never saw too many pasta dishes on ms NS and I would notice this since I don't eat pasta.

Mini bar also, pretty sure

I was on Feb 18-25. If you search this forum for "summary review" you will see my review. There is also a thread about "has food improved yet on HAL." You really cannot judge anyone complaining about food across the board, it must be specific to the ship. I cannot review MDR as I never ate there, Rudi's, Pinnacle, Club Orange were all perfect.

We chose ms NS because of the variety of food and music. Since we knew we were not getting off the ship, the ports were not even in our decision. We ate in Lido once. Otherwise if we wanted Lido, Burger or Pizza, my wife's Cabana Boys brought it up to the retreat. 😉

Apparently I search poorly. 😉

Lunch in Pinnacle is nice. Typically we do large meal at lunch as well, but for our cruise last month I was really light on lunch so that I could even finish dinner.

I get it, but almost all my clothes are pricey and it would really torque me if someone ruined my only pair of shorts or my merino under garments. My suitcase weighs 3.75 lbs empty and about 15 stuffed. But... I travel VERY light so everything in there is quality and planned and if someone destroyed it I would be pretty upset.

reimbursement is not replacement.

Cans on NS had screw top in Feb

Just getting to MDR at seating times was ugly. Full halls and elevators. We avoided it completely.

Oops you are probably right. CO was suite perk. My bad.

Noisy, slow, lines and crowds. Not my thing.

Club Orange access, priority boarding rationalized it for me. Then drinks for free. So thankful we did not have to deal with MDR.

I only find 2 fights like what you mention.

I did not and would not bother with MDR. Just seemed like a nightmare. I am a foodie. Although I do not have the time to present dishes like a high end restaurant, I have waited tables for about 15 years that were some of the best in my state. In the early 80's I sold $5k-$10k worth of wine in a night. Did table side salad, entre and deserts... completely unforgiving. I can cook steaks, seafood and asian food comparable to must trained chefs. I chuckle that people think that HAL's food is crap and portions are small. Not my experience at all, but judging by the obesity of many passengers, portion size complaints are not surprising. Look at my review on here about the food, it is honest, legit and I am picky. I send food back to be corrected if not right and did not have to do that for anything (but see below). THE ONLY complaint that I had was that the buffet food was not HOT, lack of salt in Club Orange, Pinnacle and Rudi's, but I get that and it is easily fixed with shakers. In Club Orange I had one salad that had something wrong. Really bitter, but I mentioned it and moved on with the next course.... just did not matter. Waiter would have replaced it. Pinnacle, Rudi's and Club Orange had perfectly cooked steaks and seafood. They new temperatures and doneness better than most high end restaurants do.

Sorry..... can't agree with any of this. I have done 3 Neptune suites. 2001ish, 2006 and 2023. All cruises have been high quality. I don't even understand these types of comments. Bands/music were far, far better this year. I may try Celebrity but on our Feb cruise it would have been 18k vs 10k. I dont believe a single post about poor food, portions, etc I rocked 3 music venues for about 4 hours a night. Silent disco is a darned joke. LMAO. I the 7 days on ms NS I did not meet anyone that shared this opinion.

Ah.... yeah. And my house was $300k back then and $1M now. The food I had on NS was just as tasty as Zuiderdam 23 yeas ago.

What made it bad on HAL?

I thought that I responded to this. Walking is excellent, keep it up. Thank you so much for the kind words.