Jump to content

Formal dinners


Recommended Posts

Has anyone noticed that the formal dinner food is not up to par say like 6 or 8 years ago? The food back then was a lot better than it is now. When you look at the menu, all those exotic names for the main dinner, are not what you think, just fancy names. I travel on Royal Caribbean, and I can tell you that the formal dinners, are just not cutting it anymore. The Windjammer was serving better food in the late evening than the formal dinner!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have you not also noticed that the quality of evening entertainment has declined, that libraries on cruise ships have all but vanished, that live music in dining rooms and several venues throughout the ships has disappeared, that the level of stewards' attention to your stateroom has waned, that dining room service is slower and less professional, that the no-charge room service is no more or strictly limited.

 

If you have been paying any attention at all, you will notice a lot of changes --- very little of the sort which might be called improvements.

 

Yes, they have largely held the line on fares - prices have not really gone up ----- but what you get for those prices has certainly gone down.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Absolutely agree with you, navybankerteacher. It’s been a slow but steady decline over many years in virtually every area of service. This is true industry wide, at least regarding the mainstream lines. No deal breakers for us......yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Totally different. Used to be 5 course meals, and they were not only delicious, but the presentation was stellar! And, real silverware and china..and crystal glasses...so civilized !

 

Now, it's an "Applebees" experience.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Totally agree with navybankerteacher -- there have been many changes over the last few years.

To keep cruise fares down, all the major cruise lines have made cuts everywhere. The number of cabin stewards have been cut, dining room staff cut backs, less bar staff, and the list goes on.

With the decline in food, we now only dine in the specialty restaurants where so far, the food is still good quality.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you book a suite on celebrity , you will have better service and food than cruise lines had 30 or 40 years ago, I was amazed on he quality of service and food in there suite restaurant, we will be trying suite restaurant on oasis later this year .

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would rather have the variety of venues and world cuisines than slightly better quality MDR food. When a line provides outlets all over its ships to get food (for a fee or not) the MDR food becomes less important...especially for the modern cruiser.

 

There is also the fact food fashions change....things that were considered fancy years ago are less so now.

Names that sound exotic are simply what they are called in that country...just something different. Gone are the days of putting everything in French.

 

I am not saying there are no cutbacks as that is obvious across many industries. But what cruisers want has changed too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Precisely- cruisers sailing on mass market lines are no longer willing to pay for included quality.

 

I think it's less black and white than that

 

Firstly, many cruisers (and people in general) prefer variety. More ingredients and dishes means higher costs regardless of what you do and how you do it. Because you have to stock your new Asian restaurants, Indian eateries and so forth you have less of a food budget for other things.

 

Secondly, cruisers that are older may perceive certain dishes/ingredients as less quality and inferior because what they may think as fine dining is now outdated and I would not be surprised if in the future steak houses get replaced on ships for this reason. My Uncle in his 60s outright refuses to eat in any Vegetarian/vegan dining venue among others as 'he won't get his money's worth' when actually the specialised ingredients can cost a premium (for various reasons).

 

I personally would prefer choices of venue with a slight drop in MDR offerings but this doesn't mean I disregard quality at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Has anyone noticed that the formal dinner food is not up to par say like 6 or 8 years ago? The food back then was a lot better than it is now.
There have been a lot of changes in all sectors of the hospitality and travel industry over the years, though I bet if you really dig into it, the changes started about thirty-five years ago, and are part of a much larger trend within which the base price (in the case of cruises, the cruise fare) is increasing at far less than the rate of inflation over that period of time, and at the same time the premium and superior experiences that can be separated out are being separated out. So in the situation you've outlined, people who want five-star meals every night still have that available to them, in the specialty restaurants for an added fee, while those who would prefer to save money can stay in the main dining room every night enjoying more moderately extravagant meals.

 

The technical terms for this is "unbundling" and it is proven to be a powerful way of satisfying more customers to a greater degree with superior impact on the bottom line. It does leave a small number of customers paying more, because those customers desire a far higher percentage of premium experiences than the average, but that's fair, given that what was happening before was a rather unfair subsidizing of those passengers by the other passengers for whom the higher percentage of premium experiences was not as highly valued.

 

Alternatively, what we see is a segmentation of the marketplace. Thirty years ago Royal Caribbean was operating pretty much as a separate company, but now it is just the entry-level service of RCL corporation, which also offers Celebrity, which didn't even exist thirty years ago, and now is the RCL cruise line that offers more of the premium experiences included in the cruise fare. It wouldn't make sense for RCL to have two cruise lines that offer basically the same level of service, so you see RCL changing both cruise lines over time to more clearly distinguish them from each other and make the value proposition of each much more obvious to customers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it's less black and white than that

 

Firstly, many cruisers (and people in general) prefer variety. More ingredients and dishes means higher costs regardless of what you do and how you do it. Because you have to stock your new Asian restaurants, Indian eateries and so forth you have less of a food budget for other things.

 

Secondly, cruisers that are older may perceive certain dishes/ingredients as less quality and inferior because what they may think as fine dining is now outdated and I would not be surprised if in the future steak houses get replaced on ships for this reason. My Uncle in his 60s outright refuses to eat in any Vegetarian/vegan dining venue among others as 'he won't get his money's worth' when actually the specialised ingredients can cost a premium (for various reasons).

 

I personally would prefer choices of venue with a slight drop in MDR offerings but this doesn't mean I disregard quality at all.

This offers some really great insights. However, I'm not sure I agree that the Asian and Indian eateries eat into the food budget for other things. Cruise ships are so much larger now, such that any impact from having to support a larger variety of choices is completely washed away by the economies of scale of a larger ship. Indeed, that's really the main advantage of these larger ships, for us: They make it profitable for cruise lines to offer a greater variety of everything: Food, entertainment options, on-board exercise options, etc.

 

I agree with your second point completely, and I think it very insidious. A number of customers become attached to the wonderful experiences of their past, and that attachment to some extent blinds them to the quality and value being offered today. It isn't what they remember, so regardless of how accurate versus rose-colored their memory is, practically everything seems to be a downgrade to them.

 

What's interesting is that some of the complaints about value today refer back to when things were better ten years ago, but those complaints are simply echoes of practically identical complaints posted ten years ago. Therefore they may not necessarily be reflections of genuine value comparisons but rather are part of a consistent undercurrent of customer grumbling that has been part of the mix for as long as people have been leisure cruising. I have no idea why people do that sort of thing, since being negative for negativity's sake has to have some negative impact on one's self. Perhaps some people feel that if they don't complain that the companies they do business with would have no incentive to go over and above to try to please them. Perhaps some people think that by projecting dissatisfaction consistently, every so often they'll be rewarded with some customer recovery bonus, such as a comp'ed meal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The people have spoken and the mass market lines have listened. Everyone wants low fares, and how many threads on CC have people saying stuff like "I don't care about fancy food, high caliber entertainment, just put me on a ship" and the like. We can still get an experience like what was common in years past, you just have to move up the chain to higher end lines. You are not going to get gourmet cuisine when you pay $399 for an inside room for a week. Not gonna happen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Totally different. Used to be 5 course meals, and they were not only delicious, but the presentation was stellar! And, real silverware and china..and crystal glasses...so civilized !

 

Now, it's an "Applebees" experience.

yeah, but most people nowadays dress like they are going to Applebees. Why get a formal experience when no one wants to dress for the occasion anymore. so many people dress like slobs now but still want what you are describing. the wait-staff is better dressed than a lot of passengers

Edited by Living4acruise2day
edit.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why get a formal experience when no one wants to dress for the occasion anymore.
The linkage between formal attire and superior food makes no logical sense. It is just a vestige of a linkage from the past to which many people no longer subscribe.

 

We'll be in a suit and a dress on gala night on our next cruise but not because it makes sense, but rather because that's the way we want to dress that evening, and it is permitted by the rules; you're allowed to wear attire more formal than the requirement. The fact is that the requirement now recognizes that far fewer people subscribe to that archaic linkage, and our hosts the cruise line have adjusted their policies to show more hospitality towards those guests, many of whom represent the future of the cruise line customer base.

 

This post may have been entered by voice recognition. Please excuse any typographical errors.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We are doing fewer cruises post retirement. More AI's, lots more independent land travel. Nothing whatsoever to do with formal dinners. We stopped attending them ten years plus ago.

 

A few reasons. The cruise experience has depreciated a little for us-food, entertainment, service. The lot. On the mass markets-Celebrity, Princess, HAL, etc. Second, this depreciation also includes a significant decline on product consistency. You never really can be sure that you will get what you expect or what the cruise line has led you to believe that you will get. Your chances of a negative expectation gap have grown exponentially over the past few years.

 

Third, for us, is that combined with the first two, prices have increased. We are sometimes finding better value, based on our preferences, with some alternate travel products. And there are many out there. We still like cruising and will continue to do it but it is no longer our first go to travel product when we are shopping.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Things just don't taste as good as they used to.
My eyes don't see as well, either, and don't get me started on my hearing problems and the arthritis that makes it more difficult for me to type and such.

 

Here is an interesting article about why things don't taste as good as we remember:

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/05/05/526750174/why-taste-buds-dull-as-we-age

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My eyes don't see as well, either, and don't get me started on my hearing problems and the arthritis that makes it more difficult for me to type and such.

 

Here is an interesting article about why things don't taste as good as we remember:

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/05/05/526750174/why-taste-buds-dull-as-we-age

Maybe it's that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would rather have the variety of venues and world cuisines than slightly better quality MDR food. When a line provides outlets all over its ships to get food (for a fee or not) the MDR food becomes less important...especially for the modern cruiser.

 

There is also the fact food fashions change....things that were considered fancy years ago are less so now.

Names that sound exotic are simply what they are called in that country...just something different. Gone are the days of putting everything in French.

 

I am not saying there are no cutbacks as that is obvious across many industries. But what cruisers want has changed too.

 

I agree with this. My perception today is that many (not all, but many) of today's mainstream cruisers prefer eating to dining and are seeking a casual service meal that will provide a sit-down meal but then move quickly on to other entertainment. The preference seems to be strongly for any-time dining and casual dress, so it makes sense that cruise lines would meet that demand and yet still offer the higher service at a premium cost.

 

I feel like there's a drop in food quality in general. Outside of ships. Things just don't taste as good as they used to. More hormones and chemical additives? Who knows...but may play a part as well.

I have a different take on this. I think in some areas there is actually an increase in quality and since I've had it foods that used to taste good no longer do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you book a suite on celebrity , you will have better service and food than cruise lines had 30 or 40 years ago, I was amazed on he quality of service and food in there suite restaurant, we will be trying suite restaurant on oasis later this year .

 

I disagree as someone who has cruised Celebrity for 25 years and eaten in their Specialties, Blu and Luminae for Suites. The food and service in the MDR in the 90s under Michel Roux was superior to any restaurant Celebrity has now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share

  • Forum Jump
    • Categories
      • Welcome to Cruise Critic
      • New Cruisers
      • Cruise Lines “A – O”
      • Cruise Lines “P – Z”
      • River Cruising
      • ROLL CALLS
      • Digital Photography & Cruise Technology
      • Special Interest Cruising
      • Cruise Discussion Topics
      • UK Cruising
      • Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
      • Canadian Cruisers
      • North American Homeports
      • Ports of Call
      • Cruise Conversations
×
×
  • Create New...