Celebrity Food Quality Poll

Celebrity Food Quality Poll

A recent thread that discussed food quality on Celebrity’s cruises inspired me to take the discussion to the next level – a poll. I don't think that "excellent", "good", etc., work for rating the food quality. Food is simply too subjective an experience. There are restaurants that friends like that I do not and visa versa. People's tastes are just too varied for "excellent" or "good" or "fair" to really mean anything to someone else. My brother and I were raised in the same household yet our culinary tastes are as different as black & white. I prefer complex, well-seasoned dishes from many nationalities while he is a very meat & potatoes person, yet what each of us calls "excellent" is the opposite to the other. Thus, I wanted the poll to be more subjective so I am going to follow the excellent suggestion of "alexMD" and use a rating guide that compares your dining experience to well-known restaurants. Most people have should have some basis for comparison. This should be much more meaningful and useful that adjectives like "excellent".

Note: This survey is solely for the food quality. Therefore do not include service or ambiance into your judgment.

For the poll, enter your Celebrity dining experience, on average, by selecting one of the numbers in the rating guide below.

1. Fast food chains: Mc Donalds, Wendy's, Subway

2. Sit down casual dining, mostly pre-prepared food chains: Chili's, Applebee's, TGIF (or any other "Chicken Ceasar Salad Roadhouse"), Olive Garden, Outback.

3. Slightly better quality food chains that probably prepare most of their food from scratch: Maggiano's, Macaroni Grill, PF Chang's, Big Bowl.

4. High-quality restaurants with national name recognition: Ruth's Chris, The Capital Grille.

5. Fine local restaurants that are worth a two hour trip from elsewhere.

6. True gourmet restaurants with highly complex, challenging cuisine of the finest ingredients and rare wines, typically for those few among us with very discriminating taste in food and wine.

I'd agree with the catering category as well. However, the dining room lunches are a couple of more notches above dinner.. since many are cooked to order.

The food quality at the buffet is different than in the dining room, or the specialty restaurants, or room service, etc. So it's really hard to rate it overall since you can have a fabulous lunch in the dining room and then have a rotten lunch in the Lido.

Stephanie

We are NOT with the folks who say... "Whatever they serve us is fine because we aren't cooking so just be happy ...." :confused:

We have expectations ... but never UNREALISTIC expectations! ;)

Naturally, just an opinion ! :rolleyes: We have been very happy with the "Menu Selections" on Celebrity ships ... always, something EACH night, we are fine with ordering.

Happy Sailing! OCruisers :)

We've been down this road before. In general, cruiseline food is not restaurant food; it's hotel (or catering food).Too many people to be served in too short a period to qualify as a restaurant experience. As to which hotel chain would it compare to, my vote is with Hyatt, Westin or Intercontinental. So before I could vote in a poll such as this you would to need to add a couple of hotel categories.

We've been down this road before. In general, cruiseline food is not restaurant food; it's hotel (or catering food).Too many people to be served in too short a period to qualify as a restaurant experience. As to which hotel chain would it compare to, my vote is with Hyatt, Westin or Intercontinental. So before I could vote in a poll such as this you would to need to add a couple of hotel categories.

You are exactly right - I wish that I could edit this post to include a catered hotel catagory, because that is excatly how I feel as well. Better than the typical conference "rubber chicken", closer to a hotel's better effort at a catered meal, but certainly not up to a individually prepared meal.

My vote fell in line with the large number who voted for #4, "high quality chain restaurant." We don't expect any more than that with regard to the food itself. What makes the difference to my partner and I is the level of service. I've had mediocre food on Celebrity that's been creatively presented and professionally served by a waitstaff that is (mostly) charming and knowledgeable about the food they're serving.

This point has been driven home recently as we've had the opportunity to cruise on both Princess and HAL in the past few months, and we were struck by the mediocre service we received in the dining rooms on both. On HAL they just took orders and put the plates down in front of us - no charming chatter, no recommendations about the different dishes, no warmth. Also, they didn't serve the table together, so our courses were coming out at different times (with no apologies), they didn't serve ladies first, they didn't crumb the table, center the plates, nor arrange the silverware for each course. Small points all, but we noticed it. The food was just as good on these lines, but the service detracted from it. We've already booked our next two cruises on Celebrity, and we look forward to good service in the dining room on both Constellation and Millenium.

I rated the fiid a 4, but... The criteria set make it hard to vote. Based on the quick descriptions I'd choose a 4 or 5, but I must say that the food is not as good as at Ruth's Chris - although the service and ambiance is much better. Based on the longer descriptions I'd rate it a 2 or 3 based on food quality alone. But I can't think of any restaurant I've ever enjoyed more than dinner on the Summit, even if the food itself isn't quite up to par with the finest restuarants.

Interesting comments on the differences between catering food v. restaurant food. I went to a function at a New York City restaurant that was rated as one the best, if not the best, in the city. About 70 people ate a pre-selected banquet style dinner (no individual menus) and while I found the appetizers were fantastic I was totally unimpressed by the dinner itself. Now it was very good, but well below my expectations given the reputation of the restaurant. So given this as a basis of comparison I could easily have rated the Celebrity food a 6.

Anyone who thinks cruise ship food is equivalent to a "fine local restaurant" must have very ordinary "local restaurants."

Ahhh the subjective topic of food.....good topic, but I in my opinion, there is not a right or wrong answer.

Who am I to say what tastes good to someone else?...that is why we all have DIFFERENT taste buds.

What is "ordinary" to one person might be "extraordinary" to someone else.

It's true, it's catered food - except in the M-class specialty restaurants, and some grill and specialty station dishes, BUT I have yet to have ANY catered meal ashore that was serious competition for a good shipboard meal. Anyway, I scored it a 4, though on a good day it may make a 5.

I'd personally rate the food on ship as better than many mid-range chain or local restaurants in overall quality - the timeliness from oven to table is far more relevant (to my mind) than the question of whether a dish was made up because you ordered it or because the cooks knew they would need 187 Pork Chops at 9:00.

I suppose it may be different for people for whom order customisation is a great priority.

To me the real question is how Celebrity's food ranks against that of other cruise lines. I chose Celebrity because a number of sources said it had superior food, which is important to me. Later this month, I'll find out - though as it's my first cruise ever, I won't be able to compare it to other lines.

I feel that the food on Celebrity beats the food on any other cruiseline and is also better then most chain restuarnts.

Just returned from the July 17 sailing on Constellation . Overall the food was very good , I'm a steak lover and the steaks were good but definitely not in the Ruth's Chris Steakhouse or any other fine steakhouse category . On the other hand I wasn't expecting a 2" prime New York Strip .

The food is very, very good, but I would not drive two hours for it.

Good post. Having just come off a Norwegian Cruise Lines (DAWN) ship I can honestly say that my group, all 8 of us, commented on how much more we enjoyed Celebrity's food was in comparison to NCL. We never had a bad meal on the Zenith or the Galaxy. The "taste" was just better on Celebrity. That's just my 2 cents.

Jen

Good poll. I agree that there should have been a hotel/banquet category because that is really where I think Celebrity falls as an average all-around dining experience. So I voted "high quality chain" since I relate that to moderate hotel chains like Hyatt, Marriott. IMHO, I would never drive out of my way to eat any Celebrity calibur fare but they do a nice job feeding 2000 or so people 3 or more meals a day.

Celebrity food and service way above HAL. Depending on the indiviual meal, it can vary from a 3 to a 5. However, I would not drive two hours for any restaurant unless it was free or I was visiting someone in the area.

My cardiologist warned me to be careful with all cruise food because of high levels of sodium because of the preservatives. As always, be careful what you eat, even though it tastes so much better with the sodium.

I haven't had meat in 6 1/2 years since my quadruple bypass, so I hope the seafood selections are varied and good, or at least the salmon, as well as the poultry dishes.

David

I have to relate a cruise line's food to other cruise lines.

I've eaten in too many fine (and many not-so-fine) restaurants to be able to compare them to what's available on cruise ships.

Checkout my signature and see whose food suits us the best.

Joe O and Lila Jean

It depends on the dining venue on the ship. The specialty restauarnat on the "M" class ships equals the finer local venues. The Spa cafe is also quite good. The dining room is upscale hotle catering, and the buffet is very high quality cafeteria food.

The service on Celebrity does set it apart from many restaurants ashore.

We really enjoyed the dining expereince on the Century. The one thing that I would suggest inproving though is the lunch buffet otherwise the food was as good or better then most local restuarants.

I just got back from a cruise on the Mercury, and for my money the food was absolutely FANTASTIC! While I know in my head that the food was mass produced for 1000+ people, the quality was some of the best I'd experienced in my life. Major kudos to Celebrity.... and YUM!!!!:p

Jonathan

You folks must have some really nice catering places in your towns! Most of the catered meals I've had have resembled a microwave Stouffer's entree.