What types of food are served?

[MCManders99]

Don't mind the stupid question, but since this is my first cruise I am wondering what types of food can I expect in the main dining room for a 7 day Alaskan cruise on the Sun Princess? Maybe someone has menus from last year or can give me some insight. I figure fish will be on the menu (I don't eat fish) so I am wondering what else? Thanks.

[Host Caroline]

To be honest with you the menus as I remember them were not that different than those in the Caribbean... They did have an Alaska night and had fish barbecue on deck etc. but they didn't have a special menu for the entire cruise.

[jrask]

It's pretty mainstream American with lots of options. We were on the Island Princess to Alaska last summer and the food range did not seem to emphasize the Alaskan nature of the cruise all that much. First, they have an "available at every dinner" side of the menu that includes less adventurous (not that any of it was particularly adventurous) dishes with salmon, steak, a chicken dish I believe and a few other items. Then they have a rotating menu that is more interesting and includes options within an appetizer course, soup/salad course, entree and dessert which always embraced a vegetarian option, fish option and several meat options. They had 1 Alaskan night with salmon and crab and baked alaska, but plenty of non-fish options to choose from (and we're not talking rack of caribou or anything). As above, one late afternoon there was a bbq on deck that was more Alaskan themed.

 

I'd ask on the Princess board if anyone has sample menus (even one that is not for Alaska).

 

They're also incredibly accommodating about dietary issues - of which we have a lot. Online, you can advise them that you have certain dietary restrictions from vegan to kosher to allergies and they'll take care of it. We talked to the head waiter on the first night and he took care of things: brought us the next night's dinner menu each night so I could make selections in advance and then the chef would make sure that my selections complied with my dietary restrictions or modify them to do so if possible (this took care of hidden ingredients in sauces or stocks and the fact that the menu was sometimes silent about bacon being wrapped around a vegetable or whatnot.)

 

Breakfast in the dining room was quite good with just about everything you could want (cereals, pastries, lox & baegles, pancakes, fruit). Lunch was more hit and miss for us, sometimes very good and sometimes selections that just didn't do it for us (of course, part of this was that my dietary restrictions got in the way and we didn't/couldn't do the advance menu thing). In that case, we would head for the pizza or the grill up on deck. I wasn't a big fan of the buffet ... too oily for my tastes ... they called it the Horizon Court -- I figured that was because the good food was somewhere beyond the horizon.

[Genessa]

As the others have told you, one of the things I find disappointing about Princess' food is that it is pretty generic.

 

The Caribbean cruises don't feature Caribbean dishes and the Alaskan cruises don't feature Alaskan food.

 

There is an American night, a lobster night, a French night, an Italian night, etc.

 

Our most recent cruise had an almost (if not) identical menu to our first Princess cruise, despite them being 3 years apart. On a 10 day cruise we went on I thought, now we'll see something different, but the 3 extra nights just seemed re-working of the other 7 nights.

 

Don't get me wrong, the food is good, there is a wide variety for the pickiest of eaters to find something, it's just, as one of the other posters has said, not adventurous.

[Grafx]

I believe the menu is the same on all the ships with the same number of days.

Check out my scans of the menus from my Western Caribbean cruise:

 

http://grafx.freeservers.com/cruise/menus.html

[jaspertl]

Thanks so much for posting that menu! I called Princess a few days ago to see if they could guide me to a menu somewhere on their website....but no can do!

 

So, I was so pleased to see your link!

 

The food sounds really yummy...

 

can I have 2 appetizers and a salad but no entree if I want?