I want your opinion on Caribbean Princess Dining options! :)

[RachelNYC]

Other than the regular traditional dining room w/ fixed seating what are the other restaurant options for "personal choice"? I would love to get people's opinions about the different restaurants onboard.

 

Thanks!

-Rachel;)

[CruiseFever]

Other than the regular traditional dining room w/ fixed seating what are the other restaurant options for "personal choice"? I would love to get people's opinions about the different restaurants onboard.

 

Thanks!

-Rachel;)

 

Short answer:

 

Cafe Caribe- Cool, quirky alternative- liked it*

Room Service- Fast, hot food hot, cold food cold- loved it*

Pizza/burger place- Very popular but I'd like more variety- so so*

Horizon Court- Better than average buffet fare, difficult to navigate- so so*

"Anytime" dining rooms- Very good, occasionally really very good food and service- liked it best*

 

*- just one person's opinion, others will no doubt be different.

 

Long answer: (you asked)

 

Personal Choice...trying to make sense of it all

[RachelNYC]

Thank you so much for the info! :)

[The Barb]

:) We did all the different dining venues offered. I must say, we really enjoyed the PC dining. Did not think we would. This was our first time for PC. I would do it again. Try all the dining rooms. The buffet was good, the Caribe was different and very good. The pizza and the burger grill were fast and tasty. I know a lot of people complain about the food, but we always found something we liked to eat. I am not really sure what other people are looking for in the food department. We found the service to wonderful in the dining rooms. Even with PC dining the waiters remembered us, and were attentive. Sometimes we sat alone(4 of Us), or we were seated with other people. It was fun to meet new people everyday.

 

We had a great time! I know you will too!

 

The Barb

[AliceJ]

It seems like the respondants here have really eaten at all the dining venues.

 

Is there a preference between the 2 dining rooms?

 

We have a party of 7 celebrating a 40th anniversary on the first formal night.

 

Thanks for the help!:D

[CruisinOrBust]

:mad: We (all 20 of us) hated personal choice. Everything seemed rushed ... and service was marginal at best. It may work for you but our idea of a cruise is to have a relaxing experience and dining was NOT relaxing at all. The wait staff are literally on roller blades. On formal night, I was greeted with an entire plate of pasta on my tux.

 

The food was acceptable but not even close to what Celebrity offers. The 24 hour buffet is only good for breakfast. Lunch is avarage and late night snacks our gross unless you feel that eating dried-out leftovers from dinner are okay.

 

Sabatini's was excellent and worth the $20 per person, but save your money on the steak house.

 

Hope that this helps.

[Maflingo]

The only complaints I would have related to food would be the seating limitations and chaos of the Horizon Court and lack of attentive wait service there. It would have been nice to have a few more "basic" options available since we were travelling with children.

 

The dining room (Coral) was wonderful. We had a standing reservation and had the same table and waitstaff for the whole week. I didn't try the pizza but my children lived on it. (can you imagine anything more heavenly for a kid than to be able to get a slice of pizza any time you wanted???? LOL) They said it was excellent. We were unable to get reservations at Sabatinis or Sterling. I enjoyed the varying menues in the Caribe. It offerred a good opportunity to try new things.

 

That said, our first cruise was the maiden voyage of the Ocean Princess (2000) and for a maiden voyage they pull out all the stops. The food and service was amazing and set a standard that subsequent cruises likely won't ever meet.

 

For example: Every day in the horizon court was a fabulous selection of fresh fruit. No canned pears or peaches....I don't think I saw canned fruit at all. There were bowls of fresh raspberries and blueberries, pineapple, strawberries and kiwi daily. There was a huge chocolate/dessert buffet during the deck party on the last night.

 

On more than one occasion when I was trying to juggle my children in the buffet line, a crew member would come along and take over for me with one of the kids carrying their plate and helping them make selections. They offered to go make PB&J sandwiches for them if there was nothing they wanted in the buffet.

 

Like I said, a very high bar was set on that cruise! :)

[libbydic]

Well I can give you my opinion. I enjoyed the dining room we ate there two night and it was good. And I did like the personal choice dining it worked really well for us, as you will see we took full advantage of most every possible eating establishment

 

Thouroughly enjoyed the Pizza and the Burgers they are great!!

 

We at at the Horizon Court buffet a couple of nights. It was good some nights better than others. If you are from the Northeast where you can get good Lobster you probably will not like the lobster here, DF did not like it I do not eat lobster so I cannot comment.

 

We enjoyed Sterling I more than my DF. I had the Filet and it was great he had the PorterHouse and it wasn't really good.

 

We ate at Sabatini's also I didn't think it was worth the money. Everyone says how you will be there for hours eating we were in and out in about an hour and a half. It is decent Italian food but not great. We had eaten in Sabatini's a couple of years ago on Golden Princess and thought it was much better.

 

What I really did enjoy is the Balcony Dinner definitely worth the extra. I don't know where this food comes from but it is AWESOME!!

 

Just my Opinion!!

[bunnycrawford]

We had PC dining and enjoyed dining in the Palm Dining Room. It's a little tricky to find but worth it. We had a few minutes wait on some evening...but we didn't mind...it's not like we had to be anywhere at any certain time.

 

You can also make reservations for PC dining if you choose. It's whatever that's why they call it PC dining.

 

Have a great time!

[jrod]

We had PC dining.........

 

Hey, Bunny! How are you? Did you enjoy your cruise? It was nice meeting you at Morgan's after muster. We had a hard time finding everybody after the initial get together. Anyway, dining options. Here's my 2 cents worth.

 

We (wife and I, 39 &38) did PC dining. Enjoyed the flexibility it afforded us.

 

Ate at Horizon Court/Cafe Caribe the first night. Enjoyed the seafood, etc., but felt like something was missing. Ah, yes. The service. I discovered that one thing I enjoyed about cruising was being served. I serve others all year long. It's my turn to be served for that one week. We didn't eat dinner up there again for that reason. The food was fine, the buffet lines difficult to manage as people come from every which, go every which way, and stop and stare a lot. I used a line from one of the comedians on board in my review elsewhere on this site. He said,

 

"Get some FOOD, put it on your PLATE, MOVE ON!!"

 

Made reservations for Sabatini's and Sterling as soon as we got on board. He who hesitates......

 

We enjoyed Sterling the most of all the dining venues. Small, attentive staff. The steaks (we had 8 oz. and 10 oz. filets) were excellent in our opinion. Flavorful, juicy, well cooked. We booked a last minute reservation for the last night on board, nothing that some greenbacks couldn't handle.

 

Sabatini's was crazy. We arrived and were informed that all we needed to order was our main course. They would bring us everything else and I do mean EVERYTHING ELSE ON THE MENU. You sampled every appetizer, 1 soup, 3 pastas, your main course, dessert, and who knows what else. It can amount to a 15 course meal. Come hungry! We had to take the tiramisu with us. Very heavy on the seafood at Sabatini's. Not a problem for us but I thought I'd let you know. Again, we'd enjoyed Sterling more than Sabatini's.

 

Burger place. Good. Don't imagine you can really mess that up. Actually tried a veggie burger on my first visit.

 

Pizza was fine although I felt the sauce could use some more spice/seasoning. Whoever sliced our slices had not been trained in the fine art of pizza slicing, but who cares. Your stomach doesn't know the difference.

 

We ate in the Coral and Palm dining rooms. We preferred the decor of the Palm over the Coral. I liked that it had an actual entry/lobby area (not that it matters to the food, but I'm an architect so I notice these things). I also liked the notion of having windows on three sides but again that doesn't matter at night. The food in both was very good. I wasn't blown away but my attitude towards cruise food is that if I don't have to cook it, I don't have to clean up after it, and it's different than what I would normally get at home, then I will generally be pleased. That philosophy hasn't steered me wrong yet. I always come off satisfied.

 

Never tried room service. Dining on our verandah held some intrigue but we didn't try it either.

 

We didn't try Scoops. You have to pay extra for that ice cream.

 

Afternoon tea? Yeah, right.

 

Overall we were pleased with the food. More than I recall we were on the Crown Princess but that was almost 14 years ago.

 

Hmmm. Looks like my 2 cents turned into about 7 cents ;).

 

Enjoy your trip.

[jrod]

We enjoyed Sterling the most of all the dining venues. Small, attentive staff.

 

Actually, the people who made up the staff were regular sized people. It was the restaurant that was small (lol);) :D.

 

If you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?