Serenade: Chops, Portofino, Mystery dinner @ Chops, Wine Dinner? Help

[Chris11sweet]

We are headed on Serenade for southern caribbean cruise in 2 weeks. Need dinner help.2 thirty something couples going. Both like all kinds of good food. We definitely to book speciality restaurants- should we book both places just once or twice? How about the Mystery Dinner at Chops? Any food suggestions? Menu suggestions? etc????

[Pichu21]

I would book each place once, because I very much enjoy the main dining room. On the Oasis, we pretty much missed that experience completely because we only ate dinner in the MDR only once or twice since we were trying out Chops and Izumi and other restaurants the other nights. As for the Mystery Dinner, if you read on this thread, it could give you some opinions and give you an idea of what it is and if it's worth it or not

http://cruiseforums.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=972615

 

Hope I was helpful :)

[Nuclear Cruiser]

I would book dinner at each restaurant 1 night. The Murder Mystery is fun, where the play starts out in the Safari club with wine, than onto the meal and conclusion of the mystery. Wine is included and it is a different menu. The wine series dinner at Chops was funny. Me & my wife were the only ones to sign up but they went on with it anyway. Another slightly different menu and nice wines for each course. Another thing, The speciality restaurants have a separate wine list. If you enjoy fine wines (as we do), these restaurants are the place. 35 days to Serenade sail.ing...

[Karma5]

The speciality restaurants are nice.

The mystery dinner is a lot of fun.

I did the wine dinner and would not do it again.

[Tiki_Man]

As per the review, we did not Chops and Portofino. I would give Chops the edge over Portofino but would definately suggest both at least once. We met a couple in Portofino that were going to be there almost every night.

 

When DW and I cruise alone we sometimes will only do the Spec resturants (or now on Celebrity we do Blu). It mainly has to do with the table in the MDR. We have been really lucky the last 2 times and enjoyed the MDR (and with 4 of you, hopefully you can get a four-top.

 

There were always tables open in both Chops and Portofino so I would imagine you could almost decide the day of, if you wanted to try. As someone mentioned the wine list in Chops is MUCH better. I ordered a bottle of Barolo "Ole Pesco" that was fantastic, but it did need to open for about 15 minutes. I enjoy any Italian Red that starts with a B :) and the waiter was helpful with suggestions. The menu does not change but I would guess you could certainly find 4 or even 5 different combinations if you choose this all week.

 

Wish I had photo'd the menu and winelist for you. I had the Filet in Portofino and the others had the seafood skewer (and it was wonderful). In Chops I again had the large Filet and can't remember what others had (I told you the wine was GOOD ;)

 

Give the MDR a try and if you don't like it them venture on to the Spec Resturants. Good luck and enjoy the cruise

 

Tiki

[Cruisegirl6]

We will be on the FOS next month and have been in Chops and Portofino's once on each of our past LOS cruises. We enjoyed it very much that this time we booked two nights Chops and two nights Portofino's there are a few different things on each menu that I can't have all in one night so I can try on two evenings in each restaurant. I wish they had another alternative lol but we will dine in the MDR for the two formal evenings as the food is much better during those evenings and the first evening too just to meet our waiter.

 

I say try each one! When we cruised on the LOS they did not have the mystery dinner but I not into that as I found out there is a very very limited set menu for that and not like the choices.