Is Food Really that Bad on HAL

[Funsun60]

I have been reading some other threads, and I am really confused about what the issue is re: HAL meals. Is it 1) lack of choice or 2) poor quality of food or 3) poorly cooked food or 4) poor service coupled with one or all of the above? I am getting the impression from some posts the MDR meals almost equate with fast food cafes as opposed to medium/high range restaurants. I guess we hoped for a minimum equivilent of a medium priced land based restaurant. Coming from western Canada, my husband does like his steaks..one poster indicated their steak could not be cut even with a steak knife. We are neither "gourmets" nor "gourmands" but as we are on an 18 night cruise, we were anticipating some well prepared food with acceptable cuts of meat. Are we expecting too much??:confused:

[CruiserBruce]

Food is extremely subjective. 100 people would probably give 100 different opinions, for 100 different reasons.

 

Given all the considerations- number of people to serve in a limited time being the most prominent, the food is pretty good. If you want true gourmet food, a mainstream cruise line is not the place to find it, except for perhaps in a surcharge resturant.

[startwin]

I find the food very good on HAL. It's true that there have been cutbacks in quality in some areas, beef not as tender as before, for instance, but I have enjoyed all my meals onboard. One evening my DH had a very tough steak from the main menu, and ordered the sirloin steak instead from the everyday menu, and it was good.

[kazu]

I have found that the food varies from ship to ship - but no matter what ship you are on -it is very edible:) Food is subjetive -but no one starves on a HAL ship (and I am relatively fussy).:)

 

 

Best meals for me so far have been on the Rotterdam, the Zuiderdam and without question the Prinsendam - but it's all subjective - meals are really decent = don't worry about the people posting.

 

btw - normally HAL does it's Prime Rib really well (if you are so inclined).

 

Smooth seas:)

[tip]

We sailed on the Noordam in January and had terrific experiences in the MDR, the Lido buffet, and in the Pinnacle Grill. Okay, we did feel that Canaletto was mediocre at best, but that was just one meal out of over twenty! I really enjoy beef and had excellent steaks several nights in the MDR and the Pinnacle Grill was outstanding!

 

I think that many of the negative comments about dining and poor food qualities are classic Shakespeare's. That is, much ado about nothing!;)

[LVSue]

I don't know if you saw this thread about favorite food, but you might enjoy it.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1678786&highlight=favorite

[3rdGenCunarder]

We were happy with HAL's food on our three recent HAL cruises. I can't remember sitting at dinner and wishing I'd ordered something else, or hearing a comment like that from a table companion.

 

I think the cutbacks are showing up in service more than the food. Waiters have more tables to take care of than they used to, and some don't cope well. As a result, one of the tables under your waiter's care may get slower service than others. We've had excellent service and so-so service. One waiter and assistant we had were incredible. They had a lot of tables and never missed a beat, even had time to be friendly. True pros. Others are less experienced and have trouble keeping up. But even if service is slow, unless it's so slow that you can't get to the show, it isn't like you're in a hurry, no train to catch or anything like that.

[Watson's aunt]

Hi

 

I was on HAL Amserdam June29-July13 I am a very picky eater all I can say the food was outstanding. I ate all my meals in the MDR. The selection was excellent. The cold soup was outstanding I am going to see if I can find a reciept for those. One night at dinner I asked for seconds it was so good.

 

 

Mary

[readytogo2]

I'm hoping the food didn't go that far downhill. Even though our one and only cruise with HAL was in 2004, my family rated the food and service above Celebrity,Princess,Carnival and RCI.

[magandab]

I think the food on HAL ranges from good to exceptional. That said, I tend to avoid steak and the like in the MDR and save it for the Pinnacle. I don't eat a lot of meat so when I do have it I want it to be worth the calorie/fat/cholesterol cost. One in a while something is not quite right, but the steward will be happy to exchange it for something else.

[Funsun60]

Thank you for all the replies/opinions. We are not overly fussy eaters, but do appreciate good quality of food. From some of the menu items listed in this thread, I think we will be pretty happy: a lot more variety than ever comes out of my kitchen (and no dishes to do afterwards).

[sail7seas]

I never have steak in MDR so cannot comment except for steaks in Pinnacle. That is one of the few places either at home or on a ship that I do order steak from time to time as I like their petite filet and the bone-in ribeye A LOT. :) I have found them consistently good when I 'let' myself have one.

 

We had the best food on Oosterdam and thought it very good. Nieuw Amsterdam less so but Maasdam some very good, a few meals excellent and then a few things we didn't care for.

 

Some of what I haven't cared for in MDR for the few meals when I wasn't 'thrilled' was more menu choices than quality, preparation or service. I think they are using less costly ingredients than previously but are being very creative with how they prepare them. Our service has been excellent on all the ships.

Taste is so subjective and it is so hard trying to feed so many people and make them all happy all the time.

 

My main message is we think the food good on all the ships and varying degrees of very good and sometimes excellent on some of the ships we have sailed recently.

 

Pinnacle on all the ships was excellent in our experience. Tamarind on Nieuw Amsterdam is outstanding IMO

[aliaschief]

Sometimes I wish the food was bad and I wouldn't always have to be on diets between cruises!:)

 

We could be described as "Foodies" and have been very satisfied with the food presentations and quality. As said, some ships have been better than others but all IMO have been very acceptable.

 

With all of our Hal cruises we have also gained enough experience from the offered menus to make decisions on what we have tried and enjoyed the most from previous cruises.

 

I have had the same meal on the first night of all our Hal cruises. First night is always Prime Rib Night!;)

[TraelorMex]

Of all the things you could possibly be dissapointed in, quality of food and comfort of the beds are two that will not dissapoint.

 

One more thing; a pet peeve of mine.....it irks me when people always qualify their remarks, i.e. food is very subjective, then go on to relay their experiences.

 

Take my word for it, the QUALITY of mdr food is excellent. And, for an absolutley superb experience, visit the pinnacle grill...talk about 'quality' :)

[PathfinderEss]

I have been reading some other threads, and I am really confused about what the issue is re: HAL meals. Is it 1) lack of choice or 2) poor quality of food or 3) poorly cooked food or 4) poor service coupled with one or all of the above? I am getting the impression from some posts the MDR meals almost equate with fast food cafes as opposed to medium/high range restaurants. I guess we hoped for a minimum equivilent of a medium priced land based restaurant. Coming from western Canada, my husband does like his steaks..one poster indicated their steak could not be cut even with a steak knife. We are neither "gourmets" nor "gourmands" but as we are on an 18 night cruise, we were anticipating some well prepared food with acceptable cuts of meat. Are we expecting too much??:confused:

No you are not expecting too much. In most cases the food on Hal is very good, certainly better then Celebrity, Carnival, RCI and Princess.

I think right now the service is a little slow but that has more to do with stewards covering more tables and now servicing all drinks except for bottles of wine.

Hal's Lido has good quality food with great selection. There specialty restaurants are wonderful. I only have one complain and that is with Canaletto, I feel the food in there is quite meteoric.

 

[irisheileen]

Thank you for all the replies/opinions. We are not overly fussy eaters, but do appreciate good quality of food. From some of the menu items listed in this thread, I think we will be pretty happy: a lot more variety than ever comes out of my kitchen (and no dishes to do afterwards).

 

Yeah!! No dishes!!! I love that part.

[wallyboag]

I would compare the food in the main dining room to a good wedding banquet. It was good and satisfying and while there weren't a ton of options, nobody at our table had trouble finding something they would like. I also heard no complaints about the quality of the food. Service was slow however and the servers would disappear for long periods of time.

[Muffinis#1]

Just got off the Oosterdam 1st time on HAL and my husband is very picky and we both enjoyed the food very much!!!!! When we were on pride of america we couldn't eat anything, but HAL was good. Room Service is good, so don't know about any one else but we had good food

[Hlitner]

We have found major differences between food on different HA ships. On the Prinsendam food is normally very good....but last year when we were on the Rotterdam we were extremely underwhelmed.

 

Hank

[surfsidemary]

We have found major differences between food on different HA ships. On the Prinsendam food is normally very good....but last year when we were on the Rotterdam we were extremely underwhelmed.

 

Hank

 

My experience is similar but it is not about a difference in ships. Within the past two years I found the food on the Amsterdam (2010) to be Very Good; the Eurodam (2011) to be Good, and the food on my 2012 Prinsendam cruise was, to be generous, Poor in quality. I don't know what caused it, but it felt like dramatic cost-cutting of the food budget between 2010 and 2012.

[sun~]

I would agree with Wallyboag on this one. It is like wedding banquet food. Some things are good, most is just ok. However, if you want a good cut of beef, don't go to the MDR. Please bear in mind the OP is lucky to live in Alberta, which produces the world's best beef. At least at the Pinnicle or at the Tamarind, the meat is cooked to order, but sadly not from Alberta.

 

I have found the service in the MDRs on HAL to be very spotty. It will depend on your servers. In my experience, the servers usually work their butts off to please the guests. So don't worry if one meal service isn't perfect, tomorrow is another day! And hey, you don't have to cook or clean up!

[Hlitner]

No you are not expecting too much. In most cases the food on Hal is very good, certainly better then Celebrity, Carnival, RCI and Princess.

[

 

We are going to respectfully disagree about comparison. We find the food on Celebrity to be as good as HA and in quite a few cases far superior. As to Princess, they do some things very well (the best pizza on the 7 seas) and in some areas such as desserts are far superior to what we get on HA. We sometimes get the feeling that HA has taken some of their MDR items down a few notches to encourage folks to go to the Pinnacle.

 

With regard to Celebrity, some of their recent innovations put HA to shame. Aqua Class, which includes dining in a small special restaurant (Blu) is very innovative and on many cruises the additional cost of Aqua Class is very small. Some of the alternative restaurants on the Solstice Class ships such as The Lawn and Qsine are a totally new concept on ships and quite good. The upscale Murano absolutely puts the Pinnacle to shame....but at a pretty big price ($40). To be really blunt, we would currently choose Celebrity over HA in most categories and about the only reason we keep coming back to HA (we are 4 star) are for the fantastic itineraries.

 

Hank

[dakrewser]

We found the quality of the food and the preperation to be better in April (on the Ryndam) then it was 4-5 years ago (we consider that the low point of HAL food), and comparable to very good banquet food, and better class chain restaurants. THe service was a tad slower this time around, but still quite good.

[bluehorizonlover123]

The food on HAL is fine, it is the entertainment that is lacking, and the food availability. What I mean is, on HAL the entire ship closes down and everything is dead after 9pm. No food is available and no late night entertainment is available. It is as if everyone on the ship went to bed.

[RuthC]

What I mean is, on HAL the entire ship closes down and everything is dead after 9pm. No food is available and no late night entertainment is available. It is as if everyone on the ship went to bed.

Somewhat of an exaggeration here. By 9:00 some of us don't even have our entreé yet. Then, the show comes on at 10:00 or 10:15. Music for dancing is playing in at least one lounge until at least 11:30. Expect the Piano Bar and Casino to be open and going strong even after that.