Crab Shack - ALL YOU CAN EAT?

[dvcmember]

Sailing on the Regal next month and want to dine during the Crab Shack event. Does anyone know if the seafood is unlimited or pre-portioned? I love cab legs, but one set will not justify the $20 cover charge.

[Colo Cruiser]

Sailing on the Regal next month and want to dine during the Crab Shack event. Does anyone know if the seafood is unlimited or pre-portioned? I love cab legs, but one set will not justify the $20 cover charge.

 

 

Yes unlimited.

Edited January 12, 2015 by Colo Cruiser

[VaCruzers]

It's not just all you can eat, it's MORE than you can eat !! Plus I was very surprised to find that I LOVED the soup!

[fishywood]

...one set will not justify the $20 cover charge.

 

Whether you order the King Crab legs or the mixed crab bowl your initial serving will be double the size of what you pay $40-50 for at a seafood chain restaurant. And as soon as you make a dent in it your waiter will be offering to bring more. (The mixed bowl contained a giant king crab leg plus the two largest snow crab clusters I have ever seen)

 

And I also wish that every restaurant made their Manhattan chowder as it was at Crab Shack.

[--mike--]

Just got off the Star Princess January 3 and the Crab Shack was NOT all you can eat. We were a party of two and the waiter suggested the Star's Mixed Steamer since that has the most crab. I specifically asked if we could order more and I was told no. We received two king crab legs and two snow crab clusters along with other shellfish in total - not each. I did not feel like the meal was a good value. The shrimp are the same shrimp served in the dining room - all you can eat in the dining room but not in the Crab shack. I was also very disappointed with the dessert choices at the Crab Shack - the Black Forest gateau was awful. The cake was very dry and dense.

The Crab Shack was a low point in terms of dining on our Hawaii cruise. I thought the dining room food was some of the best I've had on Princess. Sabatini's and the Crown Grill were excellent.

[Colo Cruiser]

Just got off the Star Princess January 3 and the Crab Shack was NOT all you can eat. We were a party of two and the waiter suggested the Star's Mixed Steamer since that has the most crab. I specifically asked if we could order more and I was told no. We received two king crab legs and two snow crab clusters along with other shellfish in total - not each. I did not feel like the meal was a good value. The shrimp are the same shrimp served in the dining room - all you can eat in the dining room but not in the Crab shack. I was also very disappointed with the dessert choices at the Crab Shack - the Black Forest gateau was awful. The cake was very dry and dense.

The Crab Shack was a low point in terms of dining on our Hawaii cruise. I thought the dining room food was some of the best I've had on Princess. Sabatini's and the Crown Grill were excellent.

 

 

4 ships, 8 plus meals at the Crab Shack and its been all you can eat everytime.

You must have had a crabby waiter.

Edited January 12, 2015 by Colo Cruiser

[cruiselvr1]

Does anyone have a picture of the Crab Shack menu? We are sailing on the Grand in November and I cant wait to try it.

[Jasperdo]

Does anyone have a picture of the Crab Shack menu? We are sailing on the Grand in November and I cant wait to try it.

Here you go:

 

[geoherb]

The menu we had two weeks ago on the Caribbean Princess was slightly different. The mixed steamer did not include the king crab. DH ordered it. I shared some of my king crab with him from my order (with peel-and-eat shrimp). We were too full to ask for more of anything.

[Grammyluvs]

Does anyone know if you can substitute King Crab legs for more peel and eat shrimp or vice versa?

[elliair]

Just got off the Star Princess January 3 and the Crab Shack was NOT all you can eat. We were a party of two and the waiter suggested the Star's Mixed Steamer since that has the most crab. I specifically asked if we could order more and I was told no. We received two king crab legs and two snow crab clusters along with other shellfish in total - not each. I did not feel like the meal was a good value. The shrimp are the same shrimp served in the dining room - all you can eat in the dining room but not in the Crab shack. I was also very disappointed with the dessert choices at the Crab Shack - the Black Forest gateau was awful. The cake was very dry and dense.

The Crab Shack was a low point in terms of dining on our Hawaii cruise. I thought the dining room food was some of the best I've had on Princess. Sabatini's and the Crown Grill were excellent.

 

You are not the first to say this. We will be on the Star tomorrow and though we would like to eat at the Crab Shack, I feel as though it will be a waste of money but even more so a disappointment. On our last cruise on the Star DH and I were looking at the menu. A passenger walked out of the Crab Shack and said "don't waste your money eating here." He said it wasn't worth it and the crab was awful, hard to get out of the shell and too salty. We'll eat at the Steakhouse one night, we've never been disappointed in the food there. I'll order lobster, last time they gave me 2 lobsters, DH ate the other one.:p

[geoherb]

Does anyone know if you can substitute King Crab legs for more peel and eat shrimp or vice versa?

There was an all shrimp option on the menu but I did not see an all crab leg version. I wouldn't have minded trying the crawfish but did not ask about sampling a few of them with our main courses.

[MSN-Travelers]

It was all you can eat when we were aboard Emerald. The "Entrée" was a large bowl of seafood served per couple. It was not an individual Entrée per person when we did it but that may have changed. We were told that we could have as much as we wanted and we did order a second serving of the snow crab & king crab.

 

Enjoy!

[RocketMan275]

It was all you can eat when we were aboard Emerald. The "Entrée" was a large bowl of seafood served per couple. It was not an individual Entrée per person when we did it but that may have changed. We were told that we could have as much as we wanted and we did order a second serving of the snow crab & king crab.

 

Enjoy!

 

I don't know if it was "all you can eat" when we were on CB. But I do know it was "all we could eat". When the waiter took our order, my wife ordered first and I said I'll take the same thing. So they brought us two of the bowls of sea food. After the meal we told the waiter it was too much food and he told us normally they only bring one but he thought we asked for two. BTW, the appetizers are great and we thought the dessert was one of the best we had on that cruise.

[commie]

You are not the first to say this. We will be on the Star tomorrow and though we would like to eat at the Crab Shack, I feel as though it will be a waste of money but even more so a disappointment. On our last cruise on the Star DH and I were looking at the menu. A passenger walked out of the Crab Shack and said "don't waste your money eating here." He said it wasn't worth it and the crab was awful, hard to get out of the shell and too salty. We'll eat at the Steakhouse one night, we've never been disappointed in the food there. I'll order lobster, last time they gave me 2 lobsters, DH ate the other one.:p

 

I also concur with this sentiment. Not very impressed with the Crab Shack at all on the recent Island Princess cruise.

It was all you can eat, but after finishing the first bowl, we just didn't want to have any more. And I am a big seafood fan.

 

The quality of the crab is what you get at the supermarket with the frozen crabs. Very salty and the meat is soft.

Not sure why the Crab Shack gets all this fan fare, maybe for folks not able to eat/get the fresh seafood it may be a good option, but for anyone that has eaten or know what fresh seafood is, the Crab Shack is a big pass.

[bhopal21]

The quality of the crab is what you get at the supermarket with the frozen crabs. Very salty and the meat is soft.

Not sure why the Crab Shack gets all this fan fare, maybe for folks not able to eat/get the fresh seafood it may be a good option, but for anyone that has eaten or know what fresh seafood is, the Crab Shack is a big pass.

 

I could not agree more.

 

Mike:)

[pennst8r]

I've got to agree about Crab Shack...not overly impressed. I had it on the Regal last month and, trust me, I've had better King Crab legs.

 

I ordered the pot with King Crab legs that was supposed to come with peel-and-eat shrimp. I love steamed clams and asked if I could have them instead of the shrimp (the clams were available in one of the other pot combinations).

 

I got what I asked for but was disappointed. The clam shells were the size of a quarter and the "meat" inside was weenie-teenie. The crab was sliced in half lengthwise and it was the smallest Alaskan King Crab leg I've ever seen. The original pot had three or four halves and it wasn't the whole leg. It looked like the last joint of the leg where it became skinny.

 

Each person was provided with about three crab "tools" which served little purpose as the "meat" was exposed. It was almost impossible to get a whole piece of crab from the shell because of the way it had been sawed (?) in half and was so thin.

 

Yes, the waiter willing brought more of what anyone in our roll call group of seven wanted. The guy sitting across from me had more crab and some larger shrimp that was available in one of the other pots and I ate his peel-and-eat shrimp. I LOVE King Crab but preferred the shrimp--a shellfish I generally can take or leave.

 

Based on what I ordered, I wouldn't do Crab Shack again. Those who had the pot with the larger shrimp and other stuff seemed to enjoy their meal, though. As had been said many times before, food is subjective. The company, however, was great and we had a good time!

[Once Upon A Time]

Possibly the suppliers are different on the East and West Coast.. We've enjoyed the Crab Shack a couple of times on West Coast itineraries.. I only had King Crab legs and Shrimp and they were both excellent and what I would expect to get from a Seattle seafood restaurant.. On one of our cruises my Head Waiter was kind enough to tell me that they didn't get King Crab legs loaded and were substituting all Snow Crab.. I suppose that may have happened on other cruises as well.. We skipped the Crab Shack on that cruise.

I have some allergies and the desserts were not something I could eat, This was on the Grand, so I was told that I could go into the buffet and find something else…or they would go find me a dessert from the MDR.. I was too full anyway, but I thought it was a very kind offer..

[Viesczy]

Everyone answered the OP's question, so I have a question for everyone.

 

Why does anyone WANT to eat the bottom dwelling bugs?

 

Say you're standing by a filthy, stinking dumpster and a cockroach the size of a football walks on up out of the waste, you going to grab that and swallow it thinking it is some rare delicacy?

[logan25]

All in good fun.

 

Have you seen what pigs will eat? My grandpa raised a few hogs, so I know. But try dissuading people from eating bacon.

[dchip]

I have not posted anything about our experience in October, on the Star, because I hoped our experience was one very bad night. It doesn't seem it was. Here is our experience.

 

We were seated and sat for 20 minutes before I signaled a server and asked if someone could take our drink order. 15 minutes later we got our drinks and ordered the option with crab legs, red skinned boiled potatoes and peel and eat shrimp. There was only one server and the head waiter. The server brought in 18 bowls of soup for nine tables at once. He then proceeded to bib and serve a table at a time. Okay no big deal, we weren't going anywhere.

 

Then we get our entrees. It was a L O N G wait. The table next to us, had ordered before us and still didn't have any food. Back to our entree. There were a couple peel and eat hot shrimp, the rest were limp and cold. The type you get on a shrimp cocktail. The potatoes were seriously a joke. We had two huge baked potatoes each at the bottom of the bowl, they were cold and hard. Then my DH wrestled a beautiful piece of crab out of the leg and gave it to me. Lovely, except it was still frozen!!!!!

 

People at next table still have no food.

 

Okay, frozen crab, horrible potatoes, limp shrimp, time to talk to the head waiter. I signal Joseph and he came over. I start explaining how disappointed we are in the entrees and he says. "That's too bad". I begin to talk to him again and he turns his back and walks away. That was it! My BP went sky high. I went into the Horizon Court and asked to see Joseph's supervisor. He came in looked at our entrees and was horrified. He got Joseph to come to the table and he had nothing to say. At this point the diners at the next table chimed in (still no food) as did several other unhappy folks. None of us paid for our dinner.

 

We were really disappointed after hearing so many wonderful reviews on the Crab Shack. The photos posted have been mouth watering. I was in such a state of shock it never occurred to me to take a photo of our food.

 

Looks like the Crab Shack on the Star hasn't gotten much better. On the other hand, the Crown Grill was the best on any ship we have sailed. Gabriel ran his service like a 5 star restaurant. We ate there four times in two weeks and every meal was stunning!!

 

Cheers, Denise

Edited January 13, 2015 by dchip

[Colo Cruiser]

I have not posted anything about our experience in October, on the Star, because I hoped our experience was one very bad night. It doesn't seem it was. Here is our experience.

 

We were seated and sat for 20 minutes before I signaled a server and asked if someone could take our drink order. 15 minutes later we got our drinks and ordered the option with crab legs, red skinned boiled potatoes and peel and eat shrimp. There was only one server and the head waiter. The server brought in 18 bowls of soup for nine tables at once. He then proceeded to bib and serve a table at a time. Okay no big deal, we weren't going anywhere.

 

Then we get our entrees. It was a L O N G wait. The table next to us, had ordered before us and still didn't have any food. Back to our entree. There were a couple peel and eat hot shrimp, the rest were limp and cold. The type you get on a shrimp cocktail. The potatoes were seriously a joke. We had two huge baked potatoes each at the bottom of the bowl, they were cold and hard. Then my DH wrestled a beautiful piece of crab out of the leg and gave it to me. Lovely, except it was still frozen!!!!!

 

People at next table still have no food.

 

Okay, frozen crab, horrible potatoes, limp shrimp, time to talk to the head waiter. I signal Joseph and he came over. I start explaining how disappointed we are in the entrees and he says. "That's too bad". I begin to talk to him again and he turns his back and walks away. That was it! My BP went sky high. I went into the Horizon Court and asked to see Joseph's supervisor. He came in looked at our entrees and was horrified. He got Joseph to come to the table and he had nothing to say. At this point the diners at the next table chimed in (still no food) as did several other unhappy folks. None of us paid for our dinner.

 

We were really disappointed after hearing so many wonderful reviews on the Crab Shack. The photos posted have been mouth watering. I was in such a state of shock it never occurred to me to take a photo of our food.

 

Looks like the Crab Shack on the Star hasn't gotten much better. On the other hand, the Crown Grill was the best on any ship we have sailed. Gabriel ran his service like a 5 star restaurant. We ate there four times in two weeks and every meal was stunning!!

 

Cheers, Denise

 

 

Denise....

Hope when you brought this up they comped your meals. :(

Edited January 13, 2015 by Colo Cruiser

[bhopal21]

Hi Denise,

 

We had a Gabriel for Head Waiter in Sabatini's onboard the Ruby Princess beginning October 22nd. Could it be the same person?

 

He was on top of every detail in that restaurant.

 

Mike:)

[dchip]

Denise....

Hope when you brought this up they comped your meals. :(

 

They comped our meals and four other tables. The poor folks with no food also received a bottle of wine. We were comped our scheduled dinner at the Crown Grill the next night.

 

All we wanted was a great seafood dinner, that wasn't to be.

 

Cheers, Denise

[dchip]

Hi Denise,

 

We had a Gabriel for Head Waiter in Sabatini's onboard the Ruby Princess beginning October 22nd. Could it be the same person?

 

He was on top of every detail in that restaurant.

 

Mike:)

 

Hi Mike,

 

It is possible although there is usually a break between ships. Our cruise ended 10/18.

 

He was amazing and did handle every little detail. He made sure we had our same waiter and a lovely booth by the window. Our last dinner there, he had our appetizers ready when we arrived!! What a difference in two dining rooms and two head waiters on the same cruise!!

 

Cheers, Denise

Edited January 13, 2015 by dchip
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