Specialty Restaurants on Spirit One Warning

[luckyoldsun]

I was recently on the Norwegian Spirit Eastern Caribbean Cruise 1/2/16 - 1/9/16. Cruise was really nice, how can you not have a good time on a cruise. Stops in Nassau, St. Thomas (yes you tender and it is awful as you go to other side of bay not the cruise ship docks), last stop was Tortola.

 

Ship is in nice shape for its age. I have just one complaint and I want to save all of you $20.00. My Girlfriend and I bought the 4 night dining package to eat at all four specialty restaurants. Cagney's, Teppanyaki, and Le Bistro were all very good with food and serve.

 

La Trattoria was an awful meal. I ordered lasagna which took one hour to get. It was the worst lasagna I have ever eaten. Burnt, dry and tasted like taco meat. In being fair my girlfriend had a steak that wasn't that bad. Still took one hour from the time we finished our salads to get our main course.

 

Two nights later in the FREE Garden Restaurant they had lasagna on the menu.....of course I had to order a piece to see what is was like. The same exact lasagna served in the specialty restaurant. HORRIBLE. Why do they charge $20.00 for the same food.

 

I went to customer service to ask this same question. The response I got was "La Trattoria has there own kitchen to prepare meals" I asked with same ingredients as free dining. They had no comment.

 

So please do not go to the La Trattoria restaurant on the Spirit. You are wasting your money.

 

Other than that the cruise was awesome.

[barnacle_boy]

You took the last cruise on Spirit with cover charges and old menus. La Trattoria already has lasagna dishes that are different from the one you disliked.

[Mack704]

A couple of questions please:

 

1) Did you sit patiently for the entire hour or did you question the waitstaff or the matre'd after a reasonable time? I would have inquired after 15-20 minutes at the most. After 1/2 hr. I would have left and asked for a refund.

 

2) When the lasagna finally arrived and turned out to be bad, did you send it back and request a replacement, or did you just accept it and let it ruin your dinner?

 

Or did you wait the hour, accept the food and just complained (or warned us) about it now on Cruise Critic? I've read on these boards at least 100 times NCL would rather you let them try to correct the situation when it happens, instead of stewing in it and take it to these boards after.

 

Harvey

[luckyoldsun]

Harvey:

 

Yes i did inquire about why it was taking so long for our food, three times.

They said they we short handed.

 

I am not a complainer and want free food....I move on.

 

Bottom line is Norwegian charged $20.00 for the same food they serve in the free restaurants

[punkincc]

Harvey:

 

Yes i did inquire about why it was taking so long for our food, three times.

They said they we short handed.

 

I am not a complainer and want free food....I move on.

 

Bottom line is Norwegian charged $20.00 for the same food they serve in the free restaurants

 

I'm not suggesting bad dishes and poor service are acceptable, but your argument that lasagna should not be on both the specialty menu and the MDR or buffet menu is a little much. And I would not be surprised if the recipes were the same. Same ship, same chefs. I have had spaghetti in the MDR, so does that mean someone at the Italian restaurant should not be able to order it too?

 

There are any number of menu items you could have ordered that were not available in any of the free restaurants. Your choice to make it lasagna. But you should be able to expect the lasagna to be good, even the lasagna in the buffet. If you had simply told the waiter the dish was bad, they probably would have immediately offered you something else.

[Moby0215]

Just because you don't like something does not mean that your tastebuds should be all that NCL is concerned about. I'm pretty sure that the chef thinks it tastes good as well as plenty other patrons.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[punkincc]

Just because you don't like something does not mean that your tastebuds should be all that NCL is concerned about. I'm pretty sure that the chef thinks it tastes good as well as plenty other patrons.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Not to your taste, is different from poorly prepared. I did not like my spaghetti in the MDR. It was properly prepared as far as I know, and probably plenty of people liked it. It was just not how "I" like it. When they inquired whether they could provide something else from the menu, I had the choice of accepting or not. They do care that you are happy with what you order.

 

The OP said the lasagna was dry and burnt. This is different than just not caring for the dish. He should have sent it back, but even when there is no problem with a dish they will offer something else.

[dexddd]

Well, this is pretty much what we see on NCL in restaurants, you are not certain to get consistency. We sailed the Western on the Spirit a few weeks prior and we had stayed away from the NCL Italian restaurants after poor service and just o.k. food a few years back.

 

On this trip we used one of our free platinum meals there since DW is just so so with Le Bistro. We had great service - very fast - and our dinner was great. I had the chicken parm and DW had one of the other chicken dishes.

 

The restaurant was maybe 20% full though but other times we went by there it wasn't ever over 50% full. On the Spirit they block off part of the buffet and they cook behind the dividers so the food at least doesn't travel very far.

 

One of the nights we did the MDR and I had the beef lasagna and I thought it was very good. It did look just like what they had at La Trattoria though from what I could see others who got it.