Just got on Empreee 6 June 2016

[Lurontravel]

We boarded Empress right around 1100, minimal lines checking in, and we were allowed right on board and are currently sitting in the lounge area on Deck 8. Doors to the cabins are closed with signs that all staterooms on this deck will be ready at 1300. We settled down in some very comfortable chairs and walked up the two decks to the Windjammer for an early lunch.

 

As you enter the Windjammmer, there is the requisite hand sanitizer stations and also two sinks featuring warm water, soap and paper towels (nice touch). The tables in the Windjammer are very narrow, just enough to put two plates opposite each other, no real room to spare. I guess that's how they plan to accommodate so many guests. The tables seem tight to sit the nunumber of chairs that are there. The buffet was offering hot dogs, hamburgers (fixings were limited to onion slices, pickle relish, lettuce, tomatoes and ketchup/mustard). There was white rice with some sort of Asian chicken to out in it. There was beef in a mushroom sauce, a very very limited salad area, breads, ham, Swiss and American cheese and a few other hot dishes to choose from, including some kind of white fish (it looked appetizing) and a nice looking piece of roast beef at each of the two the carving stations. There was horseradish, brown gravy, two types of pasta, a white sauce and a brown gravy for them. There was a chicken noodle soup (I didn't eat any so I can't comment on) that was not where you would expect it to be, it was on the same counter as the desserts at the far end of the buffet. I almost forgot, there was also French fries, cheese pizza and pizza with ham. There was jello, Napoleon, chocolate things, bread pudding and a couple of other little pastries offered for dessert. The buffet seemed adequate, everyone should be able to find something to fill up on and be satisfied with what was on the buffet. It wasn't extensive by any stretch, but because of the capacity of passengers and the finite space, I don't think anyone should have any major complaints.

 

I did notice that there area couple of ping pong tables outside on deck ten. So, perhaps the ping pong tournaments can happen as scheduled from now on. My sons found a checker board on a shelf in the sitting area on deck eight in the card room. They also had Backgammon and chess boards. I'll try to keep you informed as to our experience as we go along.

[txcowboy10]

Sounds like progress!! Keep us posted and I hope other things have improved onboard and that you enjoy your cruise! 😄

Edited June 6, 2016 by txcowboy10

[Citymom92]

This is all really helpful! Thanks for taking the time to post!

[DirtybirdDave]

Thanks for the update. My family is on the June 11 sailing. Slowly it looks like the kinks are being worked out. I still plan to have rather low expectations and hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised.

[DragonOfTheSeas]

Thanks for posting. I have wondered what progress has been made in the last couple of weeks.

[Saintsfan007]

Please change your screen name!! :D:D

 

I do hope you have a nice cruise on the Empress, we were booted back when they had to do additional work onboard!!

 

Take it easy, DBD!!

[DirtybirdDave]

Lol. My son plays on a baseball team called the Dirty Birds. With a billion screen names on this site, I figured that one wouldn't have been used before. I was right!!

[Lurontravel]

The soft serve ice cream machine has been broken except for a little while on embarkation day, when only vanilla was available, and yesterday when only chocolate was available for an hour or so.

 

Windjammer hasn't seemed crowded so far. However, if you enjoy made to order omelettes in the morning, your only choices are ham, ham and cheese, cheese or plain. The have little slips of paper to place your order on, but they've crossed out all the other ingredients because, "They aren't available." I don't understand, as there are tomatoes, mushrooms, and onions else where on the morning buffet. I asked them to add items I'd place in a bowl to the ham and cheese they offered, requesting lots of cheese and just a small bit of egg and they did, but there was almost no cheese, minimal ham and a ton of egg. Other offerings for breakfast have been lox, cream cheese, a Lender's type of bagel {(previously frozen), one flavor (plain)}, onion, broiled tomato halves, cooked whole mushrooms, cheese slices, several types of white bread, bacon, turkey sausage, sausage, corned beef hash(only one of the days), waffles (they look like they had been frozen too), scrambled eggs, fried eggs, 3-4 types of whole fruit, cut melon, a couple of types of pastries each day, large containers of Rice Krispies (stale), corn flakes, Special K, and Cheerios, yogurt, milk, juice, coffee, tea. Breakfast is better than lunch for selection.

 

Their lunch buffets have been adequate, hamburgers, hot dogs, salad (greens with minimal toppings), lots of breads to choose from(mostly white), a tray of one kind of "lunch meat"(I couldn't identify what kind just by looking),a tray with two types of white cheese (yesterday provolone and Swiss, today baby Swiss and Swiss), and three or four types of fresh fruits every day plus two or three hot items. Today there was pasta with a white sauce (no protein was available for it) and a red sauce with capers (again, no type of protein available to add to it), bbq chicken, bbq ribs, mashed potatoes, white rice and Mongolian beef (looked suspiciously similar to the fajita beef they had out yesterday. Yesterday they offered hard corn taco shells, taco flavored ground beef, sour cream, and salsa. No shredded cheese, you were stuck taking a slice of provolone or Swiss from the sandwich area to make do with, and if you wanted lettuce or onion, you had to take large pieces from the salad bar and make do. They also offered strips of beef with fajita seasoning (barely any flavor at all, did have a red tint to it, though). No additional toppings. Broken soft serve ice cream machine. Yesterday we had squares of left over tira misu (yummy) from the previous nights dinner menu, chocolate cake (yummy), jello, nice looking cream puffs (didn't try them) and apple pie squares. Today they had one type of cookie (chocolate chip), a couple of pastry desserts including some chocolate cake, jello, a yellow (lemon?) thing, and scooped ice cream (chocolate or strawberry) with raisins and walnuts to use as toppings.

 

Dinners menus in the MDR have been smaller than on most RC ships, as I recall, but the food and service has been fine for us (we have my time dining). We have all found something to eat every night that we have enjoyed. We don't have any children young enough to order from a kids menu, so we haven't even looked at it. Everything we have ordered for dinner in the MDR has been available.

 

I have passed through the casino a couple of times and it is noticeably warmer in that area. They do have a few fans out to keep their gamblers a bit more comfortable. I have noticed signs on some restroom doors in public areas stating that they are closed for maintenance. When I was at Windjammer for lunch today, they had a movie playing on the pool screen with the audio working.

 

We arrived in Cozumel this morning and are docked a bit more than two miles south of the downtown area. I walked there and back this morning, as we had decided not to go to Xcaret because there was a 100% chance of thunderstorms starting an hour or two after our arrival that would be lasting until afternoon. Weatherdotcom got it all wrong. We haven't had a drop of rain yet. There are several places to snorkel, scuba and snuba on the way to town. There is also Everybody Loves Rays and Dolphinarias on the way. Taxi rides run $8 to the ferry pier/downtown for up to 4 passengers. I haven't ever been docked at this pier until now. It isn't convenient to the downtown area, that's for sure.

[ctsharpie05]

The soft serve ice cream machine has been broken except for a little while on embarkation day, when only vanilla was available, and yesterday when only chocolate was available for an hour or so.

 

Windjammer hasn't seemed crowded so far. However, if you enjoy made to order omelettes in the morning, your only choices are ham, ham and cheese, cheese or plain. The have little slips of paper to place your order on, but they've crossed out all the other ingredients because, "They aren't available." I don't understand, as there are tomatoes, mushrooms, and onions else where on the morning buffet. I asked them to add items I'd place in a bowl to the ham and cheese they offered, requesting lots of cheese and just a small bit of egg and they did, but there was almost no cheese, minimal ham and a ton of egg. Other offerings for breakfast have been lox, cream cheese, a Lender's type of bagel {(previously frozen), one flavor (plain)}, onion, broiled tomato halves, cooked whole mushrooms, cheese slices, several types of white bread, bacon, turkey sausage, sausage, corned beef hash(only one of the days), waffles (they look like they had been frozen too), scrambled eggs, fried eggs, 3-4 types of whole fruit, cut melon, a couple of types of pastries each day, large containers of Rice Krispies (stale), corn flakes, Special K, and Cheerios, yogurt, milk, juice, coffee, tea. Breakfast is better than lunch for selection.

 

Their lunch buffets have been adequate, hamburgers, hot dogs, salad (greens with minimal toppings), lots of breads to choose from(mostly white), a tray of one kind of "lunch meat"(I couldn't identify what kind just by looking),a tray with two types of white cheese (yesterday provolone and Swiss, today baby Swiss and Swiss), and three or four types of fresh fruits every day plus two or three hot items. Today there was pasta with a white sauce (no protein was available for it) and a red sauce with capers (again, no type of protein available to add to it), bbq chicken, bbq ribs, mashed potatoes, white rice and Mongolian beef (looked suspiciously similar to the fajita beef they had out yesterday. Yesterday they offered hard corn taco shells, taco flavored ground beef, sour cream, and salsa. No shredded cheese, you were stuck taking a slice of provolone or Swiss from the sandwich area to make do with, and if you wanted lettuce or onion, you had to take large pieces from the salad bar and make do. They also offered strips of beef with fajita seasoning (barely any flavor at all, did have a red tint to it, though). No additional toppings. Broken soft serve ice cream machine. Yesterday we had squares of left over tira misu (yummy) from the previous nights dinner menu, chocolate cake (yummy), jello, nice looking cream puffs (didn't try them) and apple pie squares. Today they had one type of cookie (chocolate chip), a couple of pastry desserts including some chocolate cake, jello, a yellow (lemon?) thing, and scooped ice cream (chocolate or strawberry) with raisins and walnuts to use as toppings.

 

Dinners menus in the MDR have been smaller than on most RC ships, as I recall, but the food and service has been fine for us (we have my time dining). We have all found something to eat every night that we have enjoyed. We don't have any children young enough to order from a kids menu, so we haven't even looked at it. Everything we have ordered for dinner in the MDR has been available.

 

I have passed through the casino a couple of times and it is noticeably warmer in that area. They do have a few fans out to keep their gamblers a bit more comfortable. I have noticed signs on some restroom doors in public areas stating that they are closed for maintenance. When I was at Windjammer for lunch today, they had a movie playing on the pool screen with the audio working.

 

We arrived in Cozumel this morning and are docked a bit more than two miles south of the downtown area. I walked there and back this morning, as we had decided not to go to Xcaret because there was a 100% chance of thunderstorms starting an hour or two after our arrival that would be lasting until afternoon. Weatherdotcom got it all wrong. We haven't had a drop of rain yet. There are several places to snorkel, scuba and snuba on the way to town. There is also Everybody Loves Rays and Dolphinarias on the way. Taxi rides run $8 to the ferry pier/downtown for up to 4 passengers. I haven't ever been docked at this pier until now. It isn't convenient to the downtown area, that's for sure.

 

Thank you!

[Citymom92]

Thank you so much for this incredibly detailed food review. It is so very much appreciated by many, me especially!

 

The more I hear about the issues with the Empress, it seems to me that most of the problems stem from keeping the Pullmantur crew on for now a US based clientele. The menus just seem so...wrong. Raisins as toppings for ice cream? Not willing to chop up a tomato and throw it in the omelette? How about shredded cheddar or monterey jack for tacos? So strange.

 

The MDR with so many items "not available" also sounds like the kitchen staff are unable or unwilling to cook too many things, which, of course, is ridiculous. But maybe this is how they operated for years on Pullmantur.

 

And don't even get me started on the presentation of the food on the buffet. It looks worse than almost any buffet I have ever seen, and I am not comparing it to the Easter buffet at the Willard here in DC. I'm talking worse than the cafeteria food in my kids DC Public Schools, and believe me, that's bad.

 

The info trickling out about the bartenders ignoring people or kids with the soda cups, 15-20 min waits for a drink make me question if it's even worth getting the drink packages at this point. I was going to get my husband and me the Ultimate, and the kids the Royal Replenish, it's about $800. I'm willing to pay it, but not if we can't get a drink when we want it.

 

I am still hoping for these staff training/menu/equipment issues to be fixed before we cruise on July 18th. There's not really much else I can do.

[jt1120]

Thanks for all of the info. We will be sailing on the Empress in July and are looking forward to it. Keep the info coming!

[Merion_Mom]

 

There was a chicken noodle soup (I didn't eat any so I can't comment on) that was not where you would expect it to be, it was on the same counter as the desserts at the far end of the buffet. I almost forgot, there was also French fries, cheese pizza and pizza with ham. There was jello, Napoleon, chocolate things, bread pudding and a couple of other little pastries offered for dessert. The buffet seemed adequate, everyone should be able to find something to fill up on and be satisfied with what was on the buffet. It wasn't extensive by any stretch, but because of the capacity of passengers and the finite space, I don't think anyone should have any major complaints.

 

 

 

What?!?!?!? You don't eat soup for dessert?!?!? :eek:

 

Just kidding.

 

Thank you for such a detailed description. I know that it will be helpful to those who are waiting for their Empress cruises. :)

[Paulette3028]

What?!?!?!? You don't eat soup for dessert?!?!? :eek:

 

 

Thank you for such a detailed description. I know that it will be helpful to those who are waiting for their Empress cruises. :)

 

I just need to add this.....when my husband was growing up, it was common in his house for his mother to serve soup after the main course. Of course her logic probably was that she did not want anyone filling up on her chicken soup and matzoh balls and be unable to eat the main course.

 

The truth!

[stormynow]

OP, have noticed on many comments nothing to eat from dinner time to 11:30. Whats available at 11:30pm? Thanks Stormy

[Lurontravel]

Thanks for keeping me amused with you comments to my posts so far.

 

In my previous post, I forgot to add that each morning in Windjammer they have also had hot cereal with raisins and hot milk available. By the way, I think it's important to note that the vegetable soup they had at the Windjammer for lunch today looked like a broth with a bag of frozen mixed vegetables thrown in it. The cream of chicken soup was a creamy (thin-ish) soup with almost nothing in the bottom. Yesterday's soups at lunch were different than today's, but, also looked watered down with very little in them. I haven't tried any of the soups at Windjammer, so I can't comment on the flavor. I did try the French Onion Soup in the MDR, and while the flavor was pretty good, there was no bread and no cheese! :eek: that is my all-time favorite soup and it was such a disappointment. The rolls in the MDR are delicious, especially with butter! Thank heavens...they have the potential to be exquisite, if only they were served warm...

 

We haven't had the rock climbing wall open until today, such a bummer. Not the crew's fault, the weather wasn't good on the trip over, it pretty much rained the entire time... Anyway, when we got back on the ship this evening, we were very pleasantly surprised to find that it was still open. :D Adrian and Vinnie (in charge of rock climbing) kept it open an hour longer than scheduled to try to mark up for yesterday. We appreciated it VERY much. They truly went over and above.

 

My sons thanked me profusely this evening for getting them the wifi pkg (w/o streaming). There is truly VERYlittle for teens to do on this ship. The only activity yesterday was rock climbing for teens from 5-6 that was canceled due to weather.

 

I will try to notice this evening what I'd on the late night "snack" buffet, open from ten til midnight...I'm usually tucked into my cabin by then.

 

 

I missed last night's show, but the first evening they had a decent comedian. He was fifty-ish and did a lot focused on that age group. He wasn't R rated, maybe PG13 at worst. They have another comedian tonight, I plan to try to see him.