Buffet on P&O Aurora

[mactire]

We are going on a cruise from Singapore to Sydney on the Aurora in February 2017 and as we are not lovers of the main restaurants we usually use the buffet. Can anyone let us know what the food in the buffet on the Aurora is like?

Thanks.

Patrick

[Hols4]

Hols4

Was on Aurora last month and the food in the buffet was good,they have themed evenings every night,so if you only like British food not a lot to choose from if it's not a British themed evening,although there are hot meals lunch time.

 

 

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[mactire]

Thanks for the reply. We travel a lot so world food is very welcome. We usually find the buffet satisfies our needs.

[MTElkwhistle]

We are just back from Aurora and compared to our last trip on her 7 years ago were disappointed in the evening buffet on the one night we tried it (Italian). It was however busy so I guess we were in the minority.

Breakfast and lunch were good though.

[Cahpek]

Hols4

We are going on a cruise from Singapore to Sydney on the Aurora in February 2017 and as we are not lovers of the main restaurants we usually use the buffet. Can anyone let us know what the food in the buffet on the Aurora is like?

Thanks.

Patrick

 

 

We had not very good experience last Feb 2015 with the dinner buffet when we sailed on the Aurora from Rio de Janeiro to Valparaiso.

 

Lunch buffet was pretty good, and the desserts were especially delicious (not usually expensive gateaux, but good wholesome British desserts). However, the buffet dinner was almost like an "afterthought". It was as if they were encouraging passengers to dine in the sit-down dining rooms rather than in the buffet restaurant.

 

If we remember correctly,one evening when the buffet theme was some sort of carvery, and the joint of meat they had on display was so small it would struggle to serve 6-7 people! We had thought then, "H'mmmmm, how stingy could that be!" The choice of foods for their buffet dinners were also much reduced from what was being offered at lunch.

 

Buffet dinners on the Aurora were probably the least good buffets we have ever come across on any of our cruises including on non-P&O cruises.

 

We are lovers of buffets on board ships, but we never looked forward to the dinner buffet on the Aurora. The ship has a lot of strengths but their dinner buffet was not one of them.

 

Another curious thing about P&O Buffets on the Aurora was their breakfast. You would have thought that being a British influenced ship, their breakfast sausages would be one of the best. We were disappointed with that too, unfortunately.

 

As we indicated, the best meal of the day in the buffet restaurant was during lunch time.

 

Of course, things might have changed after one and a half years.

 

In fact, we are planning to go on the P&O Ventura early next year, hope their buffet dinners will be better than on the Aurora (does anyone know)? When we sail with P&O, it is their other attractions which made us decide to go with them, we just keep an eye closed about their buffet dinners. One thing's for sure, like on most cruise ships, you will never go hungry, there is always somewhere on board you can enjoy your meal to fill you!

Edited December 19, 2016 by Cahpek

[Cahpek]

We are going on a cruise from Singapore to Sydney on the Aurora in February 2017 and as we are not lovers of the main restaurants we usually use the buffet. Can anyone let us know what the food in the buffet on the Aurora is like?

Thanks.

Patrick

 

We forgot to mention, if you like "classy" and refined buffets, try sailing with Oceania or Azamara. On Oceania, you do not just get buffets for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, there is also an Afternoon Tea buffet serving pastries, cakes and sandwiches, with no additional charge. The quality of food offerings in buffets on Celebrity Cruises were pretty good too, although the presentation was just a little less refined than Oceania or Azamara (yes, it's very subjective, we know) and the Celebrity Eclipse buffet restaurant reminded one a bit like a factory canteen. Princess Cruisess buffet cook pretty good Chinese offerings - not just for lunch and dinner, but during breakfast too (Congee, with Chicken, Meat Floss, Century Eggs, Salted Eggs, etc) but the restaurant could be very crowded, and some of their desserts were not very good, especially their almost "card-board" tasting pastry and American cookies that were hard and not chewy. We heard that Crystal and Viking buffets are excellent, but we have not tried them.

Edited December 19, 2016 by Cahpek

[Pennbank]

We are going on a cruise from Singapore to Sydney on the Aurora in February 2017 and as we are not lovers of the main restaurants we usually use the buffet. Can anyone let us know what the food in the buffet on the Aurora is like?

Thanks.

Patrick

 

Personally thought The Main evening Meals in Medina were excellent, Far superior to the buffet.

I visited the Horizon Buffet for lunches and a few evening dinners and thought that the food was not cooked to my satisfaction. Although the Cold selection of Meats and Fish available in the buffet was excellent, even having Dressed Crabs available. The main dishes I thought were poorly cooked. Most Deserts and cold starters were similar each day, ie Trifle but with a different topping or something just added. Muscles with a different sauce on.

The Asian Buffet in the evening was poor, very stodgy and Greasy, however the Indian Buffet was excellent with a good selection of dishes.

The rolls always seemed stale, (Easy remedied by placing a wet tea towel over them when placing them out and removing prior to serving times)

Breakfast in the Buffet was poor with overcooked back bacon and tasteless sausages. Much better in the main Medina restaurant. However Brewed Tea in the Medina Restaurant was over brewed.

 

Yoghurts in the buffet were obviously put out to early, as when opening and first mouth full taken the rest of the pot was liquid.

The buffet did not have any Black pepper only white. The Jams and Marmalades were a foreign brand to that of jars of Tiptree which is supplied in the restaurants.

It was difficult to get a poached egg either in the Buffet of Restaurant runny.

 

The Grill, Burgers were excellent and sometimes they also served chilli with Jacket potatoes from there,

 

A lot of staff eat in The Buffet and sometimes it felt like eating in the staff canteen.

 

I would definitely re consider and use the Main Restaurant you are allocated for most evening meals and ask for The Medina anytime Dining on your booking.

Edited December 21, 2016 by Pennbank

[mummsie]

We have only had breakfast and lunch at the buffet. Lunch buffet was the least exciting of all the ships we have sailed on. Except they do really good curry of course. But after every lunch it gets a little boring. Would hope dinner would be a little more exciting. mummsie

[mummsie]

We are going on a cruise from Singapore to Sydney on the Aurora in February 2017 and as we are not lovers of the main restaurants we usually use the buffet. Can anyone let us know what the food in the buffet on the Aurora is like?

Thanks.

Patrick

 

there is a roll call for this cruise - come on over http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2257722

[mactire]

Thanks to all on the subject of the Aurora Buffet. We have not sailed with P&O before so we shall have to wait until we get on board and see how good or bad it is.

Patrick & Sylvia

[Ehg]

I'm afraid I was not a fan of the buffet. We have recently returned from a fabulous cruise to the Christmas markets, our first time on Aurora. Absolutely loved the ship, and had the best table mates ever, but the food was the worst of all the cruises we have done - the exceptions were the Glasshouse, which was extremely tasty, and Sindhu - delicious.

I found the buffet seemed badly laid out and unless you were there at peak times the full buffet rarely seemed to be offered. It did not detract from us having a great time, even though we love good food. I'm sure you will enjoy your cruise.

 

 

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[majortom10]

We had not very good experience last Feb 2015 with the dinner buffet when we sailed on the Aurora from Rio de Janeiro to Valparaiso.

 

Lunch buffet was pretty good, and the desserts were especially delicious (not usually expensive gateaux, but good wholesome British desserts). However, the buffet dinner was almost like an "afterthought". It was as if they were encouraging passengers to dine in the sit-down dining rooms rather than in the buffet restaurant.

 

If we remember correctly,one evening when the buffet theme was some sort of carvery, and the joint of meat they had on display was so small it would struggle to serve 6-7 people! We had thought then, "H'mmmmm, how stingy could that be!" The choice of foods for their buffet dinners were also much reduced from what was being offered at lunch.

 

Buffet dinners on the Aurora were probably the least good buffets we have ever come across on any of our cruises including on non-P&O cruises.

 

We are lovers of buffets on board ships, but we never looked forward to the dinner buffet on the Aurora. The ship has a lot of strengths but their dinner buffet was not one of them.

 

Another curious thing about P&O Buffets on the Aurora was their breakfast. You would have thought that being a British influenced ship, their breakfast sausages would be one of the best. We were disappointed with that too, unfortunately.

 

As we indicated, the best meal of the day in the buffet restaurant was during lunch time.

 

Of course, things might have changed after one and a half years.

 

In fact, we are planning to go on the P&O Ventura early next year, hope their buffet dinners will be better than on the Aurora (does anyone know)? When we sail with P&O, it is their other attractions which made us decide to go with them, we just keep an eye closed about their buffet dinners. One thing's for sure, like on most cruise ships, you will never go hungry, there is always somewhere on board you can enjoy your meal to fill you!

 

Think you will find that like most pubs and restaurants the joint of the day in the carvery is not supposed to or intended to be for the whole evening. When that is gone they will get another one out of a warming cupboard where they will have numerous joints so they are not being "stingy".

[Cahpek]

Think you will find that like most pubs and restaurants the joint of the day in the carvery is not supposed to or intended to be for the whole evening. When that is gone they will get another one out of a warming cupboard where they will have numerous joints so they are not being "stingy".

 

You could be right. However, buffets on other cruise ships have meat joints about four times the size. Even in pubs where they served carvery-style meals, their meat joints were much bigger.

 

In addition to the small size of the meat joints, the choice of other dishes were much less during their dinner than during lunch buffets. We remembered asking one of the staff in the buffet why that was and we were informed that as dinner buffet was not so popular, they put out less food. It seemed to us to be a vicious cirlce downward spiral. The less food they put, the less attractive was the buffet and the fewer passengers they would attract going to eat there! Maybe if they make buffet dinners more attractive, they would attract more people.

 

In general, during our last cruise, we also noticed that the ingredients used in catering in the buffets were not as generous as in other cruise lines. There was hardly any sizeable prawns , just "tiny" shrimps, and smoked salmon if served was quite rare in frequency and small quantities. For desserts, although the chefs managed to make delicious desserts (out of what they had), unlike other cruises, they did not seem to be creating those desserts with expensive items like ground almonds , walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans and marzipan, liquors , etc. There was hardly any exotic fruits. Most of the time, "chicken" dishes were made from frozen chicken breat cubes instead of fresh chicken meat (except for once during our cruise when "on the bone" chicken curry was made, and that was delicious. However, that was soon finished and it was replaced by more relatively tasteless "cube" chicken breast).

 

Another thing which was not good about the buffet was, during lunch or breakfast which could get very busy, although there could be two lines of service , often, the staff only opened one line. This sometimes led to long slow queues to get the food. Some passengers also started getting irritated.

 

There was one evening in the buffet when we noticed some seafood which did not smell good - it was as if something had gone "off". We informed one of the Filipino senior waitresses and she just ignored us. That dish was not removed. Fortunately, no one got sick the following day, or at least, we did not think so.

 

As we said, P&O have a lot of attractions (eg, great itenararies, their good standard and variety of entertainment and activities and very competitive fares), but their dinner buffet was not one of them. Hope they have changed for the better over time, as our last cruise with them was about one and half years ago . (We are going again with them soon, but on another P&O ship, not the Aurora. Still, we will be a bit anxious about the standard of their dinner buffets!!!)

Edited December 24, 2016 by Cahpek

[annieuk]

Ehg, We were on the Aurora Christmas Markets cruise and I'm very surprised at what you said about the food in the evening in the main dining room. We were in the Alexandra Restaurant, second sitting and we thought the food was excellent in most cases, especially with the new menu in action. I think I was disappointed with my main course on one evening but other than that the food was lovely. We were on a table of 8 and people were fulsome in their praise of the food. I had a sirloin steak on a couple of evenings, asked for it to be served rare and it was and it was juicy too.

 

We really liked the new dessert offerings, particularly the different Sundaes on offer. Stilton, soaked in port was on offer every evening with a very good cheese board too. I know different people have different tastes but I'm really surprised you thought the food was the worst you've ever experienced.

 

We only used the buffet for the occasional late lunch. I'm not a fan of buffets when on a cruise. However, I thought the food, especially the Daily Speciality was improved from our previous cruise last May. The cold selection was much better - the only thing I missed was the Jacket Potatoes which I used to enjoy with a salad.

 

So, everyone has their own opinion but I'd hate passengers to think the food on Aurora was awful, not this December it wasn't - at least not in our opinion!

[MTElkwhistle]

Ehg, We were on the Aurora Christmas Markets cruise and I'm very surprised at what you said about the food in the evening in the main dining room. We were in the Alexandra Restaurant, second sitting and we thought the food was excellent in most cases, especially with the new menu in action. I think I was disappointed with my main course on one evening but other than that the food was lovely. We were on a table of 8 and people were fulsome in their praise of the food. I had a sirloin steak on a couple of evenings, asked for it to be served rare and it was and it was juicy too.

 

We really liked the new dessert offerings, particularly the different Sundaes on offer. Stilton, soaked in port was on offer every evening with a very good cheese board too. I know different people have different tastes but I'm really surprised you thought the food was the worst you've ever experienced.

 

We only used the buffet for the occasional late lunch. I'm not a fan of buffets when on a cruise. However, I thought the food, especially the Daily Speciality was improved from our previous cruise last May. The cold selection was much better - the only thing I missed was the Jacket Potatoes which I used to enjoy with a salad.

 

So, everyone has their own opinion but I'd hate passengers to think the food on Aurora was awful, not this December it wasn't - at least not in our opinion!

 

We enjoyed dinner in Medina as well, the only thing we felt was that the waiters were rushed and had too many tables to serve, they sometimes got orders to the wrong person which on the whole was easily rectified, although not in the case of 2 steaks one med-well done and the other med-rare given to the wrong people. I had Gnocchi twice and it was lovely. Portion sizes were fine for me but if you wanted more or extra sides you could have it. Sometimes on a cruise by the 5th or 6th night I was not really wanting to face more food. I had cheese most nights as I prefer it and also I felt the desserts were a bit "samey". So no I didn't think dinner was awful either.

Life would be boring if we were all the same.

[annieuk]

I think the Medina Restaurant was Freedom Dining. I do wonder if the waiters find it more difficult serving in Freedom Dining than in Club where everyone starts at more or less the same time. Certainly they don't seem to have the time to build up the rapport with the passengers that they do on Club Dining. On our previous cruise on Oceana our waiters told us that at the end of our first week they would be moving to the Freedom Dining Restaurant as per their rota. We asked which they preferred and they both said Club Dining every time but they had to do their stint in Freedom Dining.

[Ehg]

Ehg, We were on the Aurora Christmas Markets cruise and I'm very surprised at what you said about the food in the evening in the main dining room. We were in the Alexandra Restaurant, second sitting and we thought the food was excellent in most cases, especially with the new menu in action. I think I was disappointed with my main course on one evening but other than that the food was lovely. We were on a table of 8 and people were fulsome in their praise of the food. I had a sirloin steak on a couple of evenings, asked for it to be served rare and it was and it was juicy too.

 

 

 

We really liked the new dessert offerings, particularly the different Sundaes on offer. Stilton, soaked in port was on offer every evening with a very good cheese board too. I know different people have different tastes but I'm really surprised you thought the food was the worst you've ever experienced.

 

 

 

We only used the buffet for the occasional late lunch. I'm not a fan of buffets when on a cruise. However, I thought the food, especially the Daily Speciality was improved from our previous cruise last May. The cold selection was much better - the only thing I missed was the Jacket Potatoes which I used to enjoy with a salad.

 

 

 

So, everyone has their own opinion but I'd hate passengers to think the food on Aurora was awful, not this December it wasn't - at least not in our opinion!

 

 

I have expressed myself badly.

 

We were also in the Alexandria dining room, second sitting and the food was not bad. No better or worse than our other P&O experiences. However, the buffet was really not as tempting as we have found it in the past. I thought the choice was very limited and as I said the sections just seemed badly set out.

I did very much enjoy a baked potato which were available every day at the horizon grill. Agree it's a shame they didn't have them in the buffet too as it was a pain having to go backwards and forwards to collect salads to go with it.

Sorry you missed the baked spuds. I think this sort of reinforces my point about the buffet being a strange layout.....

There were hot dogs and burgers available every day at the grill too. These were pretty dirty, but who doesn't like a dirty burger or hotdog from time to time? [emoji6]

Totally agree about the waiters. We concluded that they were overstretched too, a shame as we have always enjoyed chatting to our waiters in the past.

 

 

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