Royal's "Budget Cuts" Continue - How Cheap Can They Get?

[knuckles]

So, we all know that Royal has been nickel and diming us for the past few years, as they have been doing and cutting all they can in their effort to make more money. We have seen menu reductions and changes in Chops. Much smaller portion sizes at increases in prices on just about every pay restaurant.

 

But the food quality has always been good. That is until this past weekend on my 4-day Brilliance of the Seas cruise. Other than breakfast, the Windjammer has some of the worst food I have ever tasted. Let alone, having almost the same options from day to day. It almost looked like the food was 'carried' over.

 

I use the buy 1 - get 1 Diamond Plus specialty Restaurant coupon to eat the first 2 nights at Chops and Giovanni's. The plan was to eat at the Windjammer nights 3 & 4, as we've become very tired of the same main dinning room options for years. However after night 3 in the Windjammer and 3 days of some of the worst lunch options I have ever seen. We decided to go back to Giovanni's on night 4.

 

Thankfully the specialty restaurants are still very good and in my opinion the only place worth eating.

 

Knuckles

[knuckles]

To continue - here are a few examples of some of my concerns. First off, they didn't have some of the main staples on the Day 1 lunch at Windjammer, that I look forward to. No Honey Stung Chicken (in fact, no fried chicken of any kind), no Shepherd's Pie, no Seafood Paella. Gone also was some very good platters of Seafood And Tuna Salad.

 

The Pasta was bow ties each day and night I visited the Windjammer. They were hard and again seemed to be old and badly cooked. The other available options were unappealing and bland or in some cases, inedible.

 

I have been on over 40 cruises of all ages and sizes and have never seen high level of ineptitude. I will be back on the Harmony of the Seas in June and hope this is not now the norm.

 

Knuckles

[Kamloops50]

So, we all know that Royal has been nickel and diming us for the past few years, as they have been doing and cutting all they can in their effort to make more money. We have seen menu reductions and changes in Chops. Much smaller portion sizes at increases in prices on just about every pay restaurant.

 

But the food quality has always been good. That is until this past weekend on my 4-day Brilliance of the Seas cruise. Other than breakfast, the Windjammer has some of the worst food I have ever tasted. Let alone, having almost the same options from day to day. It almost looked like the food was 'carried' over.

 

I use the buy 1 - get 1 Diamond Plus specialty Restaurant coupon to eat the first 2 nights at Chops and Giovanni's. The plan was to eat at the Windjammer nights 3 & 4, as we've become very tired of the same main dinning room options for years. However after night 3 in the Windjammer and 3 days of some of the worst lunch options I have ever seen. We decided to go back to Giovanni's on night 4.

 

Thankfully the specialty restaurants are still very good and in my opinion the only place worth eating.

 

Knuckles

 

When you come out with a mega-liner every year. The quality of staff and product will suffer on the okder ships.

[knuckles]

When you come out with a mega-liner every year. The quality of staff and product will suffer on the okder ships.

 

That's a good point, however I was on the Majesty and again the Brilliance a few months ago and the food at the Windjammer was some of the best I have ever had. So this is a recent change for the worse.

[poncho1973]

Why are the words budget cuts in quotes? Do you actually mean they are spending more money on things?

 

I'm confused by this random use of quotation marks.

[knuckles]

Sorry, it's actually an inside joke among my family whenever we see someting less than we are used to, we joke that the budget cuts strike again.

[wvufan]

We got off the Serenade recently after 21 nights. WJ lunch was the best we ever experienced. Steaks, filet mignon!, grilled shrimp, grilled lobster, whole red snapper.

 

By contrast, we were on the Grandeur a few months ago and the WJ was horrible.

 

Seems like the staff has a lot to do with the food. Certainly inconsistent around the fleet.

[Bellalago Breeze]

We too were on the Brilliance recently and I have to agree with you about the food in the Windjammer at lunch. The only vegetable they had on the first day was cauliflower and the carving station had little pieces of well done chopped up meat. Definitely not very appetizing!

[forkcreek]

We believe that the Quality of food in the Windjammer and main dinning room often depends on the hotel director and/or head chef. We have been on b2b where with a change in either of these positions resulted in a change of quality/dinning experience. The specialty restaurants follow instructions from Miami HQ and are usually followed by on board staff.

[Havingfun2010]

At one point, the buffet was just an alternative for the unusual night you did not want to eat in the dining room. A quick get food and go kind of place. Buffet IS A BUDGET CUT if most people eat there. Low service, easy food. No one is plating it, servicing it, or cleaning it. Self serve. So, if they keep the same food in the dining room (which I agree needs to be updated more often) and than down grade the food in the Windjammer, to make is so people don't like it, I believe it's actually the opposite affect, and it increase the MDR and thus increasing cost!

 

Buffet's are cheap, and will always be cheap. It whatever they can throw easily in a pan, and set out.

[chaswelf]

That's a good point, however I was on the Majesty and again the Brilliance a few months ago and the food at the Windjammer was some of the best I have ever had. So this is a recent change for the worse.

 

This tells me the issue isn't budget cuts but more likely a poor head chef on the Brilliance.

[George C]

Prices seem to have went down not up on Liberty, last April Giovanni's was 30 it is now listed at 21 , Sabor is listed at 15. My biggest complaint is entertainment is being cut, RCCL removed most or all of pub guitar player such as Derek Lewis who is great. Also food in MDR and WJ on my last cruise was terrible ( Brilliance last September)

[The Grumpus]

...

 

Thankfully the specialty restaurants are still very good and in my opinion the only place worth eating.

 

Knuckles

 

 

Can't argue with you there, I'm almost to the point of booking specialty restaurants every night. The atmosphere in the MDR is nice but I've been so disappointed with the choices on the menu and then the quality on the last few cruises. We have some success with dinner at the windjammer and it's quick eats when there's stuff to do, so I'm not quite ready to give that up yet.

 

 

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[LXA350]

The Honey Stung Chicken, usually served on boarding day seems to have toally disapeared, saw it the last time around 3 years ago

 

 

Regarding the variety at Windjamer for lunch it's usually the least choices out of North America as burgers and hot dogs seem to be the favorite choice by a large number of large passengers making up for a relatively large number of cruisers there ;)

 

What I noticed though that the quality of meat served at WJ has gone down big time and often in stews what you get now a days is frequent pieces of fat instead of meat

[OfTheSeasCruiser]

To counter, my experience on Enchantment at the beginning of February was excellent. WJ was the best I've experienced recently, and the MDR was very good to excellent.

[JAMESCC]

The more and more cruises we do, the less and less we go to the buffet at all. Once in a while when we just need to eat quick, and get to an excursion or a show or something. Honestly on our next cruise on Anthem in September I plan to not go to the buffet at all. I just find it nerve racking, and not enjoyable. Nothing against, glad it's there but we just use it less and less. Cafe 270 I hear is a good alternative.

 

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[kontraxed]

I always find food to be very subjective. We were on the Liberty just a couple of weeks ago. Giovanni's was excellent (try the osso buco!) and Sabor was good but with a couple of service glitches. We ate all of our breakfasts and some of our lunches in the Windjammer and I always found something to eat that I liked. The staff in the WJR was very pleasant and waited on us very quickly. Dinners in the MDR were typically pretty good. There was nothing bad and some things I really enjoyed. The waiters in the MDR had a lot of tables but never left us hanging and they also were very pleasant. Really, the only bad experience I had was at Johnny Rockets. What a disappointment that was! The onion rings were awful and the burgers were so overdone that they were inedible. That experience was more than balanced out by Café Promenade! Every morning I would go there about 5:30 a.m. It was always clean with a good cup of coffee and, typically, a nice group of people. Nice way to start the day! To sum it up, Food was pretty good on the Liberty!

[BOLTFISH]

 

...Other than breakfast, the Windjammer has some of the worst food I have ever tasted.

 

Knuckles

 

 

 

Im often confused...

 

Words from the OP like worst EVER tasted...I mean - for reals; "ever?" I have cruised, vacationed and been all over the world for work and pleasure. There is some super crappy food out there and at no point would anything I have had on a cruise be considered even in the 'bad' category, let alone, "worst ever"...

 

Either I need to raise my standards or others need to get out more?

 

Some meals are better than others... But categorizing something as worst ever for me would involve blowing chunks and days in bed.

 

Maybe its just me, the guy who appreciated a ham and chicken loaf MRE from time to time!

 

Commenting that the food quality has gone down is one thing but taking it to the extreme where it is the worst ever… Im Confused (again)...

 

Some of my best life lessons and stories involve some crappy meals at crappier places!

 

I mean, you have accidentally broken bread at a dive and later found out they have a B rating right? Im sure you've been to a BBQ at a friends house who thought he was the next best BBQ pit master and the reality was that they served hockey pucks disguised as charcoal briquettes...? How about fast food at airports ... there my friend is some certified doo-doo food!

 

 

 

 

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[marys350]

To counter, my experience on Enchantment at the beginning of February was excellent. WJ was the best I've experienced recently, and the MDR was very good to excellent.

 

Our experience with food and service on Enchantment of the Seas during the Feb 20-24 sailing was also very good to excellent in the Windjammer and the Main Dining Room.

[Wanna Be Retired]

The only thing I noticed on the Liberty was I thought the scrambled eggs were powdered. I don't like eggs but eat them anyway. I am not a good judge of eggs. They looked funny to me. My two cents worth is not worth two cents!

[ccotting]

We got off the Serenade recently after 21 nights. WJ lunch was the best we ever experienced. Steaks, filet mignon!, grilled shrimp, grilled lobster, whole red snapper.

 

By contrast, we were on the Grandeur a few months ago and the WJ was horrible.

 

Seems like the staff has a lot to do with the food. Certainly inconsistent around the fleet.

 

Totally agree, Our worst experience was on Brilliance just before a refit and that was a few years ago. We had a wonderful experience 2 years ago on Explorer. The best meat ever, the executive chef was German.

 

We do tend to make our experiences reflect the whole line but there is a lot of opportunity for individual work on each ship. Sometimes too, it can be provisioning. We did a back to back where we had the same dish on both cruises and, on the earlier one it was lovely, on the later, not. It was a lamb dish and there was a very different quality of meat which we thought had to do with provisioning between the first and second cruise.

[ONECRUISER]

We got off the Serenade recently after 21 nights. WJ lunch was the best we ever experienced. Steaks, filet mignon!, grilled shrimp, grilled lobster, whole red snapper.

 

By contrast, we were on the Grandeur a few months ago and the WJ was horrible.

 

Seems like the staff has a lot to do with the food. Certainly inconsistent around the fleet.

Agree. Dining room and pay dining options quality have dropped. Been cruising Royal for 30 yrs, Spent over 200 nites on Serenade last few yrs & one thing I find better is WindJammer options. At least on Serenade... Sorry OP that Brilliance experience, cruised on she annually 2012-2015 and was good then...

[Goodtime Cruizin]

Can't argue with you there, I'm almost to the point of booking specialty restaurants every night. The atmosphere in the MDR is nice but I've been so disappointed with the choices on the menu and then the quality on the last few cruises. We have some success with dinner at the windjammer and it's quick eats when there's stuff to do, so I'm not quite ready to give that up yet.

 

 

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I'm leaning the other way. I've tried Chops on 4 different ships and I simply will not go back. It's my belief that the specially restaurants are over hyped & over rated. But many actually feel that paying more for something they already have makes their food taste better. I have no issue w/ this or anyone's opinion though. Each to their own. Chef's Table is the only up pay dinner I rave about.

[riclop]

Lots of cut backs but higher prices, not a good mix.

[xpcdoojk]

Sorry, it's actually an inside joke among my family whenever we see someting less than we are used to, we joke that the budget cuts strike again.

 

Why don't you move on to Silverseas? Life is too short to be hit with "budget cuts" again.

 

I am sure you never try to save money.:halo:

 

JC