No Rotating Menu

[HleeCruiser]

On 3/8/2022 at 6:16 PM, brisalta said:

 

At least on the Grand Princess there were 1 or 2 dishes served in the MDR that were not on the menu. These dishes were prepared by the head waiter. I do not know if this is still happening after the restart of cruising.

This practice is no longer taking place.  As a matter  of fact the "Head Waiter"  does very little if anything with serving.  I remember the good old days of Princess cruising where the H. W. did dishes at table side.  On a recent cruise on the Enchanted the H. W. hardly made an appearance.

[Daniel A]

1 hour ago, azbirdmom said:

 

What ship?  My hubby asked in February and was told that they only had vanilla gelato.

Regal, it was a four-day Grand Turk and back.  (Sorry, maybe they used up all the ice cream for my volcano 😲)

Edited March 10, 2022 by Daniel A

[azbirdmom]

8 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

Regal, it was a four-day Grand Turk and back.  (Sorry, maybe they used up all the ice cream for my volcano 😲)

 

Well shhhh, let's not let my hubby know that you ate all of the rest of the ice cream a few weeks before we boarded!

[scooter6139]

IMHO, I think this is just a $$$ grab from NCL.  While they do have some free dining options, they really want those onboard to eat in the pay restaurants.  On our last to NCL cruises, if we wanted MDR food we usually ate in Taste/Savor as they were less crowded (same menu).  The Buffet was huge, as we were only used to the smaller ones on Grand class princess ships.  We loved Cagney's and Ocean Blue, but we used a meal voucher as the restaurants on NCL are a-la-cart (both dinners were well over $150 for the two of us!)   NCL does offer a large variety of food offerings on on their big ships, just most of it costs money.

[Kmkub]

10 hours ago, HleeCruiser said:

This practice is no longer taking place.  As a matter  of fact the "Head Waiter"  does very little if anything with serving.  I remember the good old days of Princess cruising where the H. W. did dishes at table side.  On a recent cruise on the Enchanted the H. W. hardly made an appearance.

The HW on our Enchanted cruise in January, came to our table between courses to thank us for his job. We had a very nice 2-3 minute conversation.

[pris993]

I recall NCL was first to start free style dining, which then spread to most lines.  I have done only 3 NCL cruises in 30 years, 1 after free style started on NCL.  MDR food and serve was so bad I skipped MDR, after first night, on a 9-day cruise a few years ago.  Went to the buffet which was not much better except for the salad bar.  We made sandwiches and salad for our main meal from the buffet salad bar the rest of the cruise.  I guess my take NCL treads are not a good one to follow.

 

Ref Princess, I just completed my 30th cruise on the Ruby.  It has been about 10 years since I have gone to the MDR on Princess too.  The Crown Grill menu is more like the Princess MDR of years ago.  When I want a good dinner, I go to the Grill   Otherwise I stick with the buffet, seems there has been plenty of variety there.  Now on our recent cruise with the ship only 1/2 full of passengers, variety was not that great there either. 

 

So, this new tread may be more about the economics of the cruise industry in the post pandemic era.  

Variety is the spice of life, cruise lines will not do well with out it.

[Celltech]

On 3/8/2022 at 7:11 PM, RJAM3 said:

Getting back to the posters mentioning the same menu in the main dining room every night of the cruise sounds to me like the are pushing for people to spend more money dining in the specialty restaurants.

Bingo. I think it will go over about as well as New Coke did when they changed the formula years back. 

[HBCcruiser]

Just to show how many free restaurants and fee restaurants are on the NCL Prima, here is a list. I don’t think Princess will be implementing a single menu for their main dining room. It won’t work at this time IMO.
 

[cruzsnooze]

Reading about all the issue's with reserving a dining time it sounds like Princess is already following NCL's lead with freestyle dining. Dine My Way is a step closer to freestyle dining with no reservations, just show up when you're ready.  I foresee a fixed menu in the future but hope there will be the usual standby dishes on the left side of menu in case nothing is appealing on the regular menu.

[runner2013]

Thanks for the review. 

Did you use the Medallionapp for texting or another means ?