Worst disappointment from recent Majestic cruise? Swirls! :-(

[WAvoyager]

A lot of the negative items from our recent (April 2) cruise on the Majestic I’m going to chalk up to the current state of cruising as a whole.  We’ll, except for Harmony - that was just plain awful (food).

 

But I’m really hoping that we just hit swirls on a bad day.  The ice cream was reminiscent of really bad soft serve on land.  Kind of grainy, not very creamy.  

On our previous cruise on the Crown, we stopped for cones almost every day, and multiple times on a couple of days.  Creamy, tasty, thick.   Always wanted another one after we were done.  This trip?  Had one, didn’t really think about going for another.

 

What are everyone’s thoughts on swirls?  Have they gone with a different mix?  Or did we just catch them on an off day/time?

[tonit964]

2 minutes ago, WAvoyager said:

A lot of the negative items from our recent (April 2) cruise on the Majestic I’m going to chalk up to the current state of cruising as a whole.  We’ll, except for Harmony - that was just plain awful (food).

 

But I’m really hoping that we just hit swirls on a bad day.  The ice cream was reminiscent of really bad soft serve on land.  Kind of grainy, not very creamy.  

On our previous cruise on the Crown, we stopped for cones almost every day, and multiple times on a couple of days.  Creamy, tasty, thick.   Always wanted another one after we were done.  This trip?  Had one, didn’t really think about going for another.

 

What are everyone’s thoughts on swirls?  Have they gone with a different mix?  Or did we just catch them on an off day/time?

Just off Discovery last Sunday and Swirls was delicious as always. I wonder if your ship had a bad batch of the liquid stuff they use. Sorry it was disappointing. 

[VibeGuy]

I’m a soft serve nerd and I’m . . . rarely pleased. . . by any of the Princess offerings.  The machines usually aren’t adjusted properly for the mix they’re using and I am also never quite convinced that the mix has been properly tempered before going in.   It’s also challenging to get it all correct in the context of open deck environmental conditions.   The machines they use tend to be too small/overworked for the volumes they serve, as well, so they turn them up to maximum cooling capacity to increase production, but this tends to lead to dense, icy product if they aren’t moving a lot of cones in a short time. 
 

 

[Lobez]

I felt the same way on our April 16th Majestic cruise.  I always like to get a warm waffle from the buffet and have some ice cream put on top at swirls.  Had it once and was very disappointed with the ice cream.  We thought it had an artificial/chemical taste and was as the OP described.  On a positive note the waffle was good!

[dickinson]

We have loved Swirls on some ships and on others not so much.  One cruise we did a 4 day on the Crown and three days later did a 15 day on Grand.  Crown had delicious creamy soft serve.  Grand was not creamy.  Thought maybe it was ice milk but not sure.  Back then I started a thread on here about it but the responses didn't know why there was a difference.  Mostly we have not had issues in the past on the Royal.  One cruise it wasn't creamy.  This past February we were on Regal and it too was delicious.  Nice and creamy.  Bonus was that the flavors were not always vanilla and chocolate.  One day we had hazelnut!  Delicious 😉

Edited April 28, 2022 by dickinson

[*Miss G*]

On our recent Sky voyage, the soft-serve ice cream was outstanding!  (and I am super picky)

[sunviking90]

Agreed, Swirls on Majestic not good. 
We loved most everything else on Majestic though.

[Eaglecw]

It's all in the mix. They use the cheapest ice milk mix you can buy.

[enfuego4cruising]

We were on the Discovery in late March and Swirls was excellent. Enjoyed several visits.  On the Majestic one week later and  Swirls was noticeably poorer. Mostly in the texture. Not nearly as creamy. One and done.

[Astro Flyer]

2 hours ago, tonit964 said:

Just off Discovery last Sunday and Swirls was delicious as always. I wonder if your ship had a bad batch of the liquid stuff they use. Sorry it was disappointing. 

 

37 minutes ago, enfuego4cruising said:

We were on the Discovery in late March and Swirls was excellent. Enjoyed several visits.

A month ago on Discovery it was also a great milk chocolate soft serve for me.
 

On too many other ships it was dark chocolate & didn’t like the taste. Guess it’s a combination of the machine, mix & operator which results in the variable quality.

 

[WAvoyager]

Thanks all!  Definitely sounds like it may be more of a Majestic issue.  Back on the crown in June, so keeping my fingers crossed!

[Level six]

So funny, swirls was one of the highlights(everyday) on the Majestic March 2-12.  I am also a soft serve expert......haha.  

[capriccio]

5 hours ago, Eaglecw said:

It's all in the mix. They use the cheapest ice milk mix you can buy.

Then why would some ships have great ice cream and others not?  The mix isn’t standardized throughout the fleet and is sourced from different vendors?

[VibeGuy]

9 minutes ago, capriccio said:

Then why would some ships have great ice cream and others not?  The mix isn’t standardized throughout the fleet and is sourced from different vendors?

Per an executive pastry chef, they are all made onboard from scratch - soft serve, gelato, MDR hard-pack. 
 

You can make the same recipe with the same ingredients and get wildly varying quality based on how long the mixture chills before churning, and the particular environmental, mechanical, dispensing and volume/flow conditions in and around the equipment. Their use of tiny air-cooled freezers on an open deck is a huge mistake and they use way too much mix per volume of ice cream as a result, as well as having variable quality.  
 

but they don’t ask me 

[CU64]

15 minutes ago, capriccio said:

Then why would some ships have great ice cream and others not?  The mix isn’t standardized throughout the fleet and is sourced from different vendors?

Majestic was ugh. I get ice cream in MDR after dinner. Prefer over other desserts and always good.

[Beagle5]

Yes, on majestic now.

one and done with swirls.

it is an iced confection not ice cream.

tasted like frozen chocolate syrup. Zero dairy content.

[Idratherbeatsea]

Being upset about soft serve ice cream on a cruise ship is definitely a 1st world problem 

[Lucky TGO]

7 hours ago, Eaglecw said:

It's all in the mix. They use the cheapest ice milk mix you can buy.

I totally agree with you. They are just trying to save money.

Tony

[mpk]

On Discovery this month, Swirls was fine the two times I tried it.  I preferred the MDR gelato, and had that every night.  Would have tried the Atrium gelato shop too, but even an ice cream fan like me has limits  🙂

[firefighter4u]

You know, when I tried it, I turned to my wife and asked what it was.  Its almost not ice cream but something more like frozen yogurt.  However, the odd ice cream is far from the worst issue on that ship.  Its usually a sad day when its time to disembark but I had no problem leaving the Majestic.  

[mtnesterz]

18 hours ago, WAvoyager said:

...We’ll, except for Harmony - that was just plain awful (food).

We were looking forward to Harmony on a upcoming cruise. What was the problem there? Preparation, menu? Thanks!

Edited April 29, 2022 by mtnesterz

[WAvoyager]

2 hours ago, mtnesterz said:

We were looking forward to Harmony on a upcoming cruise. What was the problem there? Preparation, menu? Thanks!

Preparation and possibly recipes as well.  The Cantonese chow mein dish was way over cooked - to the point that the noodles were gluey.  And we ordered the dish twice, with the same results (daughter joined us late).  The salt and pepper chicken and the hot and sour soup were extremely salty - I could barely eat them, and I’m the guy who grabs extra salt packets at the theater so I can add salt as I eat my popcorn.  The stir fried shrimp was prepared properly, but tasted just bleh.  The whole meal seemed like it was cooked by cooks who had never had Asian food before.

 

The Peking duck salad and won ton soup were ok - but they could’ve come from any kitchen - nothing notable about them.  The steamed sea bass was decent - again, not any better/worse than you could get at any average Chinese restaurant.  (And that’s a $10 up charge, on top of the specialty restaurant upcharge, over your paid cruise dining 🙄).

 

I’m Chinese, born in Cali, and grew up in Hawaii, and California.  So I know Asian food, but I’m not an Asian food snob.  Americanized Chinese food, and authentic Chinese food both work for me, and I’ve happily eaten in Panda Express, as well as fine dining Asian restaurants all over the US and Asia.  But Harmony’s dishes ranked pretty much as the worst I can ever remember having.  Panda Express would’ve been much better!

 

The staff were great - they accommodated our daughter who joined very late in the service.  After seeing a lot of comments over how bad the food is at Harmony, we were hoping for a different outcome, but the food is really just bad.

[RSS from SF]

4 hours ago, mtnesterz said:

menu?

---

FYI -- Old and New Harmony menus for your comparison:
 

• Original Harmony menu as designed by Michelin-starred chef Richard Chen*, March 2017
  *[2008 Michelin Las Vegas 1 star for Wing Lei at Encore/Wynn]:
  
  
  
   
• More recent Harmony menu, July 2021
  [perhaps updated by a Princess Chef?. . . . 
   -- Inspired by 🐼Panda Express 😜.  😇 ]:
  
  

---

Edited April 29, 2022 by RSS from SF

[jwattle]

6 hours ago, mtnesterz said:

We were looking forward to Harmony on a upcoming cruise. What was the problem there? Preparation, menu? Thanks!

We found Harmony to be WONDERFUL on Majestic! We had the Peking Duck Salad, WonTon Soup, Lemon Chicken and the Mango Sago Soup for dessert.

[VibeGuy]

Yup.  Very dumbed-down/Americanised.  Not that I blame them, for commercial reasons, but I was actually kinda impressed by the menus used in the Asia market. I’m as white as they come but I’m kinda known at a couple awesome places in the Richmond, BC area, so I have some exposure to “special occasion” dining of a few regions. 
 

I also argue it’s VERY hard, if not impossible, to get wok hai without a giant roaring gas flame, so any wok-fried dishes are doomed to failure in all-electric kitchens.