Restaurant Menus

[tdbates]

Hello! We are traveling on the Sunshine in November. I've been trying to find menus for the various specialty restaurants and the main dining rooms but it seems like these change and are cruise-specific. Is that true? If so, when can I access the actual menus for our cruise? Do I have to wait until we get on board? We are traveling with two picky 12 year olds. It's super annoying! We'll be traveling on their 13th birthday and I'm thinking about booking a reservation for Cucina del Capitano. If I prepay for our reservation, will I be able to cancel if I'm not interested in the menu? Same with the MDR. I don't want to subject myself to a dinner where they won't find anything they want to eat. I'm hoping this will give them an opportunity to try new things. We'll see. 

Edited September 6, 2022 by tdbates

[mondello]

The current menus are pretty much the same. We were on Sunshine/5 day Christmas; Vista/7 day Spring Break; and Valor/5 day B2B a month ago. No noticeable difference, they stick with the tried and true. Plenty of menus have been posted since the restart and the Specialty dining venues menus can be found on Carnival’s site.

 

Best advice is to preview the nightly MDR menus on the Hub app after you board the ship and choose to book Cucina on a night the MDR had the weakest menu. Don’t stress about the MDR, they can hit the buffet after. They have nightly at the Carving station, a rotation of roast whole turkey, ham, beef, leg of lamb, all good.

[Schoifmom]

You say that they are picky, but not what they are picky about.  There is always the kids menu in the MDR.  This is not age-specific, anyone can order off of it.  

 

I'm guessing that you are a new cruiser.  If you go onto the Carnival website, you will be able to see the menus for the specialty restaurants.  Those rarely change.  You can also see sample menus for the MDR.  There will be some variation there, but the core menu remains pretty much the same across the fleet.

 

If you log into the HUB app when you board, you will be able to see the menus for the week.  If you don't want to go to the MDR, then just head out to the Lido and take advantage of the offerings there.  There is a ton of variety available everywhere on the ship.  Those kids won't go hungry 🙂 

Edited September 6, 2022 by Schoifmom

[wemjam]

Menu link 

 

https://profcruise.com/new-carnival-menus-updated-may-2022/

[tdbates]

Thanks everyone! Yes, I see the Cucina del Capitano menu online now. When I was on the website on my phone I didn't realize there was a hyperlink for the dinner menu. Thank you! When I googled the menu I came across several different variations of the menu, all uploaded fairly recently, which is why I asked. 

 

As far as them being picky, it would be easier to mention what they actually do eat. One is on the autism spectrum, high functioning, and very much eats the same things all the time. Mainly pasta with plain marinara and mac n cheese. The other eats mostly fries and the same pasta with marinara. Neither eat meat whatsoever. We've seen feeding therapists and nutritionists so no advice needed. But having the various options on the cruise is a big reason why we are giving it a try. We've been overseas (Europe, from the US) with them several times and meal times can be stressful. I'm hoping they will be willing to try some new things on this trip. 

 

Thank you for the link for the updated MDR menus! Is there a way to find out when the elegant night is on a 5 night cruise? Because we are choosing to skip it. 

Edited September 6, 2022 by tdbates

[Schoifmom]

1 hour ago, tdbates said:

Thanks everyone! Yes, I see the Cucina del Capitano menu online now. When I was on the website on my phone I didn't realize there was a hyperlink for the dinner menu. Thank you! When I googled the menu I came across several different variations of the menu, all uploaded fairly recently, which is why I asked. 

 

As far as them being picky, it would be easier to mention what they actually do eat. One is on the autism spectrum, high functioning, and very much eats the same things all the time. Mainly pasta with plain marinara and mac n cheese. The other eats mostly fries and the same pasta with marinara. Neither eat meat whatsoever. We've seen feeding therapists and nutritionists so no advice needed. But having the various options on the cruise is a big reason why we are giving it a try. We've been overseas (Europe, from the US) with them several times and meal times can be stressful. I'm hoping they will be willing to try some new things on this trip. 

 

Thank you for the link for the updated MDR menus! Is there a way to find out when the elegant night is on a 5 night cruise? Because we are choosing to skip it. 

Elegant night is normally the second night of the cruise (they rarely deviate from that for the first elegant night).  

 

I know that there is mac and cheese and fries on the kids menu, I don't know about pasta with marinara.  Perhaps someone else could chime in on that.

[variable283]

Pro tip for the cucina del capitaino you can go during lunch hours and it's free. The menu is much more limited but you can at least try it out, and who doesn't love to get pasta. 😄

 

As for the main dinning room I would recommended selecting the my time dinning option. You can just tell them whenever you want to get a table through the app and you'll get a notification your table is ready. (Usually about 10minutes later in my experience) You can check out the menu for the main dinning room daily on the app and if I doesn't look appealing you could always walk through the buffet on the liddo and see if something looks good. Or try a specialty restaurant, or if in dire straights there is always pizza pirate! lol 

[hard_eight]

4 hours ago, wemjam said:

Menu link 

 

https://profcruise.com/new-carnival-menus-updated-may-2022/

Where the tomato soup at Brunch!? I may start a riot!

[Seashell337]

We did the cucina del capitaino for lunch every other day for the pasta with marinara - no meat and the grill for French fries with our picky eaters before Covid.  Right after we got on the ship we would walk and look at all the food venues, to let the kids get an idea of what was offered. 
 

Our youngest is on the autism spectrum and has three main meals that he will eat. We haven’t cruised with him yet. 

[wemjam]

1 hour ago, hard_eight said:

Where the tomato soup at Brunch!? I may start a riot!

RIGHT?  I was so disappointed when they took that off.  I would ask for 1 bowl, 2 pitchers of soup every time!  Of course, the new Skillet Cake is the BOMB and makes up for it a little bit!

[wemjam]

5 hours ago, tdbates said:

Thanks everyone! Yes, I see the Cucina del Capitano menu online now. When I was on the website on my phone I didn't realize there was a hyperlink for the dinner menu. Thank you! When I googled the menu I came across several different variations of the menu, all uploaded fairly recently, which is why I asked. 

 

As far as them being picky, it would be easier to mention what they actually do eat. One is on the autism spectrum, high functioning, and very much eats the same things all the time. Mainly pasta with plain marinara and mac n cheese. The other eats mostly fries and the same pasta with marinara. Neither eat meat whatsoever. We've seen feeding therapists and nutritionists so no advice needed. But having the various options on the cruise is a big reason why we are giving it a try. We've been overseas (Europe, from the US) with them several times and meal times can be stressful. I'm hoping they will be willing to try some new things on this trip. 

 

Thank you for the link for the updated MDR menus! Is there a way to find out when the elegant night is on a 5 night cruise? Because we are choosing to skip it. 

Not sure if the Sunshine has a BBQ place or not, but the ships that do, sometimes the BBQ has really good Mac and Cheese there!  Fries can always be gotten at the deli (which all ships have), and guys burgers.  Cucina Del Capitano for pasta anytime.