Awful food on Harmony of the Seas

[GetToLivin]

5 hours ago, njsmom said:

And in the specialty restaurants, while the desserts looked gorgeous, they were either overly sweet with no specific flavor other than sugar 

This is SO true. The desserts are pretty to look at, but for the most part, finding the "flavor" of things outside of, okay you used sugar, is challenging. It's so hit and miss - Allure had pretty good desserts when we sailed her, but Harmony, I just ended up not bothering at a certain point. As an aside, I still don't understand why the Windjammer makes so much jello 🤔

[Ret MP]

1 minute ago, GetToLivin said:

This is SO true. The desserts are pretty to look at, but for the most part, finding the "flavor" of things outside of, okay you used sugar, is challenging. It's so hit and miss - Allure had pretty good desserts when we sailed her, but Harmony, I just ended up not bothering at a certain point. As an aside, I still don't understand why the Windjammer makes so much jello 🤔

The cruise lines that I totally dislike, I have to admit, their desserts are much better than RCCL's.  With the exception of Baklava.😀

[lovesthebeach2]

51 minutes ago, LobsterStalker said:

And it may not . Keep in mind , A good portion of what you read on here are people's complaints and moanings . Many will not actually change anything because of it. I have stated that I am quite disappointed in the decline in the dining experience but so far that alone will not deter me from sailing.

If pricing keeps getting worse , that will be another story ,as I am always weighing value VS. product received .

It as always will be a wait and see as to whether it catches up to them.

 

Cheers

Same….. we’re not happy with the food, but we’re still sailing too, until the prices get too high.

And as my father-in-law used to say “get your moneys worth”

[topnole]

53 minutes ago, lovesthebeach2 said:

Same….. we’re not happy with the food, but we’re still sailing too, until the prices get too high.

And as my father-in-law used to say “get your moneys worth”

This.  If the food is that bad, people wouldn’t sail Royal again.  If I found the food inedible, I most certainly wouldn’t cruise with Royal again.  It is absolutely a balance between price and the expectations that go with said price (ie. the value one perceives).  It seems most folks still find enough value in cruising to fill the boats up almost completely.  Maybe this will change, but as of now they haven’t seemed to pass any major threshold of dissatisfaction with food.  

[HappyTexan44]

2 hours ago, lovesthebeach2 said:

I agree as long as ships are full they have no incentive, but most people sailing now may have booked months ago. It may catch up to them eventually, and if they’re reading any reviews, it shouldn’t surprise them. But I could be wrong and new cruisers have nothing to compare it to so they’re happy. 

This is true.  I booked our cruise long before this was announced, and the cruise is still 10 months away and nonrefundable.  Since the general advice I read was to "book early for the best prices" I'm not the only one.  
Hopefully they watch the NextCruise bookings and those are impacted.   Although, if this policy saves them enough money and the bean counters say that they can still fill the cruises ...   



 

[RedSails1968]

I must be very easy to please because I only found two things I didn’t like. The prime rib in the MDR and the panna cotta in Giovanni’s. 

[Sigyn]

This whole thing about Navy food and cruise ship food - it doesn't make sense. Why is someone comparing the flavor of food on a Navy ship to what you get on an expensive vacation cruise?

 

My husband is a veteran but he surely doesn't compare food on vacation to what he received in basic training or during his military stint. 

 

Apples to apples, people. 

[shipgeeks]

We have sailed on Enchantment five times in the last 14 months, doing all our meals and snacks in MDR and WJ.  Overall, we rate the food good to excellent, including the new menus last month.

Re the Indian food:  We have enjoyed having some choices available in WJ at both breakfast and lunch. We are aware that many people don't even consider trying it because it is "way too spicy".  It's not. For comparison, last week we were treated to a multi-course meal from a new local Indian restaurant.  Our host ordered all dishes at "2" level of spiciness, out of 10.  All were comparable to the tasty but not too spicy dishes we had on Enchantment.

[jencruzin]

9 minutes ago, njsmom said:

This whole thing about Navy food and cruise ship food - it doesn't make sense. Why is someone comparing the flavor of food on a Navy ship to what you get on an expensive vacation cruise?

 

My husband is a veteran but he surely doesn't compare food on vacation to what he received in basic training or during his military stint. 

 

Apples to apples, people. 

He asked me to post that earlier😗. Why didn't you reply to me directly, I'd have said the same. It was me who posted it.

What doesn't make sense to you? I have a crayon. Want me to help you understand better, using it?

 

He feels that cruise ship food, currently, can be compared to what he had to eat onboard back in the day. Cruise ship food is getting worse.

Edited April 11, 2023 by jencruzin

[Engineroom Snipe]

6 minutes ago, HappyTexan44 said:

This is true.  I booked our cruise long before this was announced, and the cruise is still 10 months away and nonrefundable.  Since the general advice I read was to "book early for the best prices" I'm not the only one.  
Hopefully they watch the NextCruise bookings and those are impacted.   Although, if this policy saves them enough money and the bean counters say that they can still fill the cruises ...   



 

 

I feel there is a delay factor also.

 

A perfect example is RCI offering a bottle of champagne for completing your Next Cruise contract on the first day of the cruise.

 

I normally research my cruises and often book on the first day and I have never seen any "special" consideration beyond what I would have received on any other cruise day.

 

This would tell me that there is some slowing on Next Cruise bookings. If bookings are so solid, why spend more money on incentives?

 

The time reservations books for Next Cruise can be filled with thousands of reservations but that does not always mean they convert into a future cruise.

 

I think Next Cruise Bookings are the canaries in the coal mine as they are giving immediate real-time feedback about how people feel about their current cruises and their values for the money.

 

Something to ponder.

[topnole]

10 minutes ago, HappyTexan44 said:

This is true.  I booked our cruise long before this was announced, and the cruise is still 10 months away and nonrefundable.  Since the general advice I read was to "book early for the best prices" I'm not the only one.  
Hopefully they watch the NextCruise bookings and those are impacted.   Although, if this policy saves them enough money and the bean counters say that they can still fill the cruises ...   



 

Well, this certainly could be true and I wouldn’t be shocked if bookings went down.   But I believe that their new bookings are strong or at least I haven’t heard otherwise and they have been recently.   I tend to think more than enough people find value in the overall product (food included).  
 

One thing remains constant and that thing is that nothing remains the same.  Like everything else, cruising continues to change and passengers seem to accept that with regards to food.  Not saying this is good or bad.  Just reality.  Cruising is very different from 30 years ago in almost every way.  Such is life.  

[topnole]

44 minutes ago, njsmom said:

This whole thing about Navy food and cruise ship food - it doesn't make sense. Why is someone comparing the flavor of food on a Navy ship to what you get on an expensive vacation cruise?

 

My husband is a veteran but he surely doesn't compare food on vacation to what he received in basic training or during his military stint. 

 

Apples to apples, people. 

Careful, they will likely find some “clever” (not clever at all) way to infer you are stupid because you think their Navy food comparison is pointless.  

[loman]

Im on the Harmony in few months , and not one for desserts , so i am optimistic

that i will find something edible when i get hungry.🙂

[Charles4515]

1 hour ago, loman said:

Im on the Harmony in few months , and not one for desserts , so i am optimistic

that i will find something edible when i get hungry.🙂

I usually only order ice cream for dessert on Royal. 

[loman]

32 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

I usually only order ice cream for dessert on Royal. 

Me too, when i do order dessert on the odd occasion. 

They cant mess that up too much.

[sgmn]

5 hours ago, lovesthebeach2 said:

I agree as long as ships are full they have no incentive, but most people sailing now may have booked months ago. It may catch up to them eventually, and if they’re reading any reviews, it shouldn’t surprise them. But I could be wrong and new cruisers have nothing to compare it to so they’re happy. 

 Im guessing that they can get feedback from their forward bookings, comparing it to their historic booking trends.  If people are still continuing to book at the expected rate for next year etc then they will assume people are happy with their product 

[Cruise a holic]

On 4/9/2023 at 12:12 PM, njsmom said:

Just got off of Harmony of the Seas. I was surprised at how bad the food was. We've cruised Carnival and Norwegian and the Royal Caribbean food was on par with Carnival. Which is to say, not good. Norwegian's food is quite good, and the specialty restaurants on Norwegian are as good as fine dining restaurants in the real world, but Royal Caribbean is just blech.

We did the Unlimited Dining Package and ate in specialty restaurants much of the time to try to overcome the yucky food factor, to no avail. Chops, 150 Central Park, Sabor...the food was all pretty meh. Jamie's was delicious for lunch one day, but the very same dish - prawns with linguine - ordered for dinner another night was dry and disappointing as if it had been sitting out for hours, waiting for someone to order it and then they'd heated it up again. The pasta carbonara was a favorite of my son's every time he tried it, fortunately. If I had to pick a decent specialty restaurant, I'd opt for Jamie's, since sometimes it was good and some dishes were tasty. The lamb chops at dinner were very good. But the eggplant parmigiana, not so much. 

At Chops, the steaks were tough and overcooked. The bacon appetizer was a strip of fatty, wet pork. The mushroom soup was a win, however. At 150 Central Park, the pork belly was literally a blob of crispy fat with not a speck of actual meat within it. The tenderloin for two was overcooked. The lobster thermidor was chewy and meh. We cancelled a second dinner we had scheduled at 150 Central Park out of disappointment from night #1. The ceviche at Sabor had to be sent back. It was bland and the texture was weird. The shrimp tacos were overly salty. But the guac was good. Wonderland was fun, but only half of the dishes tasted good. On and on...we did formal night in the MDR and were completely underwhelmed.

 

On the positives, the hibachi restaurant was very good, and we thoroughly enjoyed that but it was no different than any hibachi restaurant you'd find at home. The Izumi sushi restaurant was good, too, but it wasn't outstanding, just a regular sushi restaurant. But since we'd had such awful food until that point, we were happy to have edible food we could enjoy. I did really like the Greek salad I had on CocoCay from the snack shack on Chill Island. That was very good and completely surprised me. 

 

We did Windjammer for breakfast each morning and that was actually okay. Funny that the buffet was the best thing we did. Maybe because I just ate yogurt and fruit  and my son ate pastries and waffles. Altho the coffee was lukewarm. My son enjoyed Sorrento's Pizza, but I didn't try it. 

I was so disappointed in the food. I had hoped it would be better and that everyone's complaints were overblown. They were not. 

Wow.  We enjoyed the specialty restaurants on the Harmony of the Seas- the Fat Back bacon appetizer isn't something I would eat- it is all fat .  We enjoyed the other options and loved the other specialty restaurants- we varied what we ordered.  Breakfast and some lunch in Costal Kitchen was very good.  We were in the Haven on NCL and found that line overall worse then carnival if we left the haven.  Food was the same everyday and the specialty restaurants poor.  They made dinner at Friday's look good.

 

But to each his/her own.

[Ret MP]

On 4/10/2023 at 11:44 AM, Tatka said:

 

What ship did you sail on? I am getting mixed reviews between different X ships.

But generally Celebrity is better.

I understand this thread is about Harmony, but I think this experience can and probably does happen on all ships with a Wonderland on it:

 

On our Ovation cruise last May, my buddy and I ordered the "Short Rib" while at the Wonderland Specialty Restaurant.  As stated many times previously, I'm no fan of Wonderland but it was my buddy's and his wife's first time on a RCCL ship.  My Rib <note, not plural, was actually very good.  The Rib <again, note, not plural, had no rib and was a huge chunk of white jello jiggling fat covered in BBQ sauce.  Obviously, he returned it and the next attempt was much better.  I don't want to beat a dead horse (you know I wouldn't do that LOL) but to keep it brief, it wasn't the ship that plated that chunk of fat, it was a person, a lazy and/or unsupervised and/or untrained person that has probably moved on to another ship or home between contracts. Probably coming to or already on a ship near you! LOL

[Tatka]

3 hours ago, Ret MP said:

I understand this thread is about Harmony, but I think this experience can and probably does happen on all ships with a Wonderland on it:

 

On our Ovation cruise last May, my buddy and I ordered the "Short Rib" while at the Wonderland Specialty Restaurant.  As stated many times previously, I'm no fan of Wonderland but it was my buddy's and his wife's first time on a RCCL ship.  My Rib <note, not plural, was actually very good.  The Rib <again, note, not plural, had no rib and was a huge chunk of white jello jiggling fat covered in BBQ sauce.  Obviously, he returned it and the next attempt was much better.  I don't want to beat a dead horse (you know I wouldn't do that LOL) but to keep it brief, it wasn't the ship that plated that chunk of fat, it was a person, a lazy and/or unsupervised and/or untrained person that has probably moved on to another ship or home between contracts. Probably coming to or already on a ship near you! LOL

 

This is why I used "generally", although all our 7 cruises with X exceeded 26 experiences on RCI. We love RCI and switched to it almost exclusively. Our last 10 was with RCI and next 10 will be with RCI, but this is a reality.

 

 The thing is ... Celebrity is more expensive overall and it spends more on providing better service and food. RCI concentrates more on entertainment and all amusements. RCI still provides good enough food and service and overall works better for us wanting to cruise mostly from Northeast of US without flying. 

[Engineroom Snipe]

3 hours ago, Tatka said:

 

This is why I used "generally", although all our 7 cruises with X exceeded 26 experiences on RCI. We love RCI and switched to it almost exclusively. Our last 10 was with RCI and next 10 will be with RCI, but this is a reality.

 

 The thing is ... Celebrity is more expensive overall and it spends more on providing better service and food. RCI concentrates more on entertainment and all amusements. RCI still provides good enough food and service and overall works better for us wanting to cruise mostly from

 

Northeast of US without flying. 

 

Do not try and defend your position. You gave your honest opinion and others might not agree. You keep posting and we will agree to disagree with your opinion.

 

😁

[Engineroom Snipe]

3 hours ago, Tatka said:

 

This is why I used "generally", although all our 7 cruises with X exceeded 26 experiences on RCI. We love RCI and switched to it almost exclusively. Our last 10 was with RCI and next 10 will be with RCI, but this is a reality.

 

 The thing is ... Celebrity is more expensive overall and it spends more on providing better service and food. RCI concentrates more on entertainment and all amusements. RCI still provides good enough food and service and overall works better for us wanting to cruise mostly from Northeast of US without flying. 

 

What I am trying to say is, "Welcome to Cruise Critic. We all get to criticize your criticisms. How ironic is that?"

 

Hopefully, honest and free speech is a good thing.