Symphony OTS: Ben & David review the new menu & dining experience

[Btank]

35 minutes ago, Weelynn said:

And I’m sorry but I don’t think anyone likes cold food. 

Well, maybe gazpacho. 😄  Try it, you'll like it.

 

     --bruce T.

[Weelynn]

8 minutes ago, Btank said:

Well, maybe gazpacho. 😄  Try it, you'll like it.

 

     --bruce T.

😂😂 I have and I don’t! 

[Scotty G]

We watch most of Ben and David's cruise videos. I was not surprised by this review. I believe they erred in not elevating their concerns to the Dining Room Manager. Their servers obviously were not experienced and should have been replaced or better supervised. Hopefully the HD is following up on this videos concerns!

Also their comments about the menus were absolutely right on. Nightly menus that barely reflect content with a majority of dishes in that theme! We too were surprised by this. 

[deliver42]

If the food is cold on my upcoming Harmony, I will complain to the right person. That's unaceptable.

[goldfish65]

Again, what is so hard about merely informing the server and/or captain of any issue with the food, so they can resolve it then and there? I am a server in a restaurant and we want our guests to leave happy, so they don't go around bad-mouthing our food and service. 

[HappyTexan44]

18 minutes ago, goldfish65 said:

Again, what is so hard about merely informing the server and/or captain of any issue with the food, so they can resolve it then and there? I am a server in a restaurant and we want our guests to leave happy, so they don't go around bad-mouthing our food and service. 

 

They did.   Sending food back multiple times should have been a big clue.   

Going to Guest Services and complaining about the food and then saying something like, "No I don't want free wine, or any of that other stuff, I just want warm food." should have been a bigger clue.    The fact that their next dinner was just as bad is a sign that they don't really care.  

 

[sgmn]

3 hours ago, Meekacat said:

We were on the same sailing.  Main dining was the best we've had in 11 Oasis class sailings.  There are many galleys servicing main dining on mega ships so we just request to move to a different section/galley if we encounter food issues.  I know Royal should be more consistent but why stay and complain every night 🙂  

 

btw- lots of complaints on this sailing (and the Wonder inaugural) about YouTube folks disturbing other passengers by making chatty videos in intimate settings like these guys in the main dining room during dinner service.  Royal probably needs some guidelines as common decency isn't prevailing   

Encouraging that you had good food, thanks for the review. 

I wasn't aware there were many galleys for the MDR on the big ships. We normally are on smaller ships. Our biggest previously was Anthem which has the four MDRs

Edited May 2, 2023 by sgmn

[boxman52]

4 hours ago, Meekacat said:

We were on the same sailing.  Main dining was the best we've had in 11 Oasis class sailings.  There are many galleys servicing main dining on mega ships so we just request to move to a different section/galley if we encounter food issues.  I know Royal should be more consistent but why stay and complain every night 🙂  

 

btw- lots of complaints on this sailing (and the Wonder inaugural) about YouTube folks disturbing other passengers by making chatty videos in intimate settings like these guys in the main dining room during dinner service.  Royal probably needs some guidelines as common decency isn't prevailing   

It's not comfortable for lots of British people to complain, not all but lots of people like my wife would rather suffer and say nothing than make a complaint.

I'm not sure it's up to guests to be Royals quality control system. They should be able to serve food hot it's kind of the ABC of running a kitchen

As for the vloggers I can well understand that. Although these days people don't care, they have their music playing loud at the pool, videos for the kids blurring out at dinner or facetime calls at breakfast. It seems more and more people are have little regard or courtesy.

Sorry for the off topic rant!

[cynt]

We were on the Symphony in October 2022 and had great food and service. It was 13 of us and everyone found something delicious to eat each night. Food arrived hot and tasty which is kind of difficult when you serve 13 at once. 

[HappyTexan44]

9 minutes ago, cynt said:

We were on the Symphony in October 2022 and had great food and service. It was 13 of us and everyone found something delicious to eat each night. Food arrived hot and tasty which is kind of difficult when you serve 13 at once. 

Wasn't that in the before times?   Not pre-SARS2, but pre-new menu?   

[HappyTexan44]

Thinking about this, even though the review is damning, there is a bright side.   The food itself seemed mostly good.   They didn't complain about the quality of the base ingredients or the taste (mostly).  The problem was in the execution.   Part of that is their plan of plating everything hours early, but part of that has to be the employees.    

[Btank]

9 hours ago, goldfish65 said:

Again, what is so hard about merely informing the server and/or captain of any issue with the food, so they can resolve it then and there?

I'm guessing they did - they had to send back several plates that were anywhere from "cold" to "ice cold" (their words).

 

I'm betting that you might be a more conscientious server than they had.  It was interesting was that after clearing away several dishes that had barely been touched, the servers didn't ask them if everything was OK with the meal.

 

      --bruce T.

[Btank]

6 hours ago, cynt said:

We were on the Symphony in October 2022 and had great food and service.

Was that before the new menus kicked in?

 

      --bruce T.

[Btank]

2 hours ago, HappyTexan44 said:

Thinking about this, even though the review is damning, there is a bright side.   The food itself seemed mostly good.   They didn't complain about the quality of the base ingredients or the taste (mostly).

Agreed.  They were more concerned with the inconsistencies - for example, offering Indian curry and mozzarella sticks on a French-themed night, etc.

 

2 hours ago, HappyTexan44 said:

The problem was in the execution.   Part of that is their plan of plating everything hours early, but part of that has to be the employees.    

I would lean more toward the latter.  I doubt they've changed much of anything in preparing and plating meals... but clearly, something was broken in the service.  There is no way that just their table was experiencing this; IMHO, there was a systemic failure in service quality that the head waiters and restaurant management should have been aware of.  The fact that they had issues with MDR lunch service as well kind of reinforces that.

 

      --bruce T.

 

[gkbiiii]

2 hours ago, HappyTexan44 said:

Thinking about this, even though the review is damning, there is a bright side.   The food itself seemed mostly good.   They didn't complain about the quality of the base ingredients or the taste (mostly).  The problem was in the execution.   Part of that is their plan of plating everything hours early, but part of that has to be the employees.    

There is no bright side, the food was both horrible in its execution, quality, preparation, & presentation!  Absolute failure on ALL ends!  Sugar coating a turd. 

[BennyandBo]

16 hours ago, cynt said:

We were on the Symphony in October 2022 and had great food and service. It was 13 of us and everyone found something delicious to eat each night. Food arrived hot and tasty which is kind of difficult when you serve 13 at once. 

Cuts are recent. You cannot compare October last year to last week.

[BennyandBo]

21 hours ago, Meekacat said:

We were on the same sailing.  Main dining was the best we've had in 11 Oasis class sailings.  There are many galleys servicing main dining on mega ships so we just request to move to a different section/galley if we encounter food issues.  I know Royal should be more consistent but why stay and complain every night 🙂  

 

btw- lots of complaints on this sailing (and the Wonder inaugural) about YouTube folks disturbing other passengers by making chatty videos in intimate settings like these guys in the main dining room during dinner service.  Royal probably needs some guidelines as common decency isn't prevailing   

Why? So people cannot see video of bad food and here bad reviews because you cannot stand anyone having a negative opinion about your pet preshious multi billion dollar corporation. Do me a favor.

[JeffT237]

22 hours ago, Meekacat said:

btw- lots of complaints on this sailing (and the Wonder inaugural) about YouTube folks disturbing other passengers by making chatty videos in intimate settings like these guys in the main dining room during dinner service

 

I appreciate good and thourough reviews, both in print and media, but I kept thinking how annoying it would have been to be sitting next to these 2 while they made their videos regardless if it were good or bad.  Especially in the tight confines of the MDR.  I understand that being a YouTuber or influencer is a job, but be respectful of others around you.  To have to listen to people review every course of every meal while recording I'm sure was very distracting.  

[HappyTexan44]

10 hours ago, Btank said:

I doubt they've changed much of anything in preparing and plating meals...

 

I wonder about that though.  Reports of un-tossed salads with the dressing sitting on the bottom.   That is what you do to plate a salad hours in advance.  

 

In this case though, I wonder if they were served food that had been plated for early dining?  

[Newcruiser215]

I am really laughing at some of the excuses I'm reading and that somehow they're wrong for recording their experience. If the review was positive, no one would have an issue. Royal can do no wrong, right?! 

[BennyandBo]

46 minutes ago, Newcruiser215 said:

I am really laughing at some of the excuses I'm reading and that somehow they're wrong for recording their experience. If the review was positive, no one would have an issue. Royal can do no wrong, right?! 

Exactly

[BennyandBo]

1 hour ago, JeffT237 said:

 

I appreciate good and thourough reviews, both in print and media, but I kept thinking how annoying it would have been to be sitting next to these 2 while they made their videos regardless if it were good or bad.  Especially in the tight confines of the MDR.  I understand that being a YouTuber or influencer is a job, but be respectful of others around you.  To have to listen to people review every course of every meal while recording I'm sure was very distracting.  

That's not the point of this thread. The food sucked, the service sucked, and it was recorded and viewed by tens of thousands. Reviewers are not at fault. The business behind the bad food and service is.

[cruiseboy89130]

Food being cold or wrongly prepared is the norm now with Royal!

People that deny that must not have sailed so ce they changed the menu!

[TheHawk1]

On 5/1/2023 at 9:35 PM, Thisguylikestocruise said:

They come off as entitled rather than unbiased critics.

There is hardly anything entitled about eating in the MDR every night.  That's about as basic as you can get on a cruise ship.

[BennyandBo]

25 minutes ago, cruiseboy89130 said:

Food being cold or wrongly prepared is the norm now with Royal!

People that deny that must not have sailed so ce they changed the menu!

Or they just think for some bizarre reason this company can do no wrong. 

 

I don't get it. If your a "fan" of Royal as many claim to be, why say nothing. If food changes don't happen, eventually there won't be a business to be a fan of. Clearly there is a problem with cut backs, staff, etc. The current system is not working. Not when the bad reviews, trip reports, complaints etc come in volume.