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[CulverCityCruisers]

After our last sailing on Summit, we noticed a MASSIVE decline in the food quality and many, many favorite items replaced with lower quality options, and the elimination of many "Always available" nightly options other than the featured ones.  Anyone have any feedback or updates on changes that might be coming?

[keesar]

1 hour ago, CulverCityCruisers said:

After our last sailing on Summit, we noticed a MASSIVE decline in the food quality and many, many favorite items replaced with lower quality options, and the elimination of many "Always available" nightly options other than the featured ones.  Anyone have any feedback or updates on changes that might be coming?

 

We thought the food was very good on the Beyond.  No complaints on this end.  I did not notice any "lower quality items" except for the burgers in Mast Grill and mediocre pizza.  The buffet was the same from my perspective from past sailings.

[Jim_Iain]

We recently cruised for 6 weeks on Apex.    We found the food to be very good and plentiful even in the OVC.  

 

To my knowledge there are no plans to change the menus except for occasional tweaks and substitutions.

 

Ours was a cold weather cruise and the Pool Grill wasn't open and hamburgers were cooked at the OVC and were cooked in advanced and stacked -  chose not to have one.

Edited July 29, 2023 by Jim_Iain

[keesar]

3 minutes ago, Jim_Iain said:

 

 

Ours was a cold weather cruise and the Pool Grill wasn't open and hamburgers were cooked at the OVC and were cooked in advanced and stacked -  chose not to have one.

 

I was wondering if the burgers were already cooked and just reheated before being served.  

 

Also, the menus are tweaked throughout the year.  

[Jim_Iain]

32 minutes ago, keesar said:

 

I was wondering if the burgers were already cooked and just reheated before being served.  

 

Also, the menus are tweaked throughout the year.  

My experience in the past was that they will cook to order if you wish to wait but they usually cook them and put them in a heated pan and the other servers serves from the pan.    Usually they are only sitting around a minute or so but have had some that were so dry they were not pleasant.

[CulverCityCruisers]

44 minutes ago, Jim_Iain said:

We recently cruised for 6 weeks on Apex.    We found the food to be very good and plentiful even in the OVC.  

 

To my knowledge there are no plans to change the menus except for occasional tweaks and substitutions.

 

Ours was a cold weather cruise and the Pool Grill wasn't open and hamburgers were cooked at the OVC and were cooked in advanced and stacked -  chose not to have one.

I know that you guys cruise on X a lot, but have you been on an S class ship of late and maybe know about the MDR diner food.  Off Summit recently and we were very dissapointed in the major decline in the quality of food and the offerings.  Any fed back?

[Ex-Airbalancer]

51 minutes ago, CulverCityCruisers said:

I know that you guys cruise on X a lot, but have you been on an S class ship of late and maybe know about the MDR diner food.  Off Summit recently and we were very dissapointed in the major decline in the quality of food and the offerings.  Any fed back?

When we were on the Reflection Spring TA , I thought the food was very good 

Pizza toasted ok , just wish for crispier crust 

[patty1955]

1 hour ago, CulverCityCruisers said:

 Off Summit recently and we were very dissapointed in the major decline in the quality of food and the offerings.  Any fed back?

We felt the same after our last 2 cruise, both M class. 

[Wavedance]

I agree with you. Husband and I were on Solstice California Coast April 2023. Our third time on Solstice since 2011, and we thought food in the MDR had declined significantly from 2017. There were a lot of quirky dishes not executed as well as they could have been. I believe this was even before the menu change as they still had the shrimp cocktail every night. One time I ordered it when another shrimp salad appetizer was on the menu. The classic had a number of whole shrimps while the new one just had a few pieces. Instead of the traditional Maine lobster tail they served a warm-water lobster - at least in Murano. Not as good. 

[Jim_Iain]

5 hours ago, CulverCityCruisers said:

I know that you guys cruise on X a lot, but have you been on an S class ship of late and maybe know about the MDR diner food.  Off Summit recently and we were very dissapointed in the major decline in the quality of food and the offerings.  Any fed back?

 

Was on Summit a year ago and was very pleased with the food.    As for S Class have been on both Solstice and Silhouette.   On  both M and S Class we are able to order from both Luminae and MDR menu and probably order from the MDR menu about 50% of the time- mix and match.

 

Really didn't notice much decline in the food except for awhile they were serving something called a Manhattan Steak (MDR)   Not sure what type of cut it was but was round with no marbling and pretty tasteless.   We are not big meat eaters so may affect our experience as opposed to you.  

 

My only disappointment was on Apex with poultry dishes.   It had nothing to do with the quality of the food but the chef destroyed every poultry item I ordered.   Got to the point our waiter would stand by him when he cooked.    The Poultry Chef left at the end of the TA and on the next cruise the poultry was perfect.

[NMTraveller]

This is the typical food thread.  Diners in MDR note the decline.  Diners in suites say it isn't so because they ordered an MDR item while in Luminae.

 

I would suppose that those sailing in suites, if they had to order exclusively off of the MDR menu and dine exclusively in the MDR might have been more in line with the MDR diners' reviews.

 

Diners in Luminae get to cherry pick the menu.

 

 

Edited July 30, 2023 by NMTraveller

[hcat]

Titles like the one for  this thread can start  bad rumors! 

 

We actually read that things are improving although some nights better than others....pasta and tilapia not great offerings but always something that's good!

 

We disliked  the Luminae menu  and food on BEYOND..BLU was so much better!

Fresher shrimp,  warm bread and rolls...great selection.

 

So not everyone will agree!

[BlackLion 213]

19 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

This is the typical food thread.  Diners in MDR note the decline.  Diners in suites say it isn't so because they ordered an MDR item while in Luminae.

 

I would suppose that those sailing in suites, if they had to order exclusively off of the MDR menu and dine exclusively in the MDR might have been more in line with the MDR diners' reviews.

 

Diners in Luminae get to cherry pick the menu.

 

 

 

Just off of Eclipse in Alaska last week.

 

We ate in Luminae only twice, choosing specialty restaurants the rest of the week. Even with "cherry picking" BOTH menus, the options were extremely disappointing. We had been on Beyond in December, and feel the food has taken a steep nosedive in those 7 months.

 

BTW, the quality of the food in Tuscan Grille sucked (to put it as politely as possible) even worse than Luminae or the MDR. We canceled our planned second night there.

 

Murano, Sushi, and Le Petit Chef shined...

 

[NMTraveller]

7 minutes ago, BlackLion 213 said:

 

Just off of Eclipse in Alaska last week.

 

We ate in Luminae only twice, choosing specialty restaurants the rest of the week. Even with "cherry picking" BOTH menus, the options were extremely disappointing. We had been on Beyond in December, and feel the food has taken a steep nosedive in those 7 months.

 

BTW, the quality of the food in Tuscan Grille sucked (to put it as politely as possible) even worse than Luminae or the MDR. We canceled our planned second night there.

 

Murano, Sushi, and Le Petit Chef shined...

 

Thanks.  I have chosen to eat in the specialties also after seeing the reviews...

[BlackLion 213]

3 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

Thanks.  I have chosen to eat in the specialties also after seeing the reviews...

 

I believe this is another in a line of "kill a cruise line" moves that the new CEO has planned...

 

Make the "standard" food so (insert the inappropriate word), that passengers dine in the specialty restaurants, therefore spending more.

 

[neverlaysup]

7 hours ago, Ex-Airbalancer said:

When we were on the Reflection Spring TA , I thought the food was very good 

Pizza toasted ok , just wish for crispier crust 

I have asked them to put a few slices back in the over to crisp and it's about 50/50 on them agreeing to this. If I ask them to make me a whole pizza I just have them make it well done and ask them to put it back in the oven for another minute when they (90% of the time) pull it early.

[Barb1403]

I have have been able to request pizza crispy on several of the ships. They have all been excellent. Just wish they had more selection of toppings on a daily basis.

[OysterD]

14 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

This is the typical food thread. 

 

Diners in MDR note the decline.  Diners in suites say it isn't so because they ordered an MDR item while in Luminae.

 

Diners in Luminae get to cherry pick the menu.

 

 

No it's not typical. Have you read any of the live cruise reports recently, they've all been positive. 

 

Much like diners in Luminae cherry picking the menu, you cherry pick reports on food. I've noticed you jump all over any thread where anyone has a slight complaint about food yet nothing on the numerous threads where people are very complimentary of the food. 

[patty1955]

41 minutes ago, OysterD said:

No it's not typical. Have you read any of the live cruise reports recently, they've all been positive. 

 

Positive about what? We were on Infinity last month and saw a serious decline in the food quality.

[CulverCityCruisers]

I think that in my opinion, as a frequent X cruiser, it is the frequent cruisers that notice the decline.  If you are sailing for the first time on X you wont notice any decline.

 

on Summit recently, an hour and a half before the buffet was to shut down the carving station was out of fresh turkey, and we were informed that there was no more available as " we just are not cooking as much as we did before, the station is gonna close"  In addition, there is no longer fresh turkey at the salad bar as a topping, but rather some chopped , pressed and formed mystery meat that they informed us was "turkey"

 

Just sad as X is advertising that favorites are returning to the dinning room, but I think the focus is on the new E class ships only   Just my opinion!

[Jim_Iain]

15 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

This is the typical food thread.  Diners in MDR note the decline.  Diners in suites say it isn't so because they ordered an MDR item while in Luminae.

 

I would suppose that those sailing in suites, if they had to order exclusively off of the MDR menu and dine exclusively in the MDR might have been more in line with the MDR diners' reviews.

 

Diners in Luminae get to cherry pick the menu.

 

 

I can tell you for a fact that there are far more choices available on both MDR Menu and Blu Menu that that offered in Luminae.    I see MANY reviews by MDR and BLU diners that also say they have no complaints about food and service in their assigned venue.   

 

All I can say is

 

'You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time"

 

 

[michaelwh]

I'm currently on the Reflection, and it appears we're getting a version of the menu that was so controversial in the Equinox a few weeks ago...

 

The differences seem to be that certain things (e.g. shrimp cocktail) are on every night, but they are merged with a much reduced version of the old menu. The upcharge items are on it too.

 

My take on it so far is that the number of dishes on offer isn't too bad - it's just that when three of them are grilled steak, chicken and salmon, they're quite...dull. And I don't really want soup or salad every night as a starter. It feels like if they'd wanted to cut down the menu, they would have been better off starting from scratch.

[keesar]

1 hour ago, Jim_Iain said:

I can tell you for a fact that there are far more choices available on both MDR Menu and Blu Menu that that offered in Luminae.    I see MANY reviews by MDR and BLU diners that also say they have no complaints about food and service in their assigned venue.   

 

All I can say is

 

'You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time"

 

 

I usually sail in Aqua and have noticed that there are more choices on the MDR  dinner menus than in Blu.  The quality, in my opinion, has remained consistently good in Blu. Same with the excellent service there.  

 

As for the Buffet, the meats at the carving station at lunch and dinner were tender and delicious. Same with the sides there.  There was a variety of cheeses including Blue Cheese. Fresh fruit. Paella was outstanding.   Pizza has been consistently bland over the years.  

[horseymike]

Did they put the franks and beans 🫘 back ?
How about the PBJ and the egg 🥚 salad ?

[Cruzinforpeace***]

On 7/29/2023 at 10:55 AM, CulverCityCruisers said:

After our last sailing on Summit, we noticed a MASSIVE decline in the food quality and many, many favorite items replaced with lower quality options, and the elimination of many "Always available" nightly options other than the featured ones.  Anyone have any feedback or updates on changes that might be coming?

I agree.  Just off the Summit.  The food in the MDR and Buffet was barely edible and at times inedible.  HUGE decline in quality and few choices.  Last night I had short ribs that were mostly congealed fat.  After trying it (it was tasteless), I dumped ketchup all over it hoping it would help.  nope.  We will not be returning to X after this trip mainly due the decline in food quality and choices.  I felt like I was at Cracker Barrel most of the time and actually Crack Barrel tasted better than some of the items we were served.  I don’t think even Cracker Barrel serves tilapia.  X needs to get their act together in the food department, at least on the Summit.