Fodd Quality Poll - Anytime Diners Only!

[Tom O.]

This poll is for Anytime diners only. There is a separate one for Traditional diners. In order to keep the poll timely, please only refer to your most recent Princess cruise. Doesn't matter which Princess ship you were on. I am trying to see if passengers perception of the quality of food is related to their dining room choice. If this poll receives enough response, I will post another one next week on dining room service.

[LARGIN]

FODD.. Foreign Object Debris Damage could be a problem while eating. :D:D

[Tom O.]

Well I can't seem to spell the word "Food" And I can't edit it because it is in the subject line.

[MetalManCPA]

There are two ways to anytime dine - buffet and sit down.

 

The sit down service was xecellent, and the buffet service was fair to good. The food at the buffet was basically the same as served at the sit down, although obviously it was like eating at a 3 to 4 star restaurant as opposed to a buffet.

 

I felt the buffet food was a step below the better casino buffets I've been to, such as Mohegan Sun, Bally's, and The Mirage. Also, I've been to a few great stand alone buffets such as Captain George's Seafood Buffet in Virginia. The Princess buffet was generally better than most other buffets I've been to, although getting a drink shouldn't be so difficult.

[SHayesShip]

Tom,

I agree with LARGIN. Are you already trying to dictate the outcome of PC Dining? ;) :D

 

In all seriousness, for the legitimacy of this scientific poll :p , My last Princess cruise was on the Coral and the food was definitely above average and many times excellent.

 

 

 

FODD.. Foreign Object Debris Damage could be a problem while eating. :D:D

[Tom O.]

I guess I should have said dining rooms only. I am not trying to gather information on the buffet.

[chris2597]

We enjoyed the convenience of PC dining....The only problem we encountered was a bug incident during lunch. I was eating my salad and the lettuce moved and a round bug with long legs crawled out of the lettuce, perched itself on the rim of the plate and stared at me...I kid you not....The waiter took it away and the head waiter apologized, said they had been having trouble with the produce....apparently the salads are premixed, washed by the vendor...and they have been having this type of thing happen...Needless to say I lost my appetite for salads for the remainder of the cruise.....We found choc. cov. strawberries in our cabin with a note from the chef apologizing. I guess I could have made a huge deal of it, but I let it go.....and now it is a good story to tell....

We didnt find the waitstaff to be friendly at all in the PC dining...they were sullen and very matter of fact...this seemed the case at all tables...one night we had two girls from Mexico City wait on us and they were friendly, attentive, and a breath of fresh air.

Food was usually good to excellent.

[cbpanda]

We had anytime dining on our most recent CB cruise. The food, in my opinion, was excellent (granted it's not hard to please me). :)

[dresch25]

On our last cruise we went with 2 other couples and we would order everything on the menu and share it among us and the staff was very friendly. ( one in our group was the life of the party and the waitstaff played off that)

[mdmomof7]

I voted GOOD, but I really wanted to vote GOOD to EXCELLENT. My conservative nature won and I voted less rather than more. ;)

[DEL67]

I was very impressed by the food on the Grand Princess in April; however the food in the Antime dining room last month on the Sun Princess was only adequate. The same dished were no where near as good.

[Widespreadpanic]

I've only been on the Sun Princess, and my Anytime Dining experience was good to excellent. Food was generally better than good, although I had an absolutely awful piece of salmon one night. Lobster was so good it made me wonder why I ever thought I liked crab better. Desserts were good with an occasional outstanding. Waitstaff was not really friendly (at least with our table of two), but did notice them talking with other passengers. Service was good most nights, but with lapses. (We chose Anytime Dining again for our 14 days coming up, simply because we like to choose the time.)

[NAS-KARR]

Good poll idea Tom...........I'm really curious about the next poll........ROOM SERVICE.

 

 

 

 

Ciao,

[mek]

Food - Good to Excellent, on average, very good - but that wasn't an option. Now service is another issue...

[Rustyone]

Although neither of us are food critics we both felt the food was better than average.

[senior lady]

We were on a 19 day repo cruise last May on the Coral. The food was fantastic. Our waiter and helper were great. We kept the same table for the whole cruise. #90 Darwin and Santoosh were such fun. We had singing and fun everynight.

[cruzinchris]

DH and I have only done "anytime" dining on our 5 (to date) Princess cruises. We have never had lunch or dinner at the buffet; we usually have breakfast in the dining room but have gone to the buffet a few times.

 

Like another poster, I, too, would have liked a "good to excellent" rating in the poll. Princess dinners have always been above average, and, on occasion, I'd rate some as outstanding. I'd feel comfortable giving most dinners a B+ or A- with an occasional A or B. (Can you tell that I was a teacher ;) ?)

 

Bon Appetit!

Chris

[friend of Eeyore]

I voted excellent... There was an occasional bad taste here or there, but it was due to our tastes, I think. I wish we had gotten to the Crown Grill - the steak was a little disappointing most of the time (maybe not enough spicing - I'm used to Outback Steakhouse spicing).

 

I did not like the pesto pasta dish. I'm used to pasta being lightly tossed in pesto. This was heavily tossed, with a hearty helping of pesto on top. It was the only dish that I truly did not like (and that night, I got plenty of other food).

 

I will say, I sat with DH for dinner at a two-top table, same wait-staff every night (by our request, after the second night with accidently getting the same section). The staff was/were great, with our next-table-over neighbors giving lots of great conversation.

 

I have to agree with the carrot-cake post (was that this thread??), which said it did not taste like carrot cake. I generally only tolerate carrot cake, and did not order it. The lady at the next table over ordered it with reservation (she also sometimes didn't like it, I think), and offered me a taste (I tell you, we got along great, for perfect strangers) once she realized that it wasn't normal carrot cake. I loved it, and almost ordered a slice. I tasted no carrot-taste, and can only think of the flavor as "pink" - kind of like the white cake with pink flecks - don't know what that is.

[il professore]

Excellent food in just the right (small) amounts for a six-course dinner with always the option to request more of anything. I often think my wife and I cruise on Princess every year just to eat their escargot!

 

The beauty of PC dining is that you can "sample" different tables/dining rooms and their waitstaff until you find a super crew and then reserve that table for the rest of the cruise. Never any reason to vote less than excellent for service.

[Pam in CA]

Well, I had Traditional dining on my last Princess cruise so that lets me out of the poll. However, the last time I had Anytime dining, it was "average" at best.

 

Actually, the food should be the same in both Traditional and Anytime dining. The major difference is the level of service. We had a good team for our Anytime dining experience but with three tables all on different course schedules, they had a very hard time juggling everyone. We had to wait every single night for about 20 minutes with dirty dishes on our table to be cleared off while the large table next to us sat down, got their water, had their orders taken, etc. That also meant that our entrees were waiting to be served too. The entrees were never hot -- barely warm from waiting.

[T&J]

Food is hit and miss and varies by ship to ship as I find this is dictated by the Chef's Budget and Food and Beverage First Pursers budget and ability to get along with the Chef and Maitre'D.....On the Grand currently the Anytime Dinning is Excellent as is the Food Quality, hoewever we are loosing the Chef and Maitre'D and two new fellows are coming onboard tomorrow...let's see if tehre is consistency on the next cruise?

 

Tony

:cool: :eek: :cool:

[sea glass]

I had Anytime Dining on the Crown and preferred the traditional dining I had on The Grand. The salads were always small and wilted and the coffee, tea service were slow on Anytime. The desserts, however, were excellent at the Anytime Dining. We loved the souffles. Also, I like the traditional dining because the waiters get to know your likes and dilikes. I felt very disconnected having a different waiter every night. We had chosen Anytime so we could relax and not have to rush. That part of it was good. But I really missed getting to know my waiters.

[A Sixth?]

Well only went to the dinging room for dinners on the Sun Princess this past January and found the food to be excellent! So good that we've booked our next two cruises with Princess. :)

 

We were travelling with our friends, and they too loved the food. My buddy travels extensively throughout North America and more in Europe and and he can be a bit more critical; so at least on our first Princess experience (their forth cruise, our eighth) thumbs up all around

[Nliedel]

The food was good, but not outstanding most nights, this was punctuated with nights with excellent food. In other words, hit or miss. Always listen to the waiters suggestions. They really do know what they are talking about.

[sunshine426]

I found the food to be good to excellent in the dining room on the Star Princess. I really do like anytime dining options, and we had fabulous service, much individual attention from the head waiter and maitre'd, we did ask to sit in the same waiter's area each night and varied our table size request depending on our mood. AND the service remained excellent even after the fire on the Star. Nothing like seeing your waiter at a life boat station at 3am and then serving you dinner that night at 7pm. Not to mention the maitre D serving us coffee for breakfast and making sure we were alright and checking on our daughters behalf the morning of the fire.