Celebrity Food Quality Poll

[Druke I]

I voted 5, but could have been convinced to vote 4+.

 

Food, like so many things we enjoy, can be very subjective.

 

I found the food in the dining room a cut above Princess, generally, but a cut below Crystal.

 

I did not think the Lido food as good as Princess, but know a lot of people will disagree with that assessment.

 

Isn't it wonderful that we have so many choices?

 

Michael

[semetz]

I have sailed with Celebrity three times, twice on Galaxy and recently on Millie. The June 26th sailing on Millie left us very disappointed. The presentation of the food was flat and after asking my waiter why, he blamed management and said that there were cutbacks in staff. The salads at dinner were wilted, and the pastries in the morning tasted "day old". The service was respectable but the quality and presentation was a big disappointment. I don't know what happened on this sailing. Perhaps Michel Roux should send the chefs onboard Millie to the Galaxy for a refresher course in fine cuisine. Will I sail with Celebrity again, yes and am booked on Horizon in July 2005. Everyone deserves a second chance. I do hope that Celebrity officials read these posts. They have such a good product but need better quality control and consistency from ship to ship.

[rrvintageaero@aol.com]

:) Having cruised Celebrity 4 times and other lines as well, my husband and I definitely prefer Celebrity's cuisine. I must say, though, that anyone booked on the Milllenium needs to experience dinner in the Olympic Restaurant. The ambiance, service, food and entire evening were flawless. It was the best meal I have ever experienced!!!!

Robin

[redphoenyx]

I just got back from the Summit a few weeks ago. I think the food for dinner was overall very good or excellent. I only had one meal that was OK or fair, and I think that was more by choice. It was a pasta dish that was very light and had very little flavor. I like pasta with sauces that have spice and major flavor to them. Was the meal bad? No. Just lacked some flavor. The deserts for dinner, were out of this world!

 

The lunch buffet, well, that left something the be desired. Not all that good. Cafeteria food at best!

 

Sushi Bar - Fresh and fantastic.

[Jacqueline]

Another difficulty is that even on the same cruise different tables may get such different service as to alter their experience. This happened on my most recent cruise where a friend had a very different dining experince- food tended to be cold, and orders confused. We had excellent service and food served at correct temps.

We were on HAL and the table was decrumbed and the silver rearranged as we progressed thru the courses. I happen to think that we were fortunate with our staff on this cruise and also happened to have an excellent executive chef. The food and service did surpass my March cruise on the Connie which I greatly enjoyed. The service on the Connie was compromised by a beverage steward who was so overworked that I never had a predinner cocktail (I started bringin in my own) and she could hardly get to me for wine with my main course. On the Westerdam my cocktail was waiting as were the kids sodas...

With thousands of meals served everynight on dozens of ships there is going to be a wide variety of experiences- and add that to ones own taste and I dont think that you will ever get an absolute *truth*.

[mfdemaynard]

I would say that the food served in the dining room for dinner was as excellent as any hotel or catered event I've been to. All of the many little things included in the service go a long way to make the process of having dinner quite a wonderful experience. Mentioned in other posts are the wait staff approach, the selection of entree's and accompaniments, etc. All in all, we were not expecting to feel quite as enthusiastic as we have become.

[reggierail]

Every single dinner, all 15 of them, were excellent. The Palm Springs Buffet and the grill were very good to excellent. The pizza, pasta and specialty sandwiches were also very good to excellent. The homemade ice cream varying every day was a treat I looked forward to every day.

The dining room food was much better than either RCCL or NCL.

The buffet was slightly better than RCCL and much better than the chow hall buffets on NCL.

 

Reggie

[Roboat]

:) Having cruised Celebrity 4 times and other lines as well, my husband and I definitely prefer Celebrity's cuisine. I must say, though, that anyone booked on the Milllenium needs to experience dinner in the Olympic Restaurant. The ambiance, service, food and entire evening were flawless. It was the best meal I have ever experienced!!!!

Robin

It's great to see that the Olympic is still generating rave reviews. You enjoyed the Olympic as much as I did on my first cruise, which was within a month or 2 of Millenium's launch, 3-4 years ago.

 

I am currently booked on a HAL Zuiderdam cruise, and I cruised the Z last year as well. As good as the HAL specialty restaurant is, my most memorable cruise meal was in the Olympic aboard Celebrity. It was the best service I have ever experienced, and close to the best food I've ever had. And I've stuffed myself at a few 3 toque restaurants around the world.

 

I'll have to see if I can "upgrade" to Celebrity next year.

[Ma Bell]

Bump

[MadOne]

Well , I traveled with carnival, RCL, Princess, and it will be my first on celebrity because people said the food is better.. Up to now My personal experience, My first cruise with carnival was the best ( the Fascination ) then we did Carnival Spirit yucky food, so we changed to RCL , so so food, good days and bad days, And the worst was Princess ( Crown) on there Panama cruise, I mean the food was better at Mcdonald, The cook must have drop the salt on everything... well those are my experiences hope the Millie will be better ....

[exray]

we just returned from alaska on the summit, and seeing we sailed on celebrity before ,we were a bit dissappointed in the quality of the dinners on board. we found them to be tastless aand the portions skimpy to say the least. people who have traveled with the line before seemed to be in agreement at least at our table.

 

our previous cruise was with royal caribbean aboard splender of the seas and the quality was better, contrary to beliefs

[dsa10]

Just returned from Alaska on Infinity. The dinners were all excellent - especially in the SS United States, of course, which was a special treat one night. But The Trellis restaurant was so good that we always looked forward to it. The portions were smaller than we expected, but this was fine for us as there is so much food on offer during the day. And our waiter brought us extra portions whenever we requested - and sometimes when we didn't.

 

I think the real stars were the baked goods - everything from the pain au chocolat at breakfast to the dinner rolls and cakes was really very good.

 

Breakfast waffles were one of the highlights of the trip.

 

Lunches were another matter. We found the hot food in the buffet generally pretty awful, but there were great salads, pasta, hot dogs, tacos etc available every day which were a perfectly good alternative.

 

Before dinner, we would go upstairs for a bit of sushi and a drink. Few people seemed to know about this, and again I would say that the sushi was above average.

 

One day we managed to get to the Cova Cafe when the afternoon pastries were out, and they were out of this world.

 

All round, our feelings about the food were extremely positive.

[Faygelah]

I have sailed with Celebrity twice, Millie 1/03 and Connie 5/04. I agree with the folks who say that the dining room food is similar to that at a very nice wedding. Of course they can't serve 1000 people at once with individually prepared meals! On the other hand, the specialty retaurants were the same quality as upscale restaurants I would travel for.

[CGTNORMANDIE]

Did you ever stop to think that the kitchen crews rotate after 6 months??? This rotation has a huge impact on the quality of the cuisine. When a new chef comes in, his rhythm and style might be totally different from the last chef. It takes time for a kitchen crew to adapt. Then the crews rotate and that creates inconsistency in any of the food departments. Therefore...every cruise is different in some respects. Consistency in the kitchen from month to month is almost impossible.

 

My wife and I have a saying: "Every cruise is different".

 

ROSS

[janjay]

Anything I don't have to cook and clean up after is gooooood with me!

 

Seriously we have had wonderful meals on board the Summit. If you don't like something they are so eager to help find a replacement.

[james j feller]

If you want great food all the time go on the CRYSTAL cruise line.

 

We just came off the HARMONY and it beats all the other cruise lines that i have sailed on food,service etc.

 

JIM

[dbtny]

Just returned from 8/6 Mercury to Alaska - I must say, dining room food was excellent with good variety, interesting selections, skillfull preparation and presentation, and, at least in our case, excellent service from wait staff, somellier, and the bar. We didn't eat at the buffets except for early boarding lunch, one breakfast and one late dinner - quality and selection were very good, though not up to dining room standards.

The sushi buffet was great fun, but apparently the platters of sushi had been refrigerated and the rice, though it tasted good, was cold and hard; the fish was in excellent condition, so, no problem - instant sashimi! All that was left was an embarrasingly large collection of naked rice balls.

Once again, coffee was a dissappointment, but drinkable, and not nearly as bad as the slop they served on the Celebrity cruise we took several years ago. The coffee and expresso served in the Cava lounge were excellent, (about $2.50 a cup for latte) especially with the lovely little almond crescents they had most mid-mornings.

Surprisingly, the two themed late-night buffets were beautiful to look at but not great to eat. Coupled with a "gotta-get-some" attitude by some of the passengers, (after all, we only ate less than two hours ago) the grand buffet, though spectacular, was overcrowded and presented in too small a space.

I would certainly sail on the Mercury and/or Celebrity again if our cruise was at all representative.

[cathi]

FOOD everyone's favorite topic. From my perspective many of you are absolutely right on. Everyone is different and yes the crew do change and this has an impact BUT in my humble opinion Celeb has got it the "most" right. We have sailed in NCL, HAL, RCCL, and Princess. Before the advent of "personal cruising" or "freestyle" cruising and the automatic addtion of tips to your shipboard account, the service was way better. The idea of having the same wait staff every night of the cruise and tipping them accordingly gave them way more incentive to "please" the client each night. When they are getting their tip no matter what the service has to suffer. But then again this has no bearing on the quality of the food which I still think is better damn good on Celeb ships!

[smudge's mom]

I also vote - catered wedding/banquet hall. You have to compare the meals with food you've had at various wedding/venues - not with steak houses like Ruth Chris - there is no way a meal on a cruise ship can be compared to any meal individually prepared to your specifications.

[tmt9367]

We returned today from 14 nights aboard the Summit and the food was the best we've ever had in all of our 25+ cruises. Selection, quality and presentation was excellent. Not one meal was even just "good" the entire 14 days. Waffle bar at breakfast was great!

 

SDT

[kelly-NYC]

We found the food on the Zenith last year to be much better than the food on the Connie this year? Has anyone found that smaller ships have better food? The food on both was great, but it was top notch on the Zenith.

K

[superjerryw]

Our last Celebrity cruise was on the Galaxy and the food was very good. It was much better that a lot of highly touted restaurants that I have eaten in.

[catmand]

You folks must have some really nice catering places in your towns! Most of the catered meals I've had have resembled a microwave Stouffer's entree.

Gotta love the subjective/objective discussions............clowpaw you took the words out of my keyboard. I am sure there are professional food people around who can make better compairsons as to quality and presentation but we all speak with our taste buds, stomach and eyes.and the more I see the better I like it.

I have a very, very good friend who owned a catering company, I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time around him a summer about 20 years ago. I would guess I sat in the kitchen during 20 or so preperations and servings of dinners for 250-500 people. I am sure if I tried I could find one or two meals served on both Celebrity and Princess that I would swap out for one of those catered meals (and those weren't bad). Twenty five days at sea in thirteen months and 25 pretty darn good dinners.

[cohengm]

I don't want to sound snobbish, but to be honest, the food served on Celebrity is presented nicely, but don't try to tell me their beef etc. anyway compares to a Ruth Chris. It can't and it doesn't! I give it a 6 out of 10.

[cjpickel]

Thanks for initiating this CELEM! Have you considered conducting a survey comparing cruise line food service by type? For example, breakfasts, lunch, dinner, room service, alternative dining [premuim, pizza, italian, cafe] and buffets [breakfast/lunch/dinner/midnight]?

 

Keep in mind the itinerary may affect the cuisine. For example during a one week cruise on Zenith, the food was the second best I have experienced on a cruise ship. [best was over ten years ago on a now moth-balled ship]. However, on a transatlantic [17 day] trip on Constellation, the food was lackluster and frequently we saw the same entrees for several days. I attributed the lack of choice to five days at sea--literally, we were in the middle of the Atlantic. The Spa entrees, which I usually dine exclusively on, were the same entree for longer periods than the dining room 're-reruns'. I dined several nights with the ship's officers and Captain, who have their own menu, and saw a similar type o' 're-runs' from a previous night's entree selection. The food had not gone 'bad', however, you can only eat duck so many times in 17 days before the duck begins to look tired.