Dining on the Pearl?

[becwe]

How come everyone eats in the specialty restaurants?

Is the food that bad in the dining rooms?

[mylesf]

How come everyone eats in the specialty restaurants?

Is the food that bad in the dining rooms?

 

 

I like both the main dining rooms and the specialty restaurants. Love some of the signature dishes in LeBistro and the sushi is great and what a value!

[jz's folks]

That's funny :D

IMHO i've sailed NCL 3 or 4 times and the food is perfectly fine in the main dining. My ONLY complaint is that in the few times i've sailed them, the menu's don't change much. (Of course with a year in between cruises it's not like i rotate my menus at home on a 3 year plan..lol!!)

But the speciality restaurants ARE very good. And I feel you have more individual service, and a step up in quality. Not mass produced food.

 

Again, just MHO....;)

[terrymtex01]

How come everyone eats in the specialty restaurants?

Is the food that bad in the dining rooms?

 

Believe me.. the vast majority of people eat in the main dining venues. The Specialty restaurants are not big enough for every one to eat in, plus, on our last cruise they were largely empty.

 

For us, the main reason we eat in the Specialty restaurants is we just like the smaller more intimate atmostphere. Gotta tell you though.. I am NOT a cruise buffet person AT ALL... but on the Pearl we thought their buffet was top notch. Great food and laid out well.

[johnql]

I think it's easy to be misled by just reading threads here on CC. People talk about the specialty restaurants for a variety of reasons: different menus, fees, diversity of cuisines, more variety than most other cruise lines, etc. People unfamiliar with NCL tend to focus more on the differences between NCL and other lines and NCL's Freestyle-designed ships tend to have a lot more specialty restaurants than other lines. That's why I think the topic is so common.

 

I agree with terrymtex01 - plenty of people dine in the main dining rooms. Common sense tells you that that's the case since the total number of diners in all the specialty restaurants isn't all that high a number.

[pengu1n]

We've never eaten in the specialty restaurants and are content with the dining room food. Occasionally I've had something I didn't care for, but there's plenty of other food available so you just move on. I can't see paying extra for the restaurants, I've already paid for a meal. People will counter that by saying, where can you get XXXX for only $25 a person. Maybe so, but I don't feel like I'm missing anything, and I've got that much money left to spend on something I want.

[mtwingcpa]

How come everyone eats in the specialty restaurants? Is the food that bad in the dining rooms?

 

On a recent trip aboard the Pearl, the specialty restaurants were RARELY crowded, the "free" dining rooms were OCCASIONALLY crowded, but the buffet was always PACKED !!

 

As someone else mentioned, I'm not necessarily a buffet fan, but the Pearl buffet really convinced me! :-)

[Silvery Seas Cruiser]

On a recent trip aboard the Pearl, the specialty restaurants were RARELY crowded, the "free" dining rooms were OCCASIONALLY crowded, but the buffet was always PACKED !!

 

As someone else mentioned, I'm not necessarily a buffet fan, but the Pearl buffet really convinced me! :-)

 

This was our experience on Pearl also. Hubby, who is really fussy about food just loved the buffet food. There was one time of day, late morning anchored at Great Stirrup Cay, when it was almost impossible to even get in the buffet it was so jammed.

 

The pay restaurants seemed to be most crowded around eight pm, but maybe that was just my perception.

[odblnt]

The pay restaurants seemed to be most crowded around eight pm, but maybe that was just my perception.

 

Some of that is the folks who went to the early show heading for a nice dinner.

 

We usually dined early and took in the late show, so saw the packs coming while we were finishing dinner.

[garycarla]

As said above, the vast majority eat in the either of the two main dining rooms or the buffet. And the Pearl has a great buffet. Great for "grazing" and sampling.

 

Our our last 19 day, we did speciality only 3 times, and only because folks we met via our Roll Call got us in under 2 for 1- they read the daily better than we do.

[VonChap]

How come everyone eats in the specialty restaurants?

Is the food that bad in the dining rooms?

 

We were on the Pearl for 9 days in Spring 08, and I think we ate in every restaurant. All were good to great. We are going to be back on the Peal in a few weeks, and my DH just said, "the buffet was one of my favorites. Let's plan on eating in the buffet more".

[IslandSunset]

I just got off Pearl 11/16. We tried the main dining room the first night and never went back.. very slow service and the food was not good. I ordered the lamb which was very small and dry. We ate in the speciality rests the rest of the week. - which were great.. the wine selection was nice. We enjoyed the Garden Cafe for breakfast and lunch.

[momofmeg]

I just got off Pearl 11/16. We tried the main dining room the first night and never went back.. very slow service and the food was not good. I ordered the lamb which was very small and dry. We ate in the speciality rests the rest of the week. - which were great.. the wine selection was nice. We enjoyed the Garden Cafe for breakfast and lunch.

 

What other ships/lines have you been on that you compare your Pearl experience to?

[pictonite]

I just got off Pearl 11/16. We tried the main dining room the first night and never went back.. very slow service and the food was not good. I ordered the lamb which was very small and dry. We ate in the speciality rests the rest of the week. - which were great.. the wine selection was nice. We enjoyed the Garden Cafe for breakfast and lunch.

 

This is so funny! In my review of the Pearl in October, one of the things that I mentioned was that the lamb in the main dining room was even better than the lamb I ate in Le Bistro ( and that was good!). So, please don't judge by one person's comments. We ate in some of the specialty restaurants, but enjoyed every breakfast and many dinners in the beautiful main dining room. The service was usually good - sometimes leisurely, but - hey - we were on vacation! I agree that the buffet area is really well set up, with great fresh salads, a good cheese selection, and ease of movement. I liked the look of the tables set for the evening, but, again, we really appreciated the lovely Summer Palace.

[watchdiva]

DH and I prefer the specialty restaurants - we like the smaller, more intimate venues, the great food and attentive service. We add $$ into our cruise budget for just that purpose.

 

Too each their own I guess - that's the beauty of freestyle......something for everyone!

[becwe]

Thank you all for the info and opinions. It seems there is something for everyone.

Beck