New Improved Food Quality Poll

[alpal1993]

I know that this is not really an important question,but I am curious.This will be our first time in Europe and I was just wondering if the quality of food will be any different?Do they serve any foods that are special to the region?We will be leaving out of Amsterdam to the Baltics/Russia

Ann

[pickettj1970]

I just got off the Century (first time cruise) and I was impressed with the food in the main dining room in the evenings. Almost every piece of meat I had was tender, flavorful and cooked to my specifications. Only the sirloin steak midweek was mediocre -- tough and rather bland. The other nights were perfect! The beef on Thursday was incredible -- it melted in my mouth!

[CruiseForever]

We recently returned from an 11 day Summit cruise, and while the food was quite good, it was certainly not the quality of any of the good restaurants that we frequent. We never expect it to be, because cruising is more than just having a gourmet meal in a beautiful restaurant.

 

The food is far superior to anything that RCCL serves and better than Princess. On our next cruise, we are trying Silver Sea to experience something different. We enjoy X the most, and prefer nothing larger then the M-class, so SS at 600 feet with 400 pax is going to be a different and unique experience. We booked an upgraded suite. On X we have booked both Royal and PH suites. Cruising is just a different type of vacaton where you cruise to meet people and enjoy the sailing environment.

Ron

[nho9504]

We returned from a 14 day sailing on Summit. The food is at most being "good" - sometimes are borderlined to mediocre or even bad.

 

Soups and sauces were universally too salty - and I heard it from some fellow passengers we came accross during the sailing.

 

Seafoods were BAD. I can understand no good fish dishes, but for shrimp and scallop which freeze well (wont affect taste or texture), Summit did a very poor job on it. We were on Princess Diamond in December, and Diamond did a much much better job with shrimp and scallop than Summit.

 

Meat portions are thick, but rather tough eventhough ordered medium rare, and not tasteful. We had a repeat of 4 times of filet mignon (2 prepared like Chateau Briand, and 2 simply grilled), neither time was good (like a good filet mignon should). Prime rib was served at least 3 times, and were better than filet mignon. Veal was served 3 or 4 times, but for the 2 times we ordered it, they were tough. Husband ordered pork chop one time as none of other offerings on the menu looked good to him that night (fish, chicken and sirloin steak). The pork chop was so tough the waiter apologized and asked if he would like another dish ...

 

Desserts though, generally were superb. However, we did not get ANY Soufle at all during a 14 day sailing. We got 3 soufles on a 7 day sailing on Diamond last December.

 

I dont know about other Princess ships, but Diamond had Summit beat by a mile in the food department.

 

However, Aqua Spa foods generally were very good, though they were cold entrees. And the Sushi Bar was very good. Unfortunately dining room is the main venue of dining and even with a very low expectation, we were still disappointed by Summit. Blame it on our very good experiences on Princess Diamond in December, less than 5 months before the April sailing on Summit.

[Lsimon]

I wonder how much of the differences in opinions here are personal preferences and differences from expectations or if they are varying quality.

 

We found the food very good on our Summit cruise a little over a month ago, as we did the previous year. Quite a bit more than on Princess cruises in prior years. We particularly found the seafood better than any other cruise ship we'd been on - on Princess we didn't find any great sea food other than the shell fish in Sabitini's. I will say we didn't have any Soufle other than in the Normandy specialty restuarant, but don't recall getting any on other ships. But if you really wanted that special dessert you likely could have gotten it by request with the head waiter a day ahead of time. They were very accomodating for special requests. I'll also say the main lines in the cafe for lunch didn't have a selection that apealed to me, but that was more than made up for by the great items in the Aqua Spa or rear of the cafe - or even the burgers and pizza by the pool.

 

We've booked our third Summit cruise for next March, but are also taking a Princess cruise to Alaska this summer. It should be interesting seeing if we find the food on Princess different from what we experianced several years ago. Now we always enjoyed it, but just liked the Summit a little more.

[alpal1993]

Personally I have never had a bad meal on Celebrity.If you order something and don't like it your waiter will gladly bring you something else.I myself check what is in the dish and if I know I don't like that ingredient lets say mint I don't order that dish.I loved most of the cold soups.As you grow older your tatse buds change just like they did when you were a child.Unfortunately the chefs can't cook individual meals to specific tastes.

[zalusky]

Interesting in that my experience between Infinity(Oct2004) and Diamond(May2005) were the opposite.

 

Infinity shrimp coctails were much larger.

Better dining room service on Infinity.

Lunch buffet selection was a wash. Princess had shrimp at lunch whereas Celebrity had more fruits to choose from.

Aquaspa Cafe - hands down to celebrity - love that salmon tartar.

 

Dinner better service on infinity, I liked their Ice Tea better and it was never empty. ON Princess it was boring and I was luck to get two refills a meal.

Prime Rib on Princess was tough and not even worth it.

I just felt Celebrity was more innovate about 70% of the time, but I do not feel they were 6 star.

 

I didnt try Princess's alternative restaurant to compare to the Celebrity but the food in the SS United States was up their with the best I have ever had. Granted their menus dont change much however when you compare Caesar salad in the United States to the caesar salad in the main dining room it becomes really apparent the differences.

 

Now I am going on Celebrity again in October and it will be interesting to compare if my answers will remain the same.

[Karynanne]

We just returned from the Mercury last Sunday, and felt that the food was far better than any of our other previous cruises on Celebrity. Our tablemates, also frequent Celebrity cruisers had the same opinion. The fish dishes in the past were just O.K., but on this cruise were really very good. Also the service in general was really excellent. The most friendly staff we had ever seen.

 

It could have been "our" attitude that contributed to our great cruise. We had the very best time, we've ever had on a cruise, and loved interacting with new friends and staff.

 

I knew that when the casino staff all knew me by the name...well I guess I spent a lot of time there! (I came home with $$) YEA!! Blackjack and slots were really generous...

 

 

Karyn

[Runitsajellyfish]

I gave Celebrity's food the highest rating, due to the fact that I have yet to eat as good of food as I had on the Century. My wife and I eat out all the time, but not with a huge budget, so for those of you that are used to true "fine dining", your opinion is definitely more appropriate. Out of Princess, NCL and Celebrity; Celebrity had the best "Main Dining Room" food.

[neevakee]

I have been on only two cruises and will rate the food accordily when i return, but my parents were telling me on HAL, the food in the reservation only room was as good as the main dining room on celebrity, if that is the case then celebritys food is up there with 4-4.5 star resturants. When i was on hal, i never had a bad meal, rccl was really hit or miss, their soufle though was wonderful, but most other things were below par, they dont even serve lobster or filet on formal nights on three day cruises. The final factor is timing, sometimes certain ships on certain weeks are given better produce and meat. In alaska supposedly they use locally caught fish and that makes a diffrence. I will see when i get back.

[celem]

bump

[celem]

Bump

[hajekfam]

Desserts though, generally were superb. However, we did not get ANY Soufle at all during a 14 day sailing. We got 3 soufles on a 7 day sailing on Diamond last December.

We have cruised Celebrity exclusively since 1992 and they never offered souffle in the main dining room. The only place souffles are offered is in the specialty restaurant.

[celem]

So, how does Celebrity's food rate these days?

[greeneg]

Based on our Constellation Cruise of 2/02/09 to 2/13/09, I have to give no worse than a 4 and no better than a 5. Our previous Celebrity Cruise was on the Mercury in Jan of 2007 and the corresponding rating would have been 8-9 so there has been some significant slippage IMHO.

[Denny01]

I'd recommend if you are interested in 2009 opinions that you start a new thread. You could paste in this older poll for comparison, but provide a new poll. I was about to vote when i realized it was from 2004 and there are 400+ votes from then and the current votes will get lost in the noise.

 

I realized this was an old poll when I saw the references to the Zenith.

 

Of course if you start a new poll, we have to listen to all of the 'its all gone downhill so much!!' comments that are tiring. My opinion.Ive sailed Celebrity since 1997 and have enjoyed it a great deal, and always find an excellent entree most all evenings.

 

denny