Food Quality

[stretch]

Just my personal opinion but I don't cruise for the food - it is just an added bonus. If all I wanted to do was eat gourmet food I would stay home and eat out dinner - YIKES! with all the pretty blue water, white sandy beaches, shopping and of course being waited on - not having to make my bed or do my laundry or cook my food - no way will I complain about the food.

 

Oh, I think you might have a different opinion if one night, sitting there in your tux, DW in nice cocktail dress and get served spam, or meatloaf as your formal dinner. The quality, selection and presentation has always been a big part of the cruise experience, you don't have to be a so called "foodie" to appreciate that.

Stretch

[Max Circus]

Oh, I think you might have a different opinion if one night, sitting there in your tux, DW in nice cocktail dress and get served spam, or meatloaf as your formal dinner. The quality, selection and presentation has always been a big part of the cruise experience, you don't have to be a so called "foodie" to appreciate that.

Stretch

 

I agree with you Stretch. In fact, I wish they put more effort into the dinner for the formal nights. I think when most people "dress up", they are expecting a much grander meal - not just the standard. I'd be perfectly okay with "ordinary" meals during the casual nights if they really made the formal nights something special.

 

Alot of the buzz about food quality has to do with expectations. When we cruise, I know that the dining room experience will be equivalent to attending five large wedding receptions - all at the same time. Most receptions have perhaps two entree choices - the cruise gives you several. And I think they do a decent job considering all of the factors - including the number of guests to serve and palates to please. We don't go to the dining room every night expecting gourmet. That type of experience is probably only found on the more elite lines like Radisson.

[KillaFee]

Not only do I agree that the quality of the food has headed in the wrong direction, but the service just hasn't been anything to write home about on my past two cruises either. When I was on the Rhapsody I thought (hoped) it was just a fluke that we had terrible service because I had a first time cruiser with me and kept telling her what an awesome dining experience it would be. It was not the case though....we were at a table for 10 (3 wonderful groups of people we just met) and everyone felt the same way...our waiter couldnt even remember our names, we felt like we were imposing by just being there. So that was a bummer but I got over it but then this November on the Radiance it was a similar situation!! Again, we sat with a large table of couples and we got along great...but everything was rushed and unremarkable. Gone are the days when I couldn't wait to hand over a big fat tip envelope to everyone. Hopefully next time will be like it used to!!

[Kviolasr]

I had noted a decline in food quality in the past 2-3 years. I just returrned from a 3/13 sailing of the Vision of the Seas and am happy to report an improvement in food quality since my AOS sailing last year. The meats were significantly better, food was hotter overall. WE wree very pleased.

[lexxfield]

Killafee, I also have to agree with you about the quality of service declining. Although all the waiters and assistants on the cruises I have taken have been wonderful, on the last two cruises I took (9/2004 and 12/2003) my waitstaff had more tables (and consequently more people) to serve during dinner. I ask them about this, and they stated that RCI cut back on the number of servers and increased the workload on the remaining ones. While I thought the staff did a wonderful job under the circumstances on the last two cruises, it was impossible for them to give the level of services that we had come to expect prior to 12/2003. The same thing has happened to the cabin attendants. The job gets done, but there's less time available for the attendants to attend to details.

[stuffic]

Went on EOS in 2002 and then again in 2003. 2002 had better service and food than 2003, so I responded "yes".

 

I'm not sure if the majority of people are saying that the food has PROGRESSIVELY (e.g. year by year) gotten worse in the last 5 years, OR that it had declined about 5 years ago, and has been CONSISTENTLY "sub-par" ever since...

 

Some of you may think "What difference does it make", but I would hate for the food on my upcoming cruise to be worse than my 2003 experience. :( I'm also hoping the revised menu that took effect March 1st (I think on Voyager-class ships, but I'm not sure) will improve things!

[squarepants]

Now if you would have asked about 18 yrs ago, I'd say, "yes" the quality has gone down. I think over the past 5 years, things have been constant and average. No complaints from Square.

[easternLIers]

I just came off the Legend 14 night Panama and the food was good, but average. Things have definately declined in the past few years. It doesn't seem there is as much planning into the menu variety either. At times I wished I'd eaten in the Windjammer.

[RichNY]

I hope so...I eat too much anyway..:D

 

Hey Eastern LI...long time, no see..

[easternLIers]

Hey Rich hows it going !! Big game tonite. :D

[Desertbelle]

We have only been on two RCI cruises, both on the Legend of the Seas. On the first one, December 2003 the food was good. When we sailed on the Legend in September of 2004 (9 months later) the food was much better.

 

Between the two cruises they had made some changes in the menus and the improvement in the quality of the dinner food was noticeable. I know this is a very limited experience. :)

 

Having said that, I picked Don't Care, I'm Not Cooking!! :D

[bUU]

What matters more to me is the health club, and from what folks have told me, they've gotten LOTS better and better, over the years, as newer ships have been launched.

[BevMoney]

I'm soo confused. I though RCCL has updated all the menus. I've read several post on how they got rid of the ranch steak and redid the menus.

 

Are you guys talking about past cruises or cruises taken during the past few months.

[maritimemare]

We've been cruising at least yearly and sometimes 2-3 times per year since 1996. The food has definitely declined. No question about it. For those who say they don't care about the food, fine. However, for us, dining was one of the greatest pleasures of cruising when we started cruising. I put emphasis on the word "dining" -- it wasn't the quantity of food, it was the quality of it and the pure enjoyment of a multi-course, delicious meal after a fun day of sun, exploring, etc.

 

We recently noticed RCI has re-jiggered its dining room lunch menu, so that it's the same menu every day, with just one entree that changes from day to day. Obviously, an attempt to reduce offerings and save money. Many of the choices at dinner now are clearly mass produced frozen entrees. We did find that the soups are still quite good and we like the desserts. It was the entrees/main courses that we thought had suffered. We didn't find food in Potofino or Chops to be substantially better than the dining room. We ordered onion rings in Chops that turned out to be identical to the ones at Johnny Rockets.

 

Our last cruise was NOS a few months ago. Food was average at best. Service was indifferent and, at times, grouchy. In desperation, we gave the waiter and busboy generous advance tips after dinner the first night and promised more at the end of the cruise if they would just be pleasant. Service was tolerable after that.

 

For those who say, so what, cruise fares are lower, too, that's certainly not our experience. We paid considerably more for our recent NOS cruise than any other one we've ever taken, even taking inflation into account.

 

In our opinion, since aquiring Celebrity, RCI has been positioning RCCL as its version of Carnival and concentrating on Celebrity as its more upscale line. We've been on both numerous times. I suppose we should give up on a cruise line that advertises "Get Out There". One should assume that pleasures like fine dining won't matter much in that case, and all the comments of RCCL passengers who say food doesn't matter bear that out. I guess RCCL knows what it's doing!

[fllady]

We are Celebrity Elite members, first time on Brilliance or any RCI ship. We had a wonderful time, food was good, and service was great. All the staff on this ship was friendly and helpful at all times. The only meal we weren't 100% happy with was at 'Chops', we had heard such good things about Chops, but think Celebrity has done a much better job at giving a wonderful dining experience. Just my personal opinion. The Diamond membership is a really great perk. We didn't have as many nice things done for us on Celebrity, and we will definitely be cruising with RCI more often.