Food & Service Not good in "inclusive" Restaurants?

New to NCL and I am just wondering why most people go to the Specialty Restaurants.

Is the food and service not good in the inclusive restaurants? Why spend the extra $$ if you don't have to? What would I be missing if I don't go to them?

Actually, I am one of those who think you don't have to. I look at the specialty restaurants as a treat not a refuge.

I have never had what I would call bad service, at least to the point of going on here and complaining. Never waited unreasonably for a table. And finally, I've not experienced any wretched meals.

Going on cruise in October. Maybe I'll get lucky and have a terrible experience, so I can come on here and rant.

Just off the Getaway last week, and we found the MDR's to be just fine! We did Taste, Savor and The Tropicana Room. We also did La Cucina, Teppanyaki, and the Illusionarium. The food was very good everywhere we ate.

Took our first NCL cruise this summer and experienced very good service in both the MDRs we dined in.

Only dined in one specialty restaurant and found the service was just as good as in the MDR.

Best cruise we have been on so far.

So good we are booking it again next summer.

Have fun!

~Robin

Every Day at Sea is a Great Day

New to NCL and I am just wondering why most people go to the Specialty Restaurants.

Is the food and service not good in the inclusive restaurants? Why spend the extra $$ if you don't have to? What would I be missing if I don't go to them?

Wait - do most people actually go to the specialty restaurants? How do you know this?

Looking at total dining seating capacity on the Jewel, the free (included) dining options offer 1,597 seats. The specialty restaurants offer 684 seats.

With that ratio, I wonder if it is even possible for most people to dine in specialty restaurants.

I have always been pleased with the food and service in the MDR's . That being said, we also will enjoy a specialty restaurant experience once or twice while on a cruise for the added extra special experience.

Teppanyaki is quite entertaining, and we enjoy that from time to time, and since we are Platinum level we always go to Le Bistro courtesy of NCL once as well. We have on occasion been to Cagneys, and tried Moderno once as well.

The reason to go to a specialty restaurant is not because the MDRs are not up to par, but its when you want that extra intimate and special experience.

Wait - do most people actually go to the specialty restaurants? How do you know this?

 

Looking at total dining seating capacity on the Jewel, the free (included) dining options offer 1,597 seats. The specialty restaurants offer 684 seats.

 

With that ratio, I wonder if it is even possible for most people to dine in specialty restaurants.

OK - Let me rephrase that for you - "most people here on Cruise Critic", at least all the threads I have read here pertaining to the restaurants I have noticed that the majority have gone or will go to a Specialty Restaurant

New to NCL and I am just wondering why most people go to the Specialty Restaurants.

Is the food and service not good in the inclusive restaurants? Why spend the extra $$ if you don't have to? What would I be missing if I don't go to them?

The MDR is fine. I never understood the whole "we only eat in specialty restaurants" thing. The only thing I can surmise is they don't go out to dinner much, and feel it's extra special. I'm really not sure. None of them have been anything to write home about for years now .... they aren't horrible or anything, just nothing special.

We usually have dinner in the MDRs, and rarely had any concerns. When we did go to LeBistro or Cagneys, the food and service were over the top.

However, I see no reason to feel that I must eat in a specialty restaurant nightly, or starve from lack of a good meal.

As a platinum, we will be entitled to one night in a specialty restaurant, so we'll look forward to that.

We prefer to dine in the specialty restaurants - the smaller venues suit us better than the larger MDR's. We eat out often at home - and even then we prefer smaller more intimate restaurants. One of the reasons Freestyle is so great is that passengers have choices - and our choice is to enjoy the specialty restaurants.:)

I've never had a bad meal (or even a so-so meal really) in one of the specialty places. I have, however, had some so-so to semi bad meals (meat was dry, veggies where mushy, etc) in the MDR. I'm usually ok with the MDR, I'm not a picky eater at all, and normally, the food is pretty good there. I like some of the unique and out of the norm options available in the specialty places.

I've had bad service in both places. lol

Sometimes it's fun to splurge (as much as $15 - $40 is splurging lol) and treat yourself, but if you don't feel like you want to spend the extra money, the MDR should be perfectly acceptable.

My last cruise on Breakaway I felt the dining room was just OK. Normally I am fine with the MDR but this cruise would have preferred the specialty places more but they were all booked solid I guess as a result of the UDP and the ship being full.

We only ate in MDR's for dinner. Most of the nights no problems. A couple nights Seven Seas was a bit on the slow side. The last 3 nights we ate in Four Seasons. The first of those 3 nights we had the best waiter on the entire cruise, Rodelio Africa from Phillipines. Very outgoing, personable, asked our names and spoke to us by name throughout the meal, etc. Then the next night, we asked for him, but he wasn't on yet and we had the exact opposite, possibly the worst server on NCL, Servet something from Turkey. Slow, totally uninspired, never checked on us, etc. Next night we were lucky enough to get Rodelio again. I submitted a Vacation Hero card on him and also in the hall I saw the head chef and restaurant manager and I praised him to them as well. Food was always good. Only bad thing was apple pie first night, very bland, never ordered it again.

DH and I love a nice romantic dinner in a specialty restaurant. We're going on the Breakaway in July and plan to eat one nice dinner in Le Bistro again, just the two of us, since we find it romantic and intimate there. We make a reservation for 7:30, take our sons to the buffet around 6pm to eat dinner and they go to the camp at 7pm when it opens back up for evening activities. Then we head down to Le Bistro and enjoy a romantic dinner, taking our time, enjoying a bottle of wine and wonderful food and service in a smaller more intimate restaurant then the MDR. We have also dined in the MDR just the two of us, and it was really nice to do that as well but just a different experience than Le Bistro. We love the food in both.

We are also planning to go to Cagney's one night, as we haven't dined there yet and I've heard really good things about it. Not sure if all of our family will go there with us, but if not, we will go just the two of us. (We will have extended family with us as well as the two of us and our two sons...11 people altogether!). But that's it...two specialty restaurants, and the other 5 dinners will all be in the MDR. That way we get to experience both, since we still enjoy MDR dinners on a cruise.

Different strokes for different folks...that's also why they now have the ultimate dining package, so someone can dine in a specialty restaurant every night of the cruise.

On our cruise earlier this year, our experiences in the MDR were outstanding. Our service was exceptional (we were a group of six) and we had no complaints about the food.

We did visit one specialty restaurant and it was a disaster. I know that our experience was the exception rather than the rule, but I don't plan on trying my luck again.

Food is such a subjective thing and one little item can color the whole experience. As long as you are not expecting more than you should, you should be fine no matter where you decide to eat. :D

I think the issue is budget and your dining "lifestyle". We don't eat out often at home because of our preference for "good home cooking" and our budget. We cruise maybe once or twice a year for an extended trip (usually 14 nights) and have to keep our budget in line in order to do so.

So, budget factors into our dining when cruising. If we had the excess funds to travel in suites, we would likewise eat most of our dinners in specialty restaurants. I'm just grateful to NOT be cooking and also to experience different types of foods that I normally don't eat.

We have noticed a decline in quality in the MDR experience but have resolved to be happy with eating there. My biggest disappointment has been the same menu at lunch time. I'm not overly thrilled with the majority of the choices to begin with at lunch and the same menu for 14-19 lunches in a row is tiresome. We like to dine in the MDR for both lunch and dinner, but have now moved to the more crowded buffet at lunch. Oh, well.

OK - Let me rephrase that for you - "most people here on Cruise Critic", at least all the threads I have read here pertaining to the restaurants I have noticed that the majority have gone or will go to a Specialty Restaurant

Many people might go to a specialty restaurant once or twice on a cruise...but that means for the majority of the cruise they're eating dinner in the MDR or buffet.

We have never paid to eat in a specialty restaurant. We do get comped to two meals in specialties due to our Latitudes status, but beyond that we eat in the MDR or buffet because we find no need to pay for a specialty restaurant.

It appears as though you're incorrectly interpreting people saying they ate in a specialty restaurant as meaning they always or mostly eat in the specialties. I'm sure some do eat most or all of their meals in the specialties, but they are in the minority.

Having cruised about 15 times with NCL, I'm quite convinced that one reason that people choose speciality restaurants is that you can make a reservation. It may not be the "party line" from NCL, but it's pretty clear to many passengers (after the first night waiting for a MDR table for 30 plus minutes holding your pager) that there are "no lines, no waiting…" at specialty restaurants and, in essence, you can pay your up charge and walk right in.

While there is no logical reason why they couldn't reserve half of a MDR (or even one entire dining room every evening) for reservations, I really doubt this will ever happen as it continues to be one of the incentives for specialty dining.

That said, we usually eat in the MDR and have almost always had a good to very good meal. Though we've eaten at every specialty restaurant at least once and had great meals, we've also been underwhelmed at Cagney's and Le Bistro in the past.

I eat almost exclusively at the no charge dining venues, and find the food suits me. YMMV, but I wouldn't book a specialty without trying the MDR. I prefer the smaller of the two MDRs onboard most ships. Some foods I find very good, indeed. Right now, the only fee specialty restaurant that interests me is Moderno. I'd love to eat there, as soon as I can take a ship that has one onboard.

If I had to rank MDR cruiseline food, it'd be as follows:

Carnival (though it's been a few years, but they had the best MDR food in my experience)

NCL (more recent experience, very nice for the most part)

Cunard (only ate in the MDR once because I disliked the place on sight, a pretty grim lunch)

RCI (food wasn't bad just ordinary, but service was dreadful. The Lido, or Windjammer I think they call it, was better)

Why do we eat at specialties when we don't have to? Because it's our vacation, and we enjoy different foods and different venues. Why do some people spend $30+ on Bingo when they don't have to? Why take an excursion when you can just walk around in port? And yes, we do eat out frequently at home, so it's not that it is sometihing we can't do elsewhere. But everyone spends their vacation $$ on what is important and enjoyable to them.

We usually eat at a specialty at least twice, Cagney's for the wonderful steak ( and it is not that I can't get a good steak at home ), and Moderno's for that to die for salad bar, and I'm not the only one who thinks so. Sometimes we throw in Le Bistro as well. We practically had it all to ourselves on the POA. Maybe the waiter had nothing better to do, but it was probably the most professional and best service I have ever had in any cruise venue.

Not saying you won't get a decent steak in the MDR, but it will be nothing like the steak at Cagney's. The salad bar at Moderno has to be experienced. I would get bored in the big MDR every night, and it only adds about $150 total to our cruise tab for the two of us to change it up a bit at three different venues, so why not. For nights we have a lot going on, we actually prefer the buffet over the MDR. We think the food and variety there is just fine.

Having cruised about 15 times with NCL, I'm quite convinced that one reason that people choose speciality restaurants is that you can make a reservation. It may not be the "party line" from NCL, but it's pretty clear to many passengers (after the first night waiting for a MDR table for 30 plus minutes holding your pager) that there are "no lines, no waiting…" at specialty restaurants and, in essence, you can pay your up charge and walk right in.

 

While there is no logical reason why they couldn't reserve half of a MDR (or even one entire dining room every evening) for reservations, I really doubt this will ever happen as it continues to be one of the incentives for specialty dining.

 

That said, we usually eat in the MDR and have almost always had a good to very good meal. Though we've eaten at every specialty restaurant at least once and had great meals, we've also been underwhelmed at Cagney's and Le Bistro in the past.

I guess you haven't heard, it is now possible to reserve a table in the MDR, pre cruise if you want, for every single night, although from from what I have read, not many are interested in doing that. In 7 cruises on NCL, we have had a pager handed to us once at the MDR. The wait was less than the time it took to sip a glass of free champagne, and we don't mess around;). Every other time, we walked right in.

The fact that the MDRs were Freestyle certainly had no bearing on our decision to eat in a specialty, which we usually never bother to reserve in advance either. Unless you have a larger group, IMO it is not necessary.

On my last cruise, I had excellent service and food in the MDR, and I had poor service in $30 Cagney's and terrible food in $15 La Cucina. You just never know.

We plan on eating in all of the specialty restaurants on our cruise this year. We have a large amount of OBC and will use that to cover the cost.

We spent years living in a small town (600 people) in southwest Oklahoma. We didn't have nice restaurants around the corner. We had to drive 20 miles just to go to a McDonalds! An hours drive to go to a nice place and that would have been Red Lobster. So our cruise gives us a chance to try out different restaurants and types of food that normally we wouldn't eat at.

I have liked the food in both specialty and included restaurants. I have also not liked food in certain specialty and included restaurants. Food is very subjective. You will have to decide for yourself. I always like to go to at least one specialty restaurant. This past cruise we went to Cagney's. Very, very good.

The marketing plan is to allure passengers into spending more to increase the ships profit margin.

Food is a VERY subjective topic and my taste, your taste or another's taste reall only applies to them. !! It has, in truth, no factual basis and is pure emotion. Nowhere do we have insight into who the person is, their taste, their experience and so on...

If I ate at Mc Donalds and Weiner schnitzel 80 % of the time I would swoon over Appelbees and so on. Or do you Live in NY city or Napa Valley or Porky Pine Creek in Wyoming....what is the regional culinary availability ? All factors.

SO, it has become a sort of urban legend that the ship fosters for their benefit, that the " speciality " restauraunts will all somehow deliver this special and "exclusive" experience. The appeal is that," you really should step above the crowd to your rightful place and the status you deserve so much"...

They ain't selling food so much as a sort emotional appeal of being special .

Is it reall that good in the specialities or that bad in the others?. Let me relate a story.

Louis XIII is a very expensive $800 a bottle liquor that cost $120 a shot.... It it that much better than a cognac that sells for $15 a shot? The answer lies hidden in that ego of the drinker. That is, would you tell someone that the drink you just paid $120 for in no better than the $15 one. Probably not, as it would make you look foolish and the tendency is to rave about the experience.

Likewise when you pay more chances are good your will do the same.

And the ship, saves a meal or 2 and sells you a much more expensive option... marketing plain and simple