Midnight Buffet

Does Carnival or any other cruise line offer a midnight buffet or any kind of special buffet during the cruise?

Princess has a buffet each evening for dinner. Not sure of the time, but about 5pm to 11pm

HAL does...not as big or dramatic as it used to be. Frequently starts at 10:30 or 11.

Carnival has a puny late night buffet around 11:30. Usually hot dogs and hamburgers. One night might be Mexican. Deli is open til 11pm. Soft serve and pizza are available 24/7. Room Service is always available.

The grand buffets are mostly a thing of the past. Carnival does bring them out in all their glory on their special Journeys cruises. https://www.carnival.com/journeys.aspx

Princess has food but it's not a grand buffet

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HAL does...not as big or dramatic as it used to be. Frequently starts at 10:30 or 11.

Give me a break Bruce. Yes, sometimes (not always) HAL has a very tiny late night snack buffet from about 10:30 to 11. But this does not even resemble, in any way shape or form, the traditional midnight buffets of years past. And on some HAL ships (such as the Prinsendam) they have even eliminated the 10:30 snack and replaced it with 2 trays of sandwiches (one of which are cold hamburger sliders) that are sent to a couple of bars.

Years ago, most cruise lines had lavish midnight buffets (usually starting at 11:30) on nearly every night of a cruise. Then, they started cutting back those buffets and often had a single Gala Midnight Buffet (usually once per week) with the other nights having a lesser (but decent buffet). Eventually the nightly buffets disappeared..but just about everyone had a gala late night buffet about once a week. The exception was on HAL where most passengers are in bed long before 11 :). But in the past decade nearly every line has stopped midnight buffets. Some lines, such as Princess, have various buffet offerings (nightly). On Princess you also have the International Cafe, which is open 24/7 and has some food offerings (it varies by time of day).

Hank

Princess move to the 24 hour International cafe was a logical response to the continuing evolution of the cruise industry. There are not many cruisers still out and about on today's ship at midnight. First they went to smaller horizon bistros but even that was probably not cost or space effective. The I cafe is a busy venue all day for quick breakfast, lunch, afternoon snacks (gotta love the cookies) and even dinner for some folks. With the coffee bar right next store it satisfies a lot of customers in a relatively small space with a wide variety over the course of 24 hours.

My recollection from decades ago when I first started cruising and the only dining option was what is now called "traditional dining," cruise ships did not have separate buffets that were, pretty much, open from early morning until late evening. On those cruises there would be one or two evenings where, after the late dinner seating, the dining room, itself, would be converted to a pretty decadent "midnight buffet." I don't remember it being every evening

My memory may be faulty.

Anyway, to the OP, I'm thinking that the only lines that might now offer a Midnight Buffet are the very tradition-oriented lines with the smaller ships that do not have the room to offer multiple venues for flexible dining options.

Just a guess.

As somebody posted the Princess buffet is open until 11:30 every evening. I would bet that Carnival, Celebrity, NCL and RCCL have similar operations.

The Carnival board may have more info. I have sailed Carnival 2 times. A lot of ships no longer have extravagant buffets at midnight any more due to a lot of waste. On Princess for example, the buffet closes around 11pm but the International Cafe is always open.

on my first cruise, on Carnival in 1994, there was a night with a midnight buffet. You had to stand in land way early just to be able to look at the food sculptures and take photos, and then go into another long line to be able to partake. Once was enough for me.

On my last Princess cruise, which was a two-week one with plenty of sea days, there would be elaborate spreads on a theme (Asian, dessert, Mexican) that would be right outside the buffet entrance at lunch on selected sea days.