cgolf1

Wasn’t trying to in this instance. In my Edge thread I started from our February cruise, I gave a review with each nights menus and what we ate. I didn’t get in depth on the food as you mentioned, but tried to share menus. I am not a foodie so I don’t generally go into great detail on the food, because everyone’s tastes are so different. My generalization above was that the boards and Facebook had me thinking it would me the worst food ever in February and we wouldn’t find anything to eat. At that point people who hadn’t cruised this year, would thank people for their honest opinion if they said the food was the worst and basically not believe anyone that posted positive. It was pretty toxic, not all that different when they released the Edge. Heck on FB I mentioned the gluten free options were less this year on our cruise and someone told me I shouldn’t be cruising with my food allergy lol. That is why I think it is important not to judge on other’s comments and to find out for yourself. The only issue is regardless of what line we sail it is an expensive gamble. I am just glad to hear it hasn’t changed much from February, so that helps me set my expectations.

Or get lucky and find someone who was onboard when you were last and then more recently to give you insight if it was similar. I lucked out today and found out it’s similar, so we are good for now. Food is so subjective it’s almost impossible to judge another person’s opinion. Especially if this is the first time they have sailed post shutdown. I think everyone needs to find out for themselves, because back in February my bar was so low based on the boards, that I was pleasantly surprised by the MDR, but I definitely had critical comments, but it was no means school lunch food.

For the most part agree with this. One of our favorite local restaurants kept the same price for the entree, but now sides are 3-4 bucks a piece for the sides that used to be included. So we aren’t getting out of there at the same cost pre Covid. The outlier seems to be some of the supper clubs we go to. There prices seem to be the same as pre Covid even with the steaks. Not sure how they do it, but it’s a win for us, 3 old rashioneds, rib-eye and baked potato, wife had White meat fried chicken and hash browns plus all the supper club extras for under 80 with a 20%+ tip included in that. If the supper clubs can do it on volume of customers, you would think cruise lines could too.

I have been guilty of doing mashed potatoes at every buffet meal on our 3 X cruises. The reason isn’t the potatoes, it’s the gluten free gravy. In the last 12 plus years since I have been gluten free X has been the only place I can have the gravy:) The true saving grace for me with the buffet was they had the minute steaks all but one day and they were precooked so that you could pick a thicker cut and get a nice medium rare piece. The Indian food was very disappointing on the buffet. I am hoping it gets better by 2025, our next X cruise, or sooner if we decide to do a second after our Galapagos cruise next year. Thought about a third this year, but just too many misc things going on to fit it in.

Was it about the same? We were on the Edge in February for the partial Panama Canal cruise and did not see Prime rib on the menu at all, even with the extra nights (heard they added it back). We also felt the options in the lunch buffet were less varied and simpler dishes than we have seen in the past. Of course the MDR was more limited too for options. That said we did enjoy the food we ate, I just missed the normal variety in the MDR and buffet.

I am curious, if you think this cruise would fit our style. We generally eat MDR, because my wife isn't very adventurous with her food choices, like the stage shows and comedians, will do an activity or two during the day, and the rest we just love to chill out and play cards or read a book and watch the ocean go past. Mid to late 40's and somewhat boring people lol. My thoughts are VV may be too something, not sure what the right word to put here is, for us. We have sailed RCCL and Disney and did enjoy those when we sailed.

If you can find good deals it is worth it, although the product itself has changed a lot over the years we sailed. When we priced out insides last year, it was much more than X. X also does food allergies in the buffet better than Disney, MDR is about the same. We also sail best deals on lines we are ok sailing, and for a lot of years that was Disney. Now they are about 2x above either X, RCCL, or HAL when we look to book. We don't do specialty dining or drink packages minus the 2 on X where that was our only option at booking. We did enjoy the Palo Brunch on Disney and getting it free at platinum was nice. We don't sail for food as a highlight, so if it is decent we are happy. If I have to hunt for food on the buffet like I did on HAL I am less happy. Our issue was Disney changed a lot over the time we were sailing them and raised prices a lot while we were there, sound familiar to X;), so we moved on. We did sail them 2-3 times without our daughter and enjoyed the trips a lot. What is crazy is your verandah cabin in 2019 was more than what we paid for a Cat V concierge room on the Fantasy in 2014 for 7 nights, in hindsight the Cat V rooms were a steal if you liked that kind of thing back then.

So you complain about Celebrity, but not DCL's prices and their cuts over the years and recently? We still look and their prices are way over Celebrity, at least for the inside rooms we now book. Around 2015 DCL basically doubled the concierge room prices. We were in them at the lower prices in 2013 and 2014, but we were going back to insides even if they lowered those rates for 2015. I guess it is possible that with the retreat price increases that X has surpassed DCLs prices.

Nope, but my luck they would hit a monster wave while I was getting my tattoo🤣

My point was it is just a plate filler, and I would rather have more main than plate fillers. The only exception might be asparagus lol. It is easy to drop more veggies or mashed on the plate to allow for a smaller cut of meat or fish, but still make the plate look properly full. I am just glad that it sounds like they added stuff like prime rib back now. Not sure if our February trip was rock bottom, or if the definition changes monthly.

I guess I am missing something here about mashed potatoes, and yes I grew up in the Midwest eating mashed potatoes my whole life. Shouldn't we complain about baked potatoes too? They are even easier to make and look terrible on a plate. Isn't throwing some extra broccoli, green beans, asparagus, carrots, etc the same thing? All of the above are super easy, even I can make them. Or is it a how it looks on the plate thing that asparagus, etc, looks better than mashed potatoes? Basically they are filling the plate to cover for smaller portions, or the lack of prime rib and other stuff that was missing from our menus back in February.

We were briefly tempted to do a 3rd cruise this year and found VV to be above the price point we want to pay for a cruise, but we are pretty thrifty so I know that doesn't apply to all. Like others have said their itineraries really didn't jump out at us either. That said X didn't fair well either in that search and we would have ended up on HAL or most likely Princess. I have a coworker going on VV soon, so I will be interested to hear what he thought of it. VV sounds like an experience heavy cruise with an active nightlife. We go on a cruise to relax and not do much other than puzzle books and a few of the ships activities and shows, so VV may not be a fit for us, but we will try it some day.

We are now looking into a Princess cruise, to try them out as well. If the price is right we will book it as we like the itinerary. This is not a reflection on X, just that we want to see how many good options are out there for us. We looked at Oceania and Viking and those prices are more than what we want to pay for a cruise. The key for us trying lines like HAL and Princess, is to see how they handle my food allergy and if they do well, they will be added to our search list. Currently the list is X, RCCL, and HAL. We do look at Disney, but saw that a 2 night cruise in an inside room was 1700$ which is insane, so they have pretty much fallen off our list for price and other reasons.

We aren't, especially since I have heard that the food options have bounced back a little since our trip in February on the Edge (think we were around the rock bottom point before many complaints altered it some). Also, our trip on HAL showed us that it was an option for us, but not a primary option, Celebrity beat it in many ways. That said since we sail insides or oceanviews and don't do AI or eat in specialty dining, so far the changes have been minimal for us. I also am not going to stop giving X my money because of changes to other classes of rooms that have no impact on us or that we will never book again. We tried suite class twice and it was not a style of cruising that we enjoyed. Once the changes really impact the class of rooms we sail we will jump like we did on Disney, but to what I don't know since all lines seem to be transitioning.

I can't speak to suites, which it seems most are interested in, but for insides in 2023, X was the superior line for us. I did enjoy our HAL cruise a lot, but now that I am further away from it, HAL wasn't even close. I would sail HAL again for the itinerary. One plus for HAL, was the Vaandam was an amazing small ship that we really liked including the full circuit promenade deck.

I was impressed with HAL's MDR food on the Vaandam this year. The dishes were well cooked, presented, and seasoned. I would say it was pretty even overall to Celebrity MDR dishes this year. One big miss though was never got escargot on HAL, don't believe they had it. For us the HAL buffet lacked compared to Celebrity with very little change day to day, especially for me being gluten free. I ended up getting a burger or hot dog each day with sides from the buffet. Also HAL ran out of gluten free hamburger buns with I think 2 days left lol. Hal seemed to be running their provisions pretty close, as the also ran out of amaretto with a few days to go to.

No I don't think it should be split, but I do find that there is a lot more impact now with the changes to the retreat guests vs folks like us that sail insides. With the price increases, butler changes, etc the retreat guests are seeing major changes, and that shows in the topics. There is one though that does drive me crazy, is the what are other option threads, that pretty much just list other luxury lines or talk about the retreat areas of the various lines. I just scroll past for the most part now. I just understand that as someone that has sailed insides for years, that not many of us post on this board. Many may read, but very few seem to post.

You aren't wrong on that point. I apologize for mixing up a few points. So if X raises the price, the Ops original point, the people looking to book at a price at or equal or higher to the true luxury lines will expect that level of service. The retreat threads seem to be a mix of some looking to book, but mostly already booked. We learned with Disney that they easily take perks away once you are booked, and we eventually left. Unfortunately they are free to take away as they choose, rarely do they ever add anything. The really crappy part is that if it is after final payment we have zero recourse.

First off, like everyone else is saying, price won't fix the people issue, and could potentially make it worse, or have people that would now sail that have a much higher expectation of the service they will receive and they will be upset that they are not getting it. Heck, we are seeing that now, especially at the retreat level. For us, who are quiet people, we are very price conscious because of where we started from, and always will be. Yes we can afford to go to the Galapagos, but then on our yearly cruises we still book inside rooms. It is mostly to save money for the future, but also because when we did splurge on a couple of retreat level rooms, we found we didn't like that level of service, so we backed down to the insides and were content again. We love what Celebrity offers, especially on the gluten free end, but there will be a point for us when it becomes to much to pay for too little. I will say seeing HAL this year, yes on their smallest ship, Celebrity had them beat in so many ways that it isn't that close, though I would gladly sail HAL again. Disney however we will likely never go back to due to the same issue that is starting to happen with X and other lines, I just hope they don't go as far as Disney did.

I am really trying to decide at what point the cuts will be too much. In the past when we sailed Disney we used to want to keep our costs below 130-150 a night per person, and at the end we generally sailed insides. For Disney that per person number didn't include taxes and port fees. Now that we have done RCCL and Celebrity we have had no issue doing that, even out into 2025. Since we don't drink much and don't use the web onboard, the all included option doesn't add anything for us, so we try to book cruise only. This February onboard the Edge, the cruises we looked at on the Beyond and Eclipse were under 120 a night per person after taxes and port fees were applied for inside rooms, we really overpaid for the mouse. We ended up on the Eclipse. While we have cruised cheaper from time to time, we are very comfortable with these numbers because they are less than what we used to pay on Disney. I guess this is why I am not getting worked up yet. Yes they menu options were less on this last cruise, but it was still good food. Celebrity was still much better than HAL in 2023, so we will be sticking with Celebrity as first choice. We don't have a mainline celebrity cruise booked in 2024, because we are doing the Galapagos on the Expedition. We make look later in 2024 for a last minute deal on X, RCCL or HAL to get a second cruise in.

On the edge in February, the live music choices around the ship were a lot less than in the past. Also the quality was much lower. Missed the rooftop garden singers.

Yes, because up until now it was basically the suite level that was seeing the changes. The cookie thing is the first to impact us with an inside view. The mdr wasn't what it used to be in February, but the food was good. I tried to be honest in my review for both my X and HAL cruises this year.

So as someone who is not gluten free by choice, eating gluten causes a lot of issues for me, this is disappointing to see only one GF option. On the Edge in February there were multiple along with the coconut macaroons. Perhaps like I was told on a social site that can't be mentioned maybe food allergy people shouldn't sail anymore.

Those are amazing, especially for those of us on a gluten free diet. We usually would grab 2 or 3 at a time and they would put them in a bag for us and we had a nice snack when we needed it.

The gluten free cakes that I had on the Edge this year were not bad at all, but will admit some were better than others. My issue is that I just really like buttercream frosting, and if a little heavy on the sugar all the better. So most cakes for me that use the other odd tasting frostings are a challenge for me.