yamaha123

Oddly, you can reserve specialty dining online with Cunard, Costa and Carnival. I can't imagine that Princess will not be doing the same in the coming months. Maybe even via a phone app?

EXACTLY, you should be able to book this before the cruise starts ,.. most cruise lines are like this now... even their own HOLLAND AMERICA line etc....

we are going on the July 1 coral princess cruise.. heard a lot of complaints about anytime dining and recent experiences on the coral princess this season - 2015 Alaska season?

sounds like there was a lot of waiting with anytime dining, etc...when the ship was in the Caribbean over the winter... need to decide this... I know that the princess agents put you automatically into anytime dining if they can .. that's why I am in that group now..... we are a group of 5 many thanks in advance for your views.. than

We've done both HAL and Princess and we like the food on both - and in the buffets, MDRs, and specialty restaurants.

 

But if we had to choose we'd say the food and service on HAL is a notch above Princess. Buffets not as much difference but the MDR a little more upscale on HAL and Pinnacle Grill a notch above Crown Grill.

 

We've not sailed Royal/Regal (yet) but have heard those Buffets are quite nice and a new step up.

 

But as others have said food is quite subjective and while I'm a bit of a selective eater (preferring the simpler to the fancier) I do believe one can find something they like on just about any menu.

 

All in all we're always fascinated at how well they can serve so many at one time and still have it be as good as it is. We love dining on a cruise.

we prefer princess over HAL but on HAL a lot depends on the ship, we find anyways: the food on the Eurodam and the New Amsterdam is SIGNIFICANTLY above that on their older ships, we find the difference huge between HAL ships actually... too much so for a cruise line in my view........ we find there are differences on the princess ships but not nearly as huge as on HAL...

crystal cruises has the best food we have had on any ship.... amazing....., way above HAL or princess but the two crystal ships are getting very old looking even if they are clean.

we were a group of 11 on the eurodam between december 18 and december 29... overall, it was a fairly good experience but there are certainly some things one can compliant about.... the food quality was very good which is a total must for me from a cruise experience - although be for-warned that the serving sizes in the rembrandt main dinning room are the smallest i have ever seen on a cruise ship and i have been on all major lines.... i always had a full supper in the lido before going to the MDR at 6pm... also i though both the pinnacle grill and the tamarid restaurants which we all eat at several times during the 11 days to be good but not really worth the up charge from strictly a food perspective, they were probably worth it to get away from the MDR which was VERY VERY VERY (not exaggering) loud on each night of the cruise...... it is sort of like shopping at costco on a saturday..... not a refined dinning experience for sure...i could not even hear the person beside me trying to talk to me let alone the person across the table.....also there are alot of comments here that the service is a little slow in the rembrandt dinning room which was our experience as well... for most nights..... never been on a ship with such a LOUD main dinning room... the clientele on the first cruise the 4 day collector was the worst i have ever seen in my cruising history....obviously the cheap price point for that 4-day cruise attracted the bottom of the barrel and it is someplace Holland America is not typical for.. at least in the past...... the behaviour in the main dining room by many of the guests was so bad i could not believe it! really! ...... also, i would have thought that the eurodam would be in MUCH better shape after coming out of a Wet dock the week before.... but there was many things missing.... we noticed that the carpet was replaced in the halls were the higher level suites were and in a few areas but in many areas the carpet was much older.... the ship is in good shape to begin with as many have said here so not too worry too much on this point but i would have though they would have done a lot more than they did .... even our TA at Holland America had mentioned that most things will be new in the common areas.... not so.... i would never do a collector cruise again and i would never do a cruise less than 7 days at the VERY least because - to be frank - the clientele goes way down hill it seems.

also, the Eurodam left many of the ports before other cruise ships.... obviously to maximize revenues on board. For example, we followed the Norweigean Epic at several ports including Jamaica and Grand Cayman. We left Jamaica HOURS before the Epic did...but nevertheless the NCL Epic arrived in Grand Cayman HOURS before our arrival there the next day at 1030 am... for me, Cayman is the highlight of the ports and to get in at 1030 am really shortchanges such a nice port.... you could tell that the eurodam was going very slow to stay at sea the longest i have ever seen.