The Fun Researcher

Lobster, shellfish, etc is fairly common in French cooking and some other European cuisines so I'm not surprised that at least they offer it at a premium. I've never sailed from ports outside the US, but I was always under the impression that the lobster night was a North American thing with Royal Caribbean.

Yes, particularly bad season for the bird flu. Wiped out a lot of the egg producing chickens. I'm sure prices will go down once they get the stock of chickens back up, but I don't expect anything like we saw last year when they were dirt cheap. Egg prices are high enough now that we've cut back on buying them. Yes the egg suppliers might be making more margin now per carton, but I'm guessing that purchase volumes are significantly down due to the cost as well. Time will tell. We'll just have to wait it out.

“I’ll drink my lunch, thank you “

In all our Royal cruises we have yet to eat in a specialty restaurant. Been happy with the MDR. we are making a change and eating at Wonderland and Chops in March on the Anthem just to try something new. I’m sure we would still enjoy the dining room too. Hoping these new menus don’t screw that up.

150 gets a lot of love. Will need to try it on the next ship we have that restaurant on.

This. Gets you away from the madness of the buffet on embarkation day. I also like the idea (and have done it) of having an early lunch on shore prior to boarding.

I would guess it's going to take a month or more for lobster offering to be more consistent across the ships leaving from North America. I would hope that the $16.99 extra tail would consistently be a larger cold water tail versus the small warm water tails you normally get on formal night in the MDR. My big question is whether or not the first single tail you get will be the smaller warm water tails, or the larger cold water variety. Personally my bets are on the single smaller tails like we've been getting for years in the MDR, with the option to purchase another that is a nice cold water tail.

Wow, crazy! If you are that worried about others not wearing masks, don't go on a cruise. Simple. Welcome to 2023.

Wear them. Don't wear them. Who cares. Everyone is used to seeing others wearing masks by now. I still see quite a few in the supermarket, and from my coworkers now as well if they have a cold. Do what you want. I'm sure there will be very few onboard wearing them, but it doesn't mean you'll look weird if you do. People understand by now that some feel more comfortable wearing them. Dan

I would think that with 28,000+ posts under your belt, you know better. Why try to mislead and insinuate that this is a typical lunch buffet, which is is faaaaaaarrrr from. Dan

The original question was about possible Windjammer cutbacks due to what’s happened on Celebrity with their dinner buffet.

So drumexpert510, what are your general takeaways from your cruise with Royal on the Symphony versus what you're used to on other cruise lines? I'd be very interested in your thoughts. Dan

Check out the pdf document from suzyluvs2cruise about 17 posts earlier. In blue text it describes the order of how the menu works for various lengths and types of cruises. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=1293247&key=1aee828bd76e357f70a532fe72b9b344 Dan

I think it's perfectly valid for the OP to be asking about potential changes to the Windjammer based on what's happened with Celebrity. Celebrity is owned by Royal Caribbean Group after all, so it stands to reason that these changes may end up being implemented corporate wide. I hope not, but I've been wondering the exact same thing as the OP. We have a Celebrity cruise booked on the Equinox the week before Christmas but fortunately the dinner buffet scale back won't impact us because we eat our dinners in the MDR. Dan

I don't like these changes at all. Much more has been removed than added, especially some of my favorites like grilled lamb chops, scallops, escargot each evening, and the fallback to a "strip steak" if needed. However, I'll "deal with it". They definitely cheapened the menu with lower cost proteins for sure. Having said that, there are still a great number of very good appetizers and mains so I'll make due but who wants negative changes like this? Not me. It won't cause me to stop sailing Royal right now, but I just hope they readjust and add some of the more costly items back on the menu when eventually we catch back up to the inflationary pressures. Dan

I'll be bringing two bottles on the Anthem in March even though I'm single occupancy. Dan

I don’t see any scallops appetizers now either. 😞

Looking at 7 night menus. Are the grilled lamb chops gone? I can't find them and they are one of my absolute favorites. I see Braised Lamb, but that's the shank right? I'm not as fond of this. I want the chop. Dan

Yes. Without a doubt. We started making sushi at home often after our first class about 5 to 7 years ago. It’s really not that difficult once you learn some basic steps.

Pretty much exactly what we plan to do. Our son and my mother-in-law are doing the class, and afterward my wife, father-in-law and I plan to join and help eat. 🙂 Dan

Thank you! 🥰 That's perfect. The Anthem is the ship we plan to do this on in a couple of months. Glad we can still eat the fruits of our labor, and the class is fun regardless.

The 2-3 times we've done this we've made rolls with shrimp tempura, a California roll, and I think a tuna roll. You also tend to make a shrimp or salmon nigiri. The picture in my first post is from the actual class. That is what we made one of the times that we took this class, and then we ate it. 🙂

We've done the sushi making class a few times over the years and have always been able to eat what we've made. Is that still the case? I just want to verify before we book again. It ends up being a decent amount of sushi. Thanks. -Dan

Yowza. That’s two huge ships at once! We ran into something similar like this summer with the Allure and the Mariner at once. Still not as bad as what you had. Same with you, all loungers gone at 10 AM we finally found a few at the very back of the island. Coco Cay is cool but like an amusement park moreso than a relaxing beach day. Personally we like their other private port better, Labadee. More laid back, but that’s just us. I did a poll a litttle while back and it was 60/40 in favor of Coco Cay. Probably depends a lot if you’re the only ship in port.

For dinner? I don’t think they touched the lunch buffet, it is the dinner buffet you need to check out.