What is your opinion on Specialty restaurant plans ?

First Time on NCL.. We will be sailing on the Bliss next year. and I see there are specialty restaurant plans that we can purchase before sailing to use. Last cruise was on Carnival and we ate at the steak house & the Chef's Table .. and had a great meal .. I am trying to decide if you think these packages are worth the money ??? Or should we just stick to the free dining ?

Each person is different, I'm not a big foody so I do not purchase specialty dining, the MDR is fine for me.

Depends on what you are looking for and how much added expense you are willing to pay

Just off the Bliss this past weekend. Some of them are worth eating at others not so much. Skip Los Lobos, if you could stop at appetizers you’d be ok but the main courses were awful and the service subpar. Cagney’s was amazing and our server was fantastic. Q, LeBistro and LaCucina were somewhere in the middle.

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Plenty of free food. However, if the specialty dining is offered as one of the promo perks with booking, it is worth paying the extra 20% service charge that goes with it and eating at several of the specialty restaurants. The favorites seem to be Le Bistro, Cagneys, and the Italian one. Those would be mine. As far as just buying the dining, probably would try one per cruise.

I find the MDR food on NCL to be mediocre at best so for me the dining packages are essential. I can do the MDR a couple of nights depending on whats on the menu.

Food is so subjective though I know others find the MDR just fine. I'm not a food snob but I do like/prefer a good meal to a mediocre one. I will spend the extra to go to a good italian place rather than Olive Garden, or a good seafood place versus Red Lobster. Same on the ship, for dinner I like a good meal. ( and I don't think the MDR food is as good as Olive Garden or Red Lobster)

Most people with the SDP get it as a promo.

Even if I didn't have it included as a promo, I'd buy the SDP. Even with the SDP, I'm willing to pay for Food Republic or an up-charge restaurant. My most recent cruise was in the Yacht Club on MSC Seaside and I still bought the Trio Package to use in 3 specialty restaurants. My next Seaside cruise, I won't buy the Trio but for a first time on a new ship, I wanted to try the options.

I find the MDR food on NCL to be mediocre at best so for me the dining packages are essential. I can do the MDR a couple of nights depending on whats on the menu.

I agree. I usually get the SDP as a perk for 3 or 4 nights and then purchase the remaining nights package, so all my meals are in specialty dining venues.

i think everyone should try them once to get an opinion.

we no longer purchase speciality dining, choosing to simply eat at the MDRs and use our two free coupons for being PlatPlus. we dont find the specialities to be that much better than the MDR. we may or may not pick it as our second free at sea choice, depending upon itinerary. UBP is always our first pick, if we get a second choice its internet if we are hitting ports that may or may not have free wifi .

We get it as a perk and choose Teppanyaki, Cagneys, and LeBistro and play the other days by ear. We might try the Italian restaurant this time but were pretty disappointed in Moderno (at least compared to land based Brazilian steakhouses).

Depends on your budget. For some people, spending an extra $100+/ea is a deal breaker and not worth it. For others it's a minimal extra charge. Personally, I think the specialty dining is well worth it and enhances the cruise experience. If I didn't get SDP as a perk, I would probably buy the 5 night for $99 and try a couple of free options the other 2 nights.

NCL does specialty dining VERY well.

I feel like the prices for the specialty dining packages are quite reasonable. We have a Brazilian Steak House here locally and I want to say it's close to $90 per person? So getting Moderno plus two other specialty meals for basically that same price seems like a bargain. We picked SDP as one of our perks for our first cruise in February and our next cruise in October, but for the cruise we went on in June, we originally booked an inside room (were later upgraded), so only received one perk. Obviously with only one perk, we were going with the UBP, so we paid for the SDP out of pocket.

The complimentary restaurants are perfectly fine. There is absolutely no need to spend money on specialty dining.

Everyone is different. We personally found Los Lobos to be the best restaurant on the Bliss, eating there twice.

I've always thought that the complimentary venues had good food. I'd say they're comparable to something a little nicer than a Friday's or something along that line.

We've done the specialty restaurants when it was offered as a perk. Liked Cagney's (although we thought it was overrated), Le Bistro was okay, and surprisingly got one of the best steaks I've ever had at La Cucina.

The complimentary restaurants are perfectly fine. There is absolutely no need to spend money on specialty dining.

 

Everyone is different. We personally found Los Lobos to be the best restaurant on the Bliss, eating there twice.

The complimentary restaurants are perfectly fine and everyone is different as BirdTravels says but I do not cruise for perfectly fine food, I can make that at home myself; I cruise for wonderful food that I day-dream about until my next cruise. We had 3 free speciality meals on our last cruise and have bought 5 this time (from the uk so different rules). I loved the prime rib in the MDR the first night but the other two MDR meals were just ok the last time whereas the 2 meals at Cagney's and one at Le Bistro were wonderful - the food itself and the whole being spoiled experience.

For breakfast and lunch I love the variety of the buffet and being able to pick at a little of this and little of that; on land I am not a buffet fan but the ncl buffet works for me.

There is another thread about best veg on ncl and for me it is caramelised Brussels sprouts in Cagney’s, almost worth the cruise fare alone …

I think the speciality restaurant on ncl gets it just about right, a wide enough choice of food to suit most folk, a huge step in quality above the MDR if you want but for not very much money, but if food is not that important you are not paying extra for something you don’t want.

We have so many great restaurants at home, we just eat in the MDR’s for free. We have a great steakhouse in town, much better rodizios, a ton of Italian places, and every type of ethnic restaurants you can think of within 5 miles.

I enjoy the the specialties a lot, but I also like the main dining room. I think on longer cruises I appreciate the specialty dining more. I remember on our first cruise together (7 days), we did Cagney's the first night and Le Bistro the last night, because my husband loves steak and I had never been to a French restaurant. However, we always had great meals in the main rooms too. We always like a sit-down dinner (either dining room or O'Sheehan's) and do a mix of Buffet/O'Sheehan's/Main Dining Room for breakfasts and lunches. Honestly, we have never had a bad meal. I just like being able to try new cuisines when I can, and it's cheaper to try them on a ship. We did Moderno and La Cucina on our second cruise, and we also kept Le Bistro - that one was 9 days.

I believe we had 4 specialty meals on our 10-day cruise, 6 on our next 14-day, and we'll do seven on this next 14-day cruise simply because there are lots of great options on The Escape. I think my favorites have been Le Bistro, Moderno, and Teppanyaki, simply because those offer cuisines that I don't get at home. Again though, the main rooms are fine, and I have never felt like they were repetitive in their menu. I just find that the longer the cruise, the more I want to get to more eateries on board. I do pay out of pocket and think they're a great value.

I've tried Modernos, Cagneys, Teppenyaki, LeBistro and LaCucina.

Cagneys reminds me of Ruth's Cris steakhouse. LeBistro leans towards French cuisine, which is as good as I've had in any other French restaurant I've been to. Teppenykai is dead on places like Benihanas. Matter of fact, I like Teppenyaki better than Benihanas. LaCucina is similar to a place like Maggianos.

Like others mentioned, the MDRs are fine as is the buffet. Matter of fact, I prefer to eat Breakfast and Lunch in the MDRs for no other reason than I can skip the crowds that the Buffet usually gets are breakfast and lunch.

But, if the specialty restaurants are part of the package, may as well utilize the package.

My favorites are LaCucina, Cagneys and LeBistro.

But, I also love another no charge venue is the Asian Fusion restaurant. It gets busy, but worth the wait.

Interesting that some like LosLobos and some don't. Would love to hear both the pros and the cons.

We eat out a lot and tend to always go to the specialty restaurants on cruises. We usually take the SDP as our second perk after the UBP. On our upcoming Bliss Panama transit we did not purchase an extra dining package as we will be getting most of our favorites under the perk. Have not tried Los Lobos or Q, but after looking at the menus we will probably go with just appetizers and maybe splitting an entree in both, while paying ala carte. We also love Food Republic. After about 4 or 5 days into the cruise, we are so fooded out that we just like to graze and eat small plates and tapas rather than big full course dinners. NCl cruises are loaded with food options which is one reason, along with the varied bars and lounges and a couple of broadway type shows, that we like them.

Mary Ann

We have so many great restaurants at home, we just eat in the MDR’s for free. We have a great steakhouse in town, much better rodizios, a ton of Italian places, and every type of ethnic restaurants you can think of within 5 miles.

So you spend a bunch of $$ on a cruise so you can eat worse food than you get within 5 miles of home:confused:

 

Interesting that some like LosLobos and some don't. Would love to hear both the pros and the cons.

I've not tried it yet but have it booked for our upcoming Bliss cruise. Being from SoCal it's hard to wrap my head around an added cost specialty Mexican place. Around here Mexican is cheap (and usually the cheaper it is the better it is;p). So paying extra to eat Mexican seems counter intuitive. It will be interesting to see how they upscale Mexican on NCL. Carnival has the Blue Iguana Cantina and that was really good. It's just tacos and burritos, really good though!

For our upcoming cruise (a 4-nighter on the Sky), the 2-meal dining package is around $70 and the 3-meal package is $82 per person. Will we have an additional service charge of 20% on each dining package, or does the dining package include the service charge?

And hopefully this second question is relevant enough not to be considered highjacking the thread: On a very casual ship like the Sky, could my husband get away with wearing jeans to Cagney/Le Bistro? He wears suits every day to work and hates it when I make him dress up on vacation (and he includes khakis as "dressing up"). I wish I could say he wears stylish dark Euro type jeans, but unfortunately his jeans are of the "dad jean" variety :'):')

For our upcoming cruise (a 4-nighter on the Sky), the 2-meal dining package is around $70 and the 3-meal package is $82 per person. Will we have an additional service charge of 20% on each dining package, or does the dining package include the service charge?

 

 

 

And hopefully this second question is relevant enough not to be considered highjacking the thread: On a very casual ship like the Sky, could my husband get away with wearing jeans to Cagney/Le Bistro? He wears suits every day to work and hates it when I make him dress up on vacation (and he includes khakis as "dressing up"). I wish I could say he wears stylish dark Euro type jeans, but unfortunately his jeans are of the "dad jean" variety :'):')

Yes, the 20% is added to the charge.

Jeans are fine in ever restaurant on every NCL ship.

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When we took a 7 night cruise once we had two specialty dinners for being platinum and purchased three more nights. We actually missed not going to main dining rooms, o’sheehans And buffet more. The next 7 night cruise we stuck with just the two free platinum dinners and were much happier. This next cruise is 14 nights and we will have 6 specialty restaurants and play it by ear the other 8 nights.

We loved eating at the specialty restaurants on our other NCL cruises. Our plan is to do special options every other night. Cagney's is a great final night of the cruise celebration. On our 14 night in 2020 on Bliss we opted for UDP and will by extra nights.

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First Time on NCL.. We will be sailing on the Bliss next year. and I see there are specialty restaurant plans that we can purchase before sailing to use. Last cruise was on Carnival and we ate at the steak house & the Chef's Table .. and had a great meal .. I am trying to decide if you think these packages are worth the money ??? Or should we just stick to the free dining ?

It just depends a lot on your values. The specialty restaurants definitely are a step up in quality compared to the MDR. I think the comparison to benihana and maggiano's is fair. Just evaluate if those costs are reasonable for that level of quality vs. quality a step down.

So you spend a bunch of $$ on a cruise so you can eat worse food than you get within 5 miles of home:confused:

I mean, I understand that sentiment. There is a lot on a cruise ship that is not within 5 miles of my home. no work, open ocean, no responsibilities. Within 5 miles of my home are way better food options. world class food, cheaper food that is much better than found on the ship. I thought the specialty restaurants we tried was worth the price for trying it since we like new things, but they definitely were not what we like out of restaurants. If we went on the same cruise again, I don't know if we would chose the specialty dining package again.