Running out of food? and other dining questions.

[heyabbott]

I was reading a review of a cruise of the Westerdam from December 2004. The reviewer discussed running out of steaks by the 5th night.

 

Is this a common occurance, to run out of a main menu item?

 

From our prior vacations in the Carribean, we always look forward to Carribean lobster. Does has have Carribean lobster or Maine/cold water lobster?

[Giorgi-one]

We always bring plenty of sandwiches and cookies just in case!

[Arubalisa]

Our ten night trip the only thing they ran out of one night was Calves Liver! Fine by me for sure! :)

[dakrewser]

I was reading a review of a cruise of the Westerdam from December 2004. The reviewer discussed running out of steaks by the 5th night.

 

Is this a common occurance, to run out of a main menu item?

 

From our prior vacations in the Carribean, we always look forward to Carribean lobster. Does has have Carribean lobster or Maine/cold water lobster?

 

Most likely South African lobster. :rolleyes:

 

WE've never encountered a menu item that we've ordered being out of stock. Still, anything's possible :rolleyes:

[heyabbott]

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=8377

 

 

found the link in case anyone's interested in his review

[sail7seas]

I've never seen (heard of them) running out of steaks.....never!

 

 

For that matter, I don't think I recall an HAL ship ever running out of anything that we were aware of or missed.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Amsterdam (2002) - 22 days - got caught in the longshoremen strike - no supplies were put on the ship in Seattle, LA, or San Francisco. The ship had just completed a 7 day Alaskan cruise and was supposed to get supplies in Seattle. We did run out of certain meats, alcohol, wine, and a few other things.

Statendam (2004) - we ran out of fish! - And of all places in Mexico. Caught the chef and 3 helpers bringing back tons of supplies from Sam's Club in Puerto Vallarta.

[ekerr19]

We ran out of things on the Noordam, but then it was the final voyage so provisioning for our cruise was "as absolutely required" and unfortunately - they found a supply of the much dreaded "Bitten Ball" (I think that's the spelling) Dutch appetizers they pawned off on us every night. :eek:

 

We made friends with the Officer in charge of provisioning and he never heard the end of it from us!

 

Another thing that had pax in fits was no lemons the last two days of the cruise, and cocktail napkins were at a premium.

 

Seriously, this is the only time we ever experienced any shortages on a ship. :)

[RuthC]

Several times over the years the ship has run out of iceberg lettuce by the last night.

On the 34-day Grand South Pacific cruise back in '95 there was virtually no milk or cream on the last morning. Coffee and cereal was an interesting experience that morning! (Chocolate milk on the Cocoa Puffs?)

And that morning the ship was delayed getting in to L.A. harbor for several hours. We were still on board when it was time to serve lunch, but the provisions were quite meager.

[jhannah]

Provisioning is quite an artform. They generally have it "down to the penny." However, there are times that a particular sailing of passengers goes outside the norm when ordering, thus causing a shortage/outage of some things. I seem to remember one time a tablemate wanting something they were out of ... but I don't remember which ship or what they asked for. We've never experienced an outage of anything ourselves.

[kryos]

I've never seen (heard of them) running out of steaks.....never!

 

 

For that matter, I don't think I recall an HAL ship ever running out of anything that we were aware of or missed.

Well, I was on one cruise where they began running out of certain things ... like lettuce and other salad makings. That was on the Zuiderdam, and it occurred when our cruise got extended to 10 days from its original 7, compliments of Hurricane Francis.

 

You can only keep lettuce for so long, so I guess that's why they only stock so much of it for each sailing. By day 9 or so, they had run out and there were no salads in the Lido.

 

But, they really didn't run out of much else ... maybe a couple of unusual brands of liquor ... but nothing in the way of food. The dining room menus were the same as always, and the cruise director took pains to assure passengers that there was NO CHANCE of running out of food. The ship usually stocked plenty for even a week's extended stay at sea.

 

But, boy ... they must have come close. You should see how much stuff they were loading onto that ship on turnaround day! :)

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

[garydm]

We were unaware that a 5 day cruise on Amsterdam to Alaska in 2003 was a charter and the company really filled the ship up-1700 people. They ran out of a whole host of foods about day 3. Lobster night was half of one of the tiny lobster tails with a piece of mystery meat about the size of a silver dollar.

 

Really felt bad for the crew as they were clearly embarassed.

 

Gary

[sail7seas]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sail7seas

I've never seen (heard of them) running out of steaks.....never!

 

 

For that matter, I don't think I recall an HAL ship ever running out of anything that we were aware of or missed.

 

 

Well, I was on one cruise where they began running out of certain things ... like lettuce and other salad makings. That was on the Zuiderdam, and it occurred when our cruise got extended to 10 days from its original 7, compliments of Hurricane Francis.

 

You can only keep lettuce for so long, so I guess that's why they only stock so much of it for each sailing. By day 9 or so, they had run out and there were no salads in the Lido.

 

But, they really didn't run out of much else ... maybe a couple of unusual brands of liquor ... but nothing in the way of food. The dining room menus were the same as always, and the cruise director took pains to assure passengers that there was NO CHANCE of running out of food. The ship usually stocked plenty for even a week's extended stay at sea.

 

But, boy ... they must have come close. You should see how much stuff they were loading onto that ship on turnaround day! :)

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

 

[/Quote]

 

 

Well, Rita.....

 

I guess I have now heard of that happening..... :)

 

Never had before but now I have.

[Traveller1]

Last cruise we took with HAL --the transatlantic one in June/July 2004 --after the first 17 days there was no more soy/rice milk. As I usually have cereal for breakfast it meant I had to think of something else (had hard boiled eggs instead.) But it was slightly annoying--I guess they only bring a couple of the tetra blocks aboard.

[KAKcruiser]

The only thing I have ever seen HAL run out of on at least 10 cruises is the waffle cones at the ice cream bar. It happens all the time on all the ships. Sometimes after a couple of days they will reappear. I don't know where they come from. On the Rotterdam in December they didn't have any the whole 10 days.

[richnorto]

If I'm on a 7 day cruise that gets extended to 10 days- Wah hoo!!!! You can run out of everything you want, except beer maybe... ok, maybe even that!:D

[michmike]

just as long as they don't run out of bourbon I can get along fine.. *S*

[mp17706]

Transatlantic on Westerdam in Nov. ran out of several varities of fresh fruit. Didn't bother to resupply when we stopped at St. Martin either.

[doone]

I have never experienced HAL running out of steak until my Rotterdam cruise last March. It was at the BBQ, not only did they run out of steak early on, like within 45 minutes of the start of the buffet, but they ran out of ribs and salmon as well. Possibly poor planning by the kitchen, not sure what happened, but that was certainly a first. I also noticed that they didn't have two side of the buffet line to go through, only one side, which made for alot of congestion. That was a first for me, hope they learned and have changed back to the 2 lines for buffet, and more steaks, ribs and salmon.

[ExpCruiser]

On the Noordam Steak buffet night they had almost no steaks! But what they had they graciously held for the crew :mad: so the passengers had none! They promised to bring me one so I could start on my baked potato but it never arrived! Oh well, guess I didn't need it!

[doone]

Steak buffet night, are you talking the BBQ night? I never heard of steak buffet night.

[blackbird71]

The meal planning on a cruise ship is an art form. For any meal they can peg the number of people that will order X over Y pretty good. But once in awhile something will go wrong.

 

I have read that cruise lines also are very careful where they buy things. I can only remember one cruise in 14 that they had on menu a "local fish".

[kryos]

If I'm on a 7 day cruise that gets extended to 10 days- Wah hoo!!!! You can run out of everything you want, except beer maybe... ok, maybe even that!:D

LOL ... I wish I had a working scanner here, I would put up a photo that was taken on the Zuiderdam on, I believe, day 9 of our extended cruise. They gave us a guided tour of some of the "off-limits" areas of the ship, including the holding areas for foodstuffs. One photo is of the liquor storage area ... and it was PACKED! Nope, no chance of running out of beer. :)

 

By the way, I got a photo of the "Coffin Room" too. :) No, thankfully there was no one in there. :)

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

[blackbird71]

I believe it was on the Noordam I went to the medical center for something and they had a drawing of all decks and rooms. I like the "padded cell" myself.

 

Also as you entered the med center there was a big white box with a lock on it. I did not think about it at the time, but one of my friends was a fireman and was on it's sister ship in Tampa doing a check. When he saw the big white box there was no lock on it and one of the fireman opened it up to see what was inside. Condoms.... hundreds and hundreds..........:D

[jcrandle]

I believe it was on the Noordam I went to the medical center for something and they had a drawing of all decks and rooms. I like the "padded cell" myself.

 

Also as you entered the med center there was a big white box with a lock on it. I did not think about it at the time, but one of my friends was a fireman and was on it's sister ship in Tampa doing a check. When he saw the big white box there was no lock on it and one of the fireman opened it up to see what was inside. Condoms.... hundreds and hundreds..........:D

Yeah, you fill them up with water, and drop them from the top of the Atrium!