Quality of celebrity food - is it declining

[RichardQ]

I find the food quality dependent on the ship we are sailing on. We sailed Summit in October 2011 and the food in the MDR was not that good - quality wise - not menu wise.

 

Then we sailed Silhouette, March 2012 - the food in the MDR was fantastic and reminded us of when we first started to cruise.

 

Then we sailed Summit in October 2012 and the food was not as good as Silhouette but still better than the Summit October 2011 cruise. So we have found that it's hit and miss.

 

All 3 sailings were from Bayonne, NJ.

 

I don't know why they cannot seem to keep the same quality across all ships in the fleet.

 

Food is for me THE subject while cruising. Choosing X for that. Indeed we saw quality declining in the years.The level in 2010 on Constellation reached the lowest point. VanStaaden left and on our cruise last year on Silhouette the food in MDR was superb. This year we are doing Constellation again. Hope they pick up this quality boost.

[jamiebytes]

I've never been on any of the older Celebrity ships, but the quality of the food on the Eclipse last year and the Reflection earlier this month was excellent, in my opinion. But I don't have too much to compare to since I've only been on 3 cruises.

 

We only went to the MDR a few times though. We were so pleased with Tuscan Grill we may have went back a few too many times. ;)

 

Has anyone noticed a different in selection and/or quality in the newer ships vs. the older ships? Or is it just more a ship to ship thing?

[CHEZMARYLOU]

We started cruising with Celebrity in 1997, just as they were being bought by RCL, and have completed 10 cruises. We thought the dinners under Michel Rou (sp) were very good but those that followed in the MDR when he left were poor. Recently we have found the MDR food to be good again. The buffet at lunch is good but the same food is served day after day and on a 14 day cruise it gets boring. The grill is sometimes good, sometimes not so good. The breakfast buffet is abysmal unless you wait for made to order eggs. We were in Aqua on one cruise and did not care for the food. We still find Murano's, Tuscan and Quisine to be very good.

 

As others have said, food is subjective and this is our opinion. We have 3 more cruises booked so I guess we have not found the food to be so bad that we are willing to jump ship. :D

 

Mary Lou

[Meena]

We've taken 22 Celebrity cruises. Last fall on the Silhouette, it was pretty good in the MDR; however we took the Summitt in February and the food was beyond worse. On the last night, our steaks were all grizzle and the dessert they passed off as a cannolli was like eating cardboard filled with air. Even on the other nights we dined there, the food was not up to "old Celebrity standards." They want you to book the speciality restaurants. That's where the good old MDR food is now, but you have to pay extra for it. Consequently, we cancelled the same cruise booked for next February. The cutbacks on this ship were way too evident, in the Cafe, MDR and the poor room stewards who have way too many cabins in their care. We are trying Azamara and I'm hoping it will be like the old Celebrity.

[mek]

making us (along with the service in general and the quality of the cabin and bar staffs in particular) committed Celebrity cruisers.

 

 

 

In 2011, on Summit (again), the food, once more, was acceptable but not exciting. The meat tended to be drab in flavour and vegetables were generally slightly overdone. Again, ordering off menu was not done, and decent (and, perhaps, extravagant, but still ... this was a luxury cruise) seafood such as lobster never appeared on the menu. We discussed this with the maitre d', but there was no improvement. After talking to out tablemates, we decided not to eat in the specialty restaurant, because they indicated that the food and service were not worth the extra cost.

 

 

Not sure why you consider Celebrity to be a luxury line? At it's best, it is considered upscale, but still mainstream cruising.

[jdvmd]

I think the food on Celebrity is good and certainly better than some other cruise lines but it is not as great as it once was.

[Texed]

I thought a couple of years ago the food had really declined. But, since then, I think the food has been on the upswing. However, the waffles have stayed consistently good. :D

[ghstudio]

Not sure why you consider Celebrity to be a luxury line? At it's best, it is considered upscale, but still mainstream cruising.

 

I agree that today, celebrity markets itself as upscale mainstream but not that many years ago, they focused on what upscale meant..not luxury, but offering Michael Roux food, personalized service (MDR/somelliers), etc. Of course Princess and HAL also market themselves as upscale mainstream lines....and in fact, the differentiation in the lines has blurred with differences being smoking policies and similar.

[Germancruiser]

Hello Texed- great to hear from ... you ® waffles. LOL. I bet when you go back home you have to meet the " Waffles anonymous" guy´s ! Greetings from Germany

Michael

[DougandEric]

For as long as we have been cruising and reading cruise boards, there has always been the topic of "Is XXX food quality declining?". I've seen this topic on Cunard, Princess, NCL, HAL, etc - all of which we have sailed. I can honestly say that I've never gone hungry on a cruise. There have been hits and misses with dishes but that happens at home as well! Do you really think you're going to get the same quality of food/service/entertainment/etc if you pay $499 for a week vs $1999? I am usually very pleased with the food in the regular restaurant as well as any specialty restaurants - we love to eat out at home at high end restaurants as well as casual. It's a vacation - you don't have to cook, clean or make the bed - enjoy!

[Texed]

Hello Texed- great to hear from ... you ® waffles. LOL. I bet when you go back home you have to meet the " Waffles anonymous" guy´s ! Greetings from Germany Michael

 

Good to "see" you Michael. Maybe we will cruise together again some time. :)

[agathasmum]

I was mostly pleased with the main dining room meals that I experienced on my recent Eclipse cruise. The last two dinners in the dining room were exceptions. Some rather odd offerings: a Chickpea-Spinach Tomato soup that was terrible; a trout entree in which the trout had been split in half length-wise with a potato puree(i.e. mashed potatoes) placed in the center of the two halfs and the pieces of the fish put back together again. Flavor was lacking and the presentation was poor. Celebrity does not do chilled soups well at all. After being disappointed a few times, I stopped ordering them. One would expect that the final dining experiences would be ones that the cruise line would want to be as good as possible. That was not the case for me, however.

 

On the other hand, Murano and Tuscan Grill were wonderful dining experiences in all aspects.

 

LOL. Just goes to show how people's tastes vary. That fish dish was my *favourite* dish on a recent cruise. One man's meat (or fish) and all that....

 

I have to say though that very few people get off the ship lighter than they got on so it can't be all that bad, and if I get something I don't like one night, I'm pretty certain to find something I like better the next night, same as when I'm ordering in restaurants on land.

[anandaindonesia]

I have only one Celebrity cruise so I don't know if it is declining, static or getting better.

 

What I do know is that the MDR gives only one entree for vegetarian, and if you don't like it, they will give an alternative dish but nobody can tell what the substitute will be like until it reaches the table. No choice!

 

Having said that, I must said that most of what I eat are of good quality, just lacking variety.

 

Food presentation is very unattractive. They can do better with garnish, or simply use smaller plates. The waiters will be happier!

 

Buffet in OceanView Cafe is good. At least there are many choices so you can decide what you want to eat.

AquaSpa Cafe is the best for breakfast. Unfortunately they don't have vegetarian entree for lunch.

 

Your miles may vary.

I just don't believe that Celebrity boasts about fine dining.

[KeywestK]

Certainly discussions about food are subjective, but after spending 2 weeks on Eclipse in February, it is my opinion that the food in the MDR was only fair at best, and the menus not appealing. Yes, we had a few really good meals, but only a few. They totally missed the mark on most of the fish dishes, and the beef dishes were not reliable--some days they were good, and others they were not so good. One meal, I remember, was totally inedible and I sent it back.

 

We liked the Oceanview Cafe a lot, and thought it was better than RCI's Windjammer. Loved the Mast Grill (best hamburgers!!), and our dinners in Tuscan Grill and Murano were excellent on every level.

 

I don't think these issues are unique to X. I suspect when we sail on RCI this summer, we will see changes in the MDR since our last cruise with them in '11.

 

Bon appetit!:D

[kelmac]

We went on a two night cruise with QM2 last year. Found the food quality in the MDR similar to X. Food in the buffet however was a nightmare...

 

SoBe,

 

I agree 100%. While the MDR food on the QM2 was similar in quality to Celebrity, the buffet food was the worst of any line I have cruised. Even Todd English was inferior to Celebrity's top end alternative restaurants.

The good news for Cunard cruises -- the main dining room is open all days, for all meals. We will be back on the QM2 this June doing a west bound TA, and we will eat all of our meals in the MDR.

 

Since we are doing 21 days on the Infinity, prior to our TA crossing, I will be able to do a head to head comparison between these two great cruise lines.

 

Enjoy!

Kel:)

[floridatravelersforlife]

We recently sailed on the Solstice in Australia.

 

I'd say the food prep and presentation remains excellent, but the food is spotty. Our lobster in Blu for formal night was rubbery and tasteless yet on other nights the selections (we did a nite in MDR) the food was what we remembered on cruises 7 years ago. The most variation was the baked goods. Most looked yummy but the taste was lacking depth. Items like crossants, cakes, breads were weak on butter content. Chocalate baked goods did not have that rich flavor. Yet some days one dessert would be outstanding. The only superior consistancy was of course where you paid up, like the Bistro.

 

In general, the pizza and waffles were always good. The morning eggs benedict in the upstairs cafe were so hard I think I could pitch them 20 ft with a golf wedge.

[Aloha 1]

We sailed on the old Horizon in the '90's when Michel Roux lead the dine team. Outstanding compared to RC and Princess. Sailed Silhouette in 2011 and found the MDR horrible right from the start. However, the buffet, Blu, Tuscan Grill, and Qsine were fantastic. This past year we have sailed Princess ( the small ship), and Disney Dream. The Princess buffet was not as good as X but Sabatini's blew away Tuscan and the MDR was outstanding with excellent service and food. On Disney, we were very pleasantly surprised at the quality and presentation of the food. Sailing with our Grandkids (and a couple thousand other kids :)), we did not expect the excellent food presented on board. So, one might be tempted to conclude that a smaller ship (700 passengers) can get the service and quality right while a bigger ship (3,000 passengers) has delivery issues due to the number of meals being served. But if Disney can do it, why can't X?

[Kevnzworld]

I find the food on Celebrity to be good overall. I prefer Blu to the MDR. Though. Once you eat in Blu it's difficult to eat the MDR food. I like the specialty restaurants for a change of pace, but the food isn't appreciably better.

New menus are coming in June, beginning with Equinox and Reflection.

[ghstudio]

I find the food on Celebrity to be good overall. I prefer Blu to the MDR. Though. Once you eat in Blu it's difficult to eat the MDR food. I like the specialty restaurants for a change of pace, but the food isn't appreciably better.

New menus are coming in June, beginning with Equinox and Reflection.

 

To date, new menus has translated into lower cost meals. One can only hope that the tide is turning and we will all be excited by reading the new menus vs the hype that will undoubtably come with them.

 

One can only hope that they put the onions back in the onion consomme they now serve, etc.

[Kevnzworld]

Regarding new menus.

I heard that they will be serving Chateaubriand in Murano...

[ghstudio]

Fine tuning the specialty restaurants including Blu is nice especially since they raised the prices, but most are expressing varied levels of satisfaction with MDR food. In our case, I was dissatisfied with the meals offered in Blu, I was surprised by the amount of salt in the food (for the record, I nosh on pickles, pretzels, etc...I am a salt lover...and even I found the food far too salty...and yes, I commented on it to the head chef and in Blu and nothing changed).

 

I remember one cruise on Celebrity where they didn't serve lobster tails at all...they served linguini with seafood which included 1/2 lobster tail. While I don't generally order lobster on Celebrity, that one was hard to forget...sort of a new low....but they have, once again, added lobster back for those that like fresh water lobster tails.

 

The new menus will undoubtably be heralded as gourmet level healthy meals, but the issue, even today, is not the choice of dishes, it's the quality of the ingredients and the taste. Neither of those can be fixed/improved with a change of menu....and there is no reason to have to wait for those to be improved across the fleet.

 

One can only think that it takes time to create new menu dishes out of lower cost ingredients.....but hopefully, I'm just being pessimistic.

[Kevnzworld]

Finding cost savings and reducing the cost of food per meal is never going to change. I have been eating in Blu for two weeks now. I had eaten in the MDR my previous two cruises.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the food. The lobster was probably one of the worst things I've eaten though....anywhere. The combination of butter and tangerine is not a good one with Lobster.

I noticed a decline in food quality during the five years I sailed on Regent too.

I'm optimistic about the new menus coming in June.

[Chunky2219]

Like a previous poster, we are recently off Solstice.

 

The speciality restaurant food was all good quality, but in the case of Murano not quite as good as the hype would have you expect. Tuscan Grill and Bistro on 5 were both very good and Silk Harvest was excellent.

 

In contast, MDR was deeply disappointing on the first of the only two nights we went and it was slow to boot, despite the efforts of the wait staff. The second night was passable, but we didn't feel any desire to go back.

 

I've had beef rib before that was full of gristle so this wasn't a surprise. But the profiteroles for desert were just a hard biscuit, sliced and filled with something the consistency of cream - it was dreadful.

 

Strangely, when we ate in the cabin, from the MDR menu the food was very good. Also, the sea day brunch, which was very, very busy was also good so I'm a little bemused about just why we were so disillusioned with MDR.

 

Wind back the clock to October when we were on Constellation and the MDR was tons better. Nothing outstanding, good portions of often hearty food but warm, tasty and served on a timely basis.

 

Aside from the quality, my other gripe is the scope of the menu. It was okay for a week, but if I'd got to do anywhere the top side of 14 days it would drive me nuts.

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..

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[durberville]

How often does Celebrity change menus? Once every couple of years? Once every year??? I'm curious and haven't cruise enough to know.

[Cruising89143]

I'm sure for those of us who have been cruising for a long period of time we have seen both positive and negative changes in the on board product over the years. I found the overall quality of food on X last month ranging from good to very good. We had no complaints.