complaints about food

[crusinpsychRN]

I just commented on another post regarding my recent Magic trip and the food. We enjoyed it this time around but it was awful in September 2013. Same menu so I don't know what the difference was.

 

I went on Legend several times and the food was just awful! I'd read reviews and think people had the worse taste buds if they liked that stuff called lasagna. Others at the table agreed. Forget penne mariscos, nasty.

 

Than on the next trip, same food selection and it was delicious! Best lasgna ever and the penne mariscos was very tasty. I knew someting was different, sure enough they had a new chef. Made all the difference in the world.

[SoloCroozer]

Hi yall!

 

The eggs on the breakfast buffet are NOT powdered eggs, so sorry to disagree with everyone who knows they are, do they still give galley tours? If they do, ask the Chef doing the tour, he will tell you those are fresh eggs not powdered eggs on the morning buffet....or look at the food products down on the dock before they are loaded on the ship, pallets of fresh eggs!

 

We started cruising with Carnival 20+ years ago and we cruise at least twice every year, years ago they did use liquid egg product and they tasted fine to me....

 

Love all your food thoughts!

Alice

 

 

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[joeyancho]

To those who complain about Carnival food: What the heck do you eat at home?

[SoloCroozer]

To those who complain about Carnival food: What the heck do you eat at home?

 

 

My thoughts exactly! many times I've wondered the same thing LOL....

 

 

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[dave_k58]

I don't know where some of the complainers usually eat while at home, but I think the dining options on Carnival are " good enough". It's kind of like banquet food, or an Applebees with somewhat smaller portions. I think what sets cruise dining apart is that, for the most part, they have excellent service and you actually feel like you're dining out. I have never had any real complaints, because I wasn't expecting something like the food network. Well, almost never. I wish they would get a better quality hotdog on the Lido.

[rvmike]

Complainers are the same people that are offered Lobster every night and then complain that's all they got.

[Cruise life]

DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! We have a winner folks. Shut the thread down here because there's every answer you ever wanted... You want 5 star food? Expect to pays thousands.. you aint getting 5 stars for a vacation that costs less than a coach class flight on a cheap airline. What you will get is a great deal on a 7 night cruise with good food and lots of fun. Carnival isnt here to wine and dine the rich and famous, they are here to serve the middle class family and help them get away from their everyday stress with a good vacation. Feel free to disagree.. just my 2 cents as a middle class american who works 40+ hours, on-call way too much, and taking too many graduate classes all at once and just looking for a vacation. :)

 

 

LOL, yeah, my kids eat cereal and pigs in a blanket for dinner some nights. It cracks me up when we get to the MDR and one will say, without blinking, "For my starter, I'll have the spring rolls, but no sauce, please".

 

 

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[Butterbean1000]

We've taken 7 cruises and had only one disappointing food experience. The Fantasy wad less than great. The buffet was warm at best. The MDR was better, but not by much. However, we did not go hungry. We both came home with a few pounds we didn't take with us.

 

Agree with everyone, breakfast buffet falls short.

 

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[Butterbean1000]

I forgot to mention above that my favorite breakfast is ordering room service, bagel, cream cheese and lox. That, coffee and my balcony, what's to complain about?

 

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[lido deck larry]

Sometimes the food is good sometimes it's swill. Just drink more booze until it tastes good. After enough alcohol anything they serve will Tatet good. I wouldn't get to excited about hard boiled eggs being done right.. I mean, come on.. they're hard boiled eggs. Hard to screw them up, even in a cruise ship.

[BND]

As you can see from my signature, our cruises the last 5 years have been on RCI, but DH and I have both said that Carnival's food is much better and not just the MDR. The pizza and burgers were much better on Carnival also. We get crap from people on RCI when we have said that, but whatever.

 

We're looking forward to the Sunshine in 2.5 months.

Edited November 14, 2014 by BND

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

I have got to say, we were pleased overall with the food on our cruise last week.

HOWEVER, we did hear some people complain that it wasn't very good.... these were the same people who we watched order "chicken fingers with french fries" as their entree in MDR or order 2 appetizers, a main course, then 2 or 3 desserts per person. Two different couples on different nights... but really! The same couple laughed when my husband ordered the Steakhouse steak... said the $20 upcharge was ridiculous, but my husband said it was fantastic and worth every cent.

 

Yes, the buffet food is typical buffet food. Getting there 2 hours after it was set up for the meal, of course some stuff was cold. We heard one couple complain about this at dinner one day... they missed dinner in the MDR (9:30pm, imagine that) so they went down to the buffet and amazingly the food was blaaahhh and cold. Wow.... really?

 

As far as the breakfast buffet went, we found some food we liked and stayed with that for the week. The scrambled eggs were bland, so I went for the hard boiled eggs which were excellent, still hot and cooked perfectly. The omelette station always had a line but we found they used too much oil for us, so we only did it once. We could have asked them to dump the oil and only use spray, but as I said, the hard boiled eggs were perfect. I like oatmeal, and they had it every day with lots of fixins. I was happy. There was also tons of fresh fruit, bananas apples grapefruits canteloupes, etc. Yogurt in all flavors, yes please! And the bacon.... well, people went for it like they have never eaten bacon before. If you watched the staff cleaning off tables you would see that I bet half of it was wasted. Sad.

 

Lunch --- our favorites by far were the Tandoor (really really good Indian food out on back deck by that pool) and the Mongollian Wok (my husband' favorite). We did the salad bar buffet also a few days for lunch and found it to be well stocked.

It was amazing to see some people standing in line at the burger/hotdog station and pizza station every day, seemed like the same people.

 

The Chocolate Extravaganza... yeah, we tried it. Okay, but we both felt ill afterwards as we just ate too much chocolate. (We ate salad bar for that lunch to save calories). Next cruise I think we will skip this indulgence.

 

So... JUST MY OPINION... there is really good food, and really great food available. In the MDR dinner, I ate the grilled salmon twice (it was delicious and moist) as well as usually the "healthy" option each night. I love fish, so if there was a grilled fish I ordered it. My husband went for foods he usually doesn't get at home, like lamb or shortribs. He enjoyed all of them. The only real disappointments we had were the diet desserts that were pretty bland. I was even able to turn down dessert a few nights. My husbands favorite dessert was the choc melty cake and mine was the bitter & blanc. Both had a zillion calories but we splurged.

 

I am sure my comments may irritate some people, but they are my opinion. If you think the food on Carnival ships is bad, then you weren't ordering the right thing. Overall, we really enjoyed the food.

 

The mdr is a great part of my overall cruise experience also. I rarely get a bad meal in there and I have tried all kinds of different things on the menus over the years. I wouldn't pay the steakhouse upcharge in the mdr though. I have gone to a few steakhouses and they are worth the charges concerning the overall atmosphere. I've gotten chicken fingers a few times as an app but only if there is nothing else at all that I wanted.

 

There's just too much to choose from to get the same thing all the time. Only exception might be the Mongolian wok and I won't even get that every day. The lido breakfast is average at best but I actually like the omelets and the potatoes. The powdered scrambled eggs are an embarrassing joke as they are terrible and the sausage and bacon is rarely cooked just right although they are usually edible.

 

The dinner buffet is an even bigger joke. I hit the buffet a few times on recent cruises a d I have to say thank god the mdr is still there. The dinner buffets are beyond horrible these days. Doesn't matter what time you go, the quality of the food and the general offerings are subpar. The tandoor and blue iguana burrito bars are good on the ships that have them and obviously guy's burgers is good also. It's hard to go hungry on a cruise, regardless of your specific tastes. I have to say the chocolate buffet was a major disappointment at least on the Breeze. Usually the desserts are good, I like the cherries jubilee and Williams pear along with the fresh fruit plate and of course warm chocolate melting cake - a carnival staple.

 

In general I agree with you that carnival food is good in general and considering how many people they have to serve and the costs of purchasing and preparing food thhese days, they do a really good job. I reserve the right to change my mind however as they are slowly transitioning to the American table menu and from what I have heard, I hate the idea.

[dland4us]

I'm not cooking or cleaning up! It's all very good IMHO!