Navigator disappointment

[Big_G]

I agree here. If you find the food to be hit-n-miss, take a few more shots and you may find more "hits".

 

I don't at all find the OP to be out of line with their opinion, but there are some who just go overboard with hyperbole :rolleyes: on the poor quality of the food. ("We couldn't swallow a bite of that swill" "Golden Corral rejects" "Worst steak I've ever eaten.") My eyes are open that there's a compromise trying to prepare top-quality food... for 3000+ people, so I don't get bent out of shape that the cuisine wasn't 5-star perfection at every meal.

 

But I'm keeping tabs on the service level, last trip our Waiter's helpfulness ('if you want another entree you need to order it now') prompted others at the table to pull their Grats, but the Assistant was aces. Last trip on Serenade wasn't horrid, but nor was it spectacular.

 

Just to pick the Forum's brains on this one, we booked the last trip on Navigator before they reposition from Galveston. Any reason for concern? "Short timers" attitude?

 

Just out of curiosity, was it MTD or traditional?

[MichaelCMTX]

Just out of curiosity, was it MTD or traditional?

Traditional, 2nd seating.

[Big_G]

Traditional, 2nd seating.

 

Thanks

[ssb]

We sailed navigator last month and food was very good.

[BecciBoo]

We like the MDR and although they have removed many things we used to love, there are still things we consider to be Excellent.

 

We don't complain hardly at all, because the food in general is just as good or better than what I would serve at home and I'm not cooking or serving it!:D

 

Additionally, one of the best meals I ever ate on land or sea was at Park 150 so the specialties are available if you want really exceptional food.

 

That said, I think we have enjoyed our last Chops dinner, it has definitely gone downhill, but there's always Giovanni which we think is superb.

[Sandifer]

I just wonder if there is any way to communicate to management that we, as consumers are seeing some decline in quality. We are unlikely to cruise as often as previously and I am not sure if management cares if they are potentially losing repeat customers.

[willcruiseanythyme]

Well shoot. We are sailing on Navigator in May and it will also be our first RCI cruise. I will try and keep an open mind though. I really dislike the cruiselines that try to get you to the specialty restaurants instead of MDR. I disliked that about Norwegian. I give two thumbs up to Holland, Princess, Disney, and Windstar. We had wonderful meals in the MDR's of each of those lines. I will definitely be reviewing that part of our cruise!

[awhfy]

We were on Navigator in Dec (hi to the Sharon's ). MDR was meh, definitely nothing to write home about. Chops was excellent. FYI this was our first Royal cruise & the only 2 complaints we had were the poor food quality & smokey casino. Rest of cruise was great

[nimbex1970]

My own humble opinion is that with the pay venues to dine, the MDR has had both a decline in service and quality of meats. Is this purposeful? I just find the correlation of the two. I find the servers with more tables and spread too thin, and being "up sold", to a better cut of steak is hit and miss with me.

 

Now I always keep in mind that 3k dinners are being massed produced, and don't expect fine dinning. Some dinners, I simply couldn't find anything to my liking, quality or taste and I'm not a foodie, and after a second attempt at an entree, well I ask for another soup or salad. This isn't me being difficult, or nasty to RCL. I have learned that when I've not had success, the wait staff is always happy to grab me my favorite appetizers instead for a main course and have even stashed my favorite cold soup for the next meal:D

 

The wait staff has always tried their best in my experiences, it's disappointing that they seem stretched so thin. Regardless, back to MDR for the next cruise, the experience is one of my mothers favorite parts of her cruise. She would find specialty dinning to be cheating on her MDR staff:p

[Jimnbigd]

We were on the Navigator in Dec. 2013, May 2014, and Nov. 2014.

I did not notice any decline in the MDR food among these cruises.

I usually order prime rib and, on first formal night, fillet of beef, and have always been happy with these.

However, the menu on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights have never been that good for me.

In November we ate in the buffet Wednesday, and were very pleased. I especially liked the grilled-to-order minute steaks with bearnaise sauce there.

The best food I've had was on the Mariner -- they had (maybe still have) a great head chef.

Edited February 19, 2015 by Jimnbigd

[Cindy]

We thought the food was fine in April of last year...nothing really stood out as spectacular, but it was typical RCI dining room (banquet) food. That said, food can vary quite a bit depending on who the chef is and the quality/speed of service. The best food we've had on any RCI ship was on the Mariner...three times! I don't know what they did/do differently, but they really seemed to have the dining room experience down.

 

I have found I'm getting tired of the menus. When we were on Oasis in November we only ate in the MDR once, and loved the whole dining experience. I know that's not a solution for everybody, but we thought it was a lot of fun. We recently cancelled a cruise on the Liberty for this December, in part because we wanted to wait until after the 2016 dry dock when there will be increased specialty restaurant offerings.

[alfaeric]

Are you putting all of this into the survey, or just posting here?

 

While it may feel good to post here, if you put it in the survey, and are not the only one with issues, those things tend to get dealt with.

 

While some employees of the cruise lines may read CC, I doubt they take any of it at face value.

 

Whereas it's REALLY clear that they take the surveys very seriously.

 

Please, do your fellow cruisers a favor, fill out the survey. And for our sake, don't be nasty, be accurate. Like the specific note about the beef dishes that someone brought up was really good- but just saying the main dining room food sucked helps nobody.

 

CC is a great place to vent, but it seems like it's here to help each other, too. So help us all and use the feedback tools that the cruise lines give you.

[George C]

Well shoot. We are sailing on Navigator in May and it will also be our first RCI cruise. I will try and keep an open mind though. I really dislike the cruiselines that try to get you to the specialty restaurants instead of MDR. I disliked that about Norwegian. I give two thumbs up to Holland, Princess, Disney, and Windstar. We had wonderful meals in the MDR's of each of those lines. I will definitely be reviewing that part of our cruise!

 

We have sailed many times on princess and Hal and RCCL food in MDR is about the same, again depends on ship and waiter, Navigator is a really nice ship

[PudgiPoo]

Sorry to say this and I am sure I will get blasted, but just off a 7 day cruise on Navigator of the Seas and found the food very disappointing. We had only 2 good meals at Giovanni's table, but the food in the main dining room was less than mediocre. We have cruised a lot on several different lines, and have always enjoyed the dining experience and found things we liked, but not this time. Was this just an anomaly or is the quality going down? It almost seems that royal Caribbean wants to force cruisers into specialty dining, for which they will pay increasing premiums.

We were on the NoS 18 Jan 15. I think the food was better than it has been. Our waiter praised the chef and we followed his lead on choices. One cruise I did make a mistake of selecting a low salt diet. The food was not good at all. I quickly changed that. I think when they do no salt they don't add anything else either. Our food on the last cruise was better than it has been. Maybe just the choices you make.:D

[pspercy]

I've thought the food is okay, but that the service in the MDR has gone way down.

 

We were on Navigator twice last year and agree the MDR was just OK. Some of the menus were blah and we went to WJ more than once. Saving grace was Sabor, we love it :)

 

We do MTD and typically request same servers once we find ones we like and have not noticed any decline in service.

[Starry Eyes]

I just wonder if there is any way to communicate to management that we, as consumers are seeing some decline in quality. We are unlikely to cruise as often as previously and I am not sure if management cares if they are potentially losing repeat customers.

 

Yes, management cares if cruisers are happy. That is why they send our surveys after the cruise; they are seeking your feedback. As others have mentioned, reasonably detailed, calmly expressed feedback is more likely to be understood and acted upon. Just saying the food was not good is of little help to management. For example, if many people say they do not like the MDR menus, then somebody should try to re-vamp the menus. If, on the other hand, the menus looked great, the food that arrived did not meet expectations, that requires a totally different investigation and intervention. Either way, more detail than "I did not like it" would be wise, as they need to know what to fix. If many people on your sailing or on all recent NOS sailings have similar observations, the situation is apt to draw considerable attention. OTOH, if the vast majority of cruises on your sailing rated the food as excellent or very good, an isolated person unhappy with the food is unlikely to draw any serious attention.

[Royal Caribbean International]

Sorry to say this and I am sure I will get blasted, but just off a 7 day cruise on Navigator of the Seas and found the food very disappointing. We had only 2 good meals at Giovanni's table, but the food in the main dining room was less than mediocre. We have cruised a lot on several different lines, and have always enjoyed the dining experience and found things we liked, but not this time. Was this just an anomaly or is the quality going down? It almost seems that royal Caribbean wants to force cruisers into specialty dining, for which they will pay increasing premiums.

 

We're sorry to hear that you didn't enjoy your main dining experience on the Navigator. We always strive to provide the best vacation experience across the board, and regret that we fell short in this area. We appreciate your feedback, and have forwarded it to our operational teams in order to improve where necessary.

[Maticus22]

Sorry to say this and I am sure I will get blasted, but just off a 7 day cruise on Navigator of the Seas and found the food very disappointing. We had only 2 good meals at Giovanni's table, but the food in the main dining room was less than mediocre. We have cruised a lot on several different lines, and have always enjoyed the dining experience and found things we liked, but not this time. Was this just an anomaly or is the quality going down? It almost seems that royal Caribbean wants to force cruisers into specialty dining, for which they will pay increasing premiums.

 

 

If you just got off Sunday, I was on the same cruise. Wife and I saw a huge decline in food since we were on Voyager in 2011. Windjammer was nothing special, MDR some nights were okay and some were nothing to right home about. We had Giovanni's for lunch one day and Chops for dinner 1 night. Chops was very good, but didn't care for Giovanni's (mostly didn't care for the food choices). I will say service was wonderful in all 3 places thought.

 

I was also very disappointed in the CD John Perry. Welcome aboard showal seemed just more of a another chance for the port shopping guide to speak, and then the comedian (IMHO he sucked, walked out the next night during Adults comedy). Never saw him (CD) really after that except Love and Marriage show. The activities manager did most every thing else (belly flop contest, Quest, last show of the cruise). What was really odd was John talking about how is very thing to host is Quest yet he wasn't there.

 

The rest of the Crew was wonderful, especially the captain!

[LetsGetWet!]

There were plenty of people saying they liked Sabor so you may like it too. It might be that we have a lot of authentic Mexican restaurants in our area so we might be spoiled.

OK, I can't help it, I have to ask. Just where in the "midwest" do you live? I grew up in "the midwest" and have now lived in Texas for quite a while. After experiencing the Tex-Mex AND Mexican cuisine around here, I have to strongly say that it puts anything available (in my experience) in "the midwest" to shame! :)