has quality of food in main dining room declined?

[bargrndcymn]

We just returned from a western Mediterranean cruise on Freedom of the Seas and, while the personnel were exemplary, the quality of the food in the main dining room seemed to have declined from previous cruises. Night after night the food selections for the main course were uninspired and the food itself was dry. Has anyone else noticed this unfortunate change?

[BillOh]

I think with no justification of my opinion, it varies from crew to crew, ship to ship. Things on my last Freedom trip were great (2015) But had a sub par dining room experience on Adventure this last May, but a very good experience on Majesty last week.

[nelblu]

Food taste & quality is very subjective. Usually what I order is quite good. There are some dishes that I stay away from, but otherwise have had no complaints. Enjoyed both MDR & SR on our Aug. 29 Brilliance Med. itinerary.

[davekathy]

Not as far as we are concerned.

[Hogbay]

We just returned from a western Mediterranean cruise on Freedom of the Seas and, while the personnel were exemplary, the quality of the food in the main dining room seemed to have declined from previous cruises. Night after night the food selections for the main course were uninspired and the food itself was dry. Has anyone else noticed this unfortunate change?

 

did you speak to your waiter about your concerns ?

[yuvraj]

The quality (in terms of execution) is going to depend on the staff. That in my experience varies quite a bit. May be because demand for experienced chefs exceeds supply or RCI are not competing hard enough to maintain quality of staff.

 

Quality in terms of menu choices is of course a subjective matter. I don't eat much meat and prefer seafood and vegetarian meals. Over the years, the MDR menu has become less appealing but varies from day to day so I only go when there are options I like. I still believe they have looked to compromise to manage costs as the choice and quality in the Coastal Kitchen is superior. In fact Coastal Kitchen offers the quality which at one time was available for all in the MDR.

 

Having sailed with a number of cruise lines, the fact remains that I and more importantly my wife prefers the food on RCI ships more than any other cruise line and we never go hungry. In fact my challenge these days is to not eat so much.

[garnetpalmetto]

I think with no justification of my opinion, it varies from crew to crew, ship to ship. Things on my last Freedom trip were great (2015) But had a sub par dining room experience on Adventure this last May, but a very good experience on Majesty last week.

 

Food taste & quality is very subjective. Usually what I order is quite good. There are some dishes that I stay away from, but otherwise have had no complaints. Enjoyed both MDR & SR on our Aug. 29 Brilliance Med. itinerary.

 

Agree with Bill and nelblu here. We had a fantastic experience on Enchantment last week and our waiter made it clear that there were certain dishes the kitchen staff were doing better than others. I think there's certain items that are more variable than others. I usually get the Mojo-Marinated Pork Chops during the Mojo menu and I've now had them four times. Twice they were very good (Serenade and Enchantment), once they were just OK (Majesty), and once they were fairly dry and tasteless (Oasis).

[wales4ever]

Navigator last week, huge portions, but bland and tasteless. Tender steaks but tasted of nothing...

[cb at sea]

I've been noticing a decline over the years....started when the "specialty" restaurants were introduced.....and continues!

[mrf311]

Overall we were disappointed with the food on Explorer two weeks ago. We have always enjoyed the food on our previous sailings with Royal even though the selection and menus basically stayed the same. I was hoping the numerous negative reviews I’ve read regarding the food weren’t true,but we found them to be. Even the food in the café promenade was not good.The sandwiches did not look appetizing and the dessert selection was lacking. Aside from breakfast, we rarely had a good meal.

 

 

We ate at Giovanni’s for dinner under the first night done right special and it was the best meal we had all week. However, we both agreed it wasn’t the same quality we’ve had on Allure sailings in prior years.

[baileybrad]

We have enjoyed the food on all of our RCCL cruises. We have always found something to our liking. We eat much better on the ship than we do at home. As to declining in quality, that is very subjective. I always wonder what folks who have issues with the food on the ship eat during their everyday lives?

[Mack704]

DW and I boarded the Serenade of the Seas yesterday. Dinner in the MDR last night was fair at best.

 

For my app I had a smoked fish dish, which was actually very good. For my main I had a beautiful piece of prime rib.

 

Problem was the quality of the meat. It was clearly lesser quality than the prime rib I had the night before in Joe's American restaurant in Boston.

 

DW had a nice enough Caesar salad, but was not thrilled by her salmon entree'. I hope this is not representative of meals to come.

 

Harvey

[Norwich Cruiser]

Our family have always enjoyed all our meals in the main dining room and apart from the number of courses from the old days have not noticed any significant change in quality.

[Thetrail]

We just returned from a western Mediterranean cruise on Freedom of the Seas and, while the personnel were exemplary, the quality of the food in the main dining room seemed to have declined from previous cruises. Night after night the food selections for the main course were uninspired and the food itself was dry. Has anyone else noticed this unfortunate change?

Food is way to subjective, what you find dry someone else may think is moist or not. That being said I think the MDR food is fine.:)

[Bootman4U]

"The sandwiches did not look appetizing..." "Tender steaks that tasted of nothing..." I am sure these and all the other comments are very true. Now, it's either the food or the people...you decide which.

[George C]

While not the greatest food in MDR is fine, you can always send anything back if it is not done correctly , we do eat most meals in specialty but have no problem with MDR , Never thought it was that great 10 years ago

[LeesSummitCruiser1]

What I have really noticed is names are still used for items that don't meet the expectation. Baked Alaska used to be ice cream in a pie crust with a baked meringue. It was baked. On the liberty this spring the baked Alaska was a slice of ice cream with a cookie crust and a whip cream top laid flat on the plate. I don't know how they could really call that baked Alaska. The mushroom tart was a canned biscuit with some thin mushroom gravy poured over it. At least don't use the name of a expected entrée for a completely revised entrée.

[caribbeanboy]

I must say that on my last RC cruises the food was excellent in the WJ on both ANthem and Allure. I don't the inclusive restaurants, but usually 2 specialty and find them also to be very good.

[geomancer]

A lot of people are saying "subjective" but I do not feel that applies to the original question asked by the OP. The question was "is the food worse now than it was then".

 

If you had two people eat the same meal, their individual opinion of that single meal would be subjective.

 

If you had two people eat a meal today, and again tomorrow, then asked them to compare the two days ... that's not really what I'd call subjective anymore. It's now a comparison.

 

However, the quality of the food is often not the only factor in the equation, there is the kitchen staff too. The cook on day 1 could be better than the cook on day 2. So it may not be an apples to apples comparison...

 

Now, if someone who has been on dozens of cruises over the year those variations in skill of the chefs can average out, and a much better comparison of trends can be made...

 

So in short, I think a valid answer can be reached to the OP's question: has food quality declined over the years? The prevalent answer seems to be "yes".

[geomancer]

We have enjoyed the food on all of our RCCL cruises. We have always found something to our liking. We eat much better on the ship than we do at home. As to declining in quality, that is very subjective. I always wonder what folks who have issues with the food on the ship eat during their everyday lives?

I've seen this comment before, and I don't really get it. The similar comment of "if you go hungry you're too picky" I could agree with, but simply not liking something?

 

I'll use a simple example of a sandwich. Say someone absolutely hates and despises the taste of mayo. A person may eat sandwiches every day at home, just not with mayo. Are they not allowed to say "I don't like the sandwiches on board" because they all come with mayo? That isn't something you can pick off.

 

The same kind of thing can be said of any dish with a sauce, or a stuffing, that has a single specific ingredient they hate.

[Pat.D]

As others have mentioned food taste is highly subjective, but here is my opinion on the subject (and being only my opinion, take it for what it's worth...)

 

I think that in the last 10 years and more recently with the multiplication of upsell onboard restaurants, main dining room food quality has been declining. I'm not saying it's bad (well except on the Carnival Conquest, that was awful!) but it's just no longer up to the quality standards of taste and presentation it once was.

 

I find RCCL hasn't declined drastically, but it is noticeable. I've never had a horrible meal in a RCCL MDR. The Celebrity division had some of the best food I've had at sea on the Century 10 years ago and on my recent Baltic sea cruise on the Silhouette I found the food to be above average by today's standards. Of course it all varies from ship to ship and sailing region.

 

Carnival food I've found to be below average (except on the new Vista), with the Conquest being absolutely awful (really poor service in the MDR, food served cold, tasteless, in some cases downright inedible). Holland America was above average for a Carnival company with great presentation but the food itself was about the same as RCCL. NCL... well... you don't sail with them for the MDR, but that's never been a secret and is nothing new. They do have some rather good upsell restaurants and we'll leave it at that.

 

So back to the main question: "has the quality of food in the mdr declined?", I'd say yes but not enough for me to complain. It has adjusted with the changing clientèle of cruising.

 

Pat

[katiel53]

We sailed on Allure in July and prior to the cruise I had occasion to talk with someone from Mr. Bayley's office. I asked her if the menus from Oasis were going to be on Allure. I referred to them as "the new menus" even though they were about a year old.

 

She told me that the menus wouldn't be changing, but the quality of the food was improving. We only had dinner in the MDR two nights, one being the 2nd formal night and the other being the last night. I thought the food was good, but I can't say that there was any real improvement over my January Allure cruise.

[Thetrail]

"The sandwiches did not look appetizing..." "Tender steaks that tasted of nothing..." I am sure these and all the other comments are very true. Now, it's either the food or the people...you decide which.

Again food is very subjective, try a little broader range of comments next time.:rolleyes: