Skipping to Crystal over Food

[Doug & Cindy Scrap Hunter]

We have been on 8 cruises on Carnival and 1 on Oasis and are about giving up on both cruise lines. These Carnival ships are falling apart and the food is not as good as it used to be. Oasis? Nice ship but all hat and no cattle in the food department. I'm just a meat and potatoes guy easy to please, but you want WHAT $$ for Johnny Rockets? Celebrity is having issues too according to their forum, and not everyone is thrilled with Oceania even...

 

 

That's it, I'm jumping ahead to Crystal Cruise Line. RCCL pax have been making fun of us on the Carnival forum for years, and then you try your product and it has issues of it's own. No more. I want good food on a nice ship without all the mud slinging that goes back and forth between the Carnival and Royal Cheerleaders.

 

 

And before you say that I won't like Crystals food, no. They've got all the comfort foods in high end quality: Kosher meats - Reuben sandwiches - Brazilian Grills. We might not like fancy critter dishes like octopus and snails, but we still like good high end grub on a nice ship.

[sparks1093]

Each to his own but if I felt that I had to spend that kind of scratch to have a good cruise I'd give up cruising.

[yuvraj]

Enjoying food that I like, prepared and presented at high standard is what I look for when choosing a cruise. So I share the frustration of many on CC when meals and service do not meet expectations.

 

For me the everyday meals are fine and I don't go hungry. However, your standard cruise ships does not deliver the kind of dinning experience I would hope for.

 

I have chosen to compromise and accept the offerings from RC for what they are. A few nights in speciality restaurants or splashing out on a suite addresses the shortcomings for me. It is a better option for me than choosing a premium brand cruise line.

 

Sometimes I have found it better to go cheap on a cruise line like P&O and then splash out on the speciality dinning.

[Cruise a holic]

We have been on 8 cruises on Carnival and 1 on Oasis and are about giving up on both cruise lines. These Carnival ships are falling apart and the food is not as good as it used to be. Oasis? Nice ship but all hat and no cattle in the food department. I'm just a meat and potatoes guy easy to please, but you want WHAT $$ for Johnny Rockets? Celebrity is having issues too according to their forum, and not everyone is thrilled with Oceania even...

 

 

That's it, I'm jumping ahead to Crystal Cruise Line. RCCL pax have been making fun of us on the Carnival forum for years, and then you try your product and it has issues of it's own. No more. I want good food on a nice ship without all the mud slinging that goes back and forth between the Carnival and Royal Cheerleaders.

 

 

 

 

And before you say that I won't like Crystals food, no. They've got all the comfort foods in high end quality: Kosher meats - Reuben sandwiches - Brazilian Grills. We might not like fancy critter dishes like octopus and snails, but we still like good high end grub on a nice ship.

 

I suggest you consider Celebrity S class ships. While 100% of the people might not love the restaurants, the Reflection and Silhouette have the lawn grill and porch in addition to the others. Try a sky suite or above to get access to the Suite restaurant and lounge. You will be glad you did! Carnival, NCL nor Princess IMO are good. We do like Royal-but we eat to live-not live to eat!

Enjoy

[yuvraj]

I suggest you consider Celebrity S class ships. While 100% of the people might not love the restaurants, the Reflection and Silhouette have the lawn grill and porch in addition to the others. Try a sky suite or above to get access to the Suite restaurant and lounge. You will be glad you did! Carnival, NCL nor Princess IMO are good. We do like Royal-but we eat to live-not live to eat!

Enjoy

 

Best speciality dinning experience I have had on any ship has been on Celebrity. If you book a suite, you get 2 complementary bookings in their speciality restaurants although gratuities are not included.

[Kylomom]

Best speciality dinning experience I have had on any ship has been on Celebrity. If you book a suite, you get 2 complementary bookings in their speciality restaurants although gratuities are not included.

 

 

 

Hi, just wanted to clarify this. If you book a Sky Suite on Celebrity , you do not get the 2 nights of specialty dining any more. At least not on Reflection or Eclipse. You do get Luminae which, for us, is enough reason to pay the extra $ for the suite. You can also go to Blue which is the Aqua class dining room, but we never do.

[yuvraj]

Hi, just wanted to clarify this. If you book a Sky Suite on Celebrity , you do not get the 2 nights of specialty dining any more. At least not on Reflection or Eclipse. You do get Luminae which, for us, is enough reason to pay the extra $ for the suite. You can also go to Blue which is the Aqua class dining room, but we never do.

 

Thanks for clarifying this. I am a little disappointed but if they have maintained standards then I will happily pay the cover charge.

[champagne123]

Going from Carnival to Crystal? A tad bizarre to me.

[papaflamingo]

14 Night Crystal Cruise in Oct. to Caribbean out of New York, $5009 per person for an Inside Cabin.

12 Night Royal Caribbean cruise in Oct. to the Caribbean out of Boston, $944 per person for an Inside Cabin.

Better be REALLY GOOD FOOD for the $8000 difference in price.

[Melrosgirl]

Enjoy your crystal cruise.

[BillOh]

Each to his own but if I felt that I had to spend that kind of scratch to have a good cruise I'd give up cruising.

 

Or do land tours of cities with famous steak houses. For me, food is way down the list.

[parrotfeathers]

If you've only tried one RCL cruise I don't think you are giving them an adequate opportunity. Book a GS or above and make certain it is a ship that has Coastal Kitchen. I love Anthem--never been on Oasis or Allure and probably won't. I'm not necessarily an RCL cheerleader since I'm going on Celebrity in November (in a suite to get into Luminae).

[mainsd]

Just pay a couple of hundred dollars extra to get the unlimited specialty dining package - then all your main meals are great for a relatively small additional cost - we always do that on the Oasis class ships. Or if you want the true VIP experience book Star Class which we have on our next trip. Dividing our AquaTheatre suite out between 5 of us worked out at only $3500 each for a week on Symphony - still probably cheaper than a standard room on Crystal.

[squadron]

14 Night Crystal Cruise in Oct. to Caribbean out of New York, $5009 per person for an Inside Cabin.

12 Night Royal Caribbean cruise in Oct. to the Caribbean out of Boston, $944 per person for an Inside Cabin.

Better be REALLY GOOD FOOD for the $8000 difference in price.

 

Agreed. glad someone called his bluff.

[Kwaj girl]

Agreed. glad someone called his bluff.

 

It's not just the food - they will enjoy a smaller, more intimate ship....no nickel-and-diming as gratuities and all beverages are included....a more adult-oriented atmosphere without water slides/video game rooms/running and screeching kids....And more.

[sparks1093]

It's not just the food - they will enjoy a smaller, more intimate ship....no nickel-and-diming as gratuities and all beverages are included....a more adult-oriented atmosphere without water slides/video game rooms/running and screeching kids....And more.

 

For $8000 more I certainly hope those items (and more) are included.

[geomancer]

14 Night Crystal Cruise in Oct. to Caribbean out of New York, $5009 per person for an Inside Cabin.

12 Night Royal Caribbean cruise in Oct. to the Caribbean out of Boston, $944 per person for an Inside Cabin.

Better be REALLY GOOD FOOD for the $8000 difference in price.

 

I just looked, and there are no "Inside" cabins on that 14 day out of NY in October. The lowest is Oceanview and it's $4009 at one agent I looked at or $4105 direct on their website.

 

That room is also 202 sq-ft.

 

The $944 price for RCI is for an inside guarantee (can't even pick your room) and is only 160 sq-ft. You'd have to go up to a spacious ocean view balcony to get the same size room (204 sq-ft) although you would have a balcony. That would be $1829.

 

So, Crystal comes out to ~$286/pp/day

 

RCI to be equivalent is ~$152/pp/day in fare plus $55/pp/day in drinks plus $24/pp/day for ultimate dining package plus $14.50/pp/day in grats on the room and another $14/pp/day in the packages. That's ~$259/pp/day.

 

 

Not quite so drastic of a difference now is it?

 

EDIT: I forgot to add in cost of WiFi to the RCI price and cost of fitness programs like yoga classes and the like, but I don't know their cost. Let's just call it even for an 'sales' you find on packages.

Edited May 30, 2018 by geomancer

[mra9955]

Is crystal, or any other luxury line, reasonable if traveling with children? I too don’t like food on Royal. Expecting and wanting more.

 

 

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[geomancer]

Is crystal, or any other luxury line, reasonable if traveling with children? I too don’t like food on Royal. Expecting and wanting more.

 

Go with Disney.

 

The luxury lines do not have amenities geared towards children.

[voyager70]

Or do land tours of cities with famous steak houses. For me, food is way down the list.

 

I'm with you. While I agree the overall quality of food has declined over the years (and not just Royal, most of the other mass market lines have their share of complainers), I always find plenty of good to excellent things to eat and I've never come close to going hungry on a cruise. No way would I spend thousands of $$ more just for 5* dining. As others have said, dine in the specialty restaurants for your meals for a fraction of that cost if food is that important to you.

[mra9955]

We did a Disney Cruise and hated it. Found their food disappointing.

 

 

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[creel5857]

major price difference in crystal and other cruise lines......if you can afford it, go for it.......most of us cant afford crystal and find a way to tolerant the main streams .......if food was the only concern, you could always reserve specialty dining for the whole cruise and be cheaper than most crystal cruises

[mra9955]

Speciality dining isn’t very special in my experience.

 

 

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[Hoopster95]

 

Not quite so drastic of a difference now is it?

 

EDIT: I forgot to add in cost of WiFi to the RCI price and cost of fitness programs like yoga classes and the like, but I don't know their cost. Let's just call it even for an 'sales' you find on packages.

 

I had this discussion on a couple of threads a few months ago regarding my last cruise which was my first Oceania experience.

When including everything Royal offers within your cruise fare, it was just marginally more per day for an extremely higher class of vacation, including food which was out of this world compared to RCL. The buffet on Oceania was equal to RCL's specialty dining for quality for example... I can go on regarding service and other things. Highly impressive and truly opened my eyes where they were once closed (I was ignorant).

 

On Oceania WIFI was also included throughout the cruise for free, as was the use of the lap-top in the top drawer of my desk. Yoga/fitness classes were extra, as was the art class and cooking school class.

[M&JfromSDL]

I'm a bit of a foodie and have been disappointed with the food on my last Royal and NCL cruises. I was looking for an alternative one day and stumbled on a thread someone started in the Celebrity section about jumping from that line to Oceania. Oceania claims to have one of the better culinary programs at sea. After a little homework, I was pretty surprised at how close the all-in number is for an Oceania cruise when compared to the RCI cruise I have booked in January. I'd have to make some sacrifice in cabin (JS vs. Balcony) but might be worth it for some.