had a great time on victory except the food was awful

[coevan]

1 hour ago, AIO Cruiser said:

 My husband got food poisoning the second day and ended up having to get an ambulance off the cruise ship.

 

 

being in the food service industry, it might have been a stomach flu. did you identify the exact item? This would mean anyone on the ship who had the same item would have been ill. 

 

 

45 minutes ago, v3cruiser said:

I also hear more ships have Indian cooks instead of Philippine cooks and the flavors are different.

 

 

No, it's called using recipes. Cooks can't willy nilly season to their tastes. Theoretically, since Carnival uses the same purveyors, all the food should be the same. Like some of the better chains, the food should be the same, no matter what country the cook is from. 

[mpdog42]

On ‎2‎/‎6‎/‎2019 at 7:09 AM, chloebell1 said:

We have decided to try royal Caribbean for the next cruise, maybe we will like the food better.

I was dispointed with RC Freedom of the Seas lunch options on my September cruise, I missed Guy's Burgers...Carnival really does a great job with Lunch and late afternoon options..MDR was about they same as Carnival...

 

Mike

[Butterbean1000]

I have been on 9 ships.  The buffet food on the Fantasy was not very good.  It was never hot, just warm at best. The MDR seemed to have the same problem. This was the days before Guys, so that wasn't an option. 

[AIO Cruiser]

Coevan,  My husband did not have the flu this was confirmed by the doctor on Carnival and the Doctors at miami hospital.  

[Don Kehote]

30 minutes ago, AIO Cruiser said:

My husband did not have the flu this was confirmed by the doctor on Carnival and the Doctors at miami hospital.  

Food poisoning can take hours, days, or even weeks to show symptoms.  It's easy to point a finger, but much harder to point it accurately.

 

Re: Doctors being, like, right and stuff?  I'd refer to the doctor who recently said my mother would be just fine with a surgery about three weeks ago.  As she is currently a pile of ashes, I don't necessarily feel that a doctor's opinion is fact all of the time.

[DramaQueen22]

I was on the Victory in September, and the food was very good then.  It truly is a matter of personal taste for everyone.  

[Mommawo]

3 hours ago, joepeka said:

Yes, or at a minimum, called for ship's emergency medical staff.

If they are not trained in that then I don’t see how it is their responsibility. Call emergency staff yes probably however she wasn’t in real danger if she was coughing and such 

[SRQbeachgirl]

On ‎2‎/‎5‎/‎2019 at 9:43 PM, tonit964 said:

OMG! This is so true. I have been sailing on Princess more and they do the same thing. What is it with the teaspoon of sour cream for a baked potato that they don't bring at the same time and have to come back with?

 

I wonder if they only do that on certain ships? When we sailed the Magic last July my DH, DS, and I ordered baked potatoes every night in the MDR (yes, we like baked potatoes) and the waiter brought a condiment server with sour cream, bacon, and chives and told us to just let him know how much we want. 

[schazzy]

4 minutes ago, SRQbeachgirl said:

 

I wonder if they only do that on certain ships? When we sailed the Magic last July my DH, DS, and I ordered baked potatoes every night in the MDR (yes, we like baked potatoes) and the waiter brought a condiment server with sour cream, bacon, and chives and told us to just let him know how much we want. 

 

That has been my experience on every cruise I've been on, and we too like baked potatoes and would get them every night  

[schazzy]

2 hours ago, coevan said:

being in the food service industry, it might have been a stomach flu. did you identify the exact item? This would mean anyone on the ship who had the same item would have been ill. 

 

We had a finger sandwich platter from a local deli at our family Christmas gathering, and I ate several of the sandwiches. Fast forward to around 2 am and I woke up with bad stomach pain and well, I'm not going to go into details about what happened next, but I swore I had food poisoning. After learning no one else who ate the sandwiches got sick (My sister-in-law ate several for breakfast the next day and had no issues) I realized I probably had the stomach flu, it had been going around and I deal with a lot of people at my job.

 

Now, I'm not saying @AIO Cruiser's husband didn't have food poisoning, ya never know, I know I thought I had it, but I wouldn't rule out some kind of stomach bug as there are several that go around and have the same symptoms as food poisoning. I hope he recovered well and I feel bad for him no matter what caused his illness, I know it's not fun at all and I never want to go through that again. 

[Doggielover68]

On 2/5/2019 at 7:01 PM, joepeka said:

You're welcome, it seemed right for me to respond in that manner. As to the waiter, if he/she didn't know what to do, that's on the hotel director for that ship and Carnival Corporate for not having adequate training in place for their staff. As to the food quality, we've been cruising with Carnival since the mid 90's (and other lines as well) and I will say our last cruise on Conquest in 2018 did not measure up to past MDR and buffet food quality. It wasn't bad, just a definite drop in what we've come to expect.

I've worked in many restaurants and have never been trained on how to save a person who is choking. I remember choking at an ice cream shop as a teenager and my aunt ran to ask for some water for her choking niece. The employee asked "do you want ice in it?"

 

It's not a requirement for employees to know what to do. Should it be? Maybe, but it is a liability too if the employee doesn't assist correctly or causes injury (broken ribs). Just have to be more careful when eating. I'm glad you're okay.

[Doggielover68]

4 hours ago, Don Kehote said:

Food poisoning can take hours, days, or even weeks to show symptoms.  It's easy to point a finger, but much harder to point it accurately.

 

Re: Doctors being, like, right and stuff?  I'd refer to the doctor who recently said my mother would be just fine with a surgery about three weeks ago.  As she is currently a pile of ashes, I don't necessarily feel that a doctor's opinion is fact all of the time.

I'm sorry for your loss...and you are so right. You almost have to be your own doctor these days. So many things can cause gastrointestinal symptoms. Any time I have gone to the doctor with an upset stomach, they automatically decide that i must have eaten something bad, which is never actually the case. 

[motheroftwocats814]

Food is so subjective. But I will add my two cents. Our very first cruise was on the Imagination and the food was excellent. We have cruised many times since and on various cruise lines. Our last cruise was in January 2018 on the Liberty. My husband loved Guy's burgers and has quite a few. We really enjoyed the Seafood shack as well. But we found the MDR for dinner to be just so-so.  It could also be that our table mates were total racist jerks so we rushed through dinner and then requested another table the rest of the time. We also did the Chef's table one night at that was out of this world. All in all I would say we don't go hungry but the food has gone down hill a bit.

[Joebucks]

I think right up there with complaints about cutbacks, and fees, next comes "all the food was bad" for the next hardest eyeroll. 

 

Four of us just came back from a Carnival cruise two weeks ago. One used to work in the restaurant industry, and is very particular about his food. I was worried he wouldn't like it. He loved it. Out of all four of us, multiple meals per day, seven days, don't think I can count more than enough instances that would fill one hand of things we were dissatisfied with.

 

Have you ever gotten something prepared poorly at a restaurant? We all have. If it bothers you that much, get something else. 

 

The food elitism is so annoying. Don't expect 5 star dining at the lowest prices. We have never gotten off of a Carnival cruise and thought how bad the food was.

[dave_k58]

Face it  - the food on cruise ships is basically  medium tier hotel banquet food, at best. I think we can see the future of cruise food.  I predict in 5 years the " included food" will be burgers, tacos etc and the buffet. Everything else will be extra.

[kdawg954]

On 2/6/2019 at 8:09 AM, chloebell1 said:

We have decided to try royal Caribbean for the next cruise, maybe we will like the food better.

 

Most disappointing food I ever had on a cruise was the Allure in 2016.  It felt more mass produced and in poorer quality than any other cruise I had been on.  Extremely disappointing. Plus paid Johnny Rockets was not as good as free Guys Burgers IMO.

 

The pay options was some of the best food I ever had on a cruise line.  And the Mamma Mia show felt like a big scale event.  So there are pros and cons for sure.

 

If you are searching for great, free cruise line food . . . .Celebrity is as good as it gets IMO from the mass scale cruiselines.

 

But if you don’t mind spending extra, I have never had bad food on any paid venue.

[BENHANDEL]

We were on the Horizon at Christmas and thought the MDR food was great. There were a couple dishes we didnt like, but as first-time cruisers. We usually had more than one option in front of us, lol. We only went to lido once and I could stomach anything but the cakes (which we did get another time). Jiji was the best meal of my life. I am hopeful my great experience will be repeated on our next 2 CCL voyages.

[samiam0403]

On 2/17/2019 at 3:27 PM, AIO Cruiser said:

I use to think that people were crazy to complain about food on cruise ships until I sailed on the Victory in June 2017.  The food was so bad I was shocked.  My husband got food poisoning the second day and ended up having to get an ambulance off the cruise ship.  Since then I have sailed on Horizon and the food was great.  I don't know why that ship was so bad but there were a lot of people we were hanging around with that had the same opinion as us on that ship.

My husband and I will be sailing on the Horizon in 90 days I am hoping the food is as good as it was when I was on the inaugural cruise so my husband will not boycott Carnival in the future.

I sailed on Horizon in November, and the food was fantastic. On debarkation morning, I had my typical eggs benedict in the MDR - it was easily the best eggs benedict I've ever had. I was floored! It was that good. Everything about Horizon impressed me - and I haven't been impressed by Carnival in quite a while. Hoping to sail on her again this year at some point. 

[jasong38501]

For anyone reading this topic and currently worried about their upcoming cruise on Victory, I wanted to take the time to share my opinion. I was on a three day cruise on Victory back in December and I cannot remember a single item that I can complain about. The food was good in the dining room and up on Lido. The ship was beautiful with all the blues and greens and the service was great. I had a wonderful cruise!

[avsfanwilly15]

14 hours ago, jasong38501 said:

For anyone reading this topic and currently worried about their upcoming cruise on Victory, I wanted to take the time to share my opinion. I was on a three day cruise on Victory back in December and I cannot remember a single item that I can complain about. The food was good in the dining room and up on Lido. The ship was beautiful with all the blues and greens and the service was great. I had a wonderful cruise!

That makes me feel a lot better. We go on Victory in September and this thread was a little worrying...

[cruisingnewtoit]

My DH & I have been thinking about a carnival Cruise to Europe because of price. I'm a vegan so I'm worried about finding food that I can eat.

 

I sailed X & wasn't blown away by the food. I heard so much hype that X had fantastic food. Lot of the dishes lacked seadoning. The food wasn't bad. It was average to good.

 

 

[Retired_to_Cruise]

On 2/6/2019 at 1:05 PM, mvaughn11 said:

We no longer eat in the MDR. We either eat at a specialty restaurant or do the buffet or get a burger at Guy's. Our main complaints about the MDR dining is the service is almost always slow, the food many times is no longer warm when it gets to the table and it just does not seem to wow us anymore... We just have other things to do than spend 3 hours of our evening in the MDR.

You cannot possibly have spent 3 hours in the MDR on any night. They have a 6:00pm seating and 8:15 pm seating. In 30 cruises we have never spent any longer than 1&1/2 to 1&3/4 hours on any given night. 

[LuckyStar]

On 2/5/2019 at 1:45 PM, chloebell1 said:

We sailed on victory last week. My husband isn’t near as picky as me and he thought the buffet and dining room was awful. The burgers  at guys and the pizza were the best food we had on the cruise.  The first night we tried the buffet, we decided to try the dining room the second night. After a couple of bites of food,  I choked and our our waiter stood nearby and did nothing. Lucky for me another passenger told my husband what to do. We had a great time other than that and will cruise again, but wondered if the food is about the same quality on all the ships.

We were not impressed on the Vista a few weeks ago either.  The MDR was not as good as in past.  Buffet had some good dishes and Guy's was great.  Even Guy's BBQ was cold.  Assuming it all was a fluke.  

[sanmarcosman]

On 2/17/2019 at 7:58 PM, Doggielover68 said:

It's not a requirement for employees to know what to do. Should it be? Maybe, but it is a liability too if the employee doesn't assist correctly or causes injury (broken ribs). Just have to be more careful when eating. I'm glad you're okay.

The Good Samaritan Law in Virginia controls the liability (or non-liability) of a third party that comes to the aid of an injured person in an emergency situation. This law is relevant if you are hurt in an accident and a fellow driver stops to try and help, but makes the situation worse by making your injury worse. In that situation, the "Good Samaritan" would likely be shielded from civil liability (meaning you could not sue them for monetary damages).

 

These laws very by state.

[gameover]

We were on the Freedom a few weeks ago. Overall lunch is not an issue with all the great choices available but the MDR was disappointing.  Too many entrees are just braised in a heavy sauce.  Of the six dinners, 2 were very good, 2 were okay, and 2 were not good.  Service was inconsistent and slow due to less staff.  Not one time they asked us hows the food.  Every time I see someone order a flat iron steak all I can think of is the sole from my dress shoe.