ncl bad food reviews

[sullyd]

so many bad food reviews. what's up ncl?

[FLAHAM]

I see many good reviews, too.

[snownow]

About to head out on our 5th NCL trip... I think in total i have had 3 meals i thought were not good, and only one that i went that was bad... NCL over all 100% better than carnival, and on par if not better than our Disney trips. 

[SpainAlien]

We had fabulous food in both included and speciality restaurants on Spirit last month. The only bad meal we had was in the Blue Lagoon 

 

[trivimp]

I've had a couple of clinkers served to me, both in the MDRs & specialty venues.  It happens, same as a land restaurant.  Just tell them you don't care for it & they'll be happy to bring you something else.

 

For the most part, though, the food has been pretty good.  I think the people who say that EVERYTHING was inedible made up their minds before they ever sat at table.  

[mapleleaves]

People like to complain and even more so if there's an audience !!  

 

How many people would you say cruised with NCL the first week in December?  And if you read 20 complaints, what percentage is that ? Negligible.  Far more people enjoyed their meals, but they didn't feel compelled to post about it like the chronic complainers.

 

To be honest, if I listened to the nonsense on this forum, I would have cancelled my W Med cruise on the Epic last Sept.  Instead, the 4 of us had a fantastic time!  We LOVED everything about the ship;  the food, entertainment, staff, cabin ( even the bathroom layout). 

[Mom2kmo]

24 minutes ago, FLAHAM said:

I see many good reviews, too.

I agree but Some people only seem to focus on the negative reviews!   

[Gershep]

Not every meal will be perfect but all you have to do is ask for something different and hopefully that dish will be better.

[casofilia]

In about 400 days on NCL or Princess I will admit to having ONE BAD meal served to me, that means that about 1100 (some days we were on tours) were NOT BAD.   Not a bad percentage.  Probably about par for all the meals served on a cruise ship.

I have had some where I was trying something DIFFERENT that turned out not to be to my liking, they were NOT BAD.

 

Bad is totally different to "not to my liking" in my eyes; I think many BAD reviews have been the latter.

[sullyd]

Going on Gem in May I hope food will be good .  Can’t wait to get away!!  
thanks for the input.

[MrsKC08]

Remember that food tastes are completely subjective. I don't think anyone is going to have a hard time finding food they like while on a cruise.

[GA Dave]

I thought it was fantastic!

Edited January 9, 2020 by GA Dave

[TonyB17]

Our experience on the Bliss:

 

The Local:  just fine, nothing special

Ocean Blue:  excellent service, good food not great

Teppanyaki:  very good, better than I was expecting

Cagneys:   good food, good service, the atmosphere could have been better, it felt like there were too many tables too close together.  The steak was good, the lobster not so much.

Q:             some of the best BBQ we've ever had

MDR:  good service, good food

Buffet:  mediocre, and that's judging it by buffet standards.  Breakfast was standard buffet, lunch was hit and miss at best, had one disappointing dinner and didn't return.

 

On balance, I don't think that's negative.  We're looking forward to eating in any of the restaurants again.

 

[KarlChilders]

We cruised the Getaway in early December. For the week we ate dinner 3 times in the MDR, once in O’shehanns and Ocean Blue, La Cuchina and Cagneys. Despite all we had heard La Cuchina was probably my favorite, the Osso Bucco was outstanding. Ocean Blue was also very good. All three MDR meals were tasty, we had a terrible server in osheehans so that kinda tainted that meal, and our steaks in Cagney, ordered MR came medium to well, we sent them back and the second ones were rare. Not gonna be the guy who sends one back a second time so we made do. I think that is better odds than I get at land based restaurants (1 or 1.5 out of seven)

Edited January 9, 2020 by KarlChilders

[Falckon]

Actually, there has been a number of threads lately that have been about the declining quality of food served on NCL, especially at Cagney’s. While I have enjoyed ninety-nine percent of my meals on NCL, my past few experiences in Cagney’s have been disappointing, to put it mildly. Now, I just don’t schedule what used to be my favorite specialty restaurant.

[Tealing]

We were on The Getaway in December and in the most part enjoyed the food and the service. We usually ate in the MDR on any of our past cruises but had four of the specialty restaurants as perks this time and had no disappointments but some were better than others with Le Bistro probably our favourite.

We also ate in the MDR, Taste and Saver plus O’Sheehan’s and enjoyed them all. We managed to put on 10 lbs each but maybe the alcohol had some bearing on that.

All in all it was a great cruise. Roll on the next one.

 

[jimdee3636]

I took two NCL cruises (Bliss and Joy) in 2019, after about 25 cruises on HAL, Princess, Oceania, Silversea, and Seabourn. Although I have certain reservations about NCL ships (mainly a zooey atmosphere), and I may not sail with them again, I have to give them credit for the dining, both in the MDR and the specialty restaurants. The food and service were both as good as, and sometimes better than, the food and service on the more expensive lines. But to have a "sane" atmosphere at dinner, go late (8:00PM or later) after the crowds have thinned out a bit.

[zogrand]

We are long time Princess cruisers and just completed our first cruise on Norwegian Jewel.  I found the food good.  We don't eat in the buffet for dinner so did the MDR and restaurants.  I thought their appetizers were very good, main meals good, and deserts pretty good.  We ate in O'Sheehan's and Chin Chin and had good experiences, really liked Teppanyaki and Cagneys.  I was disappointed in the duck at Le Bistro but all else was good there.  Over all I think the food was good - just not great.  Unlike Princess, they still have a steak always available.  They have "any time" dining down very well.  There were 6 of us and we never had to wait more than 5 minutes for a table.  Twice there were 14 of us.  We made a reservation both times in the MDR and had great service.

[RedwingHockeyFan]

13 hours ago, Tealing said:

"We managed to put on 10 lbs each"

 

 

There it is.  The irony in all the negative food reviews is that nobody starves.  What you hear: "The buffet food sucks", what you didn't hear: "After 3 plates at the buffet, I couldn't find anything I liked."

[ray98]

People like to complain in the social media world.  It gives them the attention they crave.

[drcarp4]

I've only made one culinary mistake on a cruise with NCL. I ordered the sugar free dessert.

[jimbob22]

recently did our 3rd ncl on Escape, and for the first time the pacing of mdr meals was normal (we were in and out in maybe 50-60 minutes, meals didn't drag on and on).  We were very pleased with the mdr.  We've always liked NCL's buffet (with its nice variety of American, Asian, Indian choices).

 

We didn't do Teppanyaki b/c we agreed that: the salad is just the basic iceberg blah, the soup is not that good, the dessert is just so-so, and the teppanyaki meal is basically identical to what you can get at any stripmall teppanyaki anywhere in the US, and whereas in 2016 we could get sea urchin and scallops at the teppanyaki, a year or two later it seemed that it only had shrimp (or maybe that is a ship-by-ship limitation?).   So I just decided I was 'teppanyaki'd out'.

 

Since we rarely go out for just a really 'nice' type dinner, we went to the Italian place, Bistro, Moderno and were pleased with each.  

 

 

Edited January 10, 2020 by jimbob22

[L1211]

We just got back from the Sun. I did a live  review with nightly pics of food. Food was great!  Surprisingly so given some of the reviews. Had been a couple of years since we cruised NCL and I expected the quality to have fallen off greatly. It defiantly had not!!  

[trish1c]

Food on the Gem over Christmas was disappointing.  Christmas dinner, beef wellington, was good but that was about it.  It's the quality & the prep.  Found a hair baked into my dinner roll the 1st night.  🤮 Ordered medium rare medallions of beef in MDR one night.  One was rare & the other well done.  WTH? Duck in LeBistro was some weird shredded mess which reminded me of Sheppard's pie.  They were serving actual duck breast in the MDR for New Years' Eve but the restaurant manager gave me a hard time about eating that in LeBistro.  Are you kidding me?   It all comes out of the same kitchen!  My escargot were delicious though.   We ate in Teppanyaki twice because that beef melted in your mouth.  Fantastic.  Most of the food in buffet was cold or at least only tepid, not hot.

 

I'm not expecting amazing because they have to feed thousands of people but this was sub par.   

Edited January 10, 2020 by trish1c

[nicsmama649]

On 1/9/2020 at 3:01 PM, mapleleaves said:

People like to complain and even more so if there's an audience !!  

 

How many people would you say cruised with NCL the first week in December?  And if you read 20 complaints, what percentage is that ? Negligible.  Far more people enjoyed their meals, but they didn't feel compelled to post about it like the chronic complainers.

 

To be honest, if I listened to the nonsense on this forum, I would have cancelled my W Med cruise on the Epic last Sept.  Instead, the 4 of us had a fantastic time!  We LOVED everything about the ship;  the food, entertainment, staff, cabin ( even the bathroom layout). 

Our first cruise was on the Epic and everything was great! I even didn't mind the bathroom situation, we have a 10 year old (he was 5 at the time) and EVERYTIME someone would get in the shower he would have to go to the bathroom. Having them separated I didn't have to hear whining about how he has to wait. We didn't love everything we ate, which is just personal preference, but we definitely found lots of things we loved! We have another NCL cruise planned next month and I am already looking forward to the hashbrowns and corned beef hash lol