Diamond Princess - Different Dining Room Questions

[cruzin4us]

I'm sailing on the Diamond Princess on her 1st sailing since being put back into service since the shut down on Sept 1st.   

There are 5 choices:  Pacific Moon, Santa Fe, Vivaldi, Savoy and the International Dining room.....none of these are Specialty Dining.    Do these dining rooms serve different themes such as Asian, Italian, Mexican, etc. or do they serve all the same foods in each?    I thought I read somewhere (pre-covid) that this was the case.

Any insight?

[bagney]

When we were on the Sapphire Princess several years ago, the ship also had several 'main dining' rooms like this - all had different decor however all served the exact same meals/food.

[PacnGoNow]

6 minutes ago, cruzin4us said:

I'm sailing on the Diamond Princess on her 1st sailing since being put back into service since the shut down on Sept 1st.   

There are 5 choices:  Pacific Moon, Santa Fe, Vivaldi, Savoy and the International Dining room.....none of these are Specialty Dining.    Do these dining rooms serve different themes such as Asian, Italian, Mexican, etc. or do they serve all the same foods in each?    I thought I read somewhere (pre-covid) that this was the case.

Any insight?

This might help.

https://www.cruisecritic.com/reviews/review.cfm?ShipID=296&pgtype=dining
 

[JF - retired RRT]

10 minutes ago, cruzin4us said:

There are 5 choices:  Pacific Moon, Santa Fe, Vivaldi, Savoy and the International Dining room.

When the first started, the idea was for slightly different menus in each DR.

Pacific Moon - Oriental

Santa Fe - Spanish/Mexican

Vivaldi - hmmm, French?

Savoy - ??

International - dealer's choice?

Way too complicated in the kitchens and for any rotating waiters...long gone. Everyone gets the exact same menu.

[cruzin4us]

Well, since they appear to all serve the same food, do any of you have a suggestion as to which dining room to choose.   My preference is the one that is most likely to be less busy or crowded.

[wcflats]

Well yes since you asked!  We like the dining room situated closer to our cabin.  Wherever our cabin is located.  😁

[whataboutport]

6 hours ago, PacnGoNow said:

This might help.

https://www.cruisecritic.com/reviews/review.cfm?ShipID=296&pgtype=dining
 

Thanks for this link. Very informative. I wonder if the menus/restaurants will offer the same during the Mexico/Baja sailings? I'm on one in Oct later this year.  I'd love to have more asian food available. One thing that I really miss on cruises. Not that I eat congee for breakfast everyday at home, but it's nice to have the option.

[PacnGoNow]

7 minutes ago, whataboutport said:

Thanks for this link. Very informative. I wonder if the menus/restaurants will offer the same during the Mexico/Baja sailings? I'm on one in Oct later this year.  I'd love to have more asian food available. One thing that I really miss on cruises. Not that I eat congee for breakfast everyday at home, but it's nice to have the option.

You might follow a roll call on your ship the weeks before your sailing and ask

that question.  Seems the meals are very similar on the Princess fleet.  But, who

knows?

Have a great cruise.

 

[whataboutport]

3 hours ago, PacnGoNow said:

You might follow a roll call on your ship the weeks before your sailing and ask

that question.  Seems the meals are very similar on the Princess fleet.  But, who

knows?

Have a great cruise.

 

I have! No one is on my dates roll call. I created one and nobody else has joined yet. There was some confusion on my part bc this ship used to just do Japan I guess.

[wallyj]

Hi @cruzin4us, originally the 4 restaurants mid ship served slightly different menus to go with the theme of the restaurant. Savoy was your traditional steak house decor, dark woods, Santa Fe was Tex/Mex, Pacific Moon was Asian, and Vivaldi was typical Princess MDR. They just split the normal deck 5 and 6 midship MDR’s into two different restaurants with their unique decor. Eventually, all the restaurants would serve the same menu, except each had a specialty dish which you could actually order in any of the restaurants. Savoy had a special pork chop, Santa Fe had Fajitas, Pacific Moon had a Seafood noodle dish, and Vivaldi had Osso Buco. 
 

When  I sailed Sapphire in Feb 2020, just before shutdown, the specialty dishes were no more, but some would make an appearance one night on the MDR menu. The international dining room is regular MDR decor located deck 6 aft.

 

As to decor preference, you can decide after viewing to see which decor best fits your mood.

 

The Diamond is also a little different as it has a Japanese style bath that is an upcharge to use and usually rotates between sexes for use. So one day will be women only and then men only. I believe you can find YouTube videos for more info.I think it is called Izumi? 

[cruzin4us]

31 minutes ago, wallyj said:

Hi @cruzin4us, originally the 4 restaurants mid ship served slightly different menus to go with the theme of the restaurant. Savoy was your traditional steak house decor, dark woods, Santa Fe was Tex/Mex, Pacific Moon was Asian, and Vivaldi was typical Princess MDR. They just split the normal deck 5 and 6 midship MDR’s into two different restaurants with their unique decor. Eventually, all the restaurants would serve the same menu, except each had a specialty dish which you could actually order in any of the restaurants. Savoy had a special pork chop, Santa Fe had Fajitas, Pacific Moon had a Seafood noodle dish, and Vivaldi had Osso Buco. 
 

When  I sailed Sapphire in Feb 2020, just before shutdown, the specialty dishes were no more, but some would make an appearance one night on the MDR menu. The international dining room is regular MDR decor located deck 6 aft.

 

As to decor preference, you can decide after viewing to see which decor best fits your mood.

 

The Diamond is also a little different as it has a Japanese style bath that is an upcharge to use and usually rotates between sexes for use. So one day will be women only and then men only. I believe you can find YouTube videos for more info.I think it is called Izumi? 

 

Thank you, this was just the information I was looking for!  

 

[cr8tiv1]

13 hours ago, wcflats said:

Well yes since you asked!  We like the dining room situated closer to our cabin.  Wherever our cabin is located.  😁

 

That's exactly what I did.  I'm on Plaza deck starboard. Made sense to choose the same.  I'll do enough walking as it is.

[whataboutport]

15 hours ago, wallyj said:

Hi @cruzin4us, originally the 4 restaurants mid ship served slightly different menus to go with the theme of the restaurant. Savoy was your traditional steak house decor, dark woods, Santa Fe was Tex/Mex, Pacific Moon was Asian, and Vivaldi was typical Princess MDR. They just split the normal deck 5 and 6 midship MDR’s into two different restaurants with their unique decor. Eventually, all the restaurants would serve the same menu, except each had a specialty dish which you could actually order in any of the restaurants. Savoy had a special pork chop, Santa Fe had Fajitas, Pacific Moon had a Seafood noodle dish, and Vivaldi had Osso Buco. 
 

When  I sailed Sapphire in Feb 2020, just before shutdown, the specialty dishes were no more, but some would make an appearance one night on the MDR menu. The international dining room is regular MDR decor located deck 6 aft.

 

As to decor preference, you can decide after viewing to see which decor best fits your mood.

 

The Diamond is also a little different as it has a Japanese style bath that is an upcharge to use and usually rotates between sexes for use. So one day will be women only and then men only. I believe you can find YouTube videos for more info.I think it is called Izumi? 

I wonder if they took out Izumi? I'm looking at the deck plans on shipmate and it's now labeled "splash pool" next to the kids center. It was the round pool at the aft correct?

[tonit964]

I wonder if all of the dining rooms will even be open.

[Sea Hag]

On 6/5/2022 at 8:54 AM, cruzin4us said:

Well, since they appear to all serve the same food, do any of you have a suggestion as to which dining room to choose.   My preference is the one that is most likely to be less busy or crowded.

My suggestion would be any dining room except the International. That one suffers from the small waiting area that the dining rooms in the same location do on other ships. Small waiting area, plus the new system where most people get assigned a table each night, caused massive, annoying, crowded, confusion on our recent cruise on the Ruby. Any other dining room would be better.

[cruzin4us]

7 minutes ago, Sea Hag said:

My suggestion would be any dining room except the International. That one suffers from the small waiting area that the dining rooms in the same location do on other ships. Small waiting area, plus the new system where most people get assigned a table each night, caused massive, annoying, crowded, confusion on our recent cruise on the Ruby. Any other dining room would be better.

That was my thought too!......thank you!

[miagirl]

On 6/6/2022 at 12:21 PM, whataboutport said:

I wonder if they took out Izumi? I'm looking at the deck plans on shipmate and it's now labeled "splash pool" next to the kids center. It was the round pool at the aft correct?

Oh gosh, i hope not!  You have to let us know if they did!

 

Thanks

[wallyj]

On 6/6/2022 at 12:21 PM, whataboutport said:

I wonder if they took out Izumi? I'm looking at the deck plans on shipmate and it's now labeled "splash pool" next to the kids center. It was the round pool at the aft correct?

Just looked at deck plan on Princess.com and it still shows Izumi , deck 15 aft.

[toofewcruises]

On 6/5/2022 at 9:54 AM, cruzin4us said:

Well, since they appear to all serve the same food, do any of you have a suggestion as to which dining room to choose.   My preference is the one that is most likely to be less busy or crowded.

There is no way to find that out ahead of time, no one knows how many passengers there will be, nor how busy or not any of the dining rooms will be.  I am on the same cruise as you are and I picked the Santa Fe dining room.  It is mid-ship on deck 6.

[whataboutport]

On 6/7/2022 at 10:26 PM, wallyj said:

Just looked at deck plan on Princess.com and it still shows Izumi , deck 15 aft.

Here is what I saw on the app Shipmate. I wonder if they just took this deck plan from across this class ship and they are all the same? But yeah you are right, it does show Izumi on the princess website.

[Pam in CA]

On 6/5/2022 at 8:20 PM, wallyj said:

Hi @cruzin4us, originally the 4 restaurants mid ship served slightly different menus to go with the theme of the restaurant. Savoy was your traditional steak house decor, dark woods, Santa Fe was Tex/Mex, Pacific Moon was Asian, and Vivaldi was typical Princess MDR. They just split the normal deck 5 and 6 midship MDR’s into two different restaurants with their unique decor. Eventually, all the restaurants would serve the same menu, except each had a specialty dish which you could actually order in any of the restaurants. Savoy had a special pork chop, Santa Fe had Fajitas, Pacific Moon had a Seafood noodle dish, and Vivaldi had Osso Buco. 

The different dining room menus lasted only a few months after the Diamond was launched. It was kind of a disaster in that there were long lines for a couple of the dining rooms while the other two were underused. Pretty sure all dining rooms had the same menu by the time the Sapphire was launched later that year (2004.) 

 

Many people don’t know or forget that the Diamond was originally the Sapphire, and the Sapphire was originally the Diamond. 
 

They were being built at Mitsubishi in Japan and the Diamond was almost completed when a fire destroyed part of the ship. So, the Sapphire was completed and re-named the Diamond; the Diamond was repaired and renamed the Sapphire. 

[Cruise Wonderland]

7 hours ago, whataboutport said:

Here is what I saw on the app Shipmate. I wonder if they just took this deck plan from across this class ship and they are all the same? But yeah you are right, it does show Izumi on the princess website.

 

This was a very old version of the deck plan, at least more than 10 years ago. At that time Diamond Princess was not yet refurbished and did not have the Izumi.