Anyone dined on P&O recently?

[korky1]

We are on Pacific Adventure late May.  Last time sailed on P&O would be pre pandemic.  Reading Angelo's and Dragon Lady menus on their app they don't sound very nice.  Last time on board we had dishes like pork belly in Dragon Lady and Ossobuco in Angelo's.

Would you recommend eating in these restaurants?  Do they still change to a new menu half way through the cruise?     I am thinking Waterfront may be the safer bet every night, but would love any insight into your personal experiences.   

Thanks. 

 

[mum and son]

I was on the Encounter in October. The menu in Dragon Lady was less than appealing, the actual food was even worse. Such a shame because I used to love the meals there. Angelo's was greatly improved on last time I had it pre-covid. 

 

The dining room was probably the best choice when I was onboard.

 

 

 

[buchhalm]

It sounds like that (and its probably true for every cruise line) they feature ethnic restaurants, such as Chinese, Thai, Japanese etc, but then stick their stock standard Philippino or Indian chefs in the kitchen.

 

[arxcards]

4 hours ago, korky1 said:

We are on Pacific Adventure late May.  Last time sailed on P&O would be pre pandemic.  Reading Angelo's and Dragon Lady menus on their app they don't sound very nice.  Last time on board we had dishes like pork belly in Dragon Lady and Ossobuco in Angelo's.

Would you recommend eating in these restaurants?  Do they still change to a new menu half way through the cruise?     I am thinking Waterfront may be the safer bet every night, but would love any insight into your personal experiences.   

Thanks. 

 

The menus will be pretty much the same as last time you were aboard pre-pandemic. Angelos and Dragon Lady haven't changed since they were launched on Eden & Aria in 2015. There is also a lot of sameness about the Waterfront menus, and I found it hard to notice much difference from menus on Pacific Explorer in 2019 and early 2020.

 

The food is generally OK, but we have already eaten all of our preferred dishes on earlier P&O cruises and they are long overdue for a shake-up of their menus. Personally, we are happy to do Angelos once or twice per cruise and skip Dragon Lady altogether. Waterfront once or twice for dinner is more than enough for us, so we pay extras for Luke's or Shell & Bones to change it up a bit. 

[cruisermsoon]

You may find that the whole dining concept on P&O has changed. 

On a recent cruise aboard Pacific Encounter, we were asked to nominate "early" [5,45] or "late" [7,45] dining, and were assigned a time slot and dining plan when we boarded.

The menus in each of the three restaurants changed every three days [Menus A, B, C], and your dining plan gave you an assigned restaurant [but not an assigned table] for each night of the cruise: Angelos, Dragon Lady, Waterfront, rotating for each three day period. We felt that the system worked quite well, and one could change restaurants if one wished in advance fairly easily. 

Food was certainly variable, however sometimes the dishes were surprisingly good. I advise you to try each of the dining rooms out and if you find a menu to your liking, do a repeat visit. 

The buffet set up is similar to the pre-pandemic formula. 

 

[lucymorgan]

We were on Pacific Encounter in August - just 2 cruises after they arrived in Australia.  I was actually very impressed with the food.  Loved Dragon Lady, Waterfront was ok, Angelos was good and Lukes was great.  

We went on RCI Quantum of the Seas in November and although I really like Royal Caribbean and cruise with them often, I think the P&O food was probably better. 

  

[lucymorgan]

Because I cannot eat gluten, I took some pictures of the Encounter food.  Here are some examples 

 

Edited January 20, 2023 by lucymorgan

[joejoe 59]

3 hours ago, lucymorgan said:

Because I cannot eat gluten, I took some pictures of the Encounter food.  Here are some examples 

 

I'm also strictly gluten free.  How good were those gf muffins😍

Also the mossaman beef curry in Dragon Lady, we went back twice for that.

Are some of you food pics from Luke's? Maybe I need to try that next time.

[lucymorgan]

17 minutes ago, joejoe 59 said:

Are some of you food pics from Luke's? Maybe I need to try that next time.

Yes - it was very good.  No GF desserts at the time though.  

I had at least one of those lemon muffins every day 🙂

Edited January 20, 2023 by lucymorgan

[arxcards]

9 hours ago, cruisermsoon said:

You may find that the whole dining concept on P&O has changed. 

On a recent cruise aboard Pacific Encounter, we were asked to nominate "early" [5,45] or "late" [7,45] dining, and were assigned a time slot and dining plan when we boarded.

The menus in each of the three restaurants changed every three days [Menus A, B, C], and your dining plan gave you an assigned restaurant [but not an assigned table] for each night of the cruise: Angelos, Dragon Lady, Waterfront, rotating for each three day period. We felt that the system worked quite well, and one could change restaurants if one wished in advance fairly easily. 

Food was certainly variable, however sometimes the dishes were surprisingly good. I advise you to try each of the dining rooms out and if you find a menu to your liking, do a repeat visit. 

The buffet set up is similar to the pre-pandemic formula. 

 

I have some friends that enjoyed the "rotational" dining at new years.

 

The size of Angelos and Dragon Lady on Explorer are too small to successfully rotate any more than 1/2 the passengers, so there are plenty of leftover numbers that will dine in Waterfront more often and it isn't ideal to be seeing the same menu on consecutive nights.

 

It is great they are changing-up the Dragon Lady & Angelo's menus. On 7 or 8 cruises with P&O since those restaurants began, I had only ever seen the same menu for each every night. 

 

Still, every other line changes their MDR menus nightly, with the flexibility to choose where you want to dine based on the menu of the day.

[Gwendy]

Just got off Encounter today.  When booking restaurants they tried to dictate where and at what time we would eat each night.  We quickly sorted that out, new cruisers were impressed that the staff had organised their dining for each night,

Angelos, some nice meals, risotto very good, desserts not really.  
Dragon Lady, some good, some not so good.

 

Lukes, lovely meals, but unable to get no alcohol beer.

Shell and Bones, not operating again, 3 cruises, November, December, January not operating fir any if them.

 

All of the  restaurants were only half full each night.  Not sure if it was a staffing issue or what.  One couple we talked to wanted to dine at Luke’s one night and were told it was booked out.  We were there that night and it was half empty.

 

Waterfront, appalling, you can only book for certain times, even if tables are available.  The person in charge is officious and will not allow anyone in outside set times, which by the way are not advertised,  the service is slow, food mediocre, charged twice for one drink.  Seems to be a problem with staff training.

All the restaurants have no dress code.  We saw a woman in bikini top and denim short holey shorts at dinner, no problems.  We had to ask to have our table changed half way through our meal one night because of the raucous laughter and noise from the table behind us.

Live how the Pantry on the last day bring out prawns, mussels, spring rolls, paella for lunch, never seen them prior to this.  Happened on our November cruise as well,  is it a marketing tool so when you complete the survey, this us the last meal you remember?

[ELep]

We just debarked Adventure on Thursday. Ten nights.  In order of preference we rated them Angelos, Dragon Lady and then Waterfront a very distance third. Pantry food was better than Waterfront. Waterfront staff seemed to be really struggling, very new I would say. Staff in the other two were very good. We don't mind trying new food so Dragon Lady is an interesting way to mix it up. We quite liked the rotation system. The menu seems to change every four days apparently? We were 7.45pm every night. Not many kids eating by then so the restaurant seemed calmer. The restaurants often seemed only half full. Paid restaurants still not open. 

[windsor26]

Why worry about having the same menu for 3 days   That gives you more than 3 choices I am sure and at home we do not  change our menu every 10 days or so but often have the same meal a couple of days later

[arxcards]

On 1/22/2023 at 7:45 AM, ELep said:

We just debarked Adventure on Thursday. Ten nights.  In order of preference we rated them Angelos, Dragon Lady and then Waterfront a very distance third. Pantry food was better than Waterfront. Waterfront staff seemed to be really struggling, very new I would say. Staff in the other two were very good. We don't mind trying new food so Dragon Lady is an interesting way to mix it up. We quite liked the rotation system. The menu seems to change every four days apparently? We were 7.45pm every night. Not many kids eating by then so the restaurant seemed calmer. The restaurants often seemed only half full. Paid restaurants still not open. 

Luke Mangan & Gradi 400 opened on Monday night.