Has anyone noticed a decline in quality of Princess food?

[New2cruise2022]

37 minutes ago, Cruise Raider said:

auto correct strikes again.  I do like the pico de gallo that comes with the quesadillas, though.  
I really meant to say salads.  

Haha. Well, salads are good too. Salads combined with quesadillas and pico de gallo are also great. 

[New2cruise2022]

24 minutes ago, Lady Arwen said:

 My DH and I are so easy to please when it comes to food.  We never complain and we’ve never sent food back in thirty years of cruising.  We’re not looking for haute cuisine, been there done that in our younger days.  
 

We now appreciate being served a decent meal in a nice dining room being waited on by such hard working individuals who try so hard to make our cruise memorable.  Is every meal perfect?  Of course not, but we still enjoy ourselves.  

If more people traveled with this kind of attitude … well, hard to imagine. But it would be pretty great. 

[Cruisintimer]

33 minutes ago, Lady Arwen said:

 My DH and I are so easy to please when it comes to food.  We never complain and we’ve never sent food back in thirty years of cruising.  We’re not looking for haute cuisine, been there done that in our younger days.  
 

We now appreciate being served a decent meal in a nice dining room being waited on by such hard working individuals who try so hard to make our cruise memorable.  Is every meal perfect?  Of course not, but we still enjoy ourselves.  

Best post I've read in a long time, thank you.

[bvm49]

Just done a 35-night cruise on Coral Princess and thought the food was good. Our experience is 50+ cruises with 28 on Princess. But was disappointed that lobster wasn't offerred except if you paid extra for it (either on the bottom of the MDR menu or at the paid restaurant). The only thing offerred on the last formal night was king prawns which were nice. I did ask the waiter but was told no free lobster.

Brian

[MissP22]

We could seea definite  decrease on the buffet items on the Ruby.  The DR remained  very good but both the buffet and Crown Grill have had cutbacks in their quality.

We'll be steering clear of the Specility restaurants from now on. Definitely not worth the $80.

[Bedruthen]

We are on Sky Princess and the food is the one thing that we have considered to be very good. As to the rest of the cruise, not for us. 

[MissP22]

54 minutes ago, Bedruthen said:

We are on Sky Princess and the food is the one thing that we have considered to be very good. 

Does that include both the DR and the buffet?

[ravenjls]

On 11/12/2023 at 9:24 PM, bvm49 said:

Just done a 35-night cruise on Coral Princess and thought the food was good. Our experience is 50+ cruises with 28 on Princess. But was disappointed that lobster wasn't offerred except if you paid extra for it (either on the bottom of the MDR menu or at the paid restaurant). The only thing offerred on the last formal night was king prawns which were nice. I did ask the waiter but was told no free lobster.

Brian

No free lobster on Royal last week either. Food was decent but nothing stood out as very good or outstanding. 

[c-boy]

1 hour ago, ravenjls said:

No free lobster on Royal last week either. Food was decent but nothing stood out as very good or outstanding. 

You and I won't see free lobster on mass market cruise ships in our life time.  It's  a slow recovering,   heavily regulated fishery. Demand is high, so are prices. 

[Kellyansapansa]

We're just off a very short 2 night cruise on the Grand and we were very disappointed with the food.

 

We've not sailed on the Grand before and we were surprised at how small Horizon Court was, and the lack of variety the buffet offered. It's the first Australian itinerary we've ever sailed, so perhaps that was a factor, but everything was very bland. There weren't many different cuisines available at all and the 'Australian station' with meat pies was cringeworthy.

 

The desserts and cakes in Horizon Court were also disappointing with minimal variety and we suspect some of the items were at least a day (or more) old.

 

We sailed on Coral in February and loved the range of items available at the International Cafe. The Grand IC did not seem to rotate the available items and several times when we walked past the display cabinets were almost empty.

 

We also had the Ultimate Balcony Breakfast and felt the quality was lower than our last experience. The pastries were not fresh at all.

 

On the other hand, the pizza at Slice was just as good as we remembered it to be. 

 

We also ate at Sabatini's for the first time and found the quality of the food and service was exceptional.

 

It wasn't the end of the world for such a short cruise but if we had been sailing for longer we definitely would have been disappointed.

[ldubs]

Maybe it was just my bad luck, but on our last two Princess Cruises (Crown & Ruby) overcooked food seemed to be a common theme.  Menu options were great.   When things were cooked properly they were very good.  Sadly, many times things were not cooked properly.   So, for those two cruises, I would say the decline in food quality was related to kitchen preparation/cooking.    

[MissP22]

They had lobster on the Ruby. $10 for a second one.

[bvm49]

Maybe they thought that Aussies wouldn't miss the lobster as our cruise consisted mainly of Aussies and New Zealanders with only a few Americans.

On our last cruise which was a 28-night around Australia in October last year, they had lobster on the last formal night but disguised it as king prawns on the menu. Also, there was only one lobster night for the whole cruise instead of several as in the past for a long cruise.

[ldubs]

10 hours ago, MissP22 said:

They had lobster on the Ruby. $10 for a second one.

 

Same for Crown a couple weeks ago.  

[cheetosrevil]

I was on a Discovery Princess CA Coast cruise the week of 11/4 this year. One night I went to the MDR and ordered the filet and lobster ($30 additional charge) for my main. The filet was cooked to perfection! Unfortunately, it lacked seasoning and even the drawn butter was flavorless. The lobster was overcooked. Funny to me was the waiter seemed happy to tell me the lobster was from Brazil and all I heard in my head was "frozen-defrosted."

Edited November 18, 2023 by cheetosrevil

[TorontoTL]

We are on a 26 d sailing on the Enchanted Princess right now.  I have to say that the food on this cruise has so far been even better than any of our past Princess cruises.  The offerings in the IC are more varied and better quality.  Yesterday during lunch at the World Fresh Marketplace they had lobster and crab claws and shrimp piled high.  It was a frenzy of people lining up to get the lobster and crab, but it was the first time I’d seen that since the the Caribbean Princess first year of cruising.

[bladerunner6]

On 11/10/2023 at 9:24 AM, Lady Arwen said:

 My DH and I are so easy to please when it comes to food.  We never complain and we’ve never sent food back in thirty years of cruising.  We’re not looking for haute cuisine, been there done that in our younger days.  
 

We now appreciate being served a decent meal in a nice dining room being waited on by such hard working individuals who try so hard to make our cruise memorable.  Is every meal perfect?  Of course not, but we still enjoy ourselves.  

It has been a while since our last cruise but it seems the talk was the same before.  I think it is all part of the same syndrome of where people glorify things from when they were younger, cuter, had more hair, weighed less, etc.

 

The food is solid with a few standouts, the venue is simply glorious and the staff works their behinds off.

[trin880]

On 11/16/2023 at 7:09 PM, ravenjls said:

No free lobster on Royal last week either. Food was decent but nothing stood out as very good or outstanding. 

Where is Royal sailing right now? Lobster was offered one night for free during our sailing to Alaska at the end of August. For our fist sailing with Princess we were OK with food, for most of the time, except we felt it was occasionally oversalted. Now that we are sailing again in January, I see that menus are shared between the ships...I don't know, it feels boring to me, but we'll see, maybe I am wrong. 

[ravenjls]

14 minutes ago, trin880 said:

Where is Royal sailing right now? Lobster was offered one night for free during our sailing to Alaska at the end of August. For our fist sailing with Princess we were OK with food, for most of the time, except we felt it was occasionally oversalted. Now that we are sailing again in January, I see that menus are shared between the ships...I don't know, it feels boring to me, but we'll see, maybe I am wrong. 

Its in Australia.  The menu was different than what we had the month before on the Caribbean (New England).  The menu had a lot of local dishes but the food for us was very bland and very under whelming.  On the bright side we ate at Sabatinis and Crown Grill 2X each and both were wonderful.  We had read how bad the steaks were at grill and husband got the porterhouse and both times it was very good! I got the fish and/or lobster and each time they were cooked perfectly.  The best surprise was Alfredos. we had the plus package so we thought we would try it one day.  The apps were amazing.  The pizza very good (but since we each got one it was way too much for both of us) and the dessert was really good too.  

[chrysalis]

On the sapphire at the moment in the south pacific. Lobster has been served on both formal nights so far, but beef wellington was replaced last night at the last minute with tri tip beef.

 

My two prime rib dinners have been horrible, but others have enjoyed theirs.

 

Generally the food has been good and the crew outstanding 

Edited November 19, 2023 by chrysalis

[New2cruise2022]

4 hours ago, chrysalis said:

On the sapphire at the moment in the south pacific. Lobster has been served on both formal nights so far, but beef wellington was replaced last night at the last minute with tri tip beef.

 

My two prime rib dinners have been horrible, but others have enjoyed theirs.

 

Generally the food has been good and the crew outstanding 

Prime rib really is hit or miss — even in highly acclaimed restaurants. It can vary from the first slice to the last. 

[Flydude1063]

On 7/15/2023 at 9:50 PM, Guest ldtr said:

Keep in mind that prior to the shutdown the big 3 spent around 12 to 14 dollars per passenger per day for food. A number that would have included the food for the crew as well.

 

Now is in the 15 to 18 dollar per passenger per day range.

 

They certainly have to have their tricks and techniques to stretch that amount as far as they do.

 

 

And you know this how?

[minnesotasisu]

We are not real experienced cruisers but we have noticed that the portions are smaller which is fine with us as there is normally more than enough to fill ourselves and we don't want to be rolled out of the dining room. It also produces less waste, which I'm sure happened a lot in the past. 

 

We also have noticed a slight drop in quality of the food, although while it is not terrible, it is not as good as it was pre-pandemic.

[EDVM96]

15 minutes ago, minnesotasisu said:

we have noticed that the portions are smaller

It's the best thing Princess did to save money. Portions were way too large before.
 

16 minutes ago, minnesotasisu said:

We also have noticed a slight drop in quality of the food, although while it is not terrible, it is not as good as it was pre-pandemic.

Remember the seafood starter with 3 types of caviar. Then it was 2 types of caviar. Now it is no caviar at all. 

 

[Crashe]

On 11/10/2023 at 9:50 AM, New2cruise2022 said:

If more people traveled with this kind of attitude … well, hard to imagine. But it would be pretty great. 

Awesome!  Life’s too short…