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Food Selection and Quality Hits an All Time Low

Vibe

By Vibe,
in Royal Caribbean International

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Vibe

Vibe

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Posted (edited)

I am currently on the Wonder of the Seas. As always Royal Caribbean entertainment is awesome. The ship itself is nice but is overcrowded. This was the most we ever paid for a cruise.
 

The one thing I can’t believe is how horrible the food has become.  The food budget appears to have been cut so much that the main dining room food is awful and the Windjammer is disgusting. The poor ingredients is making basic food incredibly inedible. Mystery fish, poor quality meat and chicken.  Less selection.
 

The ships are now sailing full. I overheard other guests comment about how dissatisfied they are. With high prices, poor quality food, rising gratuities, will people book a future cruise?

 

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nelblu

nelblu

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, Vibe said:

I am currently on the Wonder of the Seas. As always Royal Caribbean entertainment is awesome. The ship itself is nice but is overcrowded. The was the most we ever paid for a cruise.
 

The one thing I can’t believe is how horrible the food has become.  The food budget has been cut so much that the main dining room food is awful. The Windjammer is disgusting. There ingredients are so cut back it is making basic food incredibly inedible. Mystery fish, poor quality meat and chicken.  Less selection.
 

The ships are now sailing full. I overheard other guests comment about how dissatisfied they are. With high prices, poor quality food, rising gratuities Will people book a future cruise?

 

Funny, on my both my Oasis August 20 and October 13 sails, the MDR food was good to very good.  WJ lunch selections and quality was meh.  Went mostly to the MDR for lunch and brunch on sea days.

 

There may be some hope in the future if Royal follows Celebrity lead.  Celebrity effective in late November will reintroduce the Classic entrees section in each night's menu.  Also, they are rejiggering the entree selections in the main part of the menu.

 

 

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Eastern flygirl

Eastern flygirl

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I just departed the Wonder of the Seas this morning. I felt the MDR food and service has improved from past cruises.  The strip steak was actually pretty good.  The Windjammer was OK.  I felt the Independence and Wonder are much better.  The Aqua show was the best of the four Oasis ships I have been on and the ice show was outstanding.  
The CL had the best coffee machine with really hot cappuccinos. 
I realize we each have our own opinions, but I am planning on a lot of cruises on this ship and glad she is in Port Canaveral 

 

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gavvy

gavvy

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Personally, I don't think the quality has gone down, it's just very inconsistent.  I suppose there are so many steps a plate goes through before it gets to you, it only takes one of them to fail for you to get a bad meal.  I've had really good and really bad food served.  It's a shame as you can often see a lot of effort has gone into it.

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Jcol5786

Jcol5786

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We just got off Oasis on Sunday. We cruised with friends and this was their first cruise. After the our second meal in the MDR they  commented that they really enjoyed the MDR experience and enjoyed the food and service. We had excellent wait staff. Our friends had read may posts about food quality and were concerned. We are frequent cruisers but this was our first cruise with the "new menus". We found that every night there was something we liked. We also did CP150 which was excellent. Our friends enjoyed WJ for breakfast with made to order omlettes and the guacamole (sp?)  toast. Our lunches were split between WJ, El Loco Fresh and Portside BBQ. All were good. Our friends are now currently looking at cruises in February so I guess that answers the question about whether or not RC will still get bookings. I think people sometimes people get jaded and forget how enjoyable a cruise still is and how fortunate we are to be able to take a cruise given the terrible events going on in the world. It was really refreshing to look at our overall cruise experience through fresh eyes. 

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HicksRA

HicksRA

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Posted
2 hours ago, Vibe said:

I am currently on the Wonder of the Seas. As always Royal Caribbean entertainment is awesome. The ship itself is nice but is overcrowded. This was the most we ever paid for a cruise.
 

The one thing I can’t believe is how horrible the food has become.  The food budget appears to have been cut so much that the main dining room food is awful and the Windjammer is disgusting. The poor ingredients is making basic food incredibly inedible. Mystery fish, poor quality meat and chicken.  Less selection.
 

The ships are now sailing full. I overheard other guests comment about how dissatisfied they are. With high prices, poor quality food, rising gratuities, will people book a future cruise?

 

You pretty much described my experience on the 16 day Radiance Panama Canal cruise a few weeks ago. 

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Illbcruzn4life Great Review Rare

Illbcruzn4life

Posted
Posted (edited)
10 hours ago, nelblu said:

Funny, on my both my Oasis August 20 and October 13 sails, the MDR food was good to very good.  WJ lunch selections and quality was meh.  Went mostly to the MDR for lunch and brunch on sea days.

 

There may be some hope in the future if Royal follows Celebrity lead.  Celebrity effective in late November will reintroduce the Classic entrees section in each night's menu.  Also, they are rejiggering the entree selections in the main part of the menu.

 

 

We just got off Oasis last Sunday and agree with you. Went to the doctors today and I gained 6 pounds. Food must have been good on our cruise. I will say that the choices in the windjammer were a lot less but we still found something satisfying to eat.

Edited by Illbcruzn4life
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nelblu

nelblu

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6 hours ago, Illbcruzn4life said:

We just got off Oasis last Sunday and agree with you. Went to the doctors today and I gained 6 pounds. Food must have been good on our cruise. I will say that the choices in the windjammer were a lot less but we still found something satisfying to eat.

I find that the WJ set up in on the Anthem classes is the best (Quantum & Anthem).  As an example, for breakfast, there a U-shaped area and in front has 2 made to order omelets/eggs station, plus a station where pancakes and waffles are being made that you can see.  I wait until the waffles come off the waffle maker and help myself.  Sometimes, I wish they had ice cream that I could put a scoop of vanilla on the hot waffles.🤪For lunch, the same area has 2 pasta made to order stations and a stir-fry station.  

 

I remember, one of our earliest cruise on Anthem, my wife and I visited the WJ after dinner curious as how they handled lobster night.  We could not believe our eyes.  The same area that I described above had a huge bowl filled with lobsters and next were grilled steaks.  Also, an impressive dessert station with various ice cream flavors and toppings and other sweet goodies.

 

Those were the days of Dynamic Dining experience in the MDR and the Tutti salad bar for lunch in the American Icon dining room. As the song goes "those were the days my friend, etc."

 

 

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OCSC Mike "Live from...." Rare

OCSC Mike

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20 minutes ago, nelblu said:

For lunch, the same area has 2 pasta made to order stations and a stir-fry station.


Over the years, those cook to order stations were basically my wife’s dinner most nights b/c she’s picky & we haven’t been huge fans of the MDR for a long time. We thought it was fine, but she was stuck ordering the classic Caesar salad & grilled chicken 3-4 nights out of pickiness & I like to eat & always found the portions small (yes, I can order multiples, I know).

 

Unfortunately, the cook to order stations aren’t there on all Oasis class anymore, like Allure when we sailed recently. So we ate in the MDR a few nights & it was fine; some things were quite good. Giovanni’s and Sabor were excellent the other nights. Breakfast is always good to me between made to order omelettes, lox & bagels freshly toasted in the CL, and the standard buffet fare. I gained a bunch of weight as I always do & had no issues with the food.

 

Ironically, we have several Wonder cruises booked next & I expect the food to be better based on my June sailing. Sorry the OP had a poor experience but I’d be shocked if I did.

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nelblu

nelblu

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6 minutes ago, OCSC Mike said:

Unfortunately, the cook to order stations aren’t there on all Oasis class anymore

Last year when I sailed on Oasis, there was no fresh to make omelet area.  I was frustrated as I had just come off Allure and they had one.  I found the pre-made ones standing there and a bit dry and lacking in some of the ingredients, e.g. ham, cheese, etc.  To my surprise both on our August and October sail there's an individual, one can barely see the person, taking orders for made to order omelets.  They give you a contraption (?) that vibrates when the order is ready.  

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Jimbo

Jimbo

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I found it funny on Jewel last month. They had a stir fry section in the Windjammer.  They had the bowls of veggies out front which you could use the tongs and put on your plate and then hand the  cook behind the counter where you then told him what meat you wanted, chicken or steak but those bowls were in the back by the cook so you couldn't put the amount of meat on your own plate.

 

They put on such a small spoonful of meat into your mixture, it was more like just a Vegetable stir fry. It's like they were rationing out the meat. Back in the day you used to put on as much meat as you wanted into your stir fry dish. Very disappointing.

 

Needless to say my stir fry dish was a joke.

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OCSC Mike "Live from...." Rare

OCSC Mike

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41 minutes ago, nelblu said:

They give you a contraption (?) that vibrates when the order is ready.

 

Yep, Allure had those. I like them except I was a bit surprised when mine actually beeped instead of just vibrating.

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