For Those Recently on HAL & Who Also Travel Oceania

[Golfette]

Have any of you recently taken a HAL cruise and reasonably recently taken an Oceania cruise also? I would love to know how you rate the food between the two lines.

 

We traveled for the 1st time on HAL in December. Liked the ship and service very much, but thought the food exceptionally mediocre. Am hoping (my husband especially) the food on Oceania is considerably better.

 

I realize food is a very subjective subject & regional preferences play a large part in what one likes and dislikes. It is hard for me to understand how so many can rave about the food on HAL. Granted there is plenty of it and some of it was good, (the cheeses, for example, and some soups), but most of it, in our opinion, was very basic hotel banquet food. That is what we expected, but we were still surprised at how tasteless most of it was. By tasteless, I mean a lack of flavor.

 

What is a realistic expectation for Oceania food?

[pacmom]

Just be prepared for your tastebuds to be wowed!!!!! Read the post about people's favorite foods.

[caribbeansun]

As you say taste is very subjective. I posted upon my return from an Oceania cruise about how I found the food on HAL to have been superior to that of Oceania. Many posters on this board took exception to that.

 

In the end I believe that there were some things that contributed to the difference between expectations and the actual experience.

 

1) Far too many people raving about the food on this board set an unrealistically high expectation that the food would be comparable to a fine dining establishment here at home - it is not. I would rate it 3-3.5 stars out of 5.

 

2) We had an unusually positive experience on HAL given the many reports of below average food I've read since then

 

3) We had an unusually negative experience on Oceania relative to others and in particular found the Grand Dining Room to be a big disappointment and running a chilly 0 for 3 (or should that be ohhh for three?). Polo Grill and Toscany were very good and we enjoyed many a meal at Tapas on the Terrace - the servers were very accommodating in allowing me to essentially create my own dishes using a mixture of their ingredients that were on hand which is a level of service that was exceptional. Similarly the wait staff at Tapas was first rate and added considerably to our enjoyment of our meals.

 

4) I seem to have become a bit of a foodie and my personal standards have risen over the past few years so that it now takes a very good meal to impress me.

 

All in all there was an expectation gap and having said all of this I have booked our third cruise on Oceania for next winter so hopefully that provides some insight into our overall satisfaction with the Oceania experience.

 

Cheers!

[Golfette]

Just be prepared for your tastebuds to be wowed!!!!! Read the post about people's favorite foods.

 

Yes, that is what prompted this question. It all sounds wonderful but so did the food at HAL when people posted their favorite dishes. Reality was quite different.

 

See Caribbeansun's post. Carribbeansun, I don't know what HAL ship you were on or when. We were on the Oosterdam in December. We are from Southern CA. Where are you from? I think what part of the country people come from shapes their taste in food. I'm not saying one is better than the other, only what you look for in food may be different.

 

While cooking for 650 people isn't quite the same as 1,800 people, I guess it all boils down to "banquet food," with possibly better quality on Oceania.

 

I agree with Caribbeansun in that expecting too much is probably not a good idea.

[Druke I]

I am not a "foodie". Truth be known, I am close to being ambivalent about food. I eat because I have to. My wife says I am boring to cook for.

 

That said, we thought the food on Oceania to be the best we have had at sea. It has been several years since we have been on HAL (1997).

 

Prior to Oceania, we thought Crystal had the best food we had had. We've not been on Crystal since 1993 (I don't care for their mid-managers' attitudes.)

 

Most of our cruises have been with Princess - and Ocania's food is certainly better than Princess' food. I think Princess has one of the best selections of itineraries.

 

We've been with Oceania twice (Regatta into the Baltic 8-05, and Nautica Istanbul to Singapore 11-06). We have two more booked with Oceania (Regatta's trans Atlantic 3-08, and Nautica NewZealand/Australia 1-09).

[eandj]

Haven't done HAL, but I can't imagine it being better than O. The French and Continental influence made the sauces, gravies, combinations and presentation amazing.

 

I thought the Tapas in the evening was basically a very nice buffet. There, I didn't find the food to be anything much more than ordinary.

 

So yes, we certainly do vary in our tastes.

[meow!]

Oceania food was very good. Other than not offering caviar and foie gras on demand, and not allowing you to special order out of the menu (with prior notice for defreezing and preparation), Oceania's food is as good as if not even better than Silversea.

 

Any passenger can order "course by course room service" on Silversea and they set up the table for "fine dining" even for in room service breakfast (and not just give you your food on a tray). Presumably Oceania provides for that in the mini-suites and up (butler service which we haven't tried).

 

For all buffet meals, Oceania does not allow passengers to directly pick up their food -- you select what you want and an attendant puts it on your plate. This cuts down on cross-contamination among the passengers, and is a particularly good feature that we have not seen on any other line!

 

In any case, Oceania is substantially better in food than Celebrity or HAL, in our opinion. Hope this helps.

[CruiseLiz]

I would have to agree about HAL's food not being as good as it seems when reading posts and looking at the brochures. It is not that the food is bad, but just that it isn't especially spectacular in any way (except for in the specialty restaurant.) But, it depends on the person too - we eat out quite a bit and so we may have different tastes. My mother was on the cruise and thought the food was really great, so it varies person to person.

 

We took a recent trip on Princess and found the food onboard was better there than on HAL. They should definitely step up their standards.

 

I feel absolutely positive that the food will be tastier on Oceania - you're supposed to get what you pay for right? ;)

[caribbeansun]

We were on Zuiderdam in May 2003 - the part of the country I'm from is called CANADA :D.

 

Go expecting 3* and if it happens to be better then you won't be disappointed. Go expecting 5* and you wont' be happy at all.

 

As to the comments about Tapas being ordinary - yes, that's probably true strictly based on the food that's set out. Ironically, 90-95% of what is served in Tapas is exactly the same as what's being served in the GDR. However, the ambience, dining outside, the wait staff and the willingness of the servers to create dishes that weren't being served made it quite a bit of fun for us. The every night sushi bar was a nice treat as well - now the sushi wasn't exactly great but I've had much worse.

 

To each their own - I won't go the GDR even once on my next cruise - why bother I say. As always, your mileage may vary.

 

 

See Caribbeansun's post. Carribbeansun, I don't know what HAL ship you were on or when. We were on the Oosterdam in December. We are from Southern CA. Where are you from? I think what part of the country people come from shapes their taste in food. I'm not saying one is better than the other, only what you look for in food may be different.

[esther e]

There are a lot of HAL cheerleaders who have blinders on when it comes to anything re HAL. As does Oceania!;) Seriously, O has the best food we've ever had on a cruise line. Including Regent. HAL was fine; you wouldn't starve. But the food on O is excellent.

[phillipahain]

We have sailed Hal and while both breakfast buffet and lunch buffet were excellent ........dinner in dining room was totally abysmal

 

We have done Oceania in Oct and will be on Bangkok to bejing on 29th and unless something has changed i could not fault the food either in the buffet or the dining room

[ChatKat in Ca.]

We were on a shortie in May on the Amsterdam and 12 days on the Nautica and 16 days on Regent's Voyager in November.

 

Food on Amsterdam was okay - nothing bad, just ordinary cruise ship/mass market fare. We ordered Appetizers en cabin one night and got a pile of fried mess attractively served. We ate in the steakhouse - at additional cost - and it was outstanding. Other meals in the dining room were typical banquet food.

 

On Oceania, we had some meals that were lovely, some that were okay - still better then the food on HAL. Polo and Toscana were excelllent but equal to GDR. About 90% of the time they are very good. Like open seating - always!

 

If you are a foodie, the food on Regent is excellent.95% of the time the food hits the mark of a nice really nice restaurant even sometimes 110% of some of the best. Depends on the Executive Chef and which menu they are using.

 

All of this is my personal opinion - food is a subjective matter since we all have our likes/dislikes. Timing and staff make a difference too. If you are expecting fresh fish then eat on land. At home I won't freeze any food. Onboard it's mostly frozen - has to be. Flavors are important to us. First choice: Regent - 2nd Choice - Oceania. HAL, if I have to.

[Golfette]

ChatKat, I see you are from Southern CA. Somehow, I think it makes a difference - but who knows??? I agree with your opinion of HAL food. Considering the fact that even though Oceania is smaller, preparing meals for that many people, I guess it still has to be "banquet" food, although hopefully with higher-quality ingredients.

 

Caribbeansun - 2003!!! That was decades ago in "shiptalk." If you read the HAL Boards, the food opinions go down from week to week!

 

It doesn't matter that much to me, but to my poor husband who has to eat my cooking, it really does:o !!!

[Nana4x]

Like ChatKat wrote, food is subjective. I am a pretty hard critic when it comes to dining out. We were on Nautica Istanbul to Ahtens just prior to Kathy's cruise in June. The food in most cases was very good. Polo and Toscana can be outstanding. I did not care for their frozen lobster tails. In the GDR someone at our table sent their steak back twice! On our cruise it seemed to happen with lots of steaks.

 

We loved Tapas. All in all the food is the best we have had on a cruise ship.

 

We'll be cruising Oceania again in June as will ChatKat - I for one can't wait to enjoy meals prepared and served to me - something that does not occur at home very often.

 

We will be cruising HAL to Alaska in Aug. and to tell you the truth I am not expecting to be wowed. But I am expecting decent food.

[ChatKat in Ca.]

Bobbi - which HAL will you be on? We can compare notes while we are touring! Ah, Alaksa cannot have bad food. Fresh Salmon and Halibut.

[Nana4x]

Bobbi - which HAL will you be on? We can compare notes while we are touring! Ah, Alaksa cannot have bad food. Fresh Salmon and Halibut.

 

Volendam Aug 10, 2008 Vancouver to Seward

[CruiseLiz]

We'll be on the same ship, same itinerary two weeks later for a 14 day round trip Vancouver!

Small world. :)

[dianancolin]

Expected a 4+ on the NOORDAM February 6 - what we got was code red 2 days out when 4 (count them 4 ) passengers had Noro virus - ended up with 40 out of 2000 on board. Everything we wanted from a cruise was either closed or complicated to get at - this was a 2 at best

 

Almost every cruise we have taken was in a Suite - HAL has gone down in so many aspects that we will NEVER cruise with them again! When we calm down enough I will be writing to HAL in Seattle (as if they will care)

 

Guess what - we are now actively looking for the right 'O' cruise!

[GOLFER3]

Have any of you recently taken a HAL cruise and reasonably recently taken an Oceania cruise also? I would love to know how you rate the food between the two lines.

 

We traveled for the 1st time on HAL in December. Liked the ship and service very much, but thought the food exceptionally mediocre. Am hoping (my husband especially) the food on Oceania is considerably better.

 

I realize food is a very subjective subject & regional preferences play a large part in what one likes and dislikes. It is hard for me to understand how so many can rave about the food on HAL. Granted there is plenty of it and some of it was good, (the cheeses, for example, and some soups), but most of it, in our opinion, was very basic hotel banquet food. That is what we expected, but we were still surprised at how tasteless most of it was. By tasteless, I mean a lack of flavor.

 

What is a realistic expectation for Oceania food?

In my opinion the quality, taste, and presentations of the food on the Oceania is superior to the HAL ships we have cruised on. Actually better then the Crystal. We sailed on the Oceania "Regatta" for 16 days on Jan. 12TH, '08. The food and service in the Main Dining rooms (incl Bkfst, Lunch, & Dinner) was just wonderful. We ate a number of times in the Polo Grill and the Italian Resturant - both good but not outstanding. We were very impressed with both the selection, quality, and service in the Lido Resturant - there was a waiter or attendent available to help you with a table, carrying your plate, serving you coffee, tea etc.....very well trained.

 

As far as HAL dining - We were on the Oosterdam on 3/3/07 and on the Ryndam on 10/21/07. There is no comparison in the food quality compared to the Regatta. The quality of the various meals have gone down hill lately on the HAL ships - possibly cutting back like some other lines are.

[Florida cruisee]

We consider good dining (food and service) to be an important part of our cruise experience. On Maasdam, the food in the dining room was almost inedible. We spent the money and ate 6 of 7 nights in the Pinnacle Grill, which was excellent. We were on Regatta the month after they put Nautica in the water. They pulled most of the dining room management, we were told, for the new ship and left us in the lurch. The service and food in the GDR was mediocre at best. We ate upstairs instead. Brown lettuce and 3 hour dinners were simply unacceptable to us. Two years ago we took a 23 day on Nautica and the food was simply wonderful in the GDR. Last year we were on HAL's Prinsendam for 22 days and the food was only a smidgen under the Nautica food. We have been only once on Crystal. The dining room food was awful but the Italian restaurant ranked as one of the finest dining experiences we ever had.

 

Our conclusion: it depends to some degree on who is managing the kitchen. We would agree that HAL's food (we have been on them 60 days) is generally lousy - except on Prinsendam, which is unlike anything else in their fleet in all regards. O has risen above some of the early problems and now delivers consistently good food in our experience - though we beg to differ with everyone about Toscana - since we cook Italian well. We are booked on two more O cruises and fully expect to repeat our last great experience. I think there is no doubt that O rises above the fare of most cruise lines and competes quite well with the really high end lines.

[CathyCruises]

Fun to read these posts and realize just how subjective food tastes are. I just returned yesterday from an 11 day land trip to Costa Rica--we stayed in fairly upscale places and tried a huge variety of restaurants. My favorite, and most memorable meal, was while we were spending a much needed beach day in Manuel Antonio. We ate at a makeshift "restaurant" that was just a series of poles with black plastic draped over them. But the freshly caught mahi mahi pan fried in garlic and butter was absolutely scrumptious! I think it was $4.00 for the meal which included delicious fried plantains and the Costa Rican national dish, gallopinto, which is a rice and beans combo. I paid WAY more money for food that didn't taste 1/4 as good at "real" restaurants! Go figure. You just never know. But I am still looking forward to my first dining experience on board "O" about this time next year!

 

Cathty

[lcand1923]

I think the best advice you have been given is that provided by caribbeansun - go expecting 3 stars and you won't be disappointed.

 

We've been on 2 Oceania Cruises.

 

On the one, the food in Toscana was superb, Polo was banquet room, GDR was equal to a good meal on HAL, Terrace and Waves were excellent and Tapas was very good.

 

On the other, due to health issues, we ate a lot of Room Service.

Room Service was very good, Toscana was terrible, Polo was banquet room, Waves was excellent, Terrace was good and Tapas was superb!

 

Are we foodies? Not at all. We do however like food that is served hot, uses fresh tasting ingredients, has a nice presentation and does not remind us of "mystery meat".

 

People have different requirements when they "eat out" and cruise food isn't an exception. Keep telling your husband he will find SOMETHING he will like on Oceania and he won't be disappointed.

[spindrift]

I agree that whoever manages the food in the kitchen, presumably the "chef," makes the difference.

 

We just returned from our 4th Oceania cruise and found the food to be unacceptable. Oh yes, we ate, but what I am saying is that it was terrible compared to the three previous cruises with Oceania.

 

We just did a transatlantic on the Prinsendam and found the food to be absolutely superb.

 

So--that is just our opinion. We have 3 more Oceania cruises planned because food is not our main focus, but it is important, of course. You can always find something!!!

 

Love Oceania and love "some" of the HAL ships. Just enjoy!!! The food is definitely better than in my kitchen these days.

[Luvsailing]

Expected a 4+ on the NOORDAM February 6 - what we got was code red 2 days out when 4 (count them 4 ) passengers had Noro virus - ended up with 40 out of 2000 on board. Everything we wanted from a cruise was either closed or complicated to get at - this was a 2 at best

 

Almost every cruise we have taken was in a Suite - HAL has gone down in so many aspects that we will NEVER cruise with them again! When we calm down enough I will be writing to HAL in Seattle (as if they will care)

 

Guess what - we are now actively looking for the right 'O' cruise!

 

We loved HAL's Amsterdam and then went on the Zaandam and were cured from HAL. I'm sure you know that HAL was acquired by Carnival and on our Zaandam cruise it was so obvious that they were moving towards the Carnival cruise experience. We don't like Carnival so when we choose a HAL cruise, we want a HAL cruise, not a wanna be Carnival cruise.

 

We went on Celebrity's Summit and loved it. We are going to Hawaii on Celebrity's Mercury.

 

The cruise I would like to suggest to you is Oceania's 2009 Europe itinerary with a 2 for 1 plus free air fare. We're going on April 11, 2009 Barcelona to Rome. 10 days, 10 wonderful ports such as Monte Carlo, Capri, Sardinia, Provence, Pisa, and 5 others which escape me at this moment. The European cruises with the 2 for 1 offer with free air are posted on their oceaniacruises.com site.

[happy cruzer]

I think the best advice you have been given is that provided by caribbeansun - go expecting 3 stars and you won't be disappointed.

 

We've been on 2 Oceania Cruises.

 

On the one, the food in Toscana was superb, Polo was banquet room, GDR was equal to a good meal on HAL, Terrace and Waves were excellent and Tapas was very good.

 

On the other, due to health issues, we ate a lot of Room Service.

Room Service was very good, Toscana was terrible, Polo was banquet room, Waves was excellent, Terrace was good and Tapas was superb!

 

Are we foodies? Not at all. We do however like food that is served hot, uses fresh tasting ingredients, has a nice presentation and does not remind us of "mystery meat".

 

People have different requirements when they "eat out" and cruise food isn't an exception. Keep telling your husband he will find SOMETHING he will like on Oceania and he won't be disappointed.

 

I followed this thread before my March cruise on Regatta and it helped me enormously. I set my expectations for the GDR to be similar to the dining room on HAL and Princess. For lunch it was much better, and for dinner the food was about the same and service much better (except one night). Polo and Toscana were both incredible on our trip. Food is indeed subjective, but I think with so many folks reporting that the GDR may be comparable to other lines it would be wise to set expectations and be wowed if it turns out to be better.

 

PS I posted a review to the reveiw page.