Giving up on MDR food

[paladin732]

When we sailed the Wish, we thought the food in the MDR was decent. Not amazing, but perfectly serviceable. The service was fantastic, to make up for it, however.

On the Fantasy cruise we are on: we are finding the food in the main dining room to be terrible; combined with an absolutely terrible server. It’s not unusual for him to take 15 minutes to even come to our table once we sit down. (MDR lunch has been slow also. Today it took our server 25 minutes to greet us. The table next to us looked ready to explode they were so angry)

On the flip side, dinner at both Palo and Remy were wonderful. Absolutely top notch service and great food.

Has anyone given up on MDR food halfway through their cruise and just said “screw it” and tried to swing Palo or similar for the rest of the nights? We are wondering how crazy we would be for doing this…

 

[Skippyboo]

What restaurant on the Fantasy ? I found Royal Court to be the slowest of the 3. Thought Animators Palate and Enchanted Garden to be okay.

Only did lunch at TS on first day, mostly did Cabanas for breakfast and lunch.

 

[paladin732]

What restaurant on the Fantasy ? I found Royal Court to be the slowest of the 3. Thought Animators Palate and Enchanted Garden to be okay.

The slow lunch was royal court. Dinner has been not great in any of the three, but slowest in royal also.

 

[Skippyboo]

Apparently Royal Court is the furthest away from galley where they made the food. Found this out on lobster night when my table mate complained about her lobster being cold.

 

[Cfabar1]

We hav only done the Wish... I am told that the food is better on the Wish in MDR than any other vessel, so maybe that's part of the issue?

 

[Betsyp]

I’m going on the Fantasy in March ..I’ve never read bad things about their MDRs, but then food is a subjective thing…

 

[Dug720]

Speak with your head server about the server. The only way things will change is if people speak up - and it's best to give them a chance to make it right while you're on board.

 

[scrappinginontario]

I sailed in the Fantasy earlier this year and the MDR food was great! OP, have you spoken with your head waiter? They can’t fix anything if they don’t know there is a problem.

 

[snowwite]

When we sailed the Wish, we thought the food in the MDR was decent. Not amazing, but perfectly serviceable. The service was fantastic, to make up for it, however.

On the Fantasy cruise we are on: we are finding the food in the main dining room to be terrible; combined with an absolutely terrible server. It’s not unusual for him to take 15 minutes to even come to our table once we sit down. (MDR lunch has been slow also. Today it took our server 25 minutes to greet us. The table next to us looked ready to explode they were so angry)

On the flip side, dinner at both Palo and Remy were wonderful. Absolutely top notch service and great food.

Has anyone given up on MDR food halfway through their cruise and just said “screw it” and tried to swing Palo or similar for the rest of the nights? We are wondering how crazy we would be for doing this…

We did the Alaska cruise and we tried the main dining room on our first night then never again. I preferred being able to try different places anyway. Some days we had too many snacks and later lunch so we didn’t feel like a big sit down dinner. Some people prefer the old fashioned cruise style but that isn’t us. Hope you had a great time. Trying to plan something for my 60th birthday!

 

[Chipmunkmaniac]

When we sailed the Wish, we thought the food in the MDR was decent. Not amazing, but perfectly serviceable. The service was fantastic, to make up for it, however.

On the Fantasy cruise we are on: we are finding the food in the main dining room to be terrible; combined with an absolutely terrible server. It’s not unusual for him to take 15 minutes to even come to our table once we sit down. (MDR lunch has been slow also. Today it took our server 25 minutes to greet us. The table next to us looked ready to explode they were so angry)

On the flip side, dinner at both Palo and Remy were wonderful. Absolutely top notch service and great food.

Has anyone given up on MDR food halfway through their cruise and just said “screw it” and tried to swing Palo or similar for the rest of the nights? We are wondering how crazy we would be for doing this…

Yes I did and it was on the Fantasy as well. I found Cabanas lunch pretty decent so considered that my main meal (and had one Palo as well later on) and ended up grabbibg deckfood and roomservice for the remainder

 

[Jsoenning]

Sorry to hear this as food is one of my favorite things about vacation!

I echo the talk to the head waiter. Maybe you can be moved? The waiter makes a huge difference on how fast you get your food and if it's warm. We had a similar experience to yours on RCL and unfortunately it was our friends first (and only) cruise -> they listed food being only so-so as reason to never do again.

I've done your approach on RCL where we did only specialty dining. To be honest the food wasn't necessarily head and shoulders above for us so I felt let down as you're paying extra to attempt to get decent food. I think I'll be more aggressive (in a polite way) of stating dissatisfaction in the future.

 

[vakamalua]

No one goes on DCL for the food...mediocre at best. And the incredibly tight restaurants on the Wish make the experience worse. Palo has the luxury of providing made to order food.

 

[paladin732]

Sorry to hear this as food is one of my favorite things about vacation!

I echo the talk to the head waiter. Maybe you can be moved? The waiter makes a huge difference on how fast you get your food and if it's warm. We had a similar experience to yours on RCL and unfortunately it was our friends first (and only) cruise -> they listed food being only so-so as reason to never do again.

I've done your approach on RCL where we did only specialty dining. To be honest the food wasn't necessarily head and shoulders above for us so I felt let down as you're paying extra to attempt to get decent food. I think I'll be more aggressive (in a polite way) of stating dissatisfaction in the future.

Maybe I’ll talk to the head waiter tonight.
We were considering doing a late lunch at the bbq place at the st Thomas port before all aboard

 

[peder]

No one goes on DCL for the food...mediocre at best. And the incredibly tight restaurants on the Wish make the experience worse. Palo has the luxury of providing made to order food.

We're doing our first cruise with DCL soon on the Wish, and if the food is poor, it'll almost certainly be our last DCL cruise. Weird to me that folks wouldn't hold DCL to a higher standard when paying luxury-cruise prices.

 

[RedHead0186]

Maybe I’ll talk to the head waiter tonight.
We were considering doing a late lunch at the bbq place at the st Thomas port before all aboard

Ooooh, if it's the one I'm thinking of that place is really good.

And yes, I agree, talk with your head server. They really should have the opportunity to correct things. As to food, the servers tend to know what people enjoy and what's good, so listen to their recommendations. Of course, you can pick anything, just know they are recommending what they know people like.

 

[RedHead0186]

We're doing our first cruise with DCL soon on the Wish, and if the food is poor, it'll almost certainly be our last DCL cruise. Weird to me that folks wouldn't hold DCL to a higher standard when paying luxury-cruise prices.

To be fair, a lot of the higher price for DCL is for the experience you get. At least that's how I look at it.

And I enjoy the food on DCL. I consider myself a bit of a foodie and live in Chicago, so have access to lots of high-end restaurants. I've definitely had some MDR meals that would stack up against those, and many that I thought were very good.

 

[brentm77]

The food served on our Fantasy cruise in February wasn't bad. Other than dry over-cooked cuts of meat on two nights, I would say it was well prepared for a mass produced product. It really helps if you let the server guide you to the best dishes too.

However, we are tiering of the MDR food a bit. On my very first cruise I noticed that, by the fifth night, my pallet was looking for more variety than what was offered. I was actually looking forward to getting a meal off the ship. So after several cruises, I was really feeling it. We even skipped the MDR one night and ate bad pool side food. I don't know what it is, but all the meals start feeling very similar in the MDR's, even if you try to order a variety of dishes.

If I could change one thing on DCL, it would be better pool-side food and a dinner buffet. I would love a quick and easy option to get a good dinner, which DCL doesn't have (with the exception of the Wish from what I hear). It is one of the things I am looking forward to on our first Celebrity cruise.

 

[randumb0]

I only cruise on the Fantasy and don't have problems with their food. If I ever felt like I needed to primarily eat Palo or Remy then I'd just move to a cruise line with better food

 

[BarbossasWench]

We've had problems with slow waiters and we complained to the Head Waiter. Things got fixed. They even treated us to alcohol beverages as a way to apologize.

 

[paladin732]

Did Palo room service tonight (which was wonderful, food was still hot when it arrived!) and asked concierge to change the waiter for tomorrow.
Should I expect a table number change, or just a server change?