Food and service tanking?

[Princesca]

We are considering booking our first RC on the Odyssey, which had previously gotten rave reviews, but I've just finished watching some really bad reviews of the service and meals and new menus, at least on Symphony of the Seas, from vloggers that were previously huge fans of RC. And now I'm worried that our food will always be inedible and I'm going to spend the whole time wishing I just paid the extra for DCL.

Has anyone sailed recently who can report back? This is apparently a new downturn, since they revised the menus a few months ago.

The reviews also said there's no more nightly turn down, just every other night? That really made us feel pampered on DCL.

 

[KeroKero]

We are considering booking our first RC on the Odyssey, which had previously gotten rave reviews, but I've just finished watching some really bad reviews of the service and meals and new menus, at least on Symphony of the Seas, from vloggers that were previously huge fans of RC. And now I'm worried that our food will always be inedible and I'm going to spend the whole time wishing I just paid the extra for DCL.

Has anyone sailed recently who can report back? This is apparently a new downturn, since they revised the menus a few months ago.

The reviews also said there's no more nightly turn down, just every other night? That really made us feel pampered on DCL.

We sailed on Symphony in April and the MDR food was edible, but nothing to write home about. I didn't mind the menus, always something to choose for every single one of us to be able to pick something of interest, but the food was really void of flavour. We didn't do any specialty dining this cruise, and that was probably a bad decision on our part. Our servers were great though, and we really appreciated their hard work. The food in the Windjammer for breakfasts was good and the couple lunches we did there weren't bad either. Lots of selection. We also really enjoyed quick lunches and snacks at El Loco Fresh and the pizza at Sorrento's was great, especially when right out of the oven.

As for turn down. RC rooms are only serviced one time a day now - day or night, you let your room steward know on day 1 which you would prefer.

Food doesn't make or break a cruise for us, we're more interested in ports and food off the ship - but I know how important food is to some cruisers, so hopefully RC can do something quick to bump up the taste of the MDR dishes so they don't scare off too many people.

 

[deadvc]

I was on Symphony earlier this year as well. MDR food was pretty meh but it's definitely not inedible. That's a bit of an exaggeration but it has declined a bit. The windjammer was fine, it's a buffet and for a buffet I didn't have any issues with it. Nothing special, but is a buffet ever special? Finally, we did Chops as our specialty dining night and that was quite good. My giant bacon app, NY Strip, and all the sides I got were tasty.

Service was largely good, those kinds of reviews are always going to be so individual and prone to some individual party not getting what they wanted and lambasting the service as a result. We had issues with how MyTime Dining worked, but it wasn't necessarily the crew's fault. Seemed more like Royal needs to figure that out.

I'm booked for the Odyssey next year myself, even after trying the new MDR menu. Seems like a great ship.

 

[lady9]

We just got off Oasis last Friday. We only ate in the MDR twice. We were a party of 2 and mostly forgotten by our server who had larger tables she attended to mostly. The food was meh so after trying it twice, we didn't go back. We had the 3 night specialty dining and enjoyed that very much! Although I find it sad that they push it so much. It makes me wonder if the quality of the MDR food has purposefully gone down so people would feel they need to buy specialty dining to feel they have had a good meal on their vacation or the larger ships just can not produce good quality food in that quantity. Windjammer and Solarium Bistro were pretty good. We could always find something. Port Side BBQ ($) had good brisket but the sides were lacking. We also liked El Loco Fresh. Our cabin attendant did a nice job but we did notice the little touches from previous RC cruises just weren't there and paled in comparison to DCL. Once a day service was OK but I like to have ice in the room but by evening it was melted. In the past, the attendant would have refreshed that. All that being said, we had a great time! We are cruising DCL later this year so we will compare and see if paying more is worth it. I know once we cruised DCL the kids didn't want to go back to RC kid's club because DCL is far superior in that category. We are empty nesters now so we will see what itineraries we like and when we can go as to which ship works best. I wouldn't rule out RC.

 

[hethj7]

Just another data point, as we just got off the Mariner. The food overall was a huge disappointment in the MDR. Sure, there were some good dishes but overall our party of 7 left disappointed. I don’t expect 5 star food, but get better food in busy Disney parks and DCL, and RC wasn’t even close to either of them in the food category.

 

[MouseOfCards]

We were on Spectrum at the end of June. Ate at the MDR a couple of times, but stopped after that. So different from our experience on the Quantum from the previous year. Loved the MDR food on that cruise. Also, hardly saw our Room Steward at all this time. Saw them all the time last year and on previous cruises. Will still continue to cruise with them, but just need to adjust expectations and plan around those things.

 

[Cfabar1]

sad to hear RCL is downgrading service. are they just staffing less I wonder? big mistake to not offer twice daily housekeeping...

is celebrity still doing full service? maybe you need to trade up now...

 

[Dakota731]

sad to hear RCL is downgrading service. are they just staffing less I wonder? big mistake to not offer twice daily housekeeping...

is celebrity still doing full service? maybe you need to trade up now...

Cruise industry is like all others nowadays - it’s hard to get enough people to work.