Great Ship But the food????.....

[KimberlyB]

Hi ,

We just returned from the May1st 3 day Wonder to the Bahamas. We have been on 2 previous 7 day cruises on The Magic. The best thing was that the ship is gorgeous, everything was immaculate.

The worst thing was that the food was pretty bad. I was terribly dissapointed after having what I thought was great food on the Magic. It seems that in an effort to cut costs -the food has taken the "hit". They even managed to ruin filet mignon!! It was tough and had grissle in it. Also one evening, my side dish was mashed frozen peas. Nothing on the menu was a stand out. My DD had a peach ginger cheesecake - but there seemed to be no cream cheese in it - it had a jello like consistancy. My chocolate cake was so dry and tasteless- that I only ate half of it.

Now, we had stayed the night before the cruise at Disney and had eaten at LeCellier - the mushroom filet mignon ( cooked the same way that the above one was cooked -medium) was excellent, tender, flavorful and the mushroom risotto was "too die for". My husband had the mushroom risotto as an appetizer on the Wonder and it was terrible. I could taste no butter or cream in any of the food items that could have used it!!

The menu was not appealing. They introduced the chef, who was from Jamaica. It also appears that the food has been downgraded in the buffets as well. The eggs had so much "filler" that they were inedible.

We were going to book while on board for another 7 day cruise, but the cost of the cruise was so expensive and the prospect of bad food made us pause.

Sorry to give this report, I love Disney and have always been pleased with the food at the resorts, at the parks and on the Magic. What is going on??

 

[TiaMaria]

Wow...sorry that happened. I hope you shared your concern/disappointment on the comment card?

 

[kaykels]

We've done 2 Wonder and 2 Magic and we're about to do another Wonder cruise in 2 weeks. I found that the food was much better on Magic. My 2nd Wonder cruise, the food was actually really bad. But I still managed to gain some weight.... hmmm.
In fact, at the time I was wondering what the fuss was with Palo. Even THAT wasn't so great. But on my next 2 sailings, which happened to be on Magic, it was excellent.

Sorry to hear about the food. I hope it's better in 2 weeks.

 

[zerog]

I have to agree: the menu's describe some very fancy dishes, but the food was rather bland for us. The seared tuna was way too chewy; almost inedible.

 

[diane328]

Oh dear. I'm concerned because I've seen several posts now mentioning the poor food quality on the Wonder recently. I've raved about the food on a previous Disney cruise. This time, my brother and his family are joining us and I'd like to see them as impressed as we were.

This is an unfortunate trend that I hope is addressed quickly.

 

[Pansy]

Wow hate to hear of the stories I noticed the food wasn't as good in November as it was in July '07. It was even better back in Jaunuary of '05, cruising in a few days, maybe it will be better

 

[scm]

Having sailed the Wonder and found the food disappointing, I was amazed how much better the food was on the Magic just months later. Surely they are both provisioned in a similar manner so what accounts for the difference?

 

[pooh_mania]

I was just on my first DC in April 08 on the Magic and I was very under impressed with the food overall. Even Palo was not spectacular IMHO. If the food is really better on the Magic than Wonder, then I will definitely have to stick to 7-day cruises. My overall opinion about the food is that it was plentiful but lacked quality. As they say, quantity does not mean quality!

 

[Dreamfinder2]

I spent a good bit of time offering my take on food on the Wonder in our trip report. Overall, I thought it was quite good, although sometimes the desserts looked better than they tasted. I sure didn't run up on anything that was awful.

I had pretty high expectations, and while they weren't exceeded, they were at least matched.

I will say that our servers elevated what would have been a good enough experience into something special.

 

[marlee70]

I agree with the food being mediocre to bad. It sounded good in the menu description and it had a good presentation but it wasn't good. I think the Crab Cakes Appetizer and the Glazed Pork at Parrot Cay were the only decent dishes we had. Even the chocolate cake wasn't good, and we are chocolate lovers!

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

On our cruises, I found it worthwhile to ask our server for advice. I wanted to know what was getting high marks from him and and from other guests.

One night I mentioned a fish dish that sounded good on the menu to our server. He advised against it. He brought it out to me anyway along with the entree that I ordered. The fish tasted good but had an awful texture. If I had simply ordered the fish entree, I would have been very disappointed.

I also set my expectations to expect good, well-prepared food, but not exceptional food. After all, the kitchens have to serve over a thousand passengers at the same time, at each of the two seatings.

On each of our three cruises, the food has improved from the prior cruise.

Disney faces a challenge to make the food "boring" enough for passengers who like simple food, but interesting enough for more adventuresome passengers. Unfortunately, in my experience, the balance goes toward bland. I wish Disney would offer some interesting dipping sauces where appropriate, which passengers could than choose to use or ignore depending on their tastes.

 

[tynkerbell]

I didn't like the food either. DH and I loved Cookies BBQ and Palo, but aside from that we were extremely disappointed in the food. But I can't complain since it helped me actually lose a few pounds on the cruise.

 

[Belle2667]

DH and I think the Wonder is the "practice" cruise ship. The employees have to work their way up to the Magic.

We could be wrong, but we noticed a difference between the two, too.

 

[mickey0624]

Hi ,

We just returned from the May1st 3 day Wonder to the Bahamas. We have been on 2 previous 7 day cruises on The Magic. The best thing was that the ship is gorgeous, everything was immaculate.

The worst thing was that the food was pretty bad. I was terribly dissapointed after having what I thought was great food on the Magic. It seems that in an effort to cut costs -the food has taken the "hit". They even managed to ruin filet mignon!! It was tough and had grissle in it. Also one evening, my side dish was mashed frozen peas. Nothing on the menu was a stand out. My DD had a peach ginger cheesecake - but there seemed to be no cream cheese in it - it had a jello like consistancy. My chocolate cake was so dry and tasteless- that I only ate half of it.

Now, we had stayed the night before the cruise at Disney and had eaten at LeCellier - the mushroom filet mignon ( cooked the same way that the above one was cooked -medium) was excellent, tender, flavorful and the mushroom risotto was "too die for". My husband had the mushroom risotto as an appetizer on the Wonder and it was terrible. I could taste no butter or cream in any of the food items that could have used it!!

The menu was not appealing. They introduced the chef, who was from Jamaica. It also appears that the food has been downgraded in the buffets as well. The eggs had so much "filler" that they were inedible.

We were going to book while on board for another 7 day cruise, but the cost of the cruise was so expensive and the prospect of bad food made us pause.

Sorry to give this report, I love Disney and have always been pleased with the food at the resorts, at the parks and on the Magic. What is going on??

I'm very surprised. we were on the 4 day in march and the food was great!!

 

[HUFF590]

We have sailed 8 times 3 Magic 5 on the Wonder and find the food awful on both ships in the restaurants, so on our last 3 we ate the burgers and fries, pizza and a few things off the buffet to get by. But as you can see we still love both ships and will continue to sail with them because its Disney. Just wont eat as much.

 

[KimberlyB]

Hi again,

Yes, I did fill out the comment card at the end of the 3-day Wonder Cruise and I encourage everyone to fill it out. Again, I expect Disney quality food on one of their cruises and why shouldn't everyone? We are paying top dollar for a Disney cruise - the ship, the venues, the shows are all top notch - shouldn't the food be excellent as well?? I hope that Disney takes their comment card feedback seriously. And I hope that they monitor the DisBoards. The only way it will improve, as it should, is for cruisers to give them feedback.... As I said before, I can diet at home. I want GREAT food on a cruise!!! And it is NOT impossible to make excellent food for 2,000+ cruisers. It has already and is being done on other cruise ships.

Thanks for listening.

 

[diane328]

Hi again,

Yes, I did fill out the comment card at the end of the 3-day Wonder Cruise and I encourage everyone to fill it out. Again, I expect Disney quality food on one of their cruises and why shouldn't everyone? We are paying top dollar for a Disney cruise - the ship, the venues, the shows are all top notch - shouldn't the food be excellent as well?? I hope that Disney takes their comment card feedback seriously. And I hope that they monitor the DisBoards. The only way it will improve, as it should, is for cruisers to give them feedback.... As I said before, I can diet at home. I want GREAT food on a cruise!!! And it is NOT impossible to make excellent food for 2,000+ cruisers. It has already and is being done on other cruise ships.

Thanks for listening.

Well said. If the burgers and pizza are the best food on the trip, that's a problem. Part of the fun for me and my family to new dishes. I didn't have a burger or pizza on our last trip (though my boys enjoyed it), and I'd be disappointed if that's the best meal the cruise has to offer.

Of course, I don't have a sophisticated palette; I should be pretty easy to please.

 

[allears]

Just a word of encouragement for readers. As with pretty much every experience food is very subjective, so don't panic. We have found the food to be excellent on all 7 of our cruises. We've always found the quality and selection to be great, and have never been disappointed with our meals. I will say that as we've continued to sail, and they've made changes to the menus, we've found the new dishes to be really, really good.

Not that folks shouldn't pass on their comments and express their opinions. Just hope that the readers keep that in mind, that we all have our own opinions.

 

[ChiTownZee]

Well I'll hope for the best, since we will be on the Wonder, and that seems to be the ship that has the most complaints. But I figure if I don't have to grocery shop for them, cook them, serve them, and clean up after them.....my meals will be great!

 

[2princess 2pirates]

We sailed on the Magic on 2/23/08 and also found the food pretty bad. We have been on 6 other cruises, non-Disney, and DCL by far had the worst food. Food was very bland and usually overcooked. I also am a chocolate lover and was extremely diappointed by several of their chocolate cakes, only ate a couple of bites. Being that they are cooking for a couple thousand guests, I didn't expect anything out of this world, but again was still disappointed. However, for me, it was ok because I had a break from cooking and planning our menu for the week. Also, since DCL was more expensive than a lot of other cruise lines, we were expecting decent food.

My husband really enjoyed the pannini's that were served by the Mickey pool.

Palo was very good! Food and service was much better than in the dining rooms. On our next cruise (Wonder 4 nt), DH wants to see if we can eat at Palo every night!

We did fill out our comment card and participated in the online survey to share our concerns.