Cruises - RCI worst of the world's major cruise lines for cuisine & service, says expert

Pretty scathing review but is it accurate? let the debate begin...;)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/cruises/cruise-news/8065916/Royal-Caribbeans-cuisine-criticised.html

In the annual Berlitz Complete Guide to Cruising and Cruise Ships, the author, Douglas Ward, gave the cruise line an overall rating of just over five out of 10 for its cuisine.

The dining room, afternoon teas and wine lists on board RCI ships were particularly poor, he said. RCI, which owns the world's largest ship (Oasis of the Seas), earned a rating of more than six out of 10 in only one category: informal dining/buffet.

Carnival Cruise Lines and Costa Cruises fared little better, with Carnival achieving the lowest mark for afternoon tea and Costa the lowest score for "informal dining" of any of the 11 cruise lines examined.

The best-performing lines, according to the guide, were Cunard, Celebrity and Princess Cruises.

<snip>

Mr Ward said there had been a rise in passenger complaints about poor communication on cruise ships. He argued that there was little incentive for waiters to improve when cruise lines automatically added gratuities to on-board accounts.

"Service is all about staffing costs, training and supervision," he said. "The lines with the lower service scores tend to hire personnel who are untrained, couldn't possibly describe a sauce or gravy, and pour wine like it is Coca-Cola because of poor knowledge and training."

I get a copy of Douglas Ward's book every year; but you have to take him with a grain of salt. In our house, he is referred to as "fish knife guy."

Not to say that he is off base here. ;)

I'm not surprised that CCL and RCL scored virtually identically. Now I'm going to go read the CruisCritic RCL board and see how they're taking the news. :p

Ooooh great idea SRQ!

Well, I'm guess that I'm the Fish Knife Woman.

I think it is part of the cheap fares situation that so many cruise passengers are now demanding that service and food quality have declined. When I talk with people who've just returned from a cruise, nearly always the first thing they talk about is the great price they paid.

You get what you pay for.

Agreed!

Interesting as they rank Princess high? I think their food is worse than RCI. Just shows how much is personal preference!

Frankly, the best of the moderate priced cruiselines went out of business, that was Dolphin. I have done most of my cruises on RCCL and I have been pretty pleased with them. I would not put Costa in the same category, I really disliked Costa.

Not just fish knives; your caviar fork must have a wooden handle.

Long ago, Douglas Ward just supplied the narrative in the ship reviews, and the numeric scores were compiled from surveys taken by readers of his magazine. I suppose someone must have noticed the disparity between the narrative and the scores because now, as far as I can tell, he just makes up the scores to fit his feeling about the ships.

Caviar fork with wooden handle only needed on ship that serves real caviar.

Interesting as they rank Princess high?
Princess does the best tea time of any of the mainstream lines. But it should, being a former British line. That helps its ranking, I'm sure.

Princess does the best tea time of any of the mainstream lines. But it should, being a former British line. That helps its ranking, I'm sure.

Including or excluding Cunard, whom you would think would easily be able to best Princess in a Tea off.

Including or excluding Cunard, whom you would think would easily be able to best Princess in a Tea off.
Good point. I don't consider Cunard "mainstream," somewhat better I suspect—though I have never sailed on them. That said, yes, I would expect Cunard to best Princess at tea time.

Frankly, the best of the moderate priced cruiselines went out of business, that was Dolphin. I have done most of my cruises on RCCL and I have been pretty pleased with them. I would not put Costa in the same category, I really disliked Costa.

We sailed Dolphin one time in the early 90s and did enjoy it; we were surprised at how good the food was; we weren't expecting much for the price we paid.

Good point. I don't consider Cunard "mainstream," somewhat better I suspect—though I have never sailed on them. That said, yes, I would expect Cunard to best Princess at tea time.

Mainstream is a debatable and subjective word so I'll instead note that Cunard was considered a major cruise line in Ward's Berlitz Complete Guide to Cruising. (http://www.berlitzcruising.com/Contents.html) FWIW I would concur that Cunard is one of the majors even if it is at the top of of it along with a few others such as Crystal.

I have cruised on Holland American (v good) carnival Miracle (V good) Cunard QM2 (only good in first class, otherwise a rip off), Princess - OK, and recently, RCL - which was the cheapest but actually a good value. The comments about the service, though, were spot on. Despite being attentive, the serving staff was not trained very well.

I have found that the food varies from ship to ship as well. We were on a HAL ship and the food, in the dining room, was inedible (the only time we have refused to go to the dining room) but was much better at the "buffet". I paren buffet because the captain up there told us to take seats (it was a 16 day TA so he saw us alot lol) and they would serve us. I understand, from friends, that other HAL ships have much better food and service. Same with RCI and Celebrity. QMII food was good when we were on it but hear it has gone downhill :(

My husband I are what I would consider veteran cruisers - 14 cruises on 4 different lines. We will no longer consider Royal Caribbean after two cruises within 10 months that were completely different in quality. A late November 2008 cruise from Barcelona was fabulous - great staff, decent food, good perks for repeat cruisers. A September 2009 cruise from Rome (Civitavecchia) was dreadful - terrible service, awful food, and no perks for repeat cruisers. We asked our cruise agent to get us removed from the RC mailing list - never again. She even asked a VP of customer relations to call us to discuss our dissatisfaction - the woman that called kept telling me RC had to reduce their costs. I said, fine, we'll go elsewhere.

My 2 cents worth......

My husband I are what I would consider veteran cruisers - 14 cruises on 4 different lines. We will no longer consider Royal Caribbean after two cruises within 10 months that were completely different in quality. A late November 2008 cruise from Barcelona was fabulous - great staff, decent food, good perks for repeat cruisers. A September 2009 cruise from Rome (Civitavecchia) was dreadful - terrible service, awful food, and no perks for repeat cruisers. We asked our cruise agent to get us removed from the RC mailing list - never again. She even asked a VP of customer relations to call us to discuss our dissatisfaction - the woman that called kept telling me RC had to reduce their costs. I said, fine, we'll go elsewhere.

My 2 cents worth......

They're scrimping to save dollars while launching another behemoth which cost $1.2B to build. How's that for a curious strategy: grab lots of press and encourage people to cruise that may not have and then provide as minimal service on board because of an austerity mantra.

Good point. I don't consider Cunard "mainstream," somewhat better I suspect—though I have never sailed on them. That said, yes, I would expect Cunard to best Princess at tea time.

Having just returned from a Queen Mary 2 transatlantic, I'll vouch for the tea service in the Queens Room as being very nice. Dinner service in Britannia Club (assigned seating - but no set time) was very good as well. Lunch was a little more hurried, but still good.

Interesting as they rank Princess high? I think their food is worse than RCI. Just shows how much is personal preference!

I haven't been on RCI, but I'm a Princess veteran and feel like their service and standards have declined faster than, well, something that declines really fast.

It's definitely about individual preferences.

Mike

I haven't been on RCI, but I'm a Princess veteran and feel like their service and standards have declined faster than, well, something that declines really fast.

Something that declines really fast? Like Air Canada stock? :p

Mrs. Fredd and I aren't serious cruisers compared to many but since retiring in 2001 we have a couple of hundred of days or so at sea on Princess, HAL, Celebrity, Cunard (QM II), RCCL, and Oceania.

The cuisine on a late-2001 family 11-day Mediterranean cruise on HAL's Rotterdam even impressed two foodie brothers-in-law (one a successful restaurateur) and most certainly the rest of us.

It's gradually gone downhill since then. We've discovered everything from artificial crab in the HAL crab chowder to artificial creamer on Celebrity (not saying that's all they offer).

We've been sailing on Oceania (http://www.oceaniacruises.com/) latterly. They offer on their small ships somewhat of a six-star experience at five-star prices, particularly for foodies, spending significantly more per-person than the five-star average, with USDA Prime beef, etc.

Still, if you have the right attitude there's no such thing as a bad cruise and we enjoyed our transatlantic last year on RCCL's Jewel of The Seas, medicore food and all. We were even on the champion trivia team (http://wanderingwarners.blogspot.com/2009/09/one-short-of-dozen-jewels-progressive.html). :)

RCL :td::td::td::td::td:

Still, if you have the right attitude there's no such thing as a bad cruise

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxL1uXwSrdU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxL1uXwSrdU

Okay, okay, I admit to trying to avoid people like those in the Lido line. :p

We Cruised many cruise lines and RCL is better than most. We don't complain unless it's deserved. Service and food has always been great. Of course at our level the free alcohol, upgrades, and other perks are a big plus.^^:D

Good point. I don't consider Cunard "mainstream," somewhat better I suspect—though I have never sailed on them. That said, yes, I would expect Cunard to best Princess at tea time.

Queens grill of the Queens outstanding except you need to wear tux or suit every night