Food

For those people unfamiliar with going on a typical main stream cruise provider (Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Holland America, Norwegian, Princess, Celebrity), I wanted to share a little information about the food and how  that works, typically.  For the most part, all of the providers above will have multiple eating options.  There may be multiple buffets that operate all day long (B, L, D).  There will most likely be multiple dining rooms. 

On our ship (Royal Princess), had 3 included dining rooms (no additional cost) and 2 other specialty dining rooms (a fee of approximately $39 was charged pp for the main course to eat at either of these places).  Some of the included dining rooms served B, L, and D, but some did not.  In all cases, you ordered off of a menu that slightly changed everyday to give you different options throughout the week.  You will servers to take care of your food and drink orders.  Each meal has appetizers, main course, and dessert options.  You can order as many or as few as you want.  It is all you can or want to eat.  My wife and I found the included dining halls to be good, not great

The two specialty dining halls we had on our ship were Sabatini's and the Crown Grill.  The former was an Italian restaurant and was good.  The main dish I got was veal marsala.  It was good, not great.  The mushroom risotto was good and the arancini was really good.  The dessert was also really nice.  At the Crown Grill I got the filet mignon and lobster tail.  Both were cooked right and tasted good.  For dessert my wife and I ordered all 5 desserts.  We got some looks from the other passengers at other tables, but I didnt care.  All 5 of them were pretty good.  The specialty dining halls were definitely the best meals we had on the ship.

In addition to the dining halls, there were several other places you could go and get hamburgers, pizza, pastries, etc...  The pizza on this ship was pretty good.  The burgers at the Trident Grill were pretty good as well.  The buffet was ok.  It had a ton of different food options and themes throughout the week.  I saw Mexican, Indian, Greek, American and other food options throughout the week.  I probably ate 8lbs of bacon for breakfast, along with hashbrowns and eggs.  

Food Rating = 3 (on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest)