The Schoolyear of Scott

Today we will again be focusing on the promises made at NCL.com regarding Freestyle Crusing, this time looking at one of the more important aspects of a cruise: Eating.

The food on the ship was by far the weakest of any of the cruises that anyone in our party had been on before.  While some items were quite yummy (avacados, pretzel rolls, hot dog sausage, pig’s ears), for the most part, the food sucked.  Let’s see what was promised to us on the Norwegian Website…

Once again, from NCL.com:

We believe lunch is when you’re hungry. Same goes for breakfast and dinner. You’ll never have to drag yourself out of bed for a forced breakfast seating at 7:45 am or interrupt whatever you’re doing so you can make it to a dinner seating precisely at 5:45 pm.

We’ve already gone over this earlier, but I feel as though it is my duty to broach the subject once again.  First of all, for those of you that have been on cruises before, when have you ever been forced to get out of bed for breakfast at 7:45 am?  I have been on eight cruises in my lifetime, and the only times I have ever been “forced” out of bed that early is when my mom scheduled an excursion that left super early.  Now while NCL.com claims that they believe that “lunch is when you’re hungry”, they failed to mention that this only applies until 2:00pm, as that is when lunch stopped being served (of course, room service is still available).

Don’t be misled by other cruise lines’ dining “options.” They really come down to some fast-food choices or one big dining hall where you often have to eat with strangers.

Fast-Food options?  What???  A McDonalds on the high seas?  I guarentee that if there was a McDonalds on our ship, it would be getting more traffic than any other restaurant.  The only reason why NCL doesn’t consider its restaurants fast food is because they microwave each order of Fish & Chips or Chicken Fingers to order.  And yes, NCL does not have one big dining hall, I will give them that.  In actuality, they have two (The Garden Room & Windows).

Our buffet has a huge, new salad bar and “action stations” where you can get made-to-order specialties. Start your day with freshly squeezed juices, a Bloody Mary or a refreshing Bellini.

While I would hardly consider the buffet salad bar as “huge”, it was one of the highlights of the dining options on the ship.  Notice how they carefully write “Start your day with freshly squeezed juices…”, as I learned midway through the trip that juice (be it freshly squeezed or from concentrate) are only served on board until 11:00 am.  I feel bad for the 3 year old who just wants a freakin’ apple juice!

You can even whet your appetite the day you board with a sampling of dishes from all of our great restaurants, and, when you need a little boost or just a place to relax, head to the Java Café for delicious Lavazza coffee drinks and special desserts.

Yeah, so I don’t understand any of this sentence.  I was never offered a sampling of dishes when we boarded the ship…that is just false advertising.  And of course they want you to go to the Java Cafe; the coffee drinks and special desserts were about $5 each.  Nothing like being on a cruise and having to pay for coffeee and a piece of cake.

Lobster lovers of the world will rejoice because we have lobster dishes in every specialty restaurant on board, every single night. And choose one night of your cruise for an absolute lobster feast.

Great!  Frozen Crayfish (FYI – when you see “Lobster Tails” on a menu, it is not in fact lobster, but actually crayfish) for $20.  I’ll see you there!

The food and dining options really sucked, there is no getting around it.  You know there is a problem when one of the highlights (seriously) was sharing a set of Pig Ears with your adoptive Grandpa.

Next time, in my final entry regarding the trip, I will stop harping on the negatives and look at the positives of freestyle cruising.  Stay tuned!

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 at 2:53 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.