Thread: Is cruise ship dining better than your favorite restaurant ?

How does the dining experience (food quality, service, atmosphere, etc) onboard your favorite cruiseline compare to the dining experiences you have at restaurants you visit when you're not cruising?

I live in rural Arizona, in the middle of Arizona's wine growing region. We have a few small restaurants here in town that have good food, but the the variety, service, and ambiance is nothing like a cruise. Service is less attentive, atmosphere is definitely more casual...jeans and shorts, a lot of birders in hiking clothes.

In Tucson, there are several fantastic places, but the atmosphere is still rather casual. The food at Tucson resorts is very gourmet, with appealing presentations and fresh ingrediants, but we don't eat at these places too often as we usually end up spending over $250 for dinner for two.

In Sierra Vista, well, Applebees passes for fine dining there....nothing gourmet.

On a cruise ships, even the most casual evenings are still more elegant than what we have here at home. I love the attentive service, the beautiful presentations, and the overall ambiance, especially on Celebrity.


However, there is one type of food that they do locally that surpasses the attempts on a cruise ship. Mexican food here in Arizona is much better than any Mexican food I've ever had on a cruise ship. I have been to at least 10 different Mexican places, some of them very nice places, some dives, that have much better Mexican food than they have on cruise ships. I think that the key is using authentic spices and slow cooking the meats, and training from Mama!!! I love really good Mexican food, and I have just never had the real thing on a cruise, except in port in Mexico.

The specialty restaurants might pass for the nice places here in my state.

The regular dining room is not as good as the restaurants we dine at home at.

Dining out in this dinky city stinks. My home cooked food is better than most restaurants here. The dining room experience is normally ok and of course, they don't make meat loaf, so we enjoy it. We particularly like Chops.

I have to give my vote to the restaurants in our city. We have wonderful restaurants at all price levels. The closest in ambiance and service would probably be a hotel restaurant.(I guess when I think of a ship, I think of a hotel!) But I can think of a few hotel restaurants where the food definitely surpasses Celebrity's.

Wherever I eat, I often have favourite dishes that I order every time!!!!

We enjoy our favorite restaurants at home more!

We have lots of fine dining here in the DFW area, the only place I ever lived that had more good restaurants was the SF Bay area. We eat out a lot and it's fun checking out new places when they open.

I asked this question because I noticed a lot of discussions about the restaurants onboard cruises...comparing food on one ship versus another, which has the best pizza, specialty restaurants, which has a midnight buffet, dessert choices...etc.

To be totally honest, I never even think that much about dining on the ship until I get hungry around mealtime while on the ship. I wonder if maybe we eat out too often for it to feel like a big deal. Am I the only one that feels that way?

We don't eat out often and when we do it is usually the local chain ones close to home. Thus I really enjoy the cruise dining, different menu selections, presentation, and preparation. A treat for me!

I'm an "eat to live" type of person who I don't go crazy over food as many otheres do. To me, going on a cruise means I don't have to cook and even, more importantly, clean.

Usually, my hubby and I go to the mall () for lunch once or twice a week. Usually splitting a teriyaki chicken (the second time would be a Calif. Roasters plate, again splitting a plate). Not necessarily to save money, but it's just easier as both of us are light eaters. There's a couple of restaurants that we go to a lot, a Chinese one and Fuddruckers (I think because hubby likes the name, but also because they have a chicken sandwich that's decent and not high in fat). To further give you a clue as to our eating out, we sometimes go to chain places such as Olive Garden, Islands and Romano's Macaroni Grill. The North San Fernando Valley isn't exactly known for its fine cuisine.

So for us, the cruise food is a step up. Not necessarily my preference. I'm happy with a pasta dish with breadsticks and that bowl of salad at Olive Garden. But definitely a step up, service wise. Especially if we get servers who remember that I like lemon slices instead of dressing on my salad -- and then bring it without asking to every dinner. Of course there's servers behind the counter at our local Japanese place at the mall who known we get the #11 with string beans, Calif. rolls, sauce on the side...