Thread: Your thoughts on speciality dining. . .

What are you thoughts on speciality dining? Is it worth paying extra for? What are you favourite speciality restaurants and why? Good & Bad expreinces with them... Just speak your mind!!!

We love eating in the speciality restaurants for both the atmosphere and the food!

On some cruises we've had dinner in a speciality restaurant almost every night.

As with LuLu, we love the specialty restaurants. Of course, in our business we have to try them all so we can report to our clients, but even if we didn't, we'd still do them. We've never had a bad meal in any specialty restaurant, but obviously some are better than others. Didn't think those on NCL were as good as they should be. On some ships, we prefer specialty dining to the dining room as much as possible. This is especially true on Disney.

Our favorites would have to be all of the ones on the Celebrity Eclipse - they were wonderful, especially Qsine. The Pinnacle Grill on Holland America has always been very good. Portofino's and Chops on RCCL are good. Crown Grill and Sterling's on Princess are also very good.

I've had alot of people say they wouldn't spend the extra money to do a specialty restaurant, but to them I always say you're missing a wonderful experience. They figure they've already paid for all their food, so why should they spend more money on food when they don't need to. But if you're into really good food, you've got to try them.

Personally, I can't think of a more romantic evening than to share a wonderful 6-course meal and a bottle of wine with my wife in a specialty restaurant while on a cruise. Life just doesn't get any better than that!

Pete

100% agree with Lulu & Pete. Has to be done at least once a cruise! Ideally when everyone else is either exhausted after a port day - lovely to have a fabulous restaurant, attentive service and music all to a small number of guests! And for what you would pay on land for such quality, especially in comparison to Australia - it is still an incredible bargain!

Have to expand my range as so far have just done Carnival. But can highly recommend - I can still taste the truffle butter!

When the specialty restaurants started coming out around the turn of the century we resisted them for a long time. It was probably 5 or 6 years before we first tried Chops on RCL. We now dine at a specialty restaurant at least once per cruise. Chops has always been excellent. At Sterling on Princess once was great and on one occasion we were a bit disappointed. On NCL we very much enjoyed Cagney's and La Cucina.

I'll be the contrary opinion here. We have never tried a specialty restaurant onboard. But then my hubby and I aren't foodies. We're the type who will go to a food court at the mall and split a teriyaki chicken combo.

We absolutely love Chops. Everything they have is delectable. And the service is superb
We were not impressed with The Sterling Steakhouse. Probably because we love Chops and I just don't think they measure up in either food or service. IMHO of course.

Agree with you, Hanna!

While we like Sterlings, we like Chops much better!

I find the food in the MDR quite good and cannot see spending more for specialty restaurants as the cruise and excursions are expensive enough. When NCL had free specialty restaurants we went and enjoyed them. I did pay for Cagneys on NCL because it was our friends 60th birthday and her choice for dinner. It was very good,but I don't think it was worth the extra money.

I use them on occassion but am not a fan. Still think you are just paying twice for the food you used to be able to get in the MDR but the lines turned it into a revenue stream.