Thread: No more 24hr Buffet?

One of our members just returned from a cruise on the Crown Princess.
She says there is no more 24 hour buffet? I don't recall reading anything about that. I'm totally shocked.

Originally Posted by hanna

One of our members just returned from a cruise on the Crown Princess.
She says there is no more 24 hour buffet? I don't recall reading anything about that. I'm totally shocked.

It's true - I think the change began in September. The Horizon Court shuts down fleetwide, anytime between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m., depending on the demand and passenger demographics. You can still enjoy 24 hours room service with no plans from Princess to charge a fee.

Won't bother us! We never used it in the middle of the night anyway.

Having it open ALL DAY is important to me ... often need the healthy option provided there when I return from a shore excursion.

From the pax on the Crown, she said at about 3:30pm they were shut down for changes. Beginning to sound like RC

Originally Posted by hanna

From the pax on the Crown, she said at about 3:30pm they were shut down for changes. Beginning to sound like RC

With two sides, you would think that they could continue to shut one side down to make the changes while the other side is open. This would affect us as my hubby also needs to have a mid-afternoon snack (I make a little container of chopped up veggies and chicken that he'll add to ramen noodles that he can have at work to keep up his blood sugar). Not every ship has the International Cafe yet.

Originally Posted by LuLu

Won't bother us! We never used it in the middle of the night anyway.

Having it open ALL DAY is important to me ... often need the healthy option provided there when I return from a shore excursion.

I agree with you, Lulu. I don't care too much about it staying open in the late evening. I do like to have options when getting back from an afternoon excursion.

BTW, I'm the Crown pax Hanna was referring to. I also mentioned that the scrambled eggs in the Horizon is now made with powdered eggs. Not sure if it's only on this cruise but turkey links were served only on the first morning. The rest of the week were the usual pork links along with some other type of sausage made with pork. Dave is allergic to pork so he was out of luck since the other meats were ham and bacon. Also missing were the daily variety of eggs benedict. Eggs benedict only showed up once unless they were served on the two days we decided to go to the International Cafe to avoid the herds.

We usually like a late night snack after a bout of gambling in the casino. Nothing like a good piece of pie to soothe the soul after losing my hard earned money. I'm really disappointed in this.

Oh, another thing we noticed was that lunch was no longer served in the dining room on port days. With only one sea day on our 10 day cruise, we never got to eat lunch in the dining room. We had the British pub lunch on our sea day and the fish & chips we had was delish. Loved the bread pudding for dessert too.

While eating a big meal after 11PM isn't much of a concern to my wife or I, I'm sure a handful of people will be disappointed. Most times we're just looking for a small dessert around the time they're closing and on most ships where they have an IC that will do nicely.
Is it a cutback? Sure, but what other alternatives are there? A price increase only to satisfy a handful of people?

Between 11PM and 2AM is OK by me. I rarely snack quite that late anyway.