With the introduction of the different rate packages Princess now offers, it can be confusing as to what and where you can eat onboard. First and foremost, you can eat in/from any venue onboard. There is no venue that isn't open to any cruiser (with the exception of the new Sun/Star Princess and the Sanctuary dining room concept). It simply may have an extra cost if you booked the standard rate.
One thing I've noticed about Princess is how well they handle everything from the stricter food allergies and dietary restrictions to the simple food preferences a passenger might have like asking to leave off the mustard because they don't like the taste. Many times we have asked for something in their "appetizer portion" so we can still try it without having to order more than we can handle. On the flip side, we have also taken advantage of ordering multiples of any course when we wanted both. The Princess wait staff has always been happy to oblige no matter the request when they can. While we've heard of reports that, especially in the suite breakfast, you can request off menu items in advance, the most we've ever asked about is swapping sides from one menu item to be served with the main dish we wanted.
The places that are available for no extra charge regardless of your booked rate are:
The International Cafe (IC) - This applies to the food provided only. This is also a place to get the nicer coffee drinks and hot chocolate but those are an upcharge. Drip style coffee served in the main dining rooms or the buffet is included. Kudos to Princess for including signage and options for food here that is gluten free. Breakfast foods like fruit, yogurt smoothies, donuts, and pastries are available in the mornings. For the remainder of the day, the food offerings change to more savory options like paninis and various salads. While this cafe is billed as being open 24 hours, I found that late night options can be hit or miss while they empty the cases to clean.
International Cafe is a great option for when you need a quick breakfast before an excursion or you just want something quick and light. There can be busy times at the food side of the cafe with long lines since this venue is all served by the crew. Some of the items can be heated up at your request.
Donuts - usually had a frosted version and a rolled in cinnamon sugar version. Also pictured here is the McDonald's Egg McMuffin knockoff and the pizza muffin. With the cafe being just off the Piazza, the seating area gets pretty crowded. Getting coffee drinks from the IC was only a short wait but trying to get the attention of a roaming bar waiter was quite the struggle. Multiple times we'd place our juice/water (or later regular drink) order with one of the waiters only for them to never come back. Usually if we used the medallion ordering system we'd get the drink but it varied in how long it took. Sometimes it took asking a passing uniformed crew member before we got attention from a roaming bar waiter. I get not noticing that we had recently sat down amidst a large crowd but to walk away and ignore when we tried to ask for service from the nearest waiter was frustrating.
Main Dining Room (MDR) - Princess splits up their dining rooms based on whether you want traditional seating or flexible dining. Traditional means that you have a set time to dine, a set table, and usually a set wait staff each evening. Flexible dining could also be referred to as My Time Dining or Anytime Dining by cruise lines. This caters to the cruiser who doesn't want to be tied to a specific dinnertime and would rather just walk in when they're ready to eat like a restaurant on land. This option can incur a wait if no table is currently available. MDR's are open for breakfast every day (though the hours may be earlier/shorter on port days), and for dinner every night. The MDR only opens for lunch on sea days. Menus at all the MDR's are the same.
When you are on a ship that doesn't have the Sanctuary Class (not to be confused with the originally named Sanctuary which is an extra cost reserved area with a guaranteed lounger and drink/food service), those in suite cabins have their MDR be a sectioned off part of one of the dining rooms. On the Sky Princess this is the Estrella Dining Room. This smaller sectioned off area, known as Reserve Dining, has its own maitre'd and dedicated wait staff. The premise is that with a smaller area, you are guaranteed an immediately available table and more attentive wait staff.
There is a separate line at the door for suite passengers to get in so that they don't have to wait in the potentially longer regular line. It can be a bit confusing since the passageway leading to the restaurant doors can get packed when the regular line starts to get long. The first time we couldn't even see that there was two lines given how far back the main line stretched. Thankfully a crew member was there escorting people to the Reserve line. Yes, you may get some dirty looks and protest when you politely slip past everyone else to get to the Reserve door but it's a perk you paid extra to enjoy as a suite passenger. Some mini-suites are included in this perk and will be booked as Reserve Mini-Suites versus a regular mini-suite.
Lunch in the Reserve section of the MDR on embarkation day - MDR lunch on embarkation day is open for a limited time frame but is a great alternative to the crowded buffet.
For those in the Sanctuary Class dining room, while it may or may not be an extra dish, you'll find that there will be more options on the "Always Available" or "Princess Classics" side of the menu. Usually there is also a more upgraded version of the same dish such as getting steak and lobster while the MDR menu only offered steak.
Prince S helped me pick out my breakfast choices -
One of the full suite (not mini-suite despite the word suite being in the name) perks, Sky Suite or otherwise, on a ship that isn't the Sun/Star Princess, is an exclusive breakfast served in Sabatini's Italian Trattoria. The menu is slightly different than the MDR but most of it overlaps and you can request items from the MDR menu. Basically, this boils down to being a perk because it's a smaller crowd so by default you get more attentive and faster (if desired) service. We did have a handful of missteps during our 14 days onboard such as waiting an hour for our food, not getting parts of our order, and having ingredients missing like when my cheese omelet came with no cheese at all inside. We did address the issues each time with the manager and we'd see slight but brief improvements before the next problem. Normally, we have wonderful service in the suite breakfast so this was definitely surprising and most likely due to a shortage of help. We did have a couple great wait staff serving us during the breakfast hours and made sure to commend them in person, to their management onboard, and in the survey post cruise.
If you're new here, welcome! If you're not a new reader, welcome back! My not new readers should not be surprised to see what I ordered for breakfast on our first morning. I love eggs benedict but would never make it for myself at home so I make sure to try it at least once on every cruise.
From the Salty Dog Grill - Bacon and Cheese Fries (nacho cheese sauce, bacon crumbles, and shredded cheddar). Those are some of the biggest bacon crumbles I've ever seen. Didn't eat more than a bit or two of this because the fries were cold and the nacho cheese had congealed in the one spot it was applied.
From Slice - they routinely had cheese, pepperoni, and margarita pizza flavors in addition to a more unique flavor of the day option. I ended up consuming many a slice on this cruise because it was hardly busy whereas the grill was mobbed. It gave me a nice chance to chat with the crew working the counter. My heart went out to the crew member manning the pizza ovens. I walked up one afternoon to ask for pepperoni but that flavor was still cooking in the oven. I stepped aside to let others in line give their orders. The pepperoni pizza finished in the oven and the counter was swarmed suddenly with people. I guess the smell of pepperoni was like a call of the wild. I joined the back of the line and the crew member kept giving me apologetic looks as he dished out each piece of the freshly made pepperoni pizzas out of existence to everyone in front of me. I assured him that there was no reason to feel sorry and that I had no problem waiting for the next batch.
And of course, there is always bags of freshly popped popcorn put out in the afternoons/evenings for those who want to enjoy some popcorn with their MUTS watching. Sometimes the amount in each bag will vary but there's always the opportunity to grab a second (or third) bag!
Also included in this post is the various kinds of room service we sampled. There is an Ocean Now Delivery fee the first time you order anything using the medallion app. This fee is waived for those who have the Plus and Premier Cruise Packages. Even for those of us with packages, there are also some items orderable through the app that cost extra as well. We did not order any of those items. The places onboard you can receive delivery has been limited since this program debuted. 90% of the time we used it to get an easy lunch or dinner when we either didn't like the restaurant menu or chose to do an activity instead. Delivery was always fairly quick to the cabin. We always tipped the crew member who made the delivery.
Dad was very disappointed to learn that chips and guacamole were one of the items that fell off the list in between our cruises. SEM Josue hooked us up with a huge bowl of guacamole and chips delivered to our cabin.
Roast Turkey SandwichComing up next...what Thanksgiving Dinner was like on board.
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