Is Freestyle dining worth it

paulroda · 06-03-2007, 07:32 PM

My wife, myself, and twentysome of her relatives just came back from the May 12th sailing of NCL's Dawn. This was a fifth NCL cruise, but first freestyle cruise. And while we liked a lot about NYC as a departure port, and the ship itself, we were very disappointed with the food service.

It seems as if the food quality was decreased, in order to encourage people to try the extra cost rooms (there were some nights that OLDER family members couldn't find anything on the menu) ! The waiters were surly, and the dining room disorganized. Even with a late start, meals often took three hours. And I wasn't impressed that the extracost rooms were consistantly worth the price.

**middy** · 06-04-2007, 04:31 AM

Sorry to hear about your experience re the dining. I'm trying NCL for the first time in October only for two days, so will be interesting to see how I fair, have to admit that food and it's service is one of my highest priorities when cruising.
I would feel aggrieved if I felt the service and menu was purposely poor in the non payable restaurants.

BoHunk · 06-04-2007, 02:46 PM

I am also interested in hearing more reports on this new idea in cruising....

John · 06-04-2007, 02:59 PM

I have sailed twice with Norwegian and have to say that my experience was great. The food and service were excellent. It was nice to go to dinner when you want and have the choice of how big a table you want to sit at. If you want a table for two there is usually a few minutes wait.

I too will be sailing with Norwegian later in the year and will e interested to see how things have changed over the past 3 years.

FlRic · 06-05-2007, 05:55 PM

I debated about posting on this thread but then realized that my opinion should ALSO be heard. We have sailed with NCL 4 times and we will never sail with them again! Freestyle just isn't for us. Give us the same waiter at the same table for dinner every time.The service was rotten and there were days on our last 14 day cruise when we honestly couldn't find anything on the menu that appealed to us. (We are known for eating anything that doesn't eat US first!) The constant switching around of dining partners meant we came on the ship as strangers and left the ship pretty much the same way although we recognized more people.
Ally sailed on the same ship earlier than we did and had a wonderful time. We had sailed on that ship on a 14 day around Italy that was great when it was the Crown Odyssey and not the Norwegian Crown.

onebird2 · 02-27-2008, 06:57 PM

I guess we're not a very picky family. We've been on 4 freestyle cruises and have enjoyed them all, with the next scheduled on the Dawn 6/22/08. We can usually find something and if you don't like it, they'll bring something else. We only had to wait one time, for an hour, and they gave us beepers so we didn't have to stand there. We usually go early. While it's true that the waiter doesn't know you day to day, I would take that over having to sit every night with an extremely incompatable couple (the guy wasn't as bad as the wife), which is what happened on our first cruise on Celebrity. We didn't know if you could ask to change, so we suffered through it. Not having to dress up is a plus, too. I guess we'll stick with freestyle. The freedom is worth the slight loss of quality.

Captain Larry · 02-27-2008, 08:57 PM

I'm kind of responding to both onebird2 and my friend, FlRic. My only NCL cruise was also on the Norwegian Crown and it was over four years ago. We enjoyed all aspects of free style. I don't even remeber if the Crown had any specialty restaurants. If it did, we did not use them. Their informal buffet restaurant, and I've forgotten what it was called, was the only choice for breakfast on our cruise, and it was pretty bad. I tried it once for either lunch or dinner and found it to be equally unsatisfactory. So, we ate almost all of our lunches and dinners in the main dining room.

When the matre d' would ask what sort of table we wanted, we would respond "Whatever is available." The one exception was when my First Mate was first in line and asked specifically for a window table. We got it. We had one bad experience and a dozen good ones with table mates. We also found the food and the service to be adequate at worst and very good at best. Both food quality and service paled in comparison with HAL, but neither was worthy of a complaint.

What did I like about free style? I liked meeting new people and exchanging ideas. I liked chosing which show I wished to attend and not being locked in because of my dinner seating. And I liked the informality of it all. I'm not a very formal person, and informality is my style. If I liked to "dress up" and associate with others equally dressed, I would not like free style, I guess.

But as always, I will pick a cruise because of the itinerary and not because of the cruise line or the style of the ship.

paulroda · 02-27-2008, 10:02 PM

Our first two cruises were on the Norway, and until last May's Freestyle cruise our family liked NCL.

One would think that Freestyle would be good for a group of 26 adults with varying tastes, but it really wasn't very good. The few nights we all wanted to dine together, we could only get very late reservations, and then only in the specialty restaurants. I wouldn't complain about the extra cost, if it came with extra quality -- but the steak in the steakhouse was a grey sheet of rubber and the French restaurant, while great the second night out was inedible later in the cruise.

The service in the main dining rooms was both slow and surly, and the menu options (except for the captain's gala night) extremely limited and declasse.

I don't think the problem is the concept but the execution. Waiters have no incentive for good service, and it seems that the cruise line has dropped their basic menu to the level of a 3rd rate diner.