Eating at Sea- Complimentary Options on the NCL Bliss
Everyone knows that half of the cruise experience revolves around dining. Whether you are looking for a casual buffet or a gourmet meal, ships can deliver just as great of a meal as any dining spot on land. With close to 20 different restaurants and just as many bars, the NCL Bliss has something for every palate.
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Restaurants on the NCL Bliss
If you haven’t cruised lately, the latest trend on ships is to have a few complimentary dining options and then a plethora of restaurants that require additional fees. NCL Bliss is no different. In general we found the food extremely disappointing on our cruise. It was one of the things we were most looking forward to in taking this type of vacation and it did not live up to our previous cruises in the least. The one caveat to this was our meal at Q Texas Smokehouse (more on this later).
While we did not eat in every restaurant, we did manage to try quite a few during our week on board. Read on for my thoughts and/or a quick description of each.
Complimentary Restaurants
These restaurants are included with your cruise fees. There may be some upcharges available, but in general you should be able to eat here without a bill.
NOTE: NCL offers several perks when booking your trip. We chose the unlimited beverage package as one of our free add-ons. Unless you have this package, all soft drinks, alcoholic and specialty beverages are NOT included.
Garden Cafe
The Garden Cafe is the all-you-can-eat buffet on board. It is open during breakfast, lunch and dinner. Before entering you will be greeted by a staff member who will hopefully sing you the “Washy Washy” song (IYKYK!). One of the things we did love about the Garden Cafe was the sinks available upon entering. There are sinks, soap and paper towel for handwashing and at the very least sanitizer stations.
The buffet is HUGE. It is quite possible to go through the buffet, come back to your table and find that your seatmate has something on their plate that you never noticed in line. We found it on par for most cruise ship buffets. There were a few unique areas: Indian, Asian noodle station (which always had a long line) and hard packed ice cream.
We ate here quite often, as the main dining rooms were, in our opinion, not worth the time for the quality of food.
Let’s talk strategy- did you think you would need a strategy at the buffet? It gets crazy crowded in here!!! Upon entering, we would split off to find a table and attempt to use the ship’s WIFI to alert the other adult if we had found somthing. We made the mistake of getting breakfast here on our first port day and stuck to room service from thereafter. Eating during off hours is the way to go here.
The highlight and most frequented area for ourselves was of course, the soft serve ice cream machine. I cannot even estimate how many cones we ate between us. I don’t know why it was so good, maybe because it was free, but it was a ship highlight.
Main Dining Rooms
How to Dine
The NCL Bliss has three main dining rooms. They all serve the same menu at each meal. You do not need reservations, however they are available. If you have a larger party or need to dine at a specific time, I suggest reserving on the app or one of the screens available throughout the ship. Since we had the kids with us, we dined early each night and arrived right as the restaurant opened. We had no problem being seated promptly with the five of us.
Since NCL does not have assigned dining times, this means you also have a different server each time you dine. On other lines, we’ve had servers get to know our family and even have favorites waiting for our kids when we arrive to the table. These little service extras are missed in exchange fort the dining flexibility.
Thoughts on the Food
We tried all three dining rooms during our travels, hoping to find a winning ticket somewhere along the way. As I already said, we were so, so disappointed in the food. I’ve heard that cruising isn’t the same post-Covid, but I can’t imagine this is what the food quality has come to across the industry.
We are not crazy foodies with sky-high expectations. While my husband and I do enjoy the occasional fine dining meal, we are generally just as happy eating at a fast casual restaurant. There were menu items we didn’t finish. We even left before dessert one night. My youngest wasn’t even able to get fresh fruit in the dining room. I’m truly hopeful this was an off-cruise and not representative of NCL as a brand. I follow Professor Cruise and know that she enjoys NCL food a lot! (Coincidentally, her website is an excellent place to scope out cruise menus and read reviews!)
Without further ado-
The Savor, Taste and Manhattan Dining Rooms
The Savor and Taste dining rooms are located across from each other with a bar in between. They are fairly small restaurants compared to most cruise ships I’ve been on. The Manhattan dining room is a more traditional cruise ship restaurant.
We ate lunch in the Savor dining room on embarkation day. This is a great tip if you’d like to relax at a sit down meal instead of fighting the masses at the buffet! We thought the meal was so/so and were optimistic that any downfalls were due to it being turnover day on the ship.
We chose the Taste dining room for dinner that evening. Service was again, very slow and lackluster. It felt like we were inconviencing the staff simply by being there. Drinks were hard to come by despite having the unlimited drink package. Here are a few photos from the meal.
We gave each dining room a shot for dinner and finally called it a loss. Our food was either bland, too salty or a tiny portion. At one point we ordered “Ranchero Beef Mini Tostadas” and I promise they looked like the mini tacos you can get at Costco and stick in the microwave.
Kids Meals in the Main Dining Rooms
Looking for more info on sailing with kids on the Bliss? Read all about our family stateroom and the kids clubs here!
Food
The kids menu is the same in all three dining rooms. As I said, we were quite disappointed in the lack of fresh fruit and the dessert choices.
We ordered the Fruit Juice Pops one night for my son’s dessert. It was not a popsicle like we were expecting- it was frozen balls of some sort of “juice”. It was awful, like the fruit juice had gone bad or something. No one in our family could take more than one bite.
I can’t really expand on the rest of the kids menu because my picky one ordered the PB&J for every meal we ate in the dining rooms.
Entertainment for Kids in the Dining Rooms
We also brought our own crayons each night for our youngest to color on the menu. We brought a small bag with coloring books, crayons and even the terrible tablet.
On previous cruise lines, staff has generally catered to our kids in incredible ways and made them feel so special. On the NCL Bliss we felt like our kids were almost unwelcome.
The Local
Another location my family looked forward to was The Local. This restaurant is a pub that is supposed to be open 24/7. Unfortunately on our sailing it closed several times. We did get the chance to eat here a few times. The food was good but again, service was very, very slow. Some of our favorites were:
- Pretzel Bites with Beer Cheese Fondue
- The Rachel Sandwich
- The Blue Cheese Burger
American Diner
A new addition to the complimentary restaurants list, the American Diner is located outside on Deck 17. If you are doing an Alaskan sailing, it will be rare for this al fresco location to be open. We lucked out on our last day at sea and had gorgeous 70 degree weather. We (and half of the ship) flocked to this location to try something different.
While the appetizers, entrees and desserts are complimentary, the milkshakes are $7 each. We ordered the following and found them all on par with an Applebee’s or Chili’s:
- Nachos
- Caesar Salad
- Spaghetti & Meatballs
- Pulled Pork Sliders
- Tavern Battered Fish Sandwich
The Observation Lounge
The Observation Lounge is on Deck 15 and has wall to wall windows. It has cozy chairs and couches and allows for amazing views as you sail. It also has a bar as well as a very small buffet. The buffet offered sandwiches, desserts and fresh whole fruit throughout the week.
The Observation Lounge is almost always packed full of people. Trying to find space for a small group to sit together is like hunting down space at a crowded airport gate. If you are lucky enough to get a spot, then it is a fantastic place to hang out. We spent an hour or so here on embarkation day while waiting for our stateroom to be ready.
Once again, we found the hours that food was served to be random.
Specialty Dining on the NCL Bliss
The ship has 11 different locations to eat in addition to the complimentary restaurants. These range from a formal French restaurant to a small bake shop. In my next post I will give you all the details on these dining options.
Have you sailed NCL? What was your dining experience like? Comment below!
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