The food in general on the Royal Princess tasted very good. Menu choices were average. For dinner, I enjoyed on different nights the prime ribs, filet mignon, tiger shrimp, and lobster tail. Vegetarian choices were available. We celebrated my birthday with a chocolate treat.
Thanks to our travel agent Adam Wolf at The Cruise Web, we dined at the Crowne Grille, one of the specialty restaurants. Here I had lobster cake appetizer, mixed greens salad, beef filet with baked potato. Our table shared creamed spinach, sautéed mushrooms, and freshly cooked asparagus. I had a lemon meringue tart for dessert.
 
This venue hosted a British pub lunch later on in the voyage. It was fun to eat my favorite cottage pie with a trifle for dessert.
The buffet seemed to have little variety and was very disorganized. Without any labeled station except for Pastry, you had to hunt through each aisle to see what was offered. The selections for breakfast or lunch didn’t seem to change much from day-to-day. We didn’t go here for dinner so can’t comment on that meal. Nonetheless, you could get plenty to eat whenever you came by. What I did like was that they opened for continental breakfast at 5am and breakfast at 6am. Since we’re early risers, this suited our schedules.
Outdoors by the pool, you could get pizza or hot dogs and hamburgers. An ice cream station offered vanilla or chocolate swirls, but I thought it tasted more like gelato than a creamy ice cream. Or you could dine at an Italian restaurant for free on one of the lower decks. The International Café was always a favorite. Coffee drinks cost money there, but the food was complimentary.
An annoyance was the lack of drink stations at the buffet. There were a couple of spots that offered coffee, tea or water. Otherwise, waiters circulated and took your drink order. You had to order lemonade. Sometimes we waited and nobody came by. On other ships, these waiters wheel carts around to offer refills. Not so here. They served you individually which made for less efficient service. These same wait staff had to continuously clean the tables to make them ready for new diners. The ship should offer more self-serve drink stations and include lemonade. Also, there weren’t any take-out cups available for coffee/tea. Only ceramic mugs were available.
Food in the dining room for dinner was very good.
 
 
The desserts were noteworthy, and I enjoyed fruit crumbles with vanilla sauce, fresh baked cookies, almond or chocolate croissants, Baked Alaska, and more.
 
And don’t forget the tropical drinks!
 
 
 
Coming Next: Ports of Call
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Wow! You certainly are spot-on re the Princess Cruise Line’s meal service. We found the same as you; however, we loved the buffet for dinner as after a day of rough & tumble excursions (boating, snorkeling, climbing ruins, etc.), we just couldn’t muster the energy to dress up for dinner. We ate as we were in our travel clothes (we’d be famished when we got back) and a quick bite filled the dinner bill. And, of course, passing by you could just snag a little fruit or something else yummy to “take the edge off.” Lol I also agree with you re making lemonade more widely available at the drink stations. I found on our last cruise the ship was understaffed compared to our first. Hence, the disorganization in the dining room. Glad you had fun. Loved the article!
Thanks for your comments, Lois. I’d still go on Princess again but hopefully one of the other ships with a different configuration. As for dinner, I like dressing up and getting served. Makes a meal more special.