The Dining Halls

If the Horizon Buffet is “Good,” then the big dining halls are “Better.”

 

The main dining halls are almost without justification called “Botticelli,” “Michelangelo,” and “Da Vinci.” ALMOST without justification, since the wall art in each dining hall does have some relationship to the artist. But since it is mostly American passengers aboard and American ship that only occasionally and coincidentally finds itself in Italy, an alert nose might smell pretense.

 

You can dress however you like at the Horizon Buffet, but to enter the main dining halls you have to wear pants and a collar, if you are male, and you have to avoid beach attire if you are female.

 

The food and service in the main dining halls are so much better than the Horizon Buffet that it is TOTALLY worth it to put on some pants -- jeans and sneakers with a polo shirt were good enough for me every day.

 

We were sometimes seated by the windows in the Dining Halls, so we could see the water going by, but the Dining Hall windows are nothing like the huge picture-window experience you get up on the 15th deck at the Horizon Buffet.

 

Botticelli Dining Hall is reserved for those who choose “traditional dining,” which means you have an assigned table at an assigned time with assigned wait staff, and it is the same every day.

 

Traditional Dining is a good way to add structure and predictability to your day, in case you are feeling all at sea, and it efficiently eliminates all the halting discussions about when and were to have dinner.

 

But we chose “any time dining,” which means that we can eat wherever we want and whenever we want, but we might have to wait for a table if things are busy.

 

I was very uneasy about having chosen “any time dining,” because with 3,000 passengers on the ship, I had a suspicion that things would always be busy. It’s just that I hate waiting, I hate lines, and hate crowds, and I hate unpredictability.  But we never had to wait for a table, not even once.

 

Michelangelo Dining Room was the opposite of Botticelli -- exclusively reserved for “any time” diners.

 

Da Vinci was half-and-half – first shift was for traditional diners; second shift was for any time diners.

 

So we never got to eat in Botticelli; we always were invited to Michelangelo; and when we ate late Da Vinci was an option.

 

However, none of that matters, because all three dining halls are exactly identical, with the same menus, same service, same locations in the ship (aft, Decks 5 or 6) – and except for the wall paintings, the exact same décor.  The décor I am thinking of in particular is panels of slow-twinkling lights in the ceiling. So, REALLY the same experience in each dining hall.

 

The Dining Halls offer table cloth service with a full bar, bread, appetizer, entrée, and dessert. Half of the menu at the Dining Halls is stable, and half rotates daily, so if you want to eat grilled salmon, fried chicken, fettucine alfredo, or a burger and fries (or for appetizers shrimp cocktail or Caesar salad), you can do that every single night.

 

But the more adventurous can go exploring the menu for orange roughy with saffron potatoes, grilled calamari in champagne sauce, duck breast in honey garlic glaze, ribeye steak, seafood pasta, or the obligatory vegetarian entrée (such as fried falafel). Those choices were for Tuesday; on Wednesday it was different again.

 

Everything on the menu sounds amazing.  None of it is amazing. Some of it is excellent; some of it is mediocre. We did not get good at predicting the quality of individual menu items in the Dining Halls, but relying on the recommendations of the serving staff gave a better result than mere chance.