I will be sailing in March for the first time on Princess. This will be my 4th cruise. I was wondering if the Diamond Princess has midnight buffets? The last cruise that I was on, NCL Wind had a midnight chocolate buffet one night. That was it, not that there wasn't food anywhere to be had. Does anyone know what Princess does? Can anyone tell me what optional restaurants are worth paying the extra for on the Diamond? Thanks for any help.
That is too bad. It wasn't really about the food, (because there is always food to be had), it was the presentation of the food, the ice sculptures, and the excitement of the midnight buffet.
Princess did away with the midnight buffet, my guess would be that it was a huge waste of food and that there wasnt' a huge demand for it. They replaced it with 24hr service in the Horizon Court which seems to be very popular.
Princess does a midnight champagne waterfall on the last formal night. This is something special. Its one big party in the Main Atrium.
The Diamond has a main restaurant for those people that select traditional dining (same time and table every night). For people that choose anytime dining, they have 4 restaurants (southwestern, oriental, steak, and I think italian). Each of these restaurants have their own menu (the same every night) as well as the main/traditional dining room menu that changes every night. There are no charges for those 4 restaurants. We have done anytime dining on all cruises since Princess implemented it, and really like it. I believe that even those that have traditional dining can go to any of the anytime dining rooms should they choose. Also, the main/traditional dining room will have selections from each of the other restaurants on different nights. I understand that you can always order food from any of the restaurants, even if you are not in that restaurant. In other words, there is a lot of flexibility without paying an additional charge.
In addition, there is Sabatini's which does have a charge (I think it is $20). I did Sabatini's on the Grand several years ago. You should be able to find several recent write ups on Sabatini's on the message boards. I really enjoyed it, as do most of the people whose comments I have read. I am on the Grand at the end of January, and plan on eating at Sabatini's.
Princess doesn't do a midnight buffet anymore, but I think that they have a buffet the night they do their deck party. They also have 24 hour dining in the Horizon Court, including a late night Bistro. I have never tried the late night Bistro.
I was on the Diamond in December, and loved the ship. I like the Diamond best of all the ships I've been on (15 Princess cruises and 3 others).
I was on the Sapphire in October and loved the 24 hour Horizon Court buffet. We ate our regular dinner there almost every night and then would go up again at about 1:00am for a late night snack. We were surprised to find that we preferred to buffet to both the traditional and Anytime dining rooms (we usually hate buffets)! It had enough variety to please everyone in my large family and the selections changed several times throughout the day, so there was always something different to try.
Just a note if you are assigned traditional dinning you CAN NOT eat in the personal choice dinning room. Only in the optional dining rooms or buffet.. If you are traditional and know that you will not be there for dinner out of respect to your table mates and waiters please let them know other wise it delays the meal...
Another side note, if you want to eat at the Sterling restaurant it's best to make reservations as soon as possible, it's hard to get in because of it's obvious popularity.
We are doing the Coral Panama cruise in March. Does anyone know if there are any special buffets on deck on that cruise? We went to Alaska on the Island and we had a lovely seafood buffet on deck while we were in Glacier Bay.
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midnight buffets/optional restaurants
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