Specialty dining on Norwegian ships includes the iconic French fare at Le Bistro restaurant. Pictured above is the delicate and decadent escargot, which is a favorite appetizer for many guests, including my husband and son who order it every time! As Norwegian has now made their specialty dining venues a la carte pricing, patrons may dine at Le Bistro and indulge themselves with as many orders of escargot as they wish! We prefer to enjoy a varied meal, however, so we always opt for the SDP meal plan, which we have been given as a promo perk for the past several cruises. The SDP stands for Specialty Dining Package, which offers between three and fourteen meals, based on your cruise length. If you pre-purchase the package online you save $10 as well. The details can be found here: https://www.ncl.com/onboard-packages/dining-packages
Having the dining package is beneficial for many guests, as it entitles each guest with the SDP a soup or salad, an appetizer, an entree and a dessert from the menu. Some cruisers might be concerned that there are no soup or salad courses they would want from a venue but they would like two appetizers. We have not found this to be an issue at any of the specialty dining restaurants as they will always work with you to make your meal enjoyable. As we received the 3 day SDP for my husband and myself on our Pearl cruise, and bought the 3 day package for our son, we made our online reservations for Le Bistro for the first night of the voyage. One note for anyone who does not know when/how to make reservations-Haven/Suite guests can reserve their dining 100 days prior to cruising and guests in inside, oceanview, balcony or minisuites may reserve their dining online or over the phone with their PVP 90 days before cruising. Now to the meat and potatoes of this delicious review....
The french onion soup pictured above was my son's soup choice. He also had the french onion soup in the dining room later on in the cruise and could definitely tell the difference between the two soups. The one at Le Bistro was rich and flavorful, and chock full of a buttery crouton and cheese. I had the cream of mushroom soup, which is the best cream of mushroom soup I have ever had!
I won't detail every delightful morsel of our meal here, but here are some highlights of our apps and dinner:
The tasty cornets stuffed with four unique fillings-
We all opted for beef at Le Bistro for dinner, with my husband and son sharing the rib eye. I enjoyed the grilled beef tenderloin.
Dessert was scrumptious of course! We chose the creme brulee and chocolate fondue to share-we were really stuffed by the time we got to the last course! :) I almost forgot to mention that fresh baked bread was brought out at the start of our meal with their homemade herbed butter. This was amazing! I think we may have filled up on that a little too much!
Now for the pricing...we were told our menu was not completely current as the ship had just come out of dry dock. I have found a current menu with pricing, which is active for the Escape and several of the newer NCL ships. I can say this menu did not differ too much compared to the one we had-either price wise or with food choices. I so wish we would have remembered to take a picture of our menu!!! We got every other menu but in the excitement of our first day on the cruise it slipped our minds! Rest assured the choices and prices are very similar to the link for the menu below: http://www.beyondships2.com/uploads/8/2/4/5/8245255/30965_le_bistro_dinner_menu_escape.pdf
So will we go back to Le Bistro?! Absolutely! :) In fact we will be dining there on our cruise in a suite on the Sky in August! Stay tuned for that review and I will not forget to take a picture of that menu! :)
If you are wondering what specialty dining venues are on the different Norwegian ships check out this handy link-
https://www.ncl.com/sites/default/files/Dining_Guide.pdf
As a cruiser in a Suite or the Haven (on ships which do not have a Haven restaurant) you are offered the opportunity to dine in a specialty restaurant for breakfast and lunch daily. This is extended to Suite/Haven guests beginning on embarkation day and continues for the duration of the cruise until the final debarkation day breakfast. The menu is the same daily, although the soup does change each day. The offerings at the additional breakfast buffet also vary a bit. In addition to what is on the menu you can request items not listed and they may bring it to you! I asked for a tomato omelette and hash browns and our amazing server on the Pearl, Gautam, happily satisfied my request. The Suite/Haven dining is held in Cagney's on the first day for lunch and Moderno for the remainder of the trip on the Pearl. Each ship may vary slightly for their locations but your concierge will let you know where this special dining will be. The photo above is of the delicious steak and eggs served for breakfast in Moderno-with the quality of the meat being top notch! We dined in Moderno for breakfast and lunch every day on our week long cruise on the Pearl and I ate more meat than I have in about six months combined! It was that good! :) We did not find ourselves bored of the menu as it was different and tasty with a good variety of offerings. Here is a photo of the menus for breakfast and lunch:
Between myself, my husband and our teenage son we tried just about everything on the breakfast and lunch menus-and everything we ate was amazing! The french dip for lunch was my absolute favorite, as was the shrimp cocktail and banana cream pie. My son loved the french dip as well, along with the swordfish burger and the challah french toast for breakfast. My husband relished the steak for all meals, as well as the scallops and shrimp and the espresso chocolate brownie for dessert! There was also an ample breakfast buffet daily set up where the salad bar area is for Moderno. Offerings included oatmeal, cereals, breads, herring, cream cheese, capers, fresh fruit cups, melon, whole fresh fruit, breakfast pastries, salami, prosciutto, almond croissants and more! The servers brought coffee in french presses and orange and cranberry juice was available as well. You can ask your server for toast or bagels too! Here are some drool worthy photos :) -
The nice thing about the lunch dining in Moderno is that the Sugarcane Mojito Bar is open for suite guests. The raspberry one is a personal favorite of mine and my husband loves the pineapple coconut one. The staff can also bring you any alcoholic or non alcoholic drinks while you are dining as well. Here is the Sugarcane Mojito Bar menu:
I am so excited to be in a suite on the Sky in August to enjoy this special dining experience again! :)
The Norwegian Pearl dry dock left this jewel of a ship looking shiny, fresh and gorgeous! While the entire ship did not receive a full makeover there were many areas that got a nice facelift. Notable improvements include the carpeting, cabin refreshes, O'Sheehan's pub and a Moderno decor redo. Above is a photo of O'Sheehan's, which has the updated menu as well. Here is a photo of their yummy Sweet Teriyaki chicken wings!
The pool area on the ship was clean, but packed on sea days!
Here is the pool on a sea day!
There was a Kiddie water area too-
Moderno's has a crisp and fresh new look-
The photo below is of the breakfast buffet area for suite and Haven guests, which was in Moderno and accompanied the regular breakfast menus each morning. For dinner this was the salad and soup area for diners in Moderno. It was really delicious but definitely smaller in size compared to the Getaway and larger ships. There was no sushi at the Moderno salad buffet on the Pearl, and both Cagney's and Moderno's have taken the lobster bisque off the menu. I was told this change is fleet wide.
La Cucina is on the Pearl-
And so is Le Bistro-
Here is the Summer Palace and Indigo main dining rooms- other than the first evening the Summer Palace has a dress code for dinner-no shorts, ball caps or flip flops. The food in both of the dining rooms was excellent-I will have menus and food photos in an upcoming blog post!
Cagney's is on the Pearl also-
Teppanyaki was also on the Pearl- but I did not get a picture of it as every time we went by the small venue was packed! If you want to dine there do make a reservation as there are only a few hibachi tables. Lotus Garden was the free Asian restaurant and it was by far the loveliest dining venue we have experienced out of all of the complimentary Asian restaurants on Norwegian. The food was very good too!
I loved the fried rice!
Spinnaker Lounge was the spot for evening events like music and dancing, a late night comedy show and various audience participation shows. During the day you could find dance classes held here like hip-hop! :)
The Bliss Lounge, opposite of Spinnaker in the aft of the ship was the venue for nightly karaoke, cruiser parties and is also where the bowling can be found. There are several casino arcade games and regular arcade games here too, as well as a bar.
This picture is from the Cruise Critic meeting in Bliss with all the officers and the Captain too! :)
The Crystal Atrium and lounge area by Malting's Bar are comfortable and inviting!
The theater is ample and grand-
Be sure not to miss the final evening show!
The Malting's Bar offers many types of whiskey.
Where is the Mojito Bar was the question on our minds! It is actually sort of hidden-inconspicuously next to Moderno on the thirteenth deck. We enjoyed several mojitos but it was not the hopping bar that typically is on other ships like the Getaway.
Washy Washy!!
The Kids Club Area was large and clean.
The teens had a special hangout area as well! The arcade was in a separate area and had air hockey tables and an array of arcade games too.
So this is a broad photo overview for anyone wanting to see the Pearl after it's dry dock. I have LOTS more blog posts coming up-including menus and food pictures, a comparison of the main dining room menu and Garden Buffet on the same evening (with photos of everything), a diary of what the suite experience was really like, hints and tips for cruising on the Pearl, highlights of Key West, the Trolley Roger tour in Grand Cayman and more! Please subscribe to my blog to get email updates or LIKE my Facebook page where I update my latest posts as well as other fun stuff! :) https://www.facebook.com/The-Cheerful-Cruiser-1713812358872821/?ref=bookmarks
