The Amazing
This may be misleading because the most amazing meal we had was at the Cirque Dreams dinner show. I found the food to be good, loved the appetizer and the rest of the food was fine but the show made you not care whatsoever what you were eating. The show was so amazing that the food didn't matter, the show was enough. We have seen many Cirque type shows and this one, especially in such a small venue was excellent. The service was also excellent, our drinks always full. We had the premium seating and were seated up top looking down. This show is well worth the cost, it should not be missed.
The Exceptional
Teppanyaki. Everyone has been to a Teppanyaki restaurant at some point and I thought this would just be mediocre, I was going for my husband who enjoys this type of food much more than I do, but it was so much more than I had expected. The service was above par and our chef, Orlando, was fantastic. The food was absolutely delicious and it just kept coming. Everything from the salted edamame to start through the green tea ice cream at the end and everything in between (oh that rice!) was perfect. We sat with a great group of people who kept the conversation flowing and we had a wonderful time.
When the meal was over, I wanted to give a tip to Orlando but he had already left. I asked our server if he could get him for me as I wanted to thank him again for such a wonderful meal. The server left and out came Orlando's supervisor, wanting to know if everything was alright. I explained how wonderful our meal was and how happy we were with Orlando and that we wanted to give him a tip, he acted like that had never happened before. They brought out Orlando and made a big deal of us giving him a tip. He was so sweet and come to find out, he had only been doing this for a month, he'd been in training up until that point for months. I was happy we took the time to speak with him after and we also filled out a comment card about him, they need to know when they have such a great employee!
The Good
We were most excited for our meal at Moderno. Here in Orlando we have Texas de Brazil, a similar concept to Moderno. Texas de Brazil is very expensive, more than double the price of Moderno so we were excited to have this option. The food was excellent, the salad bar made this girl super happy. The meat eater, my husband was fully satisfied. The issue? The service. Our service was so poor that the woman dining next to us (literally a foot from us, so we chatted often) commented on it. They never cleared our plates, we had no tongs to remove the meat (the gaucho had to ask our server to get us some) and our drinks were never refilled. Initially when we finished our salads, they came and took our plates but never brought us new ones so we had to wait for them to come back so we could have meat. Here we had a similar experience as in Taste. The table behind us, a party of 6 was ordering wine and our server was so busy over there pouring wine and chatting with them, he totally forgot about us. The lack of service would not prevent us from enjoying this restaurant again however; we were seated by the window which was beautiful at sunset and the food was excellent. They just need to work on their service skills (seeing a trend?).
The Horrible
On our last day we chose to eat at the Noodle Bar. We were seated at the bar, amongst a few other groups. We made our selections on the form provided, choosing pot stickers as our appetizer and two noodle bowls, along with ice tea. For my bowl, I asked for NO shrimp. As we were sitting at the bar, we could watch them most of the time preparing the food. We heard the chefs say, no shrimp when they were pulling out the ingredients for our food. While we were ordering, another couple came in and was seated behind us at a table. I noticed not long after that the server was over telling them that their appetizer would be a while and did they want their meal first. They didn't come to us so I assumed they ordered something different than us.
In the meantime, our drinks were empty, but our server walked by repeatedly to refill the wine of the group at the end of the bar. We tried to get his attention multiple times with no luck. After the people behind us were already eating, our food comes out. Not the appetizer, our meals. We asked him to get us drinks and he said he'd get our server. Our server comes to refill our drinks finally and I tell him there are shrimp in my bowl. The paper said NO SHRIMP and I heard them say NO SHRIMP so no clue why there are shrimp. He takes my bowl and walks away. We can see them start a new meal for me. This one comes out in like five minutes so no idea why the other one took over a half hour. We eat our bowls and once we are done, waiting for the server to come back so we can ask for our check, another server brings over our appetizer. I said, No, we are already done eating, this was supposed to come before our meal and he says, no sometimes it comes after the meal. Really? I think not. I said could you just have our server bring our check? I was hoping they would charge me for the appetizer because by that point, we'd been there for an hour, and I was ready to complain to someone, but they did not. The service was so far below acceptable that we were dumbfounded as to how people can keep eating there. Thankfully that was our last experience with the Epic's poor service, we choose to save ourselves the hassle and eat at the buffet for dinner.
In the future, if we were to sail again with NCL, which I believe we will at some point, I would buy the ultimate dining package and stick with the specialty dining restaurants for dinner, but I will lower my expectations when it comes to the level of service I have grown accustomed to sailing with Disney.
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