Royal Caribbean Food Review – EVERYTHING I Ate During my Cruise: (Photos and Menus)

If you are taking a Royal Caribbean cruise, you may be wondering about the food. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks are all included at no extra cost.

I took a cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Anthem of the Seas, and in this post, we will look at everything I ate in the main dining room, buffet, two70, cafe promenade, and Sorrentos Pizza.

Buffet – Included

The buffet on Anthem of the Seas was open from early in the morning until around 9 pm.

The buffet area is huge, with lots of choices. It can get quite busy at peak times.

We always found the quality of the food in the buffet to be good. The food was hot, and there was lots of variety.

The buffet was self-service, but hand washing was strictly enforced.

The buffet at dinner time consisted of things like:

• A Themed Section
  – British food
  – American food
  – Italian food etc
• A Grill Section (Burgers, Hot Dogs, Steaks etc.)
• Salads/Breads
• Tacos/Nachos
• Pasta and Noodles
• Soup
• Desserts

The sections would be different for breakfast and lunch.

The great thing about the buffet is that you can combine anything that you think looks interesting. Cookies and vegetables on the same plate? Sure!

Below is an example lunch that I had one day, I particularly enjoyed the carrots and the bread with dips.

I liked how the dips were prepared on a small plate ready for me to take.

I did end up with some strange combinations, but that’s the fun of a buffet. The food is unlimited, and there aren’t any rules about what you can put on your plate.

The buffet had waiter service for drinks, which was always very efficient. We had refillable soda cups and usually filled these here.

Royal Caribbean are very good at desserts. We had lots of yummy cakes and cookies during the cruise.

The cookies were always available and were always a consistent size and flavour. The cookies were also available in the cafe promenade and two70 cafe.

Below is one of my favourite buffet creations. It was a doughnut that I topped with sprinkles and chocolate.

These were all freshly made in front of us.

The drinks machines below were located around the buffet, and they are free to use at any time. There is also a coffee and tea machine with many types of tea available.

Main Dining Room -Silk – Included

There are multiple main dining rooms onboard Anthem of the Seas. We decided to pick flexible dining and were sat in Silk restaurant each time we went to dinner.

The flexible dining didn’t work very well for us during the cruise as we were never able to get a booking before 8:30 p.m.

I didn’t like the restaurant much as it felt very dark and cramped compared to other cruise ship dining rooms.

This is the first cruise I’ve ever taken where we preferred to eat in the buffet than the main dining room. This may have been different if we could eat earlier and were seated in a different section or restaurant.

Menus can be viewed in advance on the Royal Caribbean app.

Dinner #1

Starter #1	Corn Fritters
Main #1	Steak and Baked Potato
Main #2	Pesto Pasta

I had a vegetarian dish for my starter and main course, I had decided to eat from the vegan menu.

Royal Caribbean has made great progress with vegan dining, but like many American cruise lines, I think it still has a way to go.

My pasta was okay but very plain.

My boyfriend Jono said that the steak wasn’t very good and was quite fatty and chewy. I’ve spoken to lots of other people since the cruise who agreed that the main dining room food was disappointing.

There wasn’t anything wrong with the food in the main dining room, the portions were always a good size, and the food was hot, but we preferred the food in other venues.

The staff were always friendly and helpful.

We never had to wait long for anything, and they were always available to get us more drinks or anything else that we needed.

The desserts were always good.

Dessert #1	Chocolate Cake
Dessert #2	Lemon Meringue Tart

Dinner #2

Starter	Korean Pork Steamed Buns
Starter #2	Caesar Salad
Main #2	Vegetable Noodles
Dessert	Royal Cheesecake

Room Service Continental Breakfast – Included

On many cruise lines, there is a charge for room service breakfast. When I saw that the continental breakfast was included, we decided to order it.

We ended up ordering room service for breakfast on most days.

We were cruising the Norwegian Fjords, so being able to have breakfast while sailing into a fjord was incredible. Especially if you have a balcony.

I am usually an inside cabin girl, but for Norway, on this occasion, I decided to get a balcony – I’m glad I did.

When I decided to take my nieces on their first Royal Caribbean cruise, I chose the same ship and itinerary, as I thought it would suit them perfectly.

This time I had an unusual “Virtual Balcony Cabin”. Have a look at that here:

To learn more about cruising to Norway, check out this post:

How Much Does a Norwegian Fjord Cruise ACTUALLY Cost? (16 Examples)

Almost every time, we received a phone call before the food arrived to let us know that the food was on its way.

The food was always good. I particularly liked the breakfast doughnuts. I wouldn’t normally eat doughnuts for breakfast, but they were on the menu, so I did.

On the room service menu muffin was spelt as maffin – which made me laugh. We ordered a blueberry maffin most days.

Two70 – Included

There is a cafe by the Two70 lounge where you can pick up sandwiches, wraps, or salads. The food here is cooked freshly in front of you, and they have display cases with examples of the food in them.

My personal favourite was a cheese pitta but I also tried the wraps and sandwiches.

There was a drinks section here similar to the buffet where you could get some water, juice or iced tea.

These were all included in the cruise fare.

There was also a small dessert section that often had cakes and cookies.

The seating area for the two70 cafe is just inside the two70 lounge, here there is bar service.

Sorrentos Pizza – Included

Sorrento’s Pizza is a restaurant in the middle of the ship that serves pizza until 3 am.

Pizzas are freshly cooked along with a few other small sides like olives or grilled vegetables.

There was usually a vegetarian option here. I never saw anything marked as vegan, but pizzas are available by the slice or as a whole pizza. I’m sure if requested, you could order a vegan pizza of some sort…

It was really easy just to pop into Sorrento’s to pick up a slice or two.

There are two soda refill machines here. As I had the soda package, I could get a drink to enjoy while we ate.

Hot Dog Stand – Included

There is a hot dog stand by the sports court at Seaplex. The hot dogs were tasty, but sadly, they did not have vegetarian options.

Cafe Promenade – Included

In the middle of the ship is a small cafe called the cafe promenade. It is open 24 hours a day and serves sandwiches and small snacks.

I would often come here for a sandwich and a cookie.

There’s also a machine here to get water and iced tea.

Iced tea was readily available on our cruise in the buffet, cafe promenade, and two70 cafe.

Did We Enjoy The Food?

We loved the number of food venues included in the cruise fare and we had some great meals in the buffet and other locations.

The free room service breakfast was a great perk and we definitely weren’t ever hungry during the cruise.

Royal Caribbean does desserts particularly well, and the 24/7 access to cookies was amazing.

We were disappointed by the quality of the food in the main dining room, as were many others on the cruise, but perhaps our expectations were too high.

I hope that Royal Caribbean will continue to improve its vegetarian options, but overall, we definitely enjoyed the food on the cruise.

I took another family cruise on Anthem of the Seas a year later, again to Norway. I got a free upgrade from inside to a Virtual Balcony cabin. Find out how I got on here:

Before You Go

Find out about the exciting free activities you shouldn’t miss while sailing with Royal Caribbean here:

6 Adrenaline-Filled FREE Activities You Shouldn’t Miss on Royal Caribbean Cruises

Find out what the British cruise line Marella did with ex-Royal Caribbean ships when they bought them here:

How Marella Cruises Transformed Ex-Celebrity and Royal Caribbean Ships