Restaurant Reviews

I am writing this for anyone who may be going on the Jade at a later time and would like like to know about the restaurants on board.


NCL has what they call freestyle dining meaning they do not have the traditional first and second seating of dinner. You can eat whenever and wherever you want although many specialty restaurants have a cover charge per person.


Here is an overview of the restaurants that we have went to for a meal. We have opted not to eat at any specialty restaurants with a cover charge. We have spent enough money on this trip and don't really want to spend anymore on dinner on the ship (remember I am already thinking of our next vacation in about 6 months). All of this info are my own opinions that I hope other people may find a little helpful. (Food is a subjective thing so keep that in mind while reading).


Garden Cafe: It is what people think of as a normal cruise buffet. It is open for breakfast (approximate times 6:30-10:30am), lunch (approximate times 11:30am-3:00pm), and dinner (5:30pm to 9:30pm). The times change slightly depending on if we are at sea or what time we port. We have had all three meals there. They have many options and we have found the food rather good.


At Garden Cafe for breakfast they have omelet stations, eggs cooked anyway you like, waffles, Texas style French toast, variety of fruits, cereals (hot and cold), yogurt, variety pastry bake goods, toast, bagels, hash browns, bacon, ham, sausage. Basically anything you want for breakfast they have it. My favorite is a station where you mix plain yogurt with granola, almonds, and fresh apple pieces. It is very good! There are different fruit juices that changes daily from apple, orange, cranberry, and pineapple. Coffee, tea, cappuccino, espresso, and hot chocolate are also offered when the Garden Cafe is open.


For lunch, they have sandwich stations, wraps, salad bar, pasta, pizza, rice, stir-fry, fried chicken, and several options for desserts. They also have an ice cream station open during lunch and dinner that have chocolate and carmel topping and sprinkles. The salad bar does not have many salad toppings and we were disappointed with that. However there is a station for Caesar salad. We really like their pizza and sandwiches. Drinks are limited to ice tea and water. Breakfast is the only meal with good drink selection.


For dinner, they have similar items as lunch with a little more options for hot food. More pasta, rice, stir fry, calzones options. We have been satisfied with the number of choices and most of it has been good. We have eaten dinner at the Garden Cafe twice and have no complaints.


The next restaurant is the Grand Pacific dinning room. It is also open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner although we have only eaten there for dinner. We almost went there for breakfast this morning but after looking at the menu we realized it was redundant with the food at the Garden Cafe so we just went there.


For dinner, we have been a bit disappointed at this dinning room. The Grand Pacific is the larger of the two traditional dinning room however you can show up anytime for dinner. It is also the more formal dinning room (unable to wear jeans or shorts to dinner). We usually like the more formal option. They are open nightly 5:30pm-10:30pm. They have the same dinner menu as Alizar dinning room and the menu is posted outside its door all day so you can decide if you want to eat there or not.


We have not been too impressed with the menu. There usually is a beef, pork, chicken, fish, and vegetarian meal each day. We don't really eat beef or pork. Usually chicken is our best option since we also eat little fish and the vegetarian dish seems to have odd ingredients. (Remember this is our opinion and I guess we are a bit picky when it comes to dinner). Dinners we have had there have been good but the service has not been.


We drink a lot of water with dinner. Probably three glasses throughout dinner and it seems difficult for the staff in the Pacific Dinning room to keep our water glasses from not being emptied. We have learned to order tea and water and this way we usually have at least one that is not empty. Also we have asked twice in the Pacific to share a table and we ended up eating alone anyway. The service also seems to take longer than another restaurant. In the Pacific dinning room they request you order dessert with you meal. Other restaurants wait till after dinner and ask if you want dessert and show you the menu. We have had dinner there three times and I think we may be done with that restaurant. I have to say last night we were seated at the back of the dinning room near the window and it was a beautiful view.


Alizar dinning room is the next restaurant. It has the same menu as Grand Pacific however we think the service is much better. They seem to keep our water glasses full, introduce themselves, serve dinner within a reasonable time, and honor our request to share a dinner table with others. It is our favorite dinner restaurant and have not had a bad experience yet.


Paniolo's Tapas and Salsa is the Tex-Mex restaurant. It is the only specialty restaurant that does not have a cover charge. We ate there one night. We went there at 5:30pm one night and the place was pretty empty. They asked it we had reservations and we said no. They looked at us like you need reservation. Now if it is freestyle dinning I don't want to make reservations. I want to go eat when I am hungry not when I made reservations earlier that day. We asked if we could eat now and they said oh yes. Apparently reservations are not required, but for some reason they acted surprised that we did not have them. Like I said the restaurant only had four other couples there. We were told at specialty restaurants you never eat with strangers. It was another night Brian and I ate alone.


We feel they gave us way too much food. We ate there on a day where we did not eat lunch due to being in port all day so by dinner we were pretty hungry. They gave us chips and salsa when we sat down although our water glass was not poured till our appetizer came like 20 minutes later. Try eating chips and salsa with nothing to drink, it is not very pleasant. I was not happy! I almost went and got the water myself but I thought I should behave and I just waited. I ordered nachos grande which I usually love. It was just okay and again: too much food. We both had chicken fajitas for dinner and again it was too much food. They were okay, but generally rather plain. We should of got one of them and split it. They gave us 3 tortillas a piece. We were starving when we came to dinner and we still could not come close to eating all that. There dessert was good though.


Blue Lagoon Cafe is the last place we have had a meal on this ship. It is a 24 hours sit down restaurant that specializes in “comfort” food (popular American food). We had chef salads there one night with cheesecake. Both were very good. The service was a bit slow but similar to Pacific dinning room. There menu changes for lunch and dinner. This makes no sense to us. On the lunch menu there is meatloaf and vegetable lasagna which is not on the dinner menu. Now we would want to eat that for dinner not lunch! That just seems crazy to me. They also have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the kids lunch menu that we have been tempted to try but have not yet.


That is a basic summary of the places we have eaten at and our thoughts about them. The other specialty restaurants with a cover charge include: Cagney's (steakhouse $20 pp), Le Bistro (French restaurant for $15 pp), Papa's Italian ($10 pp), Jasimine Garden (Asian for $15 pp), Sushi Bar ($15 pp), Shabu-Shabu ($15pp) and Teppanyaki (Japanese where they cook in front of you $25 pp).


Throughout the ship, they have displays which show the current wait for the various restaurants. It is nice to give you an idea of how busy they are. Unfortunately, it does not actually tell you how long the wait is, but instead a ranking from “No Wait” to “Worth the Wait”. If there is a wait, you are given a pager. We received a pager once and was told there would be a 40 minute wait. We requested a shared table, and our pager went off within 5-10 minutes. It seems most people are not interested in sharing tables. The Teppanyaki restaurant has been consistently the busiest. It is always given the highest ranking at peak times. We have only seen it below this level once on the entire cruise. Reservations for this restaurant would probably be essential, although we never ate there.