We chose this cruise over a year ago for a 60th birthday and and 27th Anniversary celebration based on on-line reviews and advertised 5 star dining. We paid up to be on the Diamond Deck so we could participate in the "La Rive" degustation dinner experience.

I'm not sure what is going on with Scenic but the food product served at dinner is 3 star at best and service is seriously understaffed. Each waiter had about 24 guests and were expected to take orders, deliver, clear tables, etc. Everyone on the ship headed down to dinner at the same time - if you came later you might never get your meal as each course is served like at a banquet. First all orders from all the waiters tables are taken before delivery to the kitchen then everyone gets their appetizer followed by soup, entree and desert. All courses need to be ordered at the same time. Several times I ordered two appetizers and no soup course but never got the second appetizer because they had moved on to the soup course. I gave up on asking because it just impacted everyone else and the rest of service. The farther your waiter was from the kitchen (which was in the back of the ship) the longer everything took as he had to keep running back and forth. There were no waitstations in the middle or front of the ship for bussing tables so waiters had to carry everything to the back of the ship. Our ship butlers also worked the restaurant at dinner but did not assist the waiters unless asked by the restaurant or hotel manager-no teamwork but seemed to be a pecking order of who did what. Our hotel and restaurant manager worked their tails off to pick up the lack and ensure customer satisfaction.

They couldn't make up though for the poor quality food products, most apparent in seafood products which were often just inedible. Fish filets OK but very thin. We were hesitant to order anything with seafood after the first couple experiences. Shrimp dishes were these tiny overcooked, frozen product with maybe 1 or 2 slightly larger prawns. If a dish said lobster, you needed a magnifying glass to find it. Read more