The Food and Drink on the Azamara Quest
Azamara Quest Food
We dined the first night in one of the two specialty restaurants, Prime C. As the name suggests, this restaurant specialized in beef. Interestingly, the fish was very good, however, the Kobe beef was not Kobe beef at all, but according to the waiter at the next table, was Kobe-style beef, whatever that means. And why didn’t our server explain this to us? She seemed to be having a rough time, arguing with another server and describing and waiting on us like a pre-programmed robot. Although this didn’t change the quality of the food, it sure did have an effect on the overall experience and we had no desire to return. We next tried Aqualina, the other specialty restaurant, which again as the name suggests features seafood. What a treat this was. Harry, our waiter, was excellent and my food, a beef entree, was better than in the beef restaurant. Oh, well. Just so you know, each of the specialty restaurants suggests a $5 per person gratuity, and reservations are required. You are guaranteed 2 or 3 during your cruise, and you can request more if you wish. Some passengers dined there every night.
We did try the molten lava cake in Prime C, one of the famed desserts on the menu. We just couldn’t stomach the thought of the other one – a deep fried donut concoction – so never did try it. We could have ordered it when dining in another restaurant because the service is such on the Quest, that we would have had it delivered to our table.
We usually ate dinner in the main restaurant, Discoveries, and found the meals to be inconsistent, but edible. We had expected a bit more quality, but adjusted our expectations. Our first dinner there surpassed the meal in Prime C, so we were quite excited about the quality here and assumed that it would continue, but it varied. As I have mentioned many times before in previous posts, the food is often good but not outstanding; the expectation was for a bit more consistency with the quality.
We rarely tried the buffet except for lunches in port. The one time that we did have dinner at the buffet, we were disappointed. We prefer warm food to cold and found that temperature seemed to be an issue. Not liking buffets in general, we had no reason to return. What is good in the buffet is the freshly made ice cream.
The grill near the pool area offered an assortment of typical grill foods – like hamburgers, hotdogs and kebabs. This is an ideal venue when you come back for a really late lunch. The food wasn’t too exciting, but better than nothing.
Azamara Quest Drinks
We have never had a lower bar bill than on this cruise and it was 14 days to boot. The cost of the drinks was an issue for us and by appearances, for others as well. It may have been a non-drinking crowd, but we didn’t see a lot of people at the bars or with drinks in hand. Azamara might consider that lower prices could increase the numbers of beverages sold.
As far as non-alcoholic drinks, the selection varied. Sometimes there was lemonade, which was quite good. It vanished from the fountains and we could never figure out if it would be available.
The cappuccino machine in the buffet is different from the one used in the main dining room, according to a staff person who explained that to me after I got a rot gut cup of cappuccino from the machine.
An out-of-order sign went up on the machine after I commented about the poor quality, so perhaps it was a fluke after all. This kindly person went down to the main dining room machine and brought me a cup from there, which was somewhat better. Sometimes, the cappuccino was perfect and tasty, but other times it was so bitter that it was barely drinkable. The coffee could be equally bitter as well, or if it was a good day, it would be fine.
Check on the tab for a link to some menus from the Azamara Quest.
Sail Away