The Main Dining Room is one of the complimentary restaurants on-board the Quantum of the Seas (by Royal Caribbean).
On most days, they are open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Unlike Windjammer, you just have to sit down and pick what you want to eat from the menu.
Here’s a brief review of the Main Dining Room (also known as The Grande) in Quantum of the Seas.
Overview of The Grande
This Main Dining Room called The Grande is one of the complimentary places you can dine in, and it’s recommended that you it try at least once.
It is a course-style dining (especially for dinner) where you order your appetizer, main course and dessert.
If few passengers come for dining, then they may have extra food that you can order.
For e.g. if you finish your dessert, you can probably request for another dessert (unless the dining room is full).
It was really packed the first night of The Grande as passengers were advised to try it out.
You may have a queue. That being said, the crowd normally decreases the second day and so on.
Each table is already fixed according to your Stateroom Number. For dinner, you need to sit at the same table each day whereas for breakfast, it’s first come, first serve. Not so sure about lunch.
For dinner especially, you will be served by the same waiter and assistant waiter. We were served by Manoj (from India) and Lanyu (from China) for the entire cruise in the dining room and they were really friendly the entire time. You will feel comfortable as they’ll take your order, fill your glasses, deliver food (course by course) and even have a little friendly chat.
On the last day (or last two days), you may have a short session where the crew starts dancing and you can participate.
Food at the Main Dining Room (The Grande)
Once you’re seated, you will see a ‘basket’ of buns and bread already on the table.
You will have butter kept in the container as well. They are the standard starters for most of these sit-down restaurants.
The bread on Quantum of the Seas has been pretty good in all or most restaurants.
You will be given a menu with the starters, main courses and desserts.
Typically, you just pick one each. You can also buy their premium dishes (for an additional amount of money). We tried the lobster on the last night and it was really delicious.
It’s worth trying it at least once. It only costs about USD 30.
Below are some of the starters.
This one here is the Bay Scallop Gratin. It’s on the oily side but it’s really good.
Another starter worth trying is their samosas. The menu changes each night, so just pick the one that suits you.
On the first night, they had prawns as well.
As for the main courses, you have a lot of options as well. Below are some of the main courses we ordered, which included chicken and fish.
You’ll also find other cuisines in the menu, especially Indian and Chinese.
The dessert section is also pretty amazing. This one below is the Apple Blossom which is like an apple tart served with ice cream.
You can also order their crumble, cakes and so on.
In a nutshell
Dining at The Grande is so much more relaxed than the buffet at Windjammer. You will be served from start to finish and the environment is much cozier.
Try to vary your meals on the Quantum of the Seas to have the best experience.
You may actually like the dining room much more than the buffet (and you don’t need to fight over seats).
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