Holland America Line Vista class Dining Guide
We recently sailed for the first time with Holland America Line on one of their Vista class ships, the MS Noordam. Carrying just under 2000 passengers this classic looking liner had some of the best food we’ve ever eaten on a mainstream cruise ship. This complete dining guide will take you through all of the dining options on board the Noordam, detailing opening times, menus and some of our favourite dishes, as well as the usual gorgeous foodie pics!
The Dining Room:
The Main Dining Room on Noordam is conveniently called The Dining Room with the main entrance from deck two with most guests on an open seating dining plan. The restaurant itself spans two floors with the Vista Dining room located above, accessible by a central spiral staircase and also behind the aft staircase on deck three. This level of the restaurant is reserved mainly for guests who opt for the early or late fixed dining times. There is also a staged central seating area in the middle of the deck two restaurant which offers a wonderful elevated view out of the aft and starboard windows. The decor throughout is dark woods, burgundies and gold which is offset by the beautiful white table cloths, cream chairs and the delightful blue and white signature crockery. Both dining rooms have full length aft windows and windows on the starboard side with the galley on the port side meaning there are no windows on this side of either restaurant.
Breakfast: The restaurant generally seats guests for an hour and a half in the morning with the time changing depending upon the itinerary. The breakfast menu is extensive with a huge range of hot, cold, small, large and regional dishes. You would struggle to not find something to take your fancy from this menu. And it’s all served with juice and free flowing tea or coffee. Unlike most cruise lines, pastries are not routinely brought around on a platter with guest instead requesting them from the menu if they choose, which we much prefer.
Lunch: Lunch is served on most sea days with guests being seated between noon and 1pm. The menu stays the same throughout the voyage with a couple of daily specials. The menu is divided into small plates, large plates and desserts with a variety of cuisines on offer, ranging from things like tacos, spring rolls and dutch pancakes on the small plate menu, and salads, sandwiches, fried chicken and pasta on the large plates menu. Desserts are variations on a theme of cheesecake, tart or sundae.
Afternoon tea: Afternoon tea is served in the Vista restaurant on sea days only from 3pm. The selection of small sandwich bites, cakes and scones are pre-plated on a cute little cake stand which is presented between two guests to share upon seating, along with tea poured from your server. Whilst we have found most of the portions in the Dining Room to be quite large the afternoon tea is very dainty with 3 mini sandwiches, four little cakes and two scones to share between two people.
Dinner: The Dining Room is open for seating from 5.15 to 9pm every evening with guests having the option to choose to share a table with other guests or eat on their own. The menu changes every day and is available to view from mid morning either on the Holland America Line app or at the entrance to the Dining Room. Every evening there are six starters and eight main courses to choose from along with two or three staples on the menu every night and an extra ‘port to table’ option which aims bring guests some of the culinary traditions from the ships destination. For dessert there is always a choice of three options as well as ice cream and sundaes.
Indulge: On every menu there are always a few ‘indulge’ options which are available at a small extra charge. For breakfast these are steak and eggs or lobster benedict, at lunch it includes lobster roll and strip loin and in the evening lobster tail, lobster surf and turf or a strip loin. The cost of these vary between $10 and $20.
We always found the food in the main dining room to be exceptional, often being seated at the same table whenever we went there, meaning we soon got to know our waiter. Service was exceptional with the waiters taking the time to make you feel like you were the only person they were serving. We particularly enjoyed breakfast in the main dining room which with its incredible menu and wonderful service was always the best way to start the day.
Lido Market:
The buffet on Noordam is known as the Lido Market and is located on deck nine between the Seaview pool at the aft of the ship and the covered Lido pool in the centre of the ship. Either side of the central serving stations are spacious seating areas many with panoramic views out to sea from the full length windows along the side. The food is located in the middle of the restaurant with individual serving stations serving a variety of cuisines. Most of the food is served to you by the crew behind the stations with some pre-plated dishes and salads available to pick up yourself.
Breakfast is available from 7am to 10.30 every day with the usual variety of breakfast fares from freshly made to order omelettes, a pancake and waffle station, a cooked breakfast station, a wonderful bakery, a fruit and yoghurt station and plenty of other breakfast goodies.
Lunch is available from 11.30am to 2pm with a variety of daily offerings from the bread board, the Wild Harvest salad bar, the pasta and pizza station, the Asian station, the Homestead station and the Sweet Spot. Selected stations remain open offering snacks throughout the afternoon from 2-4pm.
Dinner is served from 5.30-8pm every evening with late night snacks available from 10.30-11.30pm. Again the stations are themed with the same cuisine on offer as at lunchtime but with a menu more aligned to the main dining rooms menu. Some evenings offer a themed dinner which may reflect the region the ship is sailing in. On our cruise we had an Australian themed dinner. We particularly loved the Eastern cuisine station which always had some delicious Asian and Indian dishes. There is also a self service drinks station offering hot drinks, iced water, iced tea and lemonade, as well as a very good bar service from the waiters in the Lido.
Dive-In:
Dive-In is the burger bar located at the far end of the Lido pool and is open from 11.30am until 6pm, so perfect for daytime munchies as well as late lunches after an excursion or day out exploring a port. The menu consists of a variety of different burgers all available cooked to order and preference, or as a Beyond burger. Alongside the burger menu is a hot dog menu again available as a Beyond brat hotdog instead of meat if preferred. But the best bit of the Dive-In menu is the fries which must be cooked with some sort of addictive coating to make them irresistible. With the burgers cooked to order, guests are given a buzzer to collect their food when it’s ready. It usually doesn’t take long but it does mean that the food is freshly cooked and tastes divine. Beside the burger bar is a taco station with self service nachos, tacos, salads and accompaniments, perfect to have on their own or to load up alongside a burger or hot dog.
Pinnacle Grill:
In the morning Pinnacle Grill opens for breakfast service for suite guests. The opening times and menu are exactly the same as those in the main restaurant but offers suite guests a quieter setting to enjoy a relaxed breakfast.
On selected days Pinnacle Grill offers a three course lunch, available at just $15 each. Some of the dishes are the same as the evening menu but it also offers some alternative dishes and is a very nice way to while away an hour or so on a sea day. We chose to go there whilst we were scenic sailing through the New Zealand fjordlands making it a very memorable lunch - drinking bubbles and eating a delicious lunches we sailed along the magnificent western coast of South Island, New Zealand.
In the evening Pinnacle Grill is open from 5 to 9.30pm offering a three course dinner for $39 each. Being very popular reservations should be made in advance. The menu features an array of starters, soups and salads, including a traditional shrimp cocktail, crab cakes, and the intriguingly named David Bourke exclusive, “Clothesline Candied Bacon” - four pieces of honey roasted bacon hanging from a meat hook, served with gherkins and lemon. Though it may sound and look strange it really was a delicious way to start the meal.
The main cruise is divided into a steak menu and a classic, seafood and vegetarian menu which offers a wide range of choices to suit all needs from a traditional steak served with a choice of sauces and sides, to classic meat and fish dishes, as well as a couple of tasty sounding vegetarian dishes. We went for a traditional filet mignon served with a red wine reduction, mashed potato and mushrooms, and the David Bourke exclusive, beef tenderloin with lobster dumplings served with a horseradish-bordelaise sauce and a lobster bearnaise. The dessert menu features four classic desserts as well as ice cream or an assortment of cheeses. We chose the key lime pie and the chocolate soufflé, both of which were delicious before finishing off nicely with a small silver plate of petit fours.
Canaletto:
This Italian themed speciality restaurant is open only in the evenings from 5 to 9.30pm and is, in our opinion, very reasonably priced at $19 each. It is located in one corner of the Lido market buffet on deck nine and even though its situated within the buffet, the restaurant area is very distinct to the rest of the buffet with large dividers sectioning it off. The decor and feel of the restaurant is very different to the Lido Market and you soon forget you are sitting in the buffet. One of the benefits of its location is the full length windows from deck 9 of the ship giving a lovely view out to sea during the evening, and the service here is excellent with plenty of knowledgable waiters and waitresses.
Each day of the week there is a special dish of the day depending on what day you eat there, so if there is one particular dish you fancy from that list make sure you book on the evening that special is on the menu. The rest of the menu is divided into small plates, large plates and desserts, with guests able to choose as many as they want from any section with many of the dishes perfect for sharing. We choose to start with a selection of small plates to accompany the sourdough bread and dips which are brought out whilst we made your choices.
We chose to share the antipasto plate and the beef carpaccio in the middle of the table, to accompany our veal meatballs and buffalo mozzarella starters. Both of us wanted to try the braised beef short rib gnocchi for our main course, so again we put this in the middle of the table to share alongside the pasta genovese and the lamb chops. Although we were pretty full by now who can resist an Italian dessert, so we finished off our meals with an orange blossom ricotta tart and a chocolate hazelnut tart accompanied with a bit of Italian gelato, delicious.
Room service:
The room service menu is huge and largely included in your fare. For breakfast there is the usual door hanger order form which you can fill in the night before and place outside, or you can call from your stateroom phone any time between 6 and 11am. Although the menu is not as huge as the one available in the main dining room there are a variety of options available from a full English or continental breakfast, to fruit, yoghurts and cereals. We only used room service once, when we had an early morning excursion. It was promptly delivered and beautifully presented with the food as good you would get in the main restaurant.
From 11am until 11pm there is an all-day menu featuring an array of starters, a couple of entrees, some sandwiches and a few desserts. This is replaced with an overnight menu available from 11pm until 6am which offers a couple of salads, sandwiches and desserts. There is also a children’s menu available from 5.30 until 9.30pm with some appropriately children orientated dishes.
It si also possible to order a number of items from the Dive-In menu at any time of the day or night for a small charge of $4.95. For something a little more refined there are a few dishes off of the Pinnacle grill menu available at an additional charge of between $15 and $20. These are available in the evening only, from 5 to 9.30pm.
Overall we found the food on our two week voyage to be exceptional with a variety of options to chose from, plentiful portions and exceptional service. We really loved dining in the Dining Room for breakfast and dinner and gravitated to Dive-In for lunch. And we would thoroughly recommend a visit to both Pinnacle Grill and Canaletto at least once per voyage for something a little different.
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Thank you to Holland America Line who hosted us on this cruise and paid our cruise fare and speciality dining costs. We were not paid by Holland America Line and they had no editorial control over any of our content, either before, during our after our voyage.
If you enjoyed this blog why not take a look at some of our other Dining Guides, including Seabourn, Celebrity Cruises, Viking Cruises and Oceania Cruises.
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