Coastal Kitchen vs Unlimited Dining Package

[Mickey Melillo]

I’m sailing on Quantum on April 10th this is my first time in a Suite and I have the Sky tier Junior suite. Is dining in the costal kitchen enough or should I get the unlimited dining package?

[Ryan79]

CK all day long and save the money for other uses. If you get bored of CK, you have MDR, WJ and even can do a night or three at a specialty and you will still save a ton vs the UDP. 

[Ampurp85]

That depends.

If you are a fan of California style Mediterranean food, the you don't need a dining package. As sky class you will have access to CK for all your meals. You should only get the UDP if you plan to only eat at specialty restaurants. 

[smokeybandit]

CK, at least for dinner, wasn't as good as I was expecting.  It was a good change of pace from the MDR but the vibe was different, mostly due to passengers. Too unnecessarily snooty and delaying the wait staff. 

 

That said, the gnocchi appetizer was fantastic .

 

Also I loved it for breakfast 

[WAAAYTOOO]

29 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

CK, at least for dinner, wasn't as good as I was expecting.  It was a good change of pace from the MDR but the vibe was different, mostly due to passengers. Too unnecessarily snooty and delaying the wait staff. 

 

That said, the gnocchi appetizer was fantastic .

 

Also I loved it for breakfast 

^^This^^.  Super for breakfast…lunch and dinner ?  Meh…

[twangster]

CK has a much nicer ambiance and faster service.  Food is personal.  What works for one person may not for someone else.  

Personally I enjoy all CK meals although some menus are more appealing to me on certain nights.  I can usually find something I like. The lunchtime flatbreads are pretty good.

Some CK are better than others.  On Odyssey, Quantum and Star this year all meals were fantastic. Oasis last week was not as good for the same dishes.  I stayed with CK on Oasis because the WJ experience is miserable on early Oasis class.  Allure was mostly good, better than Oasis but not as good as Odyssey. I was on Quantum for 23 nights and enjoyed every CK meal.  It was Odyssey caliber, better than average. Utopia was better than Oasis and Allure but short of Odyssey.  Wonder is between Oasis and Utopia.  Star really stood out as the best CK experience I've ever had. 

Overall I rank CK better on Quantum class and great on Icon class.  Oasis class is ranked lowest.  

In an effort to eat cleaner and lose weight I am in a phase where I just order an entree and skip the appetizer and dessert.  This makes for a very quick CK lunch and dinner experience.  

[smokeybandit]

5 minutes ago, twangster said:

CK has a much nicer ambiance and faster service. 

This past week on Quantum, this was definitely not the case.

[Sea Squirrel]

13 hours ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

^^This^^.  Super for breakfast…lunch and dinner ?  Meh…

 

[twangster]

45 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

This past week on Quantum, this was definitely not the case.

Just goes to show that crew changes and guest contingency influence the experience.  

[TXcruiser33]

We usually purchase the UDP when we're on ships that don't have a Coastal Kitchen. But if we have access to CK, we don't. IMO, the food is generally much better in CK than it is in MDR or Windjammer, and I can always find something on the menu I like. 

Once onboard, we usually choose to go to a specialty restaurant once or twice, and like others have said - that is much cheaper than buying the package.

We'll be on Quantum for the first time in February and that'll be our plan!

[SeaSunnedTraveler]

On 10/17/2025 at 5:46 PM, smokeybandit said:

CK, at least for dinner, wasn't as good as I was expecting.  It was a good change of pace from the MDR but the vibe was different, mostly due to passengers. Too unnecessarily snooty and delaying the wait staff. 

 

That said, the gnocchi appetizer was fantastic .

 

Also I loved it for breakfast 

I also love the smoked tomato soup they serve the first night.  

[Sludog]

We have mixed results at coastal kitchen but haven't had a bad meal the few times we ate there. On Oasis the meals were pretty good to average but when we ate at Wonders costal kitchen the past April the food was much better if not excellent. Not sure if it was because Wonder has the whole "suite lounge' thing going on and the quality food quality is raised.  Also the Oasis trip was over two years ago so maybe All the CK recipes have changed a bit. 

[Vincent]

On 10/18/2025 at 7:34 AM, twangster said:

I was on Quantum for 23 nights and enjoyed every CK meal. 

Any "must-try" for lunch and/or diner?

[twangster]

1 hour ago, Vincent said:

Any "must-try" for lunch and/or diner?

If you like meat the filet, rack of lamb and veal tenderloin are all excellent although I didn't have the best cuts of meat while sailing in the Med.  

On many ships the filet is night one.  On Wonder it is currently day 2 on four night cruises only.  No filet on Wonder weekend cruises.  

[CruisingNewb]

"Californian Mediterranian"....this perplexes me.  I know that is what the descriptions say, but CK is so much more.

I don't even really know what California Mediterranian means and I live here in California.

CK has Indian, standard American, French, Latin, Asian...they have a wonderful variety.

Stand outs include:

Grilled Octopus, any of the lobster dishes, tomato soup, ribeye steak, french onion soup (my wife swears that they use a different melting cheese in CK vs. MDR), and the salmon tartare with morel mushroom.

  

[Ryansox]

My wife and I originally had purchased the UDP for Ovation of the Seas a few years back for Alaska. We decided against it because Coastal Kitchen seemed sufficient. We ended up just paying for one night because we have never tried a specialty dining venue before on any of our other cruises. We did Jamie's Italian which was as good as CK. Coastal Kitchen felt just like a specialty restaurant with the service and quality of food. The menu changed everyday of our cruise so it never felt boring. 

[JasonOasis]

Here's my two cents from my experience.  I don't go to CK my husband and I use to go but we found the food wasn't all that good we also found the vibe to be a bit stuffy at dinner.  Instead of CK what we'll do is sometimes the 3 night dinner package plus the main dinning hall, we'll do the main dinning hall and just go to a specialty restaurant on 1 one night if we get tired of the main dinning hall, we've even done windjammers for dinner they have some really good food in the WJ for dinner, and on some cruise we will do the ultimate dinning package. 

 

There is no right or wrong answer it just depends on you and what you're willing to spend. If you want to save money go with CK, main dinning hall and windjammers. Overall just enjoy your cruise and welcome to the suite life its going to be hard for you go back to a simple balcony after this experience.  

[CruisingNewb]

On 10/21/2025 at 10:06 AM, Ryansox said:

My wife and I originally had purchased the UDP for Ovation of the Seas a few years back for Alaska. We decided against it because Coastal Kitchen seemed sufficient. We ended up just paying for one night because we have never tried a specialty dining venue before on any of our other cruises. We did Jamie's Italian which was as good as CK. Coastal Kitchen felt just like a specialty restaurant with the service and quality of food. The menu changed everyday of our cruise so it never felt boring. 

We did the UDP on Ovation in Alaska.  We loved eating at the Specialty Dining options, but realized that to get our money's worth, we had to eat Specialty dining for lunch and dinner more days than we cared for.  Never had a chance to eat at CK and only ate at Windjammer once on that trip.  Felt like UDP was overwhelming.

On the next cruise, we tried no Specialty dining and only CK.  That felt like it wasn't enough.

On our last 2 cruises, we did 3 night UDP and took advantage of CK.  This allowed the most freedom and variety of food, quality, service, and ambiance.  

[WAAAYTOOO]

1 hour ago, CruisingNewb said:

On our last 2 cruises, we did 3 night UDP and took advantage of CK.  This allowed the most freedom and variety of food, quality, service, and ambiance.  

Perfect.  This is what we nearly always do.

[DuckHunter]

On 10/23/2025 at 7:36 AM, CruisingNewb said:

We did the UDP on Ovation in Alaska.  We loved eating at the Specialty Dining options, but realized that to get our money's worth, we had to eat Specialty dining for lunch and dinner more days than we cared for.  Never had a chance to eat at CK and only ate at Windjammer once on that trip.  Felt like UDP was overwhelming.

On the next cruise, we tried no Specialty dining and only CK.  That felt like it wasn't enough.

On our last 2 cruises, we did 3 night UDP and took advantage of CK.  This allowed the most freedom and variety of food, quality, service, and ambiance.  

Same.  This is good advice. I think that the UDP is overwhelming.