Royal Caribbean is upgrading its main dining room menus with an extensive multi-million dollar enhancement across its fleet of cruise ships.

Royal Caribbean is focusing on the complimentary dining choices in its main dining room.  The changes include dishes infused with regional flavors reflective of the destinations of the world the line’s ships sail to; improved choices for guests with dietary restrictions; and superior presentation.

Royal Caribbean Executive Vice President of Operations, Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, commented on the changes, "In today's food-aware culture, the palettes of our guests have evolved and they have come to expect, not only a variety of choices, but cuisine of the highest quality made with the freshest of ingredients. In recent years, we have introduced many new specialty dining concepts and in this next evolution we are expanding the options in our main dining room with even more variety, allowing us to cater to our international guests while offering them the highest quality dining on land or at sea.”

Some of the new menu changes include upgraded entrees such rack of lamb and surf & turf with new offerings like premium beef sliders and daily entrée dinner salads.

Royal Caribbean has redone its main dining room menus by adding variety but it also was sure to keep some dishes that have become passenger favorites over the years, such as aged hand-cut Manhattan steak, escargot bourguignonne, shrimp cocktail and crème brulee, popular selections now available every night.

There also has been a focus on the desserts with a new “hot from the oven” blueberry peach crumble, sticky bread and butter pudding and sumptuous carrot cake.

The updated menu format also includes a new vegetarian symbol, which is the official symbol of the European Vegetarian Union and considered the most widely used vegetarian symbol worldwide for easy recognition.

 In addition to the new menu designations, Royal Caribbean is rolling out new daily gluten-free bread offerings, available on request in all venues, including specialty restaurants.

Here's a copy of the new menu. You can view the schedule for the roll out of the new main dining room.

Many of us have pondered just how Royal Caribbean manages to prepare all the food over the course of a cruise to feed its passengers and The Daily Traveler took a look behind the scenes at Royal Caribbean's food preparation to see how it's done.

Royal Caribbean vice president for food and beverage operations Frank Weber says time is importing, "We start loading around 7 a.m. in the morning, so we have until 3:30 p.m. to send something back to our produce supplier, like a pallet of tomatoes, and to get a replacement a little later in the afternoon."

Longshoremen then load supplies onto the ship. Royal Caribbean transfers the food from wooden pallets to metal trays, which can be more easily cleaned, to prevent ship contamination by anything that might have been on the wood. For similar reasons, other packaging, such as cardboard, is incinerated.

Technology assures smooth sailing by alerting crewmembers to how many passengers are grabbing a bite. Royal Caribbean, for instance, has head-counting cameras in the ceilings of its main dining areas that count when and where passengers are gravitating to and subsequently provide data that can be used to anticipate peak serving times.

The cruise ships offer simple menus so their cooks can prepare food to order and serve it at the perfect temperature (i.e. offering a single main version each of meat, poultry, and seafood).  The exception is the specialty restaurants onboard that serve a small, subset of passengers.

Simplified menus allow chefs to synchronize meal creation with the needs of diners. "We don't pre-cook the steaks and keep them in a warmer as you would in a typical hotel banquet operation," says Weber, describing a method that's common to better cruise lines. "And we don't plate food until the waiter is on the path to deliver it."

Royal Caribbean is teaming up with Food and Wine Magazine to offer its passengers a new program called, “The Art of Preparation” which is a multi-platform program featuring Food & Wine and Royal Caribbean International “Masters” in a branded content experience. Food & Wine Marketing and Mindshare co-developed “The Art of Preparation” specifically for Royal Caribbean.

This new program is designed to invite "foodies" to learn more about the culinary experiences available aboard any Royal Caribbean ship.  The first installment of the “The Art of Preparation” will roll out with co-branded rich media units across www.foodandwine.com, www.travelandleisure.com as well as select Time Inc. websites, and will run through Dec. 2012.

Hosted by Sissy Biggers, television personality and lifestyle expert, the two minute videos feature a look into each “Masters” area of expertise. The Food & Wine Masters line-up includes:

•  Brewing: Garrett Oliver (Brooklyn Brewery, NYC)
• Baking: Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito (Baked, NYC)
• Pizza: Mark Bello (Pizza a Casa Cooking School, NYC)
• Cocktails: Jim Meehan (PDT, NYC)
• Spices: Lior Lev Sercarz (La Boîte a Epice, NYC)
• Chocolate: Jean-Francois Bonnet (Tumbador, NYC

The Royal Caribbean International masters include:

•  Josef Jungwirth – Director of culinary operations and Master Chef
• Marco Marrama – Corporate executive chef
• Frank Weber – VP, food and beverage operations
• Matthias Terskow – Pastry chef and supervisor
• Fritz Halbedl – Chef and culinary consultan
•  Maureen “Molly” Brandt – Chef de Cuisine, 150 Central Park
• Travis Kamiyama – Executive sushi chef, Izumi Asian Cuisine
• Chef Michael Schwartz – Chef and owner of Michael's Genuine Food & Drink and exclusive culinary partner of Royal Caribbean International

Royal Caribbean is also the presenting sponsor of the “Masters Series: Lessons from the Experts,” editorial section.

MSNBC posted a column lamenting the decline in the amount of food that is included on cruise ships these days and used Royal Caribbean as an example. Citing the increasing cost of specialty restaurants, author Sean O'Neill pointed out how cruise lines like Royal Caribbean are emphasizing more and more the specialty restaurants that cost extra.

The large part of O'Neill's point was centered around Rita's Cantina and the Seafood Shack, found on Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas (among other ships not mentioned). 

Passengers used to pay $8 for meals at Rita's Cantina, for instance. They'll now pay a fee of $3 to dine at the restaurant and then pay a price for each item ordered a la carte, too. The 15 percent gratuity isn't included either. 

O'Neill feels that neither Rita's nor the Seafood Shack constitute "premium restaurants" and the quality of the food is low enough that it ought to be included in the price of the cruise.  Adding insult to injury, O'Neill points out that the prices have gone up too with Royal Caribbean's recent decision to charge a restaurant fee and an a la carte charge.

What really concerns O'Neill is the path he thinks the cruise lines are going down of serving worse and worse food in the main dining rooms so that guests will feel more inclined to pay extra for the good food.

Yet the danger here is that all cruise lines will begin to serve sub-standard food in their main dining rooms. After all, by making the dining hall experience less attractive, a company can make more money by upselling customers on fee-based meals elsewhere on-board.

O'Neill was sure to point out that this trend isn't limited to Royal Caribbean, he was simply using it as an example of a trend happening all over the cruise industry.

While Royal Caribbean's deployment of nearly half their fleet to Europe has been the big story in the company as of late, the other big trend that is sweeping across all of Royal Caribbean's ships (and frankly other cruise lines too) is the food options onboard.

While on your cruise ship, there will ample food provided throughout the day.  In short, there's hardly ever a time where you can't find food that is complimentry.  Complimentry food comes from a variety of sources and options.

Complimentry Restaurants

Main Dining Room

Every evening dinner is served in the main dining room at assigned seating tables.  You may end up sitting with passengers who you don't know, but the servers work to make your dining experience here as personal as possible.  The main dining room offers appetizers, entrees and desserts to choose from each night and you may order as much (or as little) as you like and it's nearly all complimentry.

The exception for food that is not complimentry in the main dining room are steak filets, that often come at an extra cost.

You can also dine in the main dining room for breakfast every morning and for lunch when available.  For breakfast, it's sit down service although here seating is first come-first served and you will not have the same waiters as dinner.  Lunch offers similar set up.

There is often a dress code to the Main Dining Room, although it's mostly an issue for dinner and less so for other meals.

Quick Service Restaurants

Throughout your cruise ship you will find other restaurants you may grab something to eat for no additional cost.  The exact restaurants vary from ship to ship but you will find a good variety of food to choose from.  Examples of food here can include pizza, sandwiches, pastries, ice cream and more.  

There's usually some seating available at these restaurants although not a lot.  These types of restaurants are usually for the "grab and go" passenger, who may be wanting something quickly to eat on their way to somewhere else.

Windjammer

The defacto buffet on every Royal Caribbean ship is the Windjammer Cafe, which is an all you-can-eat buffet that serves meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  There's lots of seating and it's a great option  when you want a casual meal.  The Windjammer is also usually convenient to the pools on the ship.

Don't let the buffet setup fool you, the Windjammer offers good quality food and while you could argue the food quality isn't as high as you will find in the main dining room, it's still a restaurant many Royal Caribbean fans love to frequent.

As mentioned earlier, the Windjammer is open for dinner and can be a good alternative for those who do not want to get dressed up for dinner in the main dining room or simply want to have more pool time or some other activity.

Room Service

Yes, room service is complimentry on your Royal Caribbean cruise.  There is a menu in your stateroom to choose from and it's available 24 hours per day.

There is a catch to room service, while the food is complimentry, it's traditional to tip the person that delivers the food to your room.  In addition, Royal Caribbean changed their room service policy back in 2009, and there is now a $3.95 surcharge for any food ordered between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m.

Speciality Restaurants

The biggest trend among all Royal Caribbean ships is the addition of specialty restaurants to their ships that cost a nominal fee.  The prices vary from ship to ship and restaurant to restaurant.  These specialty restaurants tend to have a food theme (Italian, French, Steakhouse, etc) and are table service restaurants.

Most specialty restaurants have a dress code, and in some cases their dress code is more formal than the main dining room.  

Specialty restaurants recommend making a reservation in advance to ensure there is a seating available.  It's not to say you can't walk up ona  given night and dine there, but there may be a wait or no availability.  You can book speciality restaurants in advance of your cruise on the Royal Caribbean website up to 60 days before your cruise but no sooner than 4 days before your sail date.

Pricing can also vary from restaurant to restaurant.  Some restaurants have a cost per person and then nearly everything on the menu is included in the cost.  Other resaurants offer their menu items with a la carte pricing.  Others include a per-person fee and a la carte pricing.

The future

Royal Caribbean has been working on increasing the amount of specialty restaurants on their ships as they've proven to be great money makers.  Some guests are bothered by the amount of speciality restaurants onboard because it's come at the expense of the complimentry offerings as well as the principle of paying for food on a cruise ship.

No one knows what the future will entail exactly, but all signs point to more speciality restaurants than we've seen before on Royal Caribbean ships.  Even older ships are often receiving new restaurants when they are brought into dry dock for upgrades.

The bottom line is there's plenty of places on your Royal Caribbean ship to eat at.  Both complimentry and specialty restaurants offer a wide variety of food to choose from and there's almost always something to get regardless of time of day.

Food prices around the world are on the rise, particularly for meat, sugar and coffee, and companies like Royal Caribbean are finding ways to deal with the problem.

Royal Caribbean Chief Executive Richard Fain says the cruise line is hedging increases in cattle prices, that hasn't fully offset its rising costs for beef.  Since the fall of 2010, meat prices have risen for Royal Caribbean and since the steakhouses aboard their ships are the most popular according to Fain, it makes sense for Royal Caribbean to be concerned.  Royal Caribbean serves about 53 million pounds of beef, poultry, lamb, veal and pork a year.

"Meat is important to our guests," Mr. Fain adds. "We aren't prepared to sacrifice the quality and we can't raise prices enough to reflect it, so it ends up being a cost we have to absorb." Royal Caribbean is also paying more for citrus fruits and fish, particularly shrimp, another popular dish on its cruises.