Best $25 spent on board Royal Princess.

Whilst I was on board the Royal Princess we were lucky to be treated to a meal in either of the two specialty restaurants on board, which are the Crown Grill (seafood and Steakhouse) or Sabatini’s (Italian fine dining restaurant). I chose to dine in the Crown Grill – mainly because I wanted to make my partner jealous with photos of my meal for the evening, as I knew he was at home with a ready meal, and his favourite meal is Steak and is the option he chooses whilst on board a cruise. There was 7 of us who ate in the Crown Grill and we were given a  lovely table, which was on its own and among the wine racks, so if there is a group of you this was a fabulous table to sit at as it was slightly separate from the main restaurant and was like being in your own private dining room.

Both restaurants have a cover charge of $25 – and many people often wonder what is the point of paying extra for a meal in the specialty restaurant when you could dine in the main dining room or Horizon Buffet for free?  For me eating in the Crown Grill is the best $25 you will spend whilst on board, and if you worked out how much everything would cost if you went to a similar restaurant on land it would easily be triple what you would spend on board.

We had a fabulous waiter called Rodrigues and his assistant was Ramul. He helped us with the menu and I opted for the scallops to start, followed by a salad, and then I decided to make my partner even more jealous and so I opted for the Porterhouse steak – which is 22oz ! There are smaller steaks and different cuts on the menu if you didn’t fancy the porterhouse. Rodrigues also brought out for the table 2 lots of the side dishes which was asparagus, spinach, garlic and herb fries (these were delicious), jacket potatoes which were filled with sour cream and bacon. He also brought out two plates of lobster which he cut up for us and left in the middle of the table.

To season the steaks there was 3 different salts you could choose from (or if you wanted to try them all then this was not an issue), the Hawaiian Black Salt, Smoked Applewood Salt or Himalaya Mountain Pink Salt. My preference was the Himalaya Pink salt followed by the Smoked Applewood.

I have to say the porterhouse did beat me and I managed about 3/4 of it, so definitely did not have any room for dessert.

My only criticism would be I felt the Crown Grill was just a little understaffed and just needed a couple more waiters on.

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I would definitely recommend this restaurant to anybody sailing on Princess Cruises and is the best $25 you will spend on board.  This would also be a great venue to spend your birthday or anniversary on board.