Ultimate Guide to Food on a Carnival Cruise

Planning a cruise on Carnival and wondering what type of food is there on a Carnival Cruise?

You could never go hungry on a Carnival cruise. Ok – you could but I don’t know why you would. There are multiple options open during the day and there is free room service during the day if you aren’t too picky.

The buffet is open from early in the morning until around 3:00 in the afternoon. But don’t worry there is always pizza, a sandwich shop and guy’s burgers. After 6:00 there are a couple of options for dinner. But this is all very general – let’s get more specific.

Before we do this, I would like to make one general recommendation. Eat Italian or Asian food. Look around at the captain and the employees. Then ask yourself if you really think that fried chicken is going to be as good as it is at home.

Let’s start first thing in the morning. You wake up, you’re hungry. What to do, what to do? Well, at this point it is too late to order room service for breakfast. That had to be ordered prior to 5am. Your choices are the main dining room and the buffet. There are pros and cons to each choice and I go back and forth on which I prefer.

Main Dining Room Breakfast on a Carnival Cruise

You walk in and the hostess asks for room number and number of persons. You are typically sat at a large table with other people (you can ask for a private table but it may take them a minute to seat you). Your waiter of the morning will come around with coffee and water and ask if you want any juice. The menu is pretty basic and while you look over it someone will offer you a basket of scrumptious pastries.

Like every other experience in the dining room, you can order as much as you want. I normally order fruit, yogurt, eggs benedict or an omelet, bacon and hash browns.

What is included on a Carnival Cruise? Check out this post to find out!

Buffet Breakfast on a Carnival Cruise

There are multiple options if you choose to eat at the buffet. My favorite option is to go to the taco/burrito stand by the pool and get a breakfast burrito.

You get to choose what you want in your burrito from type of eggs, to meat, to toppings.

Burritos are great, but again, they have some other options there. There are also omelet stations around the buffet where you can get a made to order omelets with various fillings such as bacon, ham, cheese, spinach, peppers, etc.

And finally at the main line there are your typical English Breakfast foods: various types of eggs, fruits, yogurts, bacon, sausage, hashbrowns, toasts, pancakes, grits, oatmeal, and many types of pastries.

My advice: try multiple places for breakfast. There are so many breakfast options that you can almost try a different one every day!

Sea Day Brunch

Sea Day Brunch on Carnival Ships is sort of in a category of its own. It extends through breakfast and lunch and has its own menu.

There are some fantastic brunch options such a bacon mac and cheese. I don’t know what else to say about Sea Day Brunch. Secretly, I don’t really like it. I think it’s overrated, but a lot of people absolutely love it. Try it and see what you think!

Looking for more information about sea days? Check out What To Do On Sea Days On A Carnival Cruise!

Interested in Afternoon Tea? Check out our information and tips about Afternoon Tea on Carnival! This is a classy, must-do activity for any sea day!

Lunch on Carnival Cruise Ships

The buffet does not close between breakfast and lunch. It pares down for about 30 minutes while they switch over, but it never really closes.

Lunch is themed based on location. Again, stick with Asian or Italian food – in my experience its better – with the exception of Guy’s Burgers. One of my biggest challenges on a Carnival Cruise vacation is not eating a Guy’s Burger and fries every single day for lunch!

Depending on your ship there are specialty locations available for lunch. Some ships have a Mongolian wok somewhere and most ships turn their Asian and Italian specialty restaurants into an included food option at lunch. Be sure to check out alternative options for lunch!

Looking for more about what to eat for lunch on a Carnival Cruise? Check out the best free lunch options on Carnival!

Dinner

There are many specialty restaurants on Carnival Cruises but that’s too big a topic for this post. In general, for dinner your choices are the main dining room or the buffet. The buffet includes many of the items on the main dining room menu for dinner so you can choose to sample many of the items available for dinner that night. For people who do not want to be waited on, or who don’t want to get out of their basketball shorts and beach cover-up, the buffet is a great choice. The food is comparable to the food at dinner at the dining room, just not quite as fresh.

There are a couple of main dining room choices: 6:00 seating, 8:15 seating or anytime dining. The 6:00 seating allows you to do things after dinner such as catch a show, comedy or take some sunset pictures. The 8:15 seating is much more relaxed and allows you more time by the pool before you have to start getting ready for dinner.

Anytime dining allows you to choose your dining time per night, but the larger your group the more difficult it can be to coordinate a dining time per day. Also, when you choose anytime you lose the relationship you form with your regular waiter.

After a few days with a set dining time my cup for decaf coffee shows up before I even start to order dessert. You miss that experiences when you do anytime dining. (You can request a waiter you prefer when you check in for anytime if you find a wait team that you really like.)

There are so many choices of what to eat on a Carnival cruise the problem is finding the time and stomach space to eat them all! But remember, you can order as many items off the menu as you want in the dining room and don’t limit yourself to the buffet for lunch!