Cruise ship coffee has received some scathing reviews on a number of different lines and probably for good reason. Many moons ago I ran some popular cafeterias in the Midwest that served thousands of people a day, so I have a real appreciation for what any foodservice operation goes through to make that happen.
Coffee, I quickly learned, has an extremely short shelf life, losing a whole lot of what makes it good just minutes after being brewed. In an attempt to beat the nature of coffee, those who make it have tried freeze-drying it, making it “instant”, reducing it to a concentrated syrup to be added to water later and a number of other methods of dealing with the short shelf life coffee has by nature. Check the wiki on coffee to see how far back it goes and what it has meant to worldwide economies just to get a glimpse of how big this issue is.
What matters about coffee though is how it tastes when someone drinks it. Finding the right balance of strength is not easy. Some people like a strong coffee, others not so much. Starbucks probably has a book about this someplace and if I don’t get down to it here real quick, so will I.
Princess has coffee on tap in their Horizon Court buffet areas that has been the butt end of CruiseCritic message boards for years and understandably so: coffee is easy prey for just about anybody. But what Princess has done to coffee at it’s International Café and a few other venues around the ship, including their specialty restaurants, is gone back to simply brewing it.
A highlight of the Princess coffee program is the coffee cards they offer for sale at the beginning of every cruise. A punch card about the size of a playing card, they sell for $ 29.99 and give the cardholder 15 specialty coffees plus complementary upgraded, brewed, fresh, coffee and tea. It’s simple. It works. End of story.
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Follow along as we sail Princess Cruises Grand Princess
with these other articles from our Grand Princess SeaLog-
