Canaletto: Should You Dine Here on Your Next Holland America Cruise? Here’s my Review.

If you’re planning to take a cruise with Holland America Line, then there’s a fair chance you’re also considering booking a meal at Canaletto, the Italian dining venue onboard Holland America’s ships. In this post, I’m going to offer you my full review of this venue, including showing you the venue itself, the food, and also my honest opinion. Should you book this for your next cruise, or is it a waste of money? Well, let’s get started.

If you’d like to see a full Dining Guide from my recent Holland America cruise onboard Rotterdam, here’s my YouTube video! While you’re over there, it would be amazing if you’d consider supporting my channel by clicking both the THUMBS UP and SUBSCRIBE buttons. Thanks so much!

Which Holland America Line cruise ships have Canaletto on board?

If you’d like to try Tamarind, you can find this venue onboard all 11 of the Holland America cruise ships: Eurodam, Koningsdam, Nieuw Amsterdam, Nieuw Statendam, Noordam, Oosterdam, Rotterdam, Volendam, Westerdam, Zaandam & Zuiderdam.

In other words, if you’d like to dine in Canaletto during your cruise, you’ll be able to regardless of which ship you’re cruising on.

What is Canaletto, and what does the venue look like?

Canaletto is Holland America’s Italian restaurant. In here, you’ll find a menu designed in collaboration with American chef and restauranteur Ethan Stowell. Holland America say that the menu is inspired ‘by the simplicity of Italian food and its rich, robust flavors’. Sounds good, right?

One thing that I really liked about this venue was that all of the pasta is made from scratch every single day!

The venue itself is an interesting one - you’ll often find this restaurant within the Lido Market, otherwise known as the onboard buffet. Cruise lines often have speciality venues in (or close to) the buffet, probably because it’s easy to service from here due to the volume of kitchen areas up there. Here’s a few shots of the venue onboard Rotterdam:

You’ll find Canaletto close to the entrance of the onboard buffet onboard Rotterdam.

The dining area at Canaletto is bright and airy, with light colours used throughout the space.

Historically, I haven’t loved speciality dining venues that are located beside the main buffet areas of a cruise ship. I find that they rarely feel like their own space, and it can feel strange to be paying extra to eat a meal that’s in the same room as the complimentary buffet.

However, up here, I did feel that Holland America did a good job with this one on Rotterdam. The best part? It’s got to be those huge floor to ceiling windows, allowing you to gaze out over whichever city you’re docked in, or over the ocean!

When is Canaletto open on a Holland America cruise, and how much does it cost to eat here?

Canaletto is only open for dinner. You won’t find this place open for breakfast or lunch, so my advice would be to book this early in your cruise to avoid disappointment, if you’d like to try dining here.

For dinner, you should expect to pay a $25 (USD) per person cover charge. This venue is also included with your ‘Have it All’ package, so you can have one meal in here if you’ve already added that to your cruise booking.

For kids 12 years old and under, meals in Canaletto are half price when they order from the kids’ menu.

What’s the menu at Canaletto like?

Below, I’ve attached my images of the menu during my cruise. It’s important to note that this menu is subject to change, but you can use this to give you an idea of what to expect when you’re onboard.

I loved the fact that the menu was printed on just one page - it’s so simple!

Here’s the menu at Canaletto - what would you choose to order?

Let’s talk about the food…

Okay, let’s move on to the most important topic when you’re considering booking a restaurant - what was the food like? I loved my dinner in here, although the one word of advice I would offer to you is that the food (particularly the main courses) are VERY generous! I found it impossible to finish what I’d ordered, so this could be worth keeping in mind for your meal…

Here’s what I opted to order (warning: the following images might make you hungry…!).

To start: bread, olives and nibbles. This was really tasty!

I moved on to Sage and Veal Meatballs, which was a great sized portion for one!

This was the Burrata starter, and it was VERY tasty!

My main course: Italian Sausage Paccheri - this dish was delicious, but HUGE! I’d say it’s more of a sharer…

It would be rude not to finish with dessert, right? Here’s my Lemon Ricotta Baked Cheesecake.

So, would I recommend Canaletto to you?

I don’t have to think at all on this one. I really enjoyed my meal here, and felt that it was wonderful value at $25 for a dinner. The portion size, as I mentioned above, was large when it came to my main course, but the starters were a great size (as was dessert).

If you’re looking for a different experience to the main dining room in a venue that feels fairly relaxed and casual, then look no further. Book yourself a table at Canaletto, and I really hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did!

If you’d like to see more from my time cruising with Holland America Line, why not join me in the below YouTube video? Here, I disembark from Virgin Voyages’ Valiant Lady in Miami to head North to join Rotterdam at Fort Lauderdale!

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