Ambassador Cruise Dining and Bars Guide

Dinner on an Ambassador cruise runs in two sittings, 5:45pm and 8:15pm, and you pick your preferred one after booking. Breakfast and lunch are open seating. The fare covers full board and afternoon tea, while drinks, speciality restaurants, room service and gratuities go on your onboard account.

Ambassador dining times: when each meal is served

Meal times depend on where you eat, so the buffet runs longer than the waiter-service rooms and the pool grill keeps odd hours. These are the times Ambition keeps; the other ships follow the same shape, with small shifts on port days.

The two sittings split the evening. First sitting at 5:45pm suits an early dinner and the later show. Second sitting at 8:15pm has no fixed closing time, and the team suggests leaving about an hour and three quarters for the whole meal.

Two shows run each night, at 8pm and 10pm, one timed for each sitting. If you eat in the Borough Market buffet, which closes at 8.30pm, you can be done in time for either.

You request a sitting after booking through My Ambassador Sailing, and the early one goes first. The Ambassador Fare includes first choice of dinner sitting, so if a 5:45pm table matters, that bundle is how you hold it.

On advertised multigenerational sailings the main rooms switch to Open Sitting: turn up when you like, and you can’t pick a sitting or table size in advance.

Renaissance does its own thing. Grand Restaurant Vatel serves lunch and dinner in an open setting rather than two fixed sittings, so the 5:45pm and 8:15pm rhythm is an Ambience and Ambition habit.

What the fare covers and what it does not

Full board really does mean full board on Ambassador. Breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner are included on all three ships, in the main restaurants, the buffet and the pool grill, along with entertainment, leisure facilities, luggage porterage and port taxes.

• Every drink, unless you buy a package
• The speciality restaurants and the Chef’s Table
• Room service, charged per item
• Gratuities, added automatically to your account

Gratuities are the line item people forget. They’re charged per person per night and go on the onboard account, at a lower nightly rate on cruises of 15 nights or more. On multigenerational sailings, 12 to 17 year olds pay a reduced rate and under-12s pay nothing.

Everything else that lands on the bill, from wifi to shore excursions, is set out in the Ambassador cruises first-time guide.

Which restaurant is on which ship

Restaurants differ by ship. Buckingham is the main room on Ambience and Ambition, Grand Restaurant Vatel on Renaissance, and the speciality kitchens are split between them.

A room you read about may not exist on the ship you’ve booked. If you’re still choosing, the Ambassador Cruise Line guide sets the three ships side by side.

Holyrood, Ambition’s second main room, is listed for breakfast, lunch and dinner, though most people end up in the Borough Market buffet in the morning because it runs longer. On Renaissance the speciality supplements are quoted in sterling and euros.

The main dining rooms, and what dinner is like

Buckingham is a big waiter-service room with set tables for the fixed sittings. Menus lean on British favourites: Sunday roast, shepherd’s pie, fish and chips, cottage pie, roast turkey breast, with the odd paella or wild mushroom velouté in the mix.

Renaissance’s Grand Restaurant Vatel spreads over two decks, with menus drawing on England, France and the Netherlands, plus Caribbean touches on warmer itineraries.

Dinner is what the room is built for. On one gala night a Baked Alaska parade comes through Buckingham.

Speciality restaurants and what the supplement buys

Every ship has at least three rooms with a cover charge, and the cheapest is usually the best-value meal on board. Saffron is the one to book: a three-course menu with two options, sharing platters and a Royal Indian Maharaja Thali, plus vegan alternatives, and a firm guest favourite across the fleet. It runs in the Lotus space on Renaissance on selected evenings.

Lupino’s on Ambition carries the smallest supplement, and a donation from every bottle of Mateus Rosé sold there goes to the RSPCA in Michelle Lupino’s memory.

Sea & Grass is Ambience’s seven-course tasting menu, and it doesn’t exist on Ambition, which carries Lupino’s in its place. Dining Under the Stars, a seven-course surf and turf menu served on deck, runs on both.

The Chef’s Table is the big ticket: around three hours, with a galley tour, gifts and a walk-through of the menu from the executive chef. It’s nine courses with five matched wines on Ambition and seven courses with a pairing on Renaissance. Spaces may be limited, and on Ambition you book it once on board rather than ahead.

Renaissance adds Terre & Mer, Lotus Pan-Asian and Kreole by Mondi. The Grill, a steakhouse pop-up, appears inside Sea & Grass on Ambience and inside Lupino’s on Ambition on selected evenings.

Book at Reception or in the Buckingham Restaurant at mealtimes. The table is held for 15 minutes, the supplement goes on your onboard account when you book, and drinks and wine pairings are charged at the end of the meal.

Cancel by the day before and the money comes back as onboard credit. Cancel inside 24 hours, or don’t turn up, and a per-person fee applies.

Pre-booking is live on Ambition, with Ambience and Renaissance to follow, and the wider picture of speciality restaurants on cruise ships explains how cover charges work across the lines.

Breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea: a full day of eating

Ambassador cruise breakfast menu

Breakfast is open seating and included. In the main room it’s a full buffet with one speciality dish brought to your table. Expect a full English, an omelette station, cold cuts and pastries, which is what Borough Market lays on from 7am to 10am.

Buckingham serves from 7am to 9.30am for anyone who wants a table and a waiter, and Holyrood is listed as a breakfast room too. If you’ve got an early shore excursion, the buffet opens at the same time and moves faster.

Lunch, and the one-hour window that catches people out

Lunch is where the timetable bites. In Buckingham it runs from midday to 1pm, one hour only, so if you’re back on board at half past one you’ve missed it. The Borough Market buffet runs to 2.30pm, and the Alfresco Grill covers midday to 2.30pm, then 3pm to 6pm.

On Ambition, lunch in the main room is buffet-style for starter, soup and dessert, with the main course served to the table. That’s a good compromise if you want a proper meal without a long sitting.

Afternoon tea, included, between 3.30pm and 4.30pm

Afternoon tea comes with the fare on all three ships, at no supplement. On Ambition it’s served in Borough Market from 3.30pm to 4.30pm with savouries and cakes; on Renaissance it happens in Belle Vue.

The buffet and the pool grill in reality

Borough Market is built around named stations rather than one long counter: Points East for Asian fusion, The Oven for roasts, Salt and Vinegar for fish and chips, Grave ‘n’ Grains for vegetarian, Crouton for soup and bread, Sugar Bun for desserts, plus the Borough Market Bar. It closes at 8.30pm, which makes it a real option before either show.

The Alfresco Grill does burgers, hot dogs, pizzas, chips and salad on deck, and its windows are short: midday to 2.30pm, then 3pm to 6pm. Miss both and you’re waiting for dinner.

On Renaissance, Belle Vue is the buffet next to the pool, running breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. Fixed sittings versus open seating is the main fork in cruise dining, and cruise dining options explains the difference.

Drinks packages: three tiers and who each one suits

Ambassador sells three adult drinks packages, and they’ve been renamed: Non-Alcoholic (formerly Experience), Classic (formerly Explorer) and Premium (formerly Expedition). The line says nothing changed but the name.

On cruises of 5 to 29 nights they’re priced per person per night, with a lower nightly rate on sailings of 30 to 69 nights and a per-cruise price on short 2 to 4 night trips. Buying before you sail is cheaper than buying on board on every tier and every duration.

The purchase rules catch people out. You buy for the whole cruise, for every occupant of the cabin, on the same package.

No selected days. Book up to seven days before sailing.

After that you can only buy on board, at the higher price, and within 24 hours of boarding.

What’s not included on any tier: the minibar, bottled water whether large or small, bottles of wine and spirits, room service, and bar tea and coffee. Speciality coffee only comes with Premium, though Classic holders get 50% off premium drinks ordered from the bar.

Practical limits: one drink per person at a time, with a minimum 15 minute wait between orders. The old cap of 15 alcoholic drinks in 24 hours has gone. Standard spirit measures were cut to 25ml, with 50ml doubles available.

Gratuities and service charges are included in all three adult packages and can’t be removed from them, which is a fair chunk of what you’re paying for.

No official break-even is published. As a rough rule, Classic starts to pay for itself somewhere around five or six drinks a day. Drink less than that, or spend most of the day ashore, and paying as you go is cheaper.

Bar prices and the one fleet-wide drinks menu

There’s a single bar menu across the fleet, with the same package key in every bar, and only a handful of bar-specific items such as draught cider and certain gins and whiskies. Every menu is marked so you can see at a glance what your package covers.

Prices are pub-like rather than hotel-like. A pint, a soft drink and a coffee sit where you’d expect on a British high street; cocktails and 250ml glasses of wine are closer to casual restaurant money. That matters for the package decision: the middle tier only makes sense if you’re drinking a decent amount of wine or cocktails.

The most-ordered cocktail on board is the Piña Colada, with the Espresso Martini, the Aperol Spritz, the Ambassador Coffee and the Ambassador Cocktail close behind.

Water is the quiet cost. Cabin water, still or sparkling, is charged per bottle and covered by no package.

Buy a refillable bottle on board, or bring your own, and refills are free for up to 14 nights. A collapsible water bottle packs flat and does the same job.

You can’t bring alcohol on board at all, and anything bought ashore is handed to security and returned when you leave the ship, so there’s no corkage arrangement to look up. Soft drinks are different: up to 12 cans or small bottles per cabin are allowed.

Bars on board: which one does what

Every ship has a pub-style room, a cocktail lounge, a pool bar and a late lounge, and the names change with the ship. Ambience has the deepest list: the Botanical Lounge for gin, with an exclusive collection including Silent Pool and Sipsmith; Raffles for whisky in an Art Deco room; the Purple Turtle Pub for real ale; SW19; the Consulate Bar aft for sail-away; a Pool Bar; the Coffee House, which serves Teapigs loose leaf and L’OR espresso; Dickens; and The Observatory, a panoramic room with a DJ until late.

Ambition runs the Clifton Lounge, The Cavern for live music, a Purple Turtle Wine Bar, the Pendennis, The Angel Bar, a Consulate Bar and a Pool Bar.

Renaissance is the most lounge-heavy: the Ocean Bar, Massalia Lounge, Aria Bar & Lounge, Explorers café-library, La Reserve, Rendez-vous, the Lido Pool Bar and Le Panoramique Lounge & Nightclub at the bow, with 180 degree views, a live band and a DJ until late.

No closing times are published for any bar, so ask on board if a late drink on deck matters to you. Expect some friction at busy times too: bar staff can’t ring up orders themselves, so a drinks steward has to attend for a signature, and a round takes longer than you’d think.

Formal nights: how many, and how dressed up people get

Dress codes are advised rather than enforced, but on gala nights people do make the effort. The count depends on the length of the cruise: one on sailings of two to five nights, two on six to twenty nights, three on twenty-one to forty-one, and five on anything over forty-two.

Cocktail dresses and dinner jackets or formal suits are the expectation. A lounge suit is fine, and plenty of men wear no more than a shirt and tie. Jeans, T-shirts, shorts and open-neck shirts aren’t permitted in the main restaurant on gala evenings.

The Baked Alaska parade runs through Buckingham on one of the formal nights, and the Chef’s Table is the other obvious excuse to dress. There’s more on what to wear on Ambassador formal nights if you’d rather plan it properly.

Dietary requirements and allergies

Vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free diets are catered for, but you have to tell the line before you sail. Vegan options now run across the fleet menus, room service included.

For a serious allergy, that advance notice is the whole process. Nothing is published about a pre-order system, a special diary or a meeting with the galley, so the note you attach to the booking is the one that does the work. If you’re coeliac rather than mildly intolerant, the guide to staying gluten free on a cruise holiday covers what to ask and when.

Room service: charged per item, not per tray

Room service is a hotel-style menu rather than a flat tray charge: you pay per item. The menu splits into Daytime Bites and Healthy Bites from 11am to 11pm and Nighttime Nibbles from 11pm to 7am, with vegan options throughout, and you order by dialling 3000.

Expect the sort of list you’d find in a mid-range hotel: Caesar salad, sandwiches, a club sandwich, a beef burger, a chickpea and lentil burger, a cheese plate, fruit salad and ice cream. It’s excluded from all the drinks packages, and nothing is published about a room service breakfast, so treat it as an all-day and overnight menu.

Money-saving choices that add up

• Buy the drinks package before you sail, not on board. It’s cheaper on every tier and every duration, and once you’re on the ship you have to buy within 24 hours of boarding to get it at all.
• Compare the Ambassador Fare with the Saver Fare. The Ambassador Fare bundles the Premium Drinks Package at a discount, gratuities and service charges, and first choice of dinner sitting. The line calls it the cheapest way to add the package.
• Sort water before you sail. A refillable bottle, yours or the line’s, beats paying per cabin bottle, and refills run free for up to 14 nights.
• Carry on your soft drinks: up to 12 cans or small bottles per cabin.
• Book the speciality rooms you want, then cancel by the day before if plans change, to avoid the per-person fee.

Is the food good? A verdict

The food on Ambassador is good British cooking with one standout Indian kitchen. The weak spots are a one-hour lunch service and a speciality menu that doesn’t always differ enough from the buffet. The three strongest cards are Saffron’s curries, the seven-course Sea & Grass and the Sunday roasts in the main rooms.

The middle ground is where it thins out. Read a speciality menu against the buffet before you commit a supplement: the value sits in dishes like the fillet and the prawns, not in anything you’ve already seen upstairs.

Bar prices are the pleasant surprise: one simple menu, pub-level pricing and packages that swallow the gratuities. Where the line doesn’t compete is sheer choice, because three or four included rooms is the whole map.

If you’re weighing the fare against P&O, food is usually where the decision turns, and the Ambassador versus P&O comparison sets the two side by side. Cabins and service are a separate question, covered in the independent Ambassador cruise review.

Ambassador cruise dining FAQs

Are drinks included in an Ambassador cruise fare?

Drinks aren’t included in the standard fare. Full board and afternoon tea are covered, but every drink is charged unless you buy one of the drinks packages or book the Ambassador Fare, which bundles the Premium package at a discount.

Do Ambassador cruises include gratuities?

Gratuities aren’t part of a Saver fare. They go on the onboard account per person per night, at a lower nightly rate on cruises of 15 nights or more, and under-12s aren’t charged at all. The Ambassador Fare builds them into the bundle.

Can you take soft drinks on an Ambassador cruise?

You can take up to 12 cans or small bottles of soft drinks per cabin. That allowance is per cabin rather than per person, so it covers a family in one go.

Is the buffet included in the fare?

The buffet is included: Borough Market, Belle Vue and the pool grills are all covered, along with the main restaurants and afternoon tea. Only the speciality rooms and room service carry a charge.

Is there a drinks package for children?

There’s an Adventurers package, priced by age band for 3 to 11s and 12 to 17s. It’s sold only on advertised multigenerational cruises, and only if every adult in the cabin holds a package too.

What measure are spirits poured in?

Spirits come in 25ml standard measures, reduced from 40ml, and 50ml doubles are available if you ask for one.