Cornucopia Cruise Lines — Attraction in Perth Amboy

It takes a lot for me to leave a bad review, especially for businesses in the food service industry since it's an industry I worked in for several years. So here it goes:

For the amount of money I paid for a dinner for two, this was an underwhelming experience. They were clearly understaffed because our meals were brought out approximately 45-60 minutes late and when they finally arrived, the food was room temperature. We sent our plates back and they were returned to us hot within a few minutes, but it was clear that they didn't have enough staff to run the food out in a timely manner, hence the room temperature entrees. I knew the food was very late because the cruise departed at 7:00 PM and we did not receive the entrees until 9:00 PM.

Our server apologized and told us that they had 13 tables to attend. Again, I've worked in the food industry. I don't care how experienced you are, managing 13 tables and providing each acceptable service is nearly impossible. Additionally, our server was bussing her tables because apparently they had no bussers working. This all lies on management. It was obvious that they were short staffed based on what I observed.

I spoke to who I believe was the owner at the conclusion of the cruise. I will not name names because I'm a nice, reasonable person. I told her exactly what I documented here in this review. I asked if, at the very least, she could comp our drink order. I told her I had already paid the fee for the entire reservation and was not going to dispute that, but if she could comp the drink order, which we placed BEFORE this poor experience happened, I would greatly appreciate it because it would tell me that Cornucopia DOES care about its customers and recognized our poor experience. The owner listened to my case for a few minutes but then basically told me to pay and go away. She was not receptive or empathetic. I made it clear that the server did the best she could do with what she had, but that the cruise currently has some major staffing shortage issues, therefore mine and other customer's experiences are poorly affected. She basically claimed everything I said was false or inaccurate, and that it's none of my business to show concern for servers taking on 13 tables. She also claimed that the servers bus their tables and don't have an issue with attending to that many tables at once. I laughed because based on the looks on the servers faces, that seemed pretty far from reality.

At this point I realized the owner was unreasonable and I decided to pay for my remaining bill. When I took out my credit card, she attempted to grab it out of my hand. I pulled my hand back and said, "do NOT grab it from me, I will HAND this to you!"

I was surprised to see that this cruise currently has a 4.0 rating, but perhaps it used to be a better experience pre-COVID/pre-staff shortages.

I will say this about the quality of the food: for the price I paid, the quality of the food wasn't even CLOSE to being worth it.

I do not recommend Cornucopia, at least the Perth Amboy location, to anyone. I hope the owner/management sees this review and decides to be more understand of their staffing needs, but I'm...

Service was non-existent. I bought the tickets for my mom, aunt, and grandmother to enjoy as they were visiting from Ireland. I’d preordered them a bottle of wine, which was not on the table when they arrived, but received an hour after they were seated and only after they’d asked four different people. They ordered a second bottle of wine (white wine, delivered warm) which came an hour and a half after ordering. On top of all that, they were one of the last people to leave the cruise and, after having no one come to settle the bill for the extra bottle they assumed that the card on file to purchase the tickets would be charged and left. I received a bunch of phone calls while in bed in NH from a number that was said to be registered in CA. I sent this unknown number to voicemail as I don’t know anyone in CA and it was after 10:30pm on a Sunday night. Instead of leaving a voicemail and explaining the situation, they called me FIVE TIMES in a row. When I answered the call the woman on the other line only said “You forgot to pay your bill”. When I asked what they were calling about, the woman became rude, until I told her I had no idea why she was calling me about an unpaid bill as I was in NH all day. Then she hung up on me only to call me back again and give the phone to her manager to explain the situation. Honestly, I should’ve blocked the number after the third phone call with no voicemail being left. The lack of professionalism that I experienced from the staff and I wasn’t even there for the experience is beyond me. When I spoke to my family, they said that the service was nonexistent. Receiving a bottle of wine that was PREPAID after dinner has already been served is not acceptable. When I purchased the tickets I requested a window seat with a nice view as family are visiting from Ireland. When they arrived, they were seated at a table in the middle of the floor, away from the windows, by the back door. When my mom asked if they could sit in a window seat as the request had been made, they were told no because they “made the reservation through Groupon”. If you book an experience, it shouldn’t matter where you book it, you paid for the experience. I am completely disgusted by the experience I received and horrified that after spending so much money, through Groupon or otherwise, my mom, aunt, and grandmother did not receive the service and experience they were advertised. On top of all that, instead of letting my mom settle the bill the next day as she was driving home at 11pm, they hassled me into paying it over the phone because they “needed to closed the tab”. It should not be my problem that these servers left my mom and family with so little attention or information (saying “please settle the bill at the bar” when delivering the second bottle of wine would’ve sufficed) that now they’re short the $50. Either close the till $50 short or let her settle it in the morning. After paying over the phone, the receipt showed an add on of a 20% GRATUITY CHARGE! Do not charge automatic gratuity if you...

I’ve sailed on the Cornucopia 3 times. The first 2 times were a while ago and I remember them being okay. My fiancé never sailed on it and expressed interest so I surprised her with a Valentine’s Day dinner cruise on the cornucopia. When booking the cruise, they had 3 options, a non-private table, a private table, and a VIP table. I attached a screenshot of the options and what was included. My fiancé and I don’t drink champagne, she doesn’t like filet, and I already got her roses so I decided to choose the regular table for 2. After taxes and fees I spent over $400 for the dinner, which didn’t bother me at all. We arrived at our scheduled time and there was very little direction on where to go. Upon boarding we noticed extremely dirty HVAC vents that don’t look like they’ve been cleaned in years. We were sat at our table which was in the middle of the room, we and noticed the VIP tables were along the windows which wasn’t a problem but it would’ve been nice to mention a better view in the description for the VIP option. The VIP tables also had champagne ready and were tended to first, again, not an issue to us. The issues came after being on the boat for an hour and a waiter had yet to come to our table to take a drink order, meanwhile the VIP tables had hors doeuvres, drinks from the bar, and their champagne, and we noticed a waitress, going to their tables multiple times asking if they needed anything, while my fiancé and I have yet to had one drink order placed. Finally after an hour a waitress comes by our table to refill our water glasses and we ask to order drinks. My fiancé asks for a mimosa and the bar said they could not make it. At that point she got fed up and just ordered a coke. Our first course came out and it was a small plate of vodka pasta, I asked about our hors doeuvres and she said it wasn’t included with the non-VIP table. I spoke to the manager and showed her the photo I attached here, and she finally brought us 2 small plates of hors doeuvres. Long story short, it took us an hour to get drinks, and on the entire 3 hour cruise, we only had our drinks refilled once. The service was terrible. The DJ played dance music during dinner and dinner music after dinner when you’re supposed to be dancing. The boat was gross. The food was subpar which wouldn’t bother me if the service was on point and I got a drink in a reasonable time. For $400+, I was expecting better service and to have more than 2 drinks on a 3 hour cruise. Not to mention, the drinks weren’t included in the $400 dinner price so you figure they’d be hustling white drink orders to make extra money. That wasn’t the case. I understand the VIP tables would be there priority but I wasn’t expecting to be borderline ignored at the non-VIP table. My fiancé said after her first experience on the for Cornucopia, I better not take her on it again and I have to agree with...