Whether you order room service or bring a plate to your room from the buffet, eating in your cabin is welcome and common on Carnival cruise ships.
Many cruise passengers enjoy starting their day with an in-room breakfast, especially if they’re staying in a balcony cabin where they can savor their morning meal in their own private space overlooking the sea. Carnival even offers a complimentary continental breakfast menu for room service orders every morning to make enjoying in-room vacation breakfasts even more enticing.
But once the meal is finished, a dilemma sets in for some cruise passengers. Should you leave the dishes in your cabin or place them in the hallway outside the door?
Carnival prefers one of the two methods for clearing dishes from staterooms, but not everyone agrees that it’s the appropriate one. The cruise line’s brand ambassador, John Heald, recently discussed the in-room dining dilemma on his popular Facebook page that’s followed by more than 650,000 cruise vacationers.
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Many Carnival cruise passengers enjoy eating breakfast in balcony cabins. Image source: Carnival Cruise Line
Carnival brand ambassador discusses in-room dining etiquette
Heald shared a couple of important tips for in-room dining etiquette in a Dec. 3 Facebook post after receiving an uptick in comments about room service trays on his page.
“One comment was from a guest who was saying how we should not allow people to put out their room service tray/lido plates, etc., in the guest corridor,” Heald said.
Not only does Carnival allow passengers to place trays and dishes in the hallways outside their stateroom doors, the cruise line recommends the practice as the proper way to return room service trays on its ships.
Related: Carnival Cruise Line adds new cruise breakfast options
“I just want to reiterate that this is what we want you to do, please. There is a specialist team whose job it is to collect this and put the cutlery and plates back into service. It is not the housekeeping attendant’s job to remove them from inside the cabin,” Heald explained.
The brand ambassador acknowledged that dirty dishes can be an unpleasant sight in hallways, but offered an etiquette tip to help with that.
“I understand that aesthetically as this lady mentioned, it doesn’t look the best, but we will remove it as quickly as possible and please, you can always remember to place the napkin over any uneaten food,” Heald added.
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Carnival cruise passengers share their in-room dining habits
Heald also asked passengers to share whether they typically follow this method for clearing dishes from their cabins in the comments on the post.
Across more than 2,500 comments, most experienced Carnival cruisers said that they place their dishes outside of the door. Some do it only because they know that’s what the cruise line prefers though.
Many agreed that placing a napkin over the plate is a good rule of etiquette that makes the dishes less of an eyesore.
“We don’t like putting dirty dishes outside the door but we do cover it with a napkin,” Elaine Helms Davis commented.
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While some think placing the dishes in the hallways is better than leaving plates of food in cabins, others worry about the trip hazards created by dishes left where people walk.
A few passengers recommended a potential solution for that problem, which could offer a way to resolve the in-room dining dilemma once and for all.
“Perhaps there could be a cart in every hallway near a service room or an elevator where people can place their dishes if they don’t want to just leave them outside their room,” Barb Elias Malburg suggested.
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This story was originally published by TravelHost on Dec 4, 2025, where it first appeared in the Come Cruise With Me section. Add TravelHost as a Preferred Source by clicking here.