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How The Whiners Ruined Dynamic Dining


Merion_Mom
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I cannot see the problem with “My Time” dining you can still go anytime you want and have the advantage of a different menu every night. DD you had the same menu for half a week per dining venue.

 

 

 

 

I think MTD is going to be much less flexible on Anthem due to the pressure on restaurant sizes. I think they will be asking people to reserve online ahead of the cruise and the chances of just turning up and being seated without a reservation will be slim. Also I'm surprised they are going with 50% capacity for traditional dining and 50% for MTD. If they had 3 MTD restaurants that would allow greater flexibility.

 

 

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I think MTD is going to be much less flexible on Anthem due to the pressure on restaurant sizes. I think they will be asking people to reserve online ahead of the cruise and the chances of just turning up and being seated without a reservation will be slim. Also I'm surprised they are going with 50% capacity for traditional dining and 50% for MTD. If they had 3 MTD restaurants that would allow greater flexibility.

 

 

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They should be able to modify the venues depending on how many folks sign up for either version. I think they do that on Oasis and Freedom ships

 

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They should be able to modify the venues depending on how many folks sign up for either version. I think they do that on Oasis and Freedom ships

 

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Your probably right, they should have some flexability. I remember on my last Jewel cruise they had to rearrange the dining room because there was 4 times as many wheel chair guest than the week before, so quite a bit of moving at the last minute.

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Very disappointed in this decision.

 

After cruising almost 15 years, I am so tired of traditional dining, I won't do it anymore. DD was a nice way to spice it up. I was on Anthem in May and in April, there were also rumors it was going away, but nothing official.

 

I have to say that I enjoyed it 100%. ZERO problems. We did Classic 1, showed up at the different restaurants at the same time everyday with the same staff. It was wonderful. The only complaint would be the dud tablemates who complained about it the entire week.

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Sorry Merion Mom but according to Vicky Freed the majority of passengers did not like it. The number of complaints was overwelming.

Royal Caribbean reads every comment form submitted and was overwelmed by the number that did not like it.

 

I have sailed with DD several times and did not like it but it did not turn me off of sailing with Royal Caribbean..

 

Agree! The powers that be are going to make decisions based on feedback from the passengers, and I'm sure this decision was not made without giving it substantial thought by corporate. We tried DD on Quantum and did not like it at all. We let them know our feelings on the survey, and I also followed that up with a more detailed letter explaining why we did not care for DD. Apparently, the MAJORITY of passengers did not like it either. So, does that make the MINORITY who do like it "whiners" for voicing their opinions? Let's try to not resort to name calling when disagreeing with others' opinions.

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You mean dynamically allocate seating for dinner?

 

Sure, works for me. :D

 

I just know on Freedom, Decks 3 & 4 are traditional, Deck 5 is MTD and on occasion, part of 4 may be MTD. Oasis might be the opposite with MTD on lower deck.

 

John, who wishes he could come up with witty epilogues like Biker

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Okay, maybe separate galleys doesn't make much of difference, but Anthem will now be no different than every other ship in the fleet, which are all able to present meals of equal quality in both traditional and MTD.

 

Those Galleys, in the rest of the fleet, were designed for banquet service. Realistically, it may just be an issues of staging space, where to line up the racks. They can always begin plating further ahead of the service if line space is an issue.

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I am on Anthem right now, not a whiner but we do not like DR at all. The only restaurant we have liked so far is Wonderland. I have choice and don't want to make reservations months ahead of time. So once we got on the ship I fired up the phone and used the is app to make reservations. We could only get late times but found if we show up when we want to, tell them we have reservations but want to eat a little early we have gotten in right away. Still have been disappointed with the food and we are not the only people. Otherwise, the cabins are great and it has never seemed crowded anywhere.

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We're sick of traditional dining and really enjoyed DD on Anthem. In fact, it was one of the highlights of our 12-night cruise, and made the dining experience much less redundant. Some people just don't like change... I get it. Particularly true in the structured world of cruise ship dining, where things have been done the same way forever and ever.

 

Oh well... :(

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I've been on the Anthem & had no problem with their freestyle system. We never even made reservations beforehand....we just showed up at around 8:30 & never had a problem. We will be on the 11/27 cruise this year & hope that we won't have a problem. Hate to be on 1st few cruises of a new system but we'll just go with the flow with that too.

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I think was the major problem as you had to know what time you would be hungry months in advance

 

I don't get why people say this is an argument against DD. What is the difference if you have 6 o'clock early seating, and making a reservation for DD months in advance, both reservations are made months in advance.

 

Because DD Classic is for better choice of words "Normal dining times " either early or late.

 

But DD Choice was where many got 9:30 dining times as that was all they could reserve. It was NOT flexable and definetly NOT your choice of a dining time. Then you had to try to change to a more reasonable time once on board. It worked for some, not for others, either way you had to try to reschedule or hope to get lucky with the hostess. More wasted time and stress on vacation. Who needs that on a stress free vacation?

 

I'm playing Devil's Avocate here, We liked DD Choice and made it work for us. We are sad to see it go.

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I am on Anthem right now, not a whiner but we do not like DR at all. The only restaurant we have liked so far is Wonderland. I have choice and don't want to make reservations months ahead of time. So once we got on the ship I fired up the phone and used the is app to make reservations. We could only get late times but found if we show up when we want to, tell them we have reservations but want to eat a little early we have gotten in right away. Still have been disappointed with the food and we are not the only people. Otherwise, the cabins are great and it has never seemed crowded anywhere.

 

So, you are not complaining about Dynamic Dining. You are complaining about the food.

 

:rolleyes:

Edited by Merion_Mom
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And yes I cruised both Anthem and Quantum. It was quite difficult, when sailing with 4 other people, all seniors, trying to book reservations for all of us and using a spreadsheet to try and keep track of the meals and entertainment. Dynamic dining classic was ok , until your waiter had to suddenly deal with a table of 12 that shows up a quarter of the way thru your meal and you end up waiting a very long time.

 

No,I did not whine the whole time,but when asked my opinion, I gave it.

 

Yes I am happy to have regular scheduled dining, many years of Catholic school has me loving the uniformity of it.

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Anthem was built for sailing from cool weather ports and not as open feeling as other classes of ships, so Miami or Fla, would not really work.

:

 

 

I admit that I don't know what the Ocean Air temps in China or Australia.... but I do know it plenty warm in NY in the summer when the Anthem Sails from there.

None of RCCL's builds in the past 20 years have been designed to bring the passenger closer to the ocean, so I am surprised that RCCL decided to nix DD before tying it out of another US port.

 

 

 

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I have not yet read the whole thread, but here is my take on it.

 

Those that complained they did not like the Dynamic Dining were on a cruise and got exactly what was advertised to them and that they booked and paid for.

 

I will be sailing on the Anthem in December and will NOT be getting what was advertised to me, and that I booked and paid for. I was looking forward to Dynamic Dining with the four different restaurants. I would have like to have tried it. May I have had issues with it? Its possible, but I would have like to have tried it.

 

I read posts on Facebook and on here that people have been on ships with Dynamic Dining multiple times, and did not like it. The simple solution would be to either know what to expect when boarding, or to look into a ship that does not offer it.

 

I, and many others will not have the chance now to try something they were looking forward to.

Edited by magiccruiser1
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We are booked on the Anthem next summer for our 50th Anniversary celebration and taking our children and grandchildren - 16 of us in total. While I very much liked the concept of Dynamic Dining, the thought of trying to make reservations for such a large group for 7:00 every evening, along with the horror stories I was reading on CC, forced me to book Classic 1 even though we didn't want to eat at 6:00 (8:30 is too late for some of the grandchildren) every evening.

 

I might be missing something, but I'm trying to figure out how My Time is going to solve the problems that resulted from Dynamic Dining. No matter what cruise line you sail, the trend is for more and more flexibility in dining times. Celebrity now has more tables allocated for Select Dining than Traditional. If there new allocation on Anthem and Quantum is 50% for each dining option, this might end up not eliminating the current issues.

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And where is the problem?:confused:

 

Loved DD and also hate smoking :cool:

 

Not a problem at all.... maybe is was something we agreed to agree on.

 

We would have liked to have tried DD, as SO had flexible similar dinning on other cruise ships and said it worked well and was good.

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And yes I cruised both Anthem and Quantum. It was quite difficult, when sailing with 4 other people, all seniors, trying to book reservations for all of us and using a spreadsheet to try and keep track of the meals and entertainment. Dynamic dining classic was ok , until your waiter had to suddenly deal with a table of 12 that shows up a quarter of the way thru your meal and you end up waiting a very long time.

 

No,I did not whine the whole time,but when asked my opinion, I gave it.

 

Yes I am happy to have regular scheduled dining, many years of Catholic school has me loving the uniformity of it.

 

The most honest explanation I have read yet....I can totally understand your reasoning .

Edited by gc
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