bonagrad

Oh, they read these boards. No doubt about it. The more vocal people are here, on social media, and providing direct feedback, will cause them to react. This industry is quick to make changes, but even quicker to react based on bad feedback!

We're on Regal Princess (Princess Cay, Turks, Amber Cove, San Juan), the last week of March, then Reflection (Nassau, St Thomas, St Martaan) the first week of April.

Maybe because you we're extremely judgmental? Believe you me, I'm 100% comfortable in my logic and as a consumer who has already paid said company in full, I'm going to continue to provide X with my feedback.

Oh, I've always really enjoyed Celebrity and I know we'll have a great time. We won't be in freezing cold Western NY working, so that alone will make it worth it!

I don't disagree, but we're past final payment on this upcoming cruise, which is part of a side-by-side where we have a friend join for the X portion. Too much planning and money already sunk into this to change at this point.

Wow, I guess I need to shut up and say thank you Celebrity! Thank you so much for selling me one things and then giving me something entirely different. You make an awful lot of of assumptions, just because you don't agree with the sentiment. This has nothing to do with gluttony! Some of us don't want a long dining experience and want a healthier dining option. We don't want protein drowning in sauce with a stalk of broccoli or two baby carrots. With the old OVC that was easily attainable. Now, it's not. As we've said, we don't want the full OVC experience back, we want something between the old experience and this extreme cut back. BUT in your opinion, it's fine, so we'll all just shut, because we're not entitled out own opinion without being called selfish pigs!

Yep, cook to order grill makes a lot of sense. Chicken, beef, pork, fish, hot dogs, hamburgers, fries, chips, some cole slaw, and potato salad. Add 2-3 cooked veggies, a sandwich station with cold cuts, cheese, chicken salad, and tuna salad. Allow people to make cold sandwiches or hot via a pininni press. Finally rotate a made to order actions station, something different night. Stir fry one night, pasta station, the next, Mexican the next, Ramen the next, etc. This provides a lot more variety, yet doesn't add a lot of additional labor and little waste, because it's all made to order. Happy medium is what the ask!

And this is totally the point of those of us that enjoy a buffet for dinner. We don't want a two hour dining experience. I'd say our last 5 or 6 cruises we eaten most in buffets or specialty restaurants. Each cruise has seen plenty of traffic in the evening and that's across Celebrity, Royal, and Princess.

Agreed and this has been my feedback to them. You can reduce waste, while still offering decent variety. They went to the extreme. The only thing worse would be closing it all together.

There are plenty of examples from people who have been onboard. It's easy to see the difference between what it was and what it is now. I booked based on what I knew the OVC to be, which was drastically cut back, literally overnight, with no notice ahead of time. Celebrity has marketed themselves as a step up from entry level lines, so the critique is warranted, given that they now have the worst dinner buffet offering at seas.

I got calls both times, within two hours each time. I spoke to two different women. The second time I offered suggestions as well as noted the feedback that I've seen here and on social media. I noted that we're not asking for a full return to the full OVC, rather a happy medium between full and this extreme cut back.

We're doing a side-by-side with Regal Princess, have a friend joining us on Reflection, and non refundable. Not losing that money. I've already contacted LLP twice to voice my displeasure.

We as consumers need to keep the pressure on Celebrity to come up with a happy medium. Becoming the worst buffet for dinner, overnight, is a really bad look.

Very true! My entire work week is doing a million things at the same time!

So, let me get this straight. We spent thousands of dollars on a vacation based on very recent good experience. Overnight, with no announcement, they dramatically change a fairly significant aspect of said vacation for some us, and we're supposed to just be happy about it? We aren't able to voice out displeasure in a productive way? I'm sorry you consider my displeasure a headache. This isn't like a restaurant removing your favorite item from the menu. We're simply asking that Celebrity to consider not cutting back so significantly. Like I said, overnight they suddenly became the worst buffet at sea in the evening, which is pretty significant with where they position themselves in the market.

I discovered Hey Dudes last year and I love them!

That's still 10%. If you took the capacity of an Edge Class, that would be 340 people a night, plus say, just for fun, another 5% per night that decide not to eat at the MDR or specialty restaurant. That over 500 people a night spread across 3 hours. Scale back on the amount of food, sure, but I think they went too far. With the Mast Grill and Spa Cafe closed, you've given 15% of the capacity few options.

This is how I see it as well. If you want to attract the next generation(s) of loyal cruisers, you have to adapt to a certain extent. Based on what other lines are doing, there is plenty of room for a hybrid approach to keep traditionalist and non-traditionalists happy. And this can be done with considering waste into the equation. The industry has to continue to attract new cruisers to fill all these new, larger ships. Going backwards isn't going to help Celebrity achieve this.

These comments make no sense! What homework did I do? I'm an extremely busy professional who took about 10 minutes to provide feedback and suggestions to Celebrity, because I and many others are not happy with this change. If you're happy with the change, great, but no need to be critical. As for the refrigerator comment, part of the cruise fare is various dining options, yes with variety. That's the point of a buffet, not essentially a casual MDR. We like the option of having a variety of healthy options in the OVC as opposed to two carrots or a stalk of broccoli on my plate in the MDR. Some people actually like to create their own meal. I'm not asking for a full return of the OVC, just something in the middle of full and what it is now. The now literally have the worst buffet in the industry and that happened overnight.

I agree on the grill station and reopening it would be the most ideal, but I wanted offer an alternative to at least get them thinking.

I sent a second email, after my first email on Sunday and I didn't ask this, but noted that we made our final payment on January 2nd, having no idea this was coming. In addition I added much more feedback and suggestions that I didn't provide on Sunday. As with Sunday, I got a call within 2 hours, this time from a different person. This time actually got provide quite a bit of extra feedback. I noted that I get the concern for waste, but there has to be a happy medium. She said that they had gotten a lot of feedback the last few years about waste. While this is fair, they went too far with the cuts on OVC. They literally went from one of the best in terms of variety to the worst in the industry overnight. I provide a suggestion that she said was going to pass along directly the Food and Beverage Team. Here was my thought. Since the Mast Grill closes at 6 and the Spa Cafe, mid-afternoon, why not repurposed those in the evening. Use the Mast Grill for that made to order proteins and salads and the Spa Cafe for lighter options. Both options for people without setting out large platters of food that might get thrown out. That would provide additional options that could easily be controlled from an inventory standpoint. Overall, I felt the conversation was productive. She said they are listening and appreciate the feedback and suggestions. I suggest everyone who feel strongly enough to take a few minutes to put together an email Every bit of feedback gets us closer to them to make some changes in the right direction! llutoff-perlo@celebritycruises.com

Exactly. The canned response is at least acknowledgement that they got it and saw it. Most companies will totally ghost you. Heck, I've sent most cruise lines email questions and have never gotten a response, so that small gesture is welcome.

This is exactly what will happen. If Cruise lines are good at one thing, it's back peddling quickly when they get a lot of bad feedback. I said it earlier, when Royal introduced Dynamic Dinning, they scrapped it after like two weeks, and they designed a whole ship around it! People, speak up! It will change! Be loud!

I'm not sure they are ignoring them, they responded withing two hours, so I didn't expect a full response. I think the point is the more people that do the same, the more in their face it is that there is a major issue that people are unhappy about.

Well, obviously you have a target audience. You aren't going to survey people have never cruised in this case. Qualifiers are there so that you can segment the data, not to get to an "inevitable" result. You write a survey to avoid bias. I've been doing this since before internet research was a thing. There are people much, much smarter than me that have spent much of the last 25 years studying how to write surveys to be effective an unbiased. Again, you let the data tell the story, whether it matched the narrative the client is looking for our not. I once did a survey, presented the data and they did the opposite, because they though they were right. Things didn't go well and they came back and asked why. We said, read the report we gave you 6 months ago and that'll tell you!