LongTimeTvlr

The Indian-themed dinner is very popular (and good) so reservations should be made soon after boarding if you like Indian cuisine.

 

Thanks to all for your replies. Very helpful. We do like Indian cuisine so we will give this try.

We just completed a cruise on the RCL Quantum where they are launching a new dining reservation scheme, much like the Crystal approach. They call it "Dynamic Dining". It has not gone well. While the concept has some merit, the fact that it requires to you to plan every night in advance, combined with the implementation difficulties and the inability to make desired changes once you are onboard have generated many very negative reactions.

 

We found it required too much planning and was annoying to use. RCL has now amended this approach and are adding a "Classic" dining option on their newest ship.

 

We are choosing to wait until the turmoil has subsided before trying one of this ships again.

 

It seems like taking a very simple process and making it complex and annoying.

For us in NJ we got 11 nites for the price of a 7 nite Carib. cruise. Still got 7 warm Carib. days/nites and a beautiful new ship. The only downside was the day of the cruise it was snowing and icy conditions and it took us 1.20 hours for the last mile to the terminal. We could have flown to FL with the overall time it took us. But once on board, it was heaven and rushed to 2X70 for the roast beef sandwiches.

 

I had forgotten about those roast beef sandwiches. You are right they were very good and 270 was an amazing venue even just to sit and read.

 

There would have to be NO OTHER entertainment anywhere on the ship, the promise of $ 1,000,000.00 for attending, and Tom Selleck, John Travolta, Tom Hanks, Kevin Costner and Kevin Kline as my devoted companions, while my DH is locked in our cabin to get me to go to karaoke. :eek:

 

- Miriam

 

I was on the same cruise as nelblu. These entertainers were fantastic. That is not the issue. The problem was on the nights with no show (5 of the 11) or even on show nights. If you didn't want to go to bed after the show or dinner there were very few interesting choices. Normally on RC: ships there are one or two dance bands that play an interesting selection of music. On this cruise you could choose between rock or salsa. For me that gets old after about two nights.

 

I feel the same way you do about karaoke. That being said we actually sat through several sessions because there were no other choices and we actually danced during some of the songs because the music was much better than the bands.

I am on the March 2 Legend cruise and have never sailed on Seabourn before.

 

What is the reason I would want to eat in R2 versus the normal restaurant?

You are indeed eligible. send me an email at wdpmd@yahoo.com and I'll get you one.

 

Dave

 

Thanks for your help. I just sent you an email.

Just found this thread by accident.

We are sailing on the March 1 Legend cruise.

 

Of course we have made final payment.

 

Are we still eligible for this referral coupon?

Agree with original poster about DD.

 

The food and service inside each of the restaurants were great, but the reservation process was anything but dynamic.

 

Very difficult on the 2/2 sailing to change reservations.

 

If we had no alternative we would not choose a ship with only DD, including Quantum which is a gorgeous ship with a super staff.

 

Just too time consuming to adjust reservations, and walking up did not work in most cases for us.

 

I wonder if it makes a difference to be Diamond or above, which we are not? It seems from my readings on this site that most of those who like DD are loyal Royals with elevated status.

 

Also we were frequently told that large groups had booked up the times we were trying to book, and because of this there was no availability.

 

We also talked to several fellow cruisers who were in large groups organized by travel agents and they said their group had reserved large numbers of seats each night, but if individuals wanted to go somewhere else they did, but they were not able to cancel their individual group seats. They told us that they frequently had many tables with many empty seats in their groups.

 

Just wondering.

I've read that the ice cream machines were not working most of the time on the first few cruises. Can't believe that this was still a problem in late January. Do you happen to know if the scooped ice cream in the WJ is available late evening like after 10:30pm?

 

On the 2/2 cruise the soft serve machines were working overtime I tried them, which as maybe 6 of the 11 days, usually just after lunch.

 

From my experience the section in the WJ with the ice cream closes around 8:30 or 9 PM.

One vote for Richard in Grande.

 

Also the gentleman we had in Silk was very good, unfortunately I do not remember his name.

We just returned from the 2/2 sailing.

 

We have cruised many times on many different lines. Royal is not our favorite but liked what we read about Quantum so wanted to give it a try.

 

She is a beautiful ship. The shows were among the best we have ever seen, including Mama Mia (the best), Starwater, Sonic Odyssey, the comedian - Troy Thirdgill, and the entertainers. Jeff Traca was amazing. We have probably seen over 250 shows on various ships and I would rate the 6 shows on this cruise all among my favorite 15 shows. They were that good.

 

Food and Service were great. The room was super.

 

Unfortunately for us the bands were one dimensional, playing mostly Rock (Horizon) or Salsa or Salsa derivatives (the band in Boleros - strangely I never heard them play a Bolero). That is a personal preference sort of thing I guess. Rock and Salsa are OK, but we were on board for 11 nights and this got really old.

 

The only really big negative was DD. We did NOT like DD. Food and Service were among the best we have experienced, with a few rare exceptions. But this reservation system was anything but dynamic. We read all about the problems before we boarded and had reservations for each night before we boarded. But once we saw the daily compass we usually found conflicts and tried to change our reservations with mixed success. We tried walking up without reservations and contrary to many posts on this site we were turned away and told to come back in 2 hours when there might be some availability. We were regularly told we could not change our reservations because there was no availability at any time that night. The room TV was useless for working this issue. The Royal IQ app was very clumsy. There is no change function. You have to search each restaurant for availability then go in and cancel your existing reservation and then go back to the place with the availability and make your reservation, assuming status has not changed. Often I would then walk down to the restaurant and talk to the staff and they had better times than Royal IQ showed so I eventually stopped using the app and just kept walking down.

If you are a puzzle person this could be a lot of fun, but we are on vacation and this process is just frustrating and time consuming.

 

This DD process was a fairly common topic of discussion among the various people we met on the cruise and in my view over 80% of the comments were negative. I admit this could be a self-defining bias.

 

That being said, I didn't see anyone starving :)

 

And 270 is just a gorgeous facility. Exciting just to sit there and read.

About 6 days into our Feb. 2 Quantum cruise, the maintenance crew began painting arrows and distance marker flowing clockwise rather that counter-clockwise as other RCL vessels. Mind you, the front of the ship's portion of the track has painted image of runners running counter-clockwise. Since the Q is moving to China, do the Chinese run clockwise?

 

I noticed that but if you look at the mileage markers they actually are placed with the outer ring being in miles and only work if you are going counter clockwise, even though the arrows show clockwise. The inner circle was marked in km and was marked going clockwise. I think they will eventually figure out they have a problem with the outer ring and fix this. I always walked counter clockwise in the outer ring and never had an issue. There were not that many walkers or runners on our 2/2 cruise that I noticed.

The game was fun, but they should change some of the questions. Too many right answers seemed to indicate that the player had planned in advance,

 

We stopped going to this game show because they always ask the same questions and it was clear many of the contestants knew what they were going to be asked and had prepared answers.

[quote name='ReneFlores']I just saw a change in my Royal Caribbean cruise planner that states Devinly Decadence no longer has cost (usd 0), can anyone confirm if Devinly decadence will officially become free of charge?[/QUOTE]

I am on the 2/2 sailing and yesterday I saw that they had removed the cover charge for Divinely Decadence, went to the planner and made a reservation and there was no charge.

The tag on the icon does say "Starting at $0.00". It is possible they will be charging ala carte. The current menu does not show any charges, but the way things are going we will have to wait and see.

The way it was explained in the post I saw was that because there appeared to be more people who wanted to eat (complimentary) at the peak times than they had seats, they added Izumi and DD to the complimentary list.

Sounds good to me. We'll have to see how this plays out.

It is a move I would expect a quality organization to make given the current situation. So I take this as a very positive sign that the problem solvers are engaged and working to help us out.

There has been enough talk, we need solutions.

I made reservations for Divinely Decadent on our 2/2 cruise and there was no upfront charge. The sample menu does not show charges ala carte but that may change.

I am on the Feb 2 sailing and have been following most of the posts.

It seems a large number of the very positive reviews come from Diamond or above posters.

 

I wonder if their higher status helps them work through the lines and other services issues more efficiently and with help from concierges etc. and softens the impact of the current problems?

 

I ask because I am not Diamond or higher and am concerned.

 

My interpretation of the unhappy people is that their issues are not change so much as lack of service; long lines, dropped reservations, difficulty in making reservations, over worked staff,etc.

 

I am surprised that these types of problems seem to be taking so long to resolve. My expectations of RCL are higher than current performance would justify.

I don't actually see a problem with multi use of the Queen's Room. So long as the dancing floor is kept in great condition and is used only for dancing in the evening. If I remember right, there were several occasions on QV and QM2 where the Queens Room was used as another place for say the Captains meet and greet and bingo. Am I wrong?? :confused:

 

Sorry, I don't have any issues with how Cunard uses their Queen's rooms. I was commenting on the great dance floors on Royal Caribbean's Radiance class ships which we also like. They have equivalent floors but often use them for Karaoke and bingo and other adventures during the prime time evening hours. It varies by cruise.

 

Sorry for any confusion.

I saw that in a blurb earlier today. Any idea what the dimensions are? Looks like it is designed to be used with a stage. Hopefully this will encourage the Cruise Director not to use it for Karaoke and bingo like RCL does so often with their great dance floors on the Radiance class ships. What a crime.

We have sailed in 1068 on QV and 1074 on QE and we liked the rooms. We almost always sail inside cabins and liked the shape of these rooms. They are more square than the normal container shaped rooms and we liked that. This shape provides more walk-around-room.

 

Don't know if this is four berth or not, but it is in the same area and appears to be the same size. Hope this helps.

 

I tried to attach pictures to this post but have no idea if it will work. Never done it before.

 

 

Great review. We were on the same cruise and my wife and I are also walkers and dancers. We did many of the same things, walked to Boston Common, etc. We lived outside of Boston for a couple of years so we had already done the Freedom Trail and the Constitution.

 

We did find a great event in Halifax. There is a brewery - Alexander Keith's - just off the boardwalk and they do a live re-enactment of the pub from 1820. It was a hoot, and only $20 a person, which included 2 beers, which you have to drink quickly as the show lasts about 15 - 20 minutes.

 

We were surprised by the new restrictions at Sir Samuels. On past cruises we would pick up a few almond Crossiants for breakfast on occasion, get a cup of coffee in the Kings Court and have a nice small and liesurely breakfast . This time when I tried they insisted I buy a cup of coffee, which of course I can get for free in the King's Court so I passed.

 

This is new and unwelcome. They told me I could get the almond crossiants in the King's Court or at breakfast in the Britannia but I do not believe that to be the case. I have never seen them in KC and when we asked the waiters in the Britannia they did not have them.

 

Not sure why they are doing this. Maybe new and overzealous staff?

We just returned from a 12 day New England cruise on QM2. We have sailed with Cunard 9 times and this was our 4th time on QM2. I was very pleasantly surprised by the food in the main dining room. After reading reviews here on Cruise Critic before we left, our expectations were not high. But we had lobster tail twice, beef wellington once, sirloin steak twice and several other lamb and pork dishes in addition to the fish they normally do well. All were prepared and served very well and as we requested.

 

I don't know if there is a new gallery staff. We generally are pleased with the food on Cunard but in this case it was at a whole new and better level.

 

Given the often negative tone on this board I thought I would share this good news for whatever it is worth.

 

Also - We found the ship to be in very good shape. There were the spots of unevenness in the floor in many locations as has been often mentioned here, and it was mildly annoying. That being said it was not a serious issue for us and I did not see anyone that had difficulties with the floor while we were on board.

 

All in all it was a great cruise on a great ship.

We too enjoy the dance lessons with Daria and Eugene and enjoy their evening dance displays too. We would like to see a bit more of them in the Queens Room in the evening perhaps for the pre dinner session occasionally. We wondered roughly how much would a private lesson with them would cost as would consider for a future cruise? Thanks

 

We have taken lessons from several of the Dance teams on the Cunard ships. The price is generally around $75 US for a 45 minute lesson. Often this included both dancers which is very helpful for us as it is much easier for us to visualize the instruction if we can see two experts dancing it correctly. We were allowed to video them and we have a library now of great lessons from the various dance teams on the Cunard Queens. This price is actually less than we pay our instructors here in Dallas so we think it is a great deal. The only hitch is finding time when they are free, we are free and most difficult, the dance floor is free. That often required early morning (8 AM ship time) lessons for example. We are early diners so we couldn't use the 5 or 6 PM slots which were also available on occaision,

My wife and I are dedicated ballroom dancers. We choose our ships based on their dance floors.

We have tried NCL (Star), Princess (Star), Crystal (Symphony), Celebrity (Century, Summit, Solstice), HAL (Vendam, Masdam, Statendam), RCL (Liberty, Radiance, Serenade), and Cunard (QM2, QE, QV).

 

Based on our experience Cunard is by far the best. The Radiance class RCL ships also have a great dance floor, but is often used for Bingo and Karaoke, and the bands are hit and miss, with a bias towards miss.

 

When we were on the Symphony the floor was smaller and round, but there were not many dancers so it worked out alright. They may have upgraded the floor since our trip which was in late 2011.

 

We just returned from a 12 day QM2 trip to the St. Lawrence and Canada.

 

We traveled with some friends who were just leaning to dance. We had 6 sea days and a 45 minute lesson each day, with each being a different dance. The instructors were Sergey and Olga and I believe they were new. Our friends found the lessons to be very helpful and they were able to transfer what they learned to the dance floor each night. They were so pleased with the instruction that they asked Sergey when he and Olga would next be on the QM2 as they might book that cruise to continue their lessons.

 

We have also taken two cruises on the QE with Eugene and Daria, and we found them to be excellent dancers and teachers. Our friends were not with us on these cruises so we were looking for a little more content in the lessons and were not disappointed. We also took a couple private lessons from both Eugene and Daria and they were very helpful.

 

It is hard to generalize these opinions because we are all different dancers at different levels and looking for different things, but our view is that Cunard does far better with ballroom dancing than any other cruise line by a wide margin.

 

The only problem we encountered on this last cruise was there were two dance groups on the cruise and floor was always crowded, even during the recorded sessions. But in a sense it is hard to complain because the more people who dance the more support and therefore hopefully there will be more opportunities to dance.

 

One final note, I am going to post a separate thread about this but this was our 9th Cunard cruise and the food in the Britannia Restaurant was outstanding. We had lobster tail twice, Beef Wellington once, sirloin steak twice and many other great meals. Very pleasantly surprised. As always we found the ship and service to be above other lines.

 

Hope this is helpful. That is the intention.

Gene,

 

Great to hear from you. I have wondered for a while what happened to that thread. I used to read it at least once a week just because there was always something interesting going on and some knowledgeable dancers commenting.

 

I miss it now. Still have a couple ships on my wish list from that thread. I think they are P&O ships, Acadia and another ship whose name escapes me for the moment.

 

I think it was Slow who recommended them.

PunkiC,

 

I remember you from that long thread on this Cunard board that Gene ran (I can't remember his last name). You often participated, though strangely I don't think Gene ever sailed on Cunard.

 

My wife and I are also long time ballroom dancers. We have been on all three Cunard ships and prefer them to all other cruise ships for dancing, though we also like the RCL Radiance class ships. We tried Princess only one time and our experience was not such that we wanted to try again. Might have been the particular ship. I believe it was the Princess Star. We took a 16 day cruise to Antarctica. They had two dance floors. One was in a bar and L shaped with chairs and tables on the floor, which was already small. the other was half moon shaped but only had one band that played for it and they played swing 80% of the time. We gave up asking for other dances.

 

In our judgment the floors and music on all three Cunard ships are very similar to each other, though having the floor midships is a little more convenient.

 

As far as the roll call threads, yes the Cunard threads tend to be a lot less active, though occasionally one lights up, it is not the norm.

 

It is also our experience that RCL and Celebrity (another RCL line) do a better job of matching us with our table mates. We prefer fixed dining and enjoy having the same couples to dine with for the length of the cruise. It is my view that if the conversation is boring that is as much a comment on my conversation skills as those at the table. From my experience there are very few people that don't have enough life experiences that they can't be interesting to talk to for a couple of weeks, if properly motivated.

 

Do you know what happened to Gene's thread? We went away for a while and when we got back it was gone. Never knew what happened, though there were a few posters who were a little full of themselves and were making some negative comments about other dancers. Maybe the moderators took notice?