brfan

Just a week ago there was plenty of places within 6 o clock and then suddenly nothing before half 7, that certainly is unusual

Maybe not if the changes that are being reported actually happen. Royal will need to merge the reservations that passengers that had DD Choice in the two restaurants that will become traditional into the two MTD restaurants. They can easily manage the numbers of traditional reservations as they will know how many spots they have available in the two traditional restaurants, which may explain why "classic" is available.

Hopefully if/once the announcement is made and after several months (remember Royal's IT) to get everyone already with reserved dining straightened out then the dining options for those with MTD will be clearer. Hopefully they will try to merge existing reservations for those now with choice and not just cancel everything and have those booked have to reselect their dining choice and make new reservations...but you never know. :D

Plus as others have said only a percentage of space is available for pre-booking and I believe that might be adjusted as the cruise gets closer, while still leaving a certain percent available for on board booking. Royal may also need to get a handle on groups to get them situated before opening up dining in either choice/MTD and classic/traditional. Chances are more early times will be available and dining options will open up closer to the cruise regardless if DD stays or goes.

Again I ask - exactly 'which' bodies of water should RCI put lifeguards at?

Just the children's pool areas?

Add in the adult pools?

Each and every hot tub?

What about at night? Drain all the pools? Put a chain across and say 'Closed'?

 

There is simply no way to ever fully protect every child from poor parenting choices.

 

One of our best friends that we often cruise with was a professional swim instructor/lifeguard for many, many years. We discussed how many guards would be needed to safely watch the water areas on a ship like Oasis, and it was a staggering number. Plus you would need double or triple that number to allow for staffing shifts.

Add in that there is limited space to house crew. Adding lifeguards would mean reducing crew from somewhere else in order to find space to house them. I guess they could get rid of the kids clubs and replace the counsellors with lifeguards. However, I'm sure the parents wouldn't like that option.

So if they call it MTD and traditional but keep the DD menus everyone would be happy?

I think that might be a great idea (I haven't been on the ship yet, but will hopefully be experiencing the DD menus on April 18th cruise). They could rotate the 8 menus (2 from each dining room) in all 4 dining venues. If Royal did that then it might prove that the change isn't related to cost, but really is due to complaints. I still think it's a cost reason, but it sounds nice to make people think that Royal listens to complaints.:D

NO Lets not do that, that is why MTD is so full, Traditional diners who miss their table then take two tables for the night. If you choose Traditional DO NOT wander over and take my MTD table, you had your choice and missed it. Please enjoy the buffet or any of the other food options, but to play both sides of the fence is disrespectful and rude IMO. If you card says Trad you should never be let in to MTD and it should be strictly enforced. MY 2 cents

My understanding was if someone (say a group of 4) that have traditional, but don't show up for several days (I would say not showing the first 3 days being a good limit) that they lose that table and switch over to MTD. Then the table that they had, which has been empty could also now be used by MTD passengers. Chances are the people who don't show up for their traditional dining for several days in a row likely aren't interested in dining in the dining room either. Therefore the solution that Clarea proposed might just provide more tables for MTD passengers with little to no impact to them. At least that's how I read the post.

So, fewer staterooms available for sale to guests, another hit to the bottom line.

 

I wonder if the move away from DD helps reduce the dining room staffing requirements?

I'm wondering, since I'm not sure how the galley is run, if they could reduce the number of head or supervisory chefs? I would assume that there would be a need to have at least one head chef (and perhaps a couple of supervisory type chefs) for each of the restaurants as they serve different meals. By getting rid of DD and going to the same menu for each of the restaurants then couldn't they cut the number of head and supervisory chefs in half? This would save Royal some money since these are salaried positions.

I wonder if they could cut the dining room mangers as well - one for the traditional and one for MTD dining rooms (I assume each restaurant now currently has a manager)?

Anyway I think it's a shame they are planning on making this change. But there has to be a money reason otherwise they would just either drastically reduce the number of passengers who can have classic or eliminate it entirely and go with choice, like was originally on Quantum.

Because there are so few solo rooms for the size of the ship (for example only 24 on a Quantum class ship) the release prices are fairly good but then supply and demand starts to come into play and the solo cabins start to become poor value.

 

For example on the Ovation at the time of release the solo balcony for 1 person was cheaper than any non-solo rooms for 1 person by over $1000. Once they started to sell the numbers started to change.

In the case of the Harmony solo cabins, these crazy prices were from the day the new itineraries were released a couple of weeks ago. My feeling is the prices will have to be reduced as I can't imagine anyone paying for a smaller solo cabin when they can get a balcony (with the single supplement) for less.

Hi,

 

Are you referring to the prices for one of the single occupancy studio staterooms? There seems to a problem with the pricing for these staterooms. I have booked a cruise as a solo on the Harmony of Seas for December 2017 and noticed the same thing. It is less expensive to book a double occupancy stateroom and pay the single supplement (this is what I did).

 

Chuck

I thought the same thing. I'm booked on the 22 April 2017 cruise in a solo OV and was thinking of adding the 29 April cruise. When I checked the price I almost fell over it was over $5000 CAD - in fact a Junior Suite with the single supplement was roughly $200 CAD more than what they wanted for the solo OV.

I sent a message to Royal on their Face Book page asking about the pricing as it looked like a mistake and was told: "Hi Brenda, we have looked into this and the pricing is correct, due to the demand of rooms". I'm thinking who is going to pay almost double for a smaller cabin when they can book the regular OV with the single supplement for almost half the price?

I don't know how widespread it is, but I read reviews mentioning that the wait staff is focusing on the classic passengers, while the service is slow to non existent for the choice folks. Could the issue be that the food is prepped and served all at once banquet style to meet the need of the classic seating times ... but the various dynamic plating and serving times are throwing things out of whack?

 

If that's the case, then it should be a staffing and prep issue to solve and will still not address the capacity issue. Of course if the 4 dining rooms share 2 kitchen / prep areas, maybe the 2 x 2 plan could help things

I'm not sure why Royal is having the wait staff that looks after the classic diners also looking after the choice diners. In my opinion the choice diners should have different waiters. The classic wait staff moves with their guests to each of the restaurants. Now I can understand if short staffed they could ask a classic waiter to assist the choice waiter whenever he/she has free time. I'm wondering if they are still not staffed up enough on the Anthem and that's causing the issues. If that's the case those issues probably won't be going away if they change back to traditional/MTD.

Well, I if they are getting stiffed as much as people make them out to be waiters might prefer less tables and less guests. No sense in working more tables if you are making nothing either way. I suspect the stiffing is nowhere near what some around here like to make it out to be.

Good ratings also give opportunities for promotion - if an assistant waiter wants to become a waiter or a waiter wants to be a head waiter, as examples they would need good ratings. Also if they want to keep their job good ratings are required. For many a job, even with less gratuities some weeks is better than no job if they have a family to feed.

dd classic folks are already assigned to early or late dinner so just put them all in traditional. Then the dd choice folks become mtd. This does nothing to address the overcrowding issue though. For that they'd need to add a third seating or squeeze in a couple hundred more seats:eek:. Imagine Solarium Bistro also becomes mtd.

I wonder if Royal is using some kind of algorithm that on average a certain percent of passengers each night opt for specialty dining or alternative dining, such as the buffet and they figure that the current capacity would be sufficient?

For traditional it should not be an issue they know they have between 800-900seats and will only allow that many people to book traditional for each seating.

MTD will be the issue, especially if a larger percent of the passengers on any given sailing decide they want to eat each night in the dining room. I wonder what will happen when Royal has to tell several hundred passengers each night sorry, no room?

Alternatively they could change the dining times for MTD - start earlier and end later to try to be able to turn over 3 times. But then people will likely complain that 4:30 (just picking a time) is too early and 9:30 (again picking a time) is too late and also complain that they were rushed through dinner.

Stupid question - if they got rid of a large number of tables for two and replaced them with larger tables (6/8/10) would that allow them to increase capacity, even a little?

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. It seems my cruise (18 April) may be the last one for Dynamic Dining.

If worrying what other people pay in tips bothers you so much.Why don't you tip more.That way the workers won't be punish.Maybe Royal will see what you have done and pay them more.:D :eek:

I'm not worrying about anyone else. I was just pointing out that the poster said autotipping was against his/her principles. It that's the case why go on a line that has autotipping?

As far as Royal paying more and possibly doing away with autotipping, the higher salary will just be passed to the cruisers in the form of higher cruise fairs. Basically you either pay the tips or pay more for the cruise, one way or another the passengers will be the ones paying.

Not being selfish, it is not the customers responsibility to pay the crew. It is 100% on Royal. As Royal says it is their suggestion not a requirement. If I suggest Royal should could rates by 90% does that mean they must do so? No I can suggest anything, and they will do as they want.

 

I will throw the money overboard be I pay recommend auto tips. As for the 18% surcharge on drinks that is another story....

If paying autotips bothers you so much, why not go on a cruise line where tipping isn't required, such as Regent or Azamara? That way you can abide by your principles and not punish the workers who have no control over their employer's policies.

Why make that Assumption? They are different companies with different management and different policies

While that is true Celebrity has made the same changes after Royal has done it. For example, recently Royal changed their cancellation policy and shortly thereafter Celebrity made the same change.

I would be surprised if Celebrity doesn't also increase the gratuity amount. I'm pretty sure they increased the amount shortly after Royal upped theirs the last time.

There may be an Oasis class Fall 2018 TA depending on what the plan is for Oasis 4 (I believe she's out in 2018). If the rumours are true that Oasis of the Seas is going to Asia in 2018 (there's a possible Spring 2018 TA) then perhaps Oasis 4 will be her replacement in Florida.

There's also Quantum 4, but I can remember when she's due out, is it also 2018? I wonder if they'll home port her in Florida as there isn't a Quantum class ship there currently?

"everything". Hardly. I and many others either loved or enjoyed the shows. And those statements are everywhere on this forum.

Unfortunately for some reason more people post negative opinions than those who post positive. I'm wondering if people read enough of the negative comments they go into the show with the idea that it will be bad rather than with an open mind and decided for themselves?

One thing I have learned is never judge anything by the comments posted on Cruise Critic as far as quality of shows or food goes. I was on the Celebrity Eclipse at the end of January. Celebrity has also started to produce their own shows and there are 4 of them on the Eclipse. There were so many people who hated one of the shows (Topper), making similar comments as what has been said about the Anthem shows. I was a bit uncertain if I even wanted to go see it based on those reviews. I am so glad I did go as it was one of the best shows I've ever seen. I spoke with others who also felt the same. I still can't figure out what was so horrible about it.

I'm going on the Anthem 3 weeks today and can't wait to experience this ship and look forward to going to the shows and trying the menus on the different included restaurants.

As far as nickel and diming goes, to me it's a choice. You don't have to pay for anything if you don't want to - you can skip pictures, the Spa, bingo, specialty restaurants and only drink the included beverages and still have a wonderful time. Pay for what you want or don't pay, no one is putting a gun to your head to pay extra for anything if you don't want to.

Dynamic Dining (DD) is only on Quantum Class Ships. All other ships have Traditional Dining + MTD. On Quantum Class, there are 4 main complimentary restaurants instead of one main dining room. Within DD, there is Choice and Classic. With DD Choice, you make a reservation (or just show up) at any of the four restaurants at any time you want. With DD Classic, Royal picks a preset lineup of restaurants for you, which you rotate though. You go at the same time each night, and you have the same waitstaff each night.

 

DD and MTD do not coexist on the same ship, so a loss of DD would not mean a loss of MTD.

DD and MTD are basically the same thing. The only exception is with DD not only do you pick the time you want to eat, you also pick the restaurant. With MTD on the other ships (other than Quantum class) the restaurant (deck) is picked for you and you pick the time to eat.

With the capacity of the dining rooms on the Anthem I can see them scrapping the classic option and going back to just Dynamic Choice (like they had on Quantum). I'm not sure they can scrap the Dynamic Dining concept altogether and have two restaurants as traditional and 2 as MTD.

I guess we'll find out soon what Royal has in mind, especially if the change will be taking place sometime in May.

If the company isn't going to give them what it is charging me for their service, I won't give it to the company to play with. I'd rather just give all cash at that point. That's seriously messed up of Royal Caribbean. they are stealing from the crew the money the guests pay in good faith to be equally distributed. If the crew is "losing money" where the heck is it going?!?!?!

 

Like I said, this isn't a system designed to solicit feedback on how something can be improved, it is a system that looks for ways for the company to cheat the staff if things are not a 10 across the board, which we all know just isn't realistic.

 

To me good service is a 7 to 9. 10 is almost impossible because that's like doing cartwheels with fireworks as you serve everything lickety split.

I don't think that what was meant by that post. I think it means that those with a higher rating get a bigger percentage of the tip pool than those with a lower rating. The crew gets the tip money, it's how much of it they get on a cruise by cruise basis based on their ratings. Also chances are if you were to remove the tips and pay cash they would have to turn the money into the pool anyway. Of course this assumes that what was written is accurate.

I personally think the wait staff are being forced by their supervisors to make this speech. There's way too many people saying they've heard it (myself included) to think it's just the wait staff doing it on their own. I also believe that getting a high rating not just impact the individual waiter's/assistant waiter's assignments (table location, even ship, etc.), promotions and share of tip pool; it also impacts the head waiters, restaurant managers and on up. An overall top rating would earn those in supervisory positions or above promotions, better assignments (specialty restaurant vs. main dining room or buffet) and even better ship assignments. So I can understand why the wait staff are being pushed to make that annoying speech. It must be embarrassing and awkward for them as well.

I was also told that low ratings on the food quality would cause the wait staff problems. What was suggested to me was to rate the food as a 10, but use the comments to voice your issues with the quality. Not sure if that makes a lot of sense, but it might be one way to get your waiter off the hook if you want to say something negative about food quality.

I don't know how you would know they were short staffed but it sure didn't seem that way and we were actually there. There was plenty of wait staff at all venues and the service was still horrible. The night if the incident in Chic that resulted in our meeting with the bosses our waiter had 5 classic dining tables and one dynamic dining table (us). We sat there and watched the other 5 table be served from apps to desserts, they all completed their meals and left. We were never served dinner during that whole time and ended up in the Windjammer for dinner( 1.5 hours after we entered Chic at our reserved time). The two people we met with said the reason for our bad service was due to the fact that he was concentrating on his regular classic dining tables and that this is an ongoing problem with the current dining situation. We are not speculating. That is what we were told first hand.

 

 

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Wow 6 tables seems a lot for one waiter to handle - were they mostly tables for 2?

But April 1st isn't for another 2 weeks. I think that would be a weird April Fools joke, personally. :confused:

That actually might make sense since the first time I heard it was on my roll call the person posting said the new dining changes would take effect on April 1st. It will be interesting to see what happens.

I don't think the bosses would be saying it if it was just a rumor. They told us this at a meeting they had with us due to several bad dining experiences we had..... Happy to share the details upon request.

 

 

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I'm sorry you had dining issues, but it seems like they may be short staffed. I wonder if a lot of crew quit after the storm and they haven't been replaced. It seemed weird that you were told that your waiter was also taking care of the classic diners. Normally diners with traditional/classic would have their own waiters and those with MTD/choice would also have their own waiters.

Taking dynamic dining away isn't going to change the problem if the main issue is not enough staff. I thought they learned that with the Quantum when it started out they didn't have any assistant waiters and found out that model didn't work and then added the assistants later. I would have assumed that Anthem would have been staffed appropriately to prevent this issue.

As to the dining change, I'll wait until there's an official announcement from Royal. Officers have been wrong before. Several months prior to the Freedom dry dock, both the Captain and Hotel Director announced that Freedom would be getting the dynamic dining rooms and that turned out to be false.

Anyway I'm going to just keep my fingers crossed that it doesn't get changed until after the April 18th cruise assuming they are going in this direction.

They told us that all four restaurants will become main dining rooms with 2 seating so. Each cabin will be assigned to one of the dining rooms either early or late seating.

I'm not sure how they can do that without adding many more tables. The capacity that I've seen posted here for each of the restaurants:

American Icon = 430

Chic = 434

Silk = 434

Grande = 432

Coastal Kitchen (Suites) = 125

Total: 1855 x 2 seatings = 3710 (this assumes suite guests are assigned to eat in Coastal Kitchen and cannot go to the other 4 dining rooms).

Maximum Ship capacity = 4905

So that would mean 1195 guest would have to eat in the specialty restaurants or buffet or other dining options, such as Johnny Rockets, Sorrento's or Room Service.

How would they assign dining for the 1195 guests that cannot fit in any of the included dining rooms?

Even if they have MTD as an option there would still be difficulty fitting everyone in without expanding capacity.

Any thoughts from others who have been on the Anthem, is this do-able?

We had a great cruise. Just some bad experience in the dining part. I can tell you that we were told by the staff that spoke to us that the current dining program is not working out as they had hoped and that within the next few cruises they will be turning the current 4 restaurants into "main dining rooms".

A couple of people on my roll call have mentioned that they heard that removing dynamic dining from Anthem may happen in the next couple of months. It will be interesting to see how this will be done since my understanding that there isn't enough capacity in the 4 restaurants for everyone on board to be able to do dining like on the other classes of ships. Since I haven't been on the Anthem yet, from your experience on board can they do the switch or will there be unhappy cruisers being told to eat in the buffet because there's no room?

When I booked our HOTS back in June 2015 for our March 2017 cruise....I did price out one of those single cabins for our adult son....But the price difference between that and booking him in a Boardwalk Balcony was only a few $$'s more (now those prices are crazy for those singles) ..and just couldn't see he would want to be that far away from the rest of our extended family that will be cruising...So I booked him the Boardwalk with a TBD....glad I did because he has a new girlfriend now and sure they wouldn't want to be in that small single cabin.

I know the pricing is crazy. I'm booked on the April 22nd cruise and was thinking of going on the April 29th, but not at that price especially since I'm paying $1555 CAD for the April 22nd cruise for the studio OV. The prices will have to come down at some point or they will end just empty or given to solos with guarantee inside/outside bookings.

I've seen the same thing with NCL's "single studios"... the price for the smaller studio room is more than the price for a full-size inside or outside with the full single supplement fare -- all because of demand.

But I think over $5200 Canadian that Royal is asking is crazy. If someone has that kind of money to spend on a cruise wouldn't they just spend around $200 CAD more and get a junior suite?

Absolutely completely utterly ONE point per night in a "studio" cabin of any type.

Another reason not to book the studio OV's on the new Harmony itineraries that recently released. They're charging almost double the price of a regular OV. In fact balconies are cheaper.

I did message Royal on their Facebook page as I thought the price was in error as was told that it's correct due to the demand. :eek:

If they keep those prices solos should get triple points. :D