brfan

With the Auto Tipping, service charge, you are not paying up front, they are added daily for the services you have received or been offered.

Plus your credit card isn't charged with the auto tip until the last evening, so you have received service before you are charged.

We were told

 

I love that phrase

If you go into Royal's website and do a mock booking on Ovation the dining options are my time dining and traditional. No mention of Dynamic Dining as a choice.

They actually need to be paid by June 1, not just added. That's what the email that went out today said.

If I understood your previous post yes anyone who is past final payment and haven't pre-paid tips will need to pay for them prior to June 1st to lock in the old rate. However if you are not past final payment then you just need to add the tips to your invoice to get the old rate and then pay them when you make your final payment. This isn't anything different then how it's always been handled with regards to prepaying tips.

DD has one major advantage over MTD. There are no formal nights.

Hasn't Royal messed with that with their new "Royal Nights" on Anthem and the "dress your best" dress code. Sounds like they want to reinstitute formal nights without calling them formal nights. :D

However does it matter if there are formal nights, it's not being enforced and people who are just wearing what they want anyway.

Our second night was a Royal Night with dress your best. In reality people wore whatever they wanted. Many did make an effort and wore tuxes/ gowns etc, but also I saw people in jeans and t shirts.

 

The only place it will be even vaguely enforced is Grande (I think we saw one person in Grande not wearing a jacket).

I'm not surprised since this concept wasn't communicated to anyone before the cruise, at least from what I've read. In fact I read somewhere (not sure here or on that other social media site) that Royal wasn't even admitting that there was such a thing as Royal Evenings. So how could people dress for it? I'm sure the people you saw dressed up were likely dining at Grande and everyone else was in smart casual or casual depending where they were eating as that was the dress code that was known for the other venues.

Besides what exactly is "dress your best" or "Royal Night". Were there that many people complaining about the lack of formal nights on Quantum that Royal has to come up with this to make them happy but still be able to say on Quantum class ships there isn't a formal night just a formal venue? Talk about confusing.

I don't get it! We have not eaten in the MDR for years. We don't like it. We like early but early misses sail away most trips we've taken. Early means we are rushing back from shore excursions to get ready in 15 min. Late is to late. We do WJ all nights except depending on how much OBC we have we do speciality rest. I know some have said they don't like prebooking 10 different places pre cruise. Aren't you pre booking shore excursions, spa treatments, salon for formal nights? If DD means we book ahead of time at a different resturant of our choice cool, we may get out of the WJ. When you go to Disney you book resturants 180 days out. You need to plan what park, what day and time. It's part if the fun for us and being in vacation.

I think part of the problem has been Royal's IT dropping reservations. Plus it may be more complex for people travelling in groups of friends and family getting all the reservations linked together.

I'm curious though why you haven't tried My Time Dining?

My answers to your questions in red above. You have just eloquently explained the massive advantage that regular DD has, and the many obvious issues traditional or DD classic now has when intermixed with specialty, Windjammer and the freedom more and more cruises are demanding over set times.

The problem with regular DD for solos is it still may be difficult to share a table. From observations posted on here and other places, the option to share hasn't been offered widely, it could be that the host/hostess isn't willing to put people together. as it's just easier to seat people with their party. While I haven't experienced DD yet (will next April on Anthem), I've experienced this in open seating for breakfast and lunch on both Royal and Celebrity, even if you say you want to share you sometimes end up by yourself with a vague promise that others will be coming. Sometimes they put others with you sometimes not. I was sat at a table for 6 once for lunch on Celebrity and they didn't put anyone else there.

I think it will be a crap shoot for solos no matter what dining choice they make whether they will eat with others or alone. Anyway it's not something I'm going to worry about as I'm more interested in trying DD and like the option of picking my restaurants and times. If I have to eat solo a few times, I'm sure I'll survive.

I just did a quick look at the pricing for that sailing on Royal's website. I assume you are looking at an inside guarantee. The cheapest category is Z, which is only available for two people. If you do a search the inside guarantee categories for two are L,Q,Z for one you just get L,Q. So what happened is you were probably given the price for category Q, and the price you saw was for category Z, which is not available to solos.

In my humble opinion, the above is exactly why I feel this classic dining option will fail miserably. I feel Quantum class should be either all Dynamic, or all traditional, not both. I posted several weeks ago that I could see many cruisers who had booked on classic also wanting to book specialty dining and so forth... they want the flexibility that Dynamic Dining provides but refuse to let go of that false security of set traditional time, leaving the other guests at their table each night alone for the rest of the cruise if they decide to go elsewhere.

 

Keep your chin up Penton and continue to have a great time! Try leaving your classic reservation also just like your set-time table mates have done... show up as a "Dynamic" whenever you want and see if the maitre'D has a group table forming of cruisers wishing to sit with others.

I don't really see your point. On ships with traditional set dining the same thing can happen. People eat at specialty restaurants during the cruise or opt to skip the MDR for the entire cruise and eat elsewhere or perhaps switch to My Time Dining after boarding. For solos there is always a chance that you will end up at a table by yourself on any ship or cruiseline.

Also I doubt that anyone with DD Classic can just go to another one of the included restaurants and not their scheduled one. You can't do that on any other ship, switch to my time dining because you missed your seating or wish to eat at a different time if you have set seating.

I'm actually planning to go to Murano on at least one of the two formal nights and if need be will eat in Bistro on Five or another specialty restaurant the other night.

 

If I am traveling in the Caribbean or out of New York the clothes are no problem. Going to Europe and traveling by train it becomes a different story.DH feels a jacket takes up too much space.

 

Again my point is Celebrity select reservations should not imply the dress code is smart casual for all nights if it is not.

The reason it does that is the reservation system has no idea when formal nights are on a cruise. My understanding that is up to the Captain to decide. However normally it is the 2nd night and another sea day during the cruise but not the last night. Most of the time they are on sea days, however, on more port intensive cruises they will be on a port day. You can probably guess when by looking at the itinerary, but you won't know for sure until you board the ship.

As to the jacket why can't your DH wear it, rather than pack it? On the train if it's too warm he can put it in the overhead bin. That way it won't take any room in a suitcase.

No, just my opinions. Mostly based upon Royal's press releases. You can also make some logical inferences from those releases. Royal paid a bunch for this research and I doubt they're going to freely give it to their competitors.

 

Here's why I have these opinions. You may disagree but there is some logic here.

 

It is my opinion that Royal did the research and it confirmed the things I said. If you believe I'm wrong, then you have to also believe that Royal commissioned the Quantum Class and instituted Dynamic Dining without doing any research and without having clear objectives for these changes. Corporations simply do not make strategic decisions of this magnitude without gathering data and analyzing that data.

 

I think you can make some inferences about the research without actually seeing the data. I believe that if you want to know what Royal sees as the future of cruising, take a look at Quantum. Now ask yourself this: Who would Quantum, as originally conceived, appeal to? The traditional cruiser who loves classic dining with the same waiter, the same wait staff, the same table mates? Of course not. Quantum was designed for a different type of cruiser, a new demographic.

 

Why a new demographic? The simple answer is Royal wants to expand and the market for traditional cruisers is saturated. Too many cruise lines and too many ships with too much capacity. It's also clear from other comments by Royal is not interested in attracting new passengers by cutting rates. That means you have to attract more people, different people.

 

Now what would a corporation do in a case like this? Market research. Find out who isn't currently interested in cruising and what are the reasons they don't want to cruise. I think it is safe to say that spending two hours having dinner with strangers wasn't what those new cruisers said they wanted. Which leads us to Dynamic Dining. Look at the entertainment and other features and you'll see other answers.

 

OK, so this is just my opinion. But this opinion is consistent with all the press releases and statements made by Royal. It is also consistent with the things Royal has done. It answers some critical questions. For example, why would Royal go in this direction knowing that it would upset it's loyal past customers? Why not survey their long term, loyal passengers? Answer: they were more interested in expanding beyond the current market.

 

Royal may have misjudged. This decision may rank up there with New Coke. Could be. But the fact that Royal may have misjudged doesn't mean they didn't do their analysis. Nor does the fact that some traditional cruisers dislike the conclusions prove the research wasn't done.

I think Royal did misjudge. I recall reading a while back (don't know if it was Adam or Richard) who mentioned they were going after the demographic that doesn't view cruising as a vacation choice. While the research you posted shows what Royal needs to do to attract that demographic, it doesn't take into consideration that there may be nothing that any cruise line can do to get people who don't view cruising as a vacation option for one reason or another to suddenly start booking cruises. If rock climbing walls and wave runners couldn't get these people to book, I doubt dynamic dining or the "smart" ship concept will either. While it might have lured some to book, I'm guessing it was not enough and that's why they've gone with the classic option to try to keep their current traditional cruisers happy.

We also had the water from above on our balcony on Equinox a couple of weeks ago. I did think it was strange as previously, whenever they are washing down, we've always had a warning letter/note in our cabin :confused:. Nothing was received and it happened on more than one occasion during our cruise. We were on deck 7 if that matters, and our wet shoes were definitely WET (unfortunate as they were left on the balcony to dry) :eek:.

As I mentioned in a previous post it was likely the cabin steward above hosing down the balcony above yours. This happened to me, luckily I was standing by the railing when the cabin steward on the balcony above mine told me to step back and no there was no notice in the cabin as to how often the cabin stewards do this.

Apparently you have not seen the window washers while in cabin waiting for sailaway. When we were in Celebrity Suite, they washed then in port not while sailing rough seas.

I'm going to guess it was the cabin steward hosing down the balcony that was above the OP. It happened to me when I was on the Eclipse, though I can't remember if we were in port or not and I was at the railing of my balcony when someone called to me from above and told me to move back. I went back into as I new what was being done as my balcony had been washed a day or two earlier and saw a stream of water that made the front part of my balcony wet. I'm guessing that the steward didn't realize someone was on their balcony when they did that (assuming that is the cost).

If you go to Celebrity's website for the Eclipse it has a drop down menu for deck plans from April 2015-2017.

It shows both Gastropub and Cellar Masters.

It kind of shows Cellar Masters in the passageway, maybe it is a joint venture in the same space.

It looks like the Molecular Bar is listed in bars but where it is on the ship there is an unnamed bar depicted.

I'm gonna be really bumming if that Molecular Bar is not on the Eclipse next year when we go.

Sad to report the Molecular bar on the Eclipse is gone. I was on the March 29 cruise (the last one before dry dock) and on the last night they started to dismantle the bar. I spent most evenings there and am sorry to see it gone. Apparently a very high end bar will be put there according to the bartenders that were at the Molecular. Some of the drinks being sold there won't even be covered by the premium package.

The construction of the suite dining room was started when I boarded the ship and was being worked on during the cruise. No real issues, except the occasional sounds of sawing, etc., but for the most part you wouldn't know it was being done if you didn't notice the curtained off area and only one entrance to the deck 3 dining room.

They did curtain off a part of the buffet area, near the entrance on the left side (when facing the buffet). No one seemed to know what was going there and I was wondering if it might be the new frozen drink bar (I can't remember the name of it). I asked a couple of wait staff but they didn't know what was going there.

I thought a 12 night OBC was $200.

I was using an old future cruise certificate and it's $150.

If you are referring to booking a cruise onboard bonus, then the OBC will be 50%. I'm booked in a studio balcony on Anthem and my OBC is $75, which is half of the $150 OBC for a 12 night cruise.

Sorry kind of ridiculous that both Q class ships will be in Asia. There are many of us in the US that would like to sail them but can only afford, both financially and time-wise, to stick to the Caribbean for a week vacation. Not cool.

Both? Poor Anthem the forgotten Q class ship :D Anthem is currently scheduled to be sailing out of New Jersey starting in November 2015 until at least 2017. Of course that is assuming Bermuda gets their dredging done.

nobody has been drafted in the US since Viet Nam

You do know that there is more to the world than the US, right? :rolleyes: Re-read the post, they were referring to the world not the US --> "millions of military in the world were DRAFTED"

Also factor in that sea-based crew have no overhead costs, while a housekeeper on land has to pay her rent, electric, gas, car, car insurance, transportation etc.

 

And also, not all housekeepers work a 40 hour week and get benefits. They often clock in closer to 35 hours a week in reality, which puts them a the "part time" cut-off for benefits in many cases, but for national chains.

 

Cabin stewards also have the ability to work for several months on ship, then take several months off or take those months off ship and find a land-based job between contracts.

 

I's a combination lifestyle choice, financial choice, and cultural choice for people who elect to work on a crusie ship instead of a land based operation.

I disagree about the ship crew having no overhead costs. They have rent/mortgage; utilities, etc., to pay back home. They may have minimal costs on board but they do have costs back home that need to be paid.

I just hate it when rumors take over a CC board. Can one of the hosts please confirm or not this "news" about the demise/change of the Molecular Bar? I can't find any post from Celebrity on it, and we are booked for the April 19 TA on Silhouette in 5 weeks. Was looking forward to more fun experiences in the Molecular Bar as on our previous cruises on Eclipse.

Yes, DH couldn't get his single malt scotch there but we picked it up on the way at the Martini Bar. No big.

 

It was always full, bartenders were polite, and we didn't get any sense that it was a "third party operation." Don't care where the concept came from. Just hoping it is still there in a few weeks. Any official, factual info would be most welcome.

Thanks.

Check post 95 where the Celebrity rep provided information.

From Celebrity:

 

"When does Suite Class take effect?

Suite Class will be rolled-out on each ship effective with the following sailing dates: CS- 4/4/15, EC- 4/12/15, EQ- 4/6/15, IN- 4/13/15,

 

Well then, I've answered my own question. :rolleyes:

 

I guess it would be difficult to review a restaurant that isn't open yet!!! :eek:

 

:o

It looks like they have the date wrong for the Eclipse. It likely should be April 21 as the ship is in dry dock starting April 12.

My only complaint about the new bathrobes on the last night when we came back from dinner was that there were 2 of them. For us there was only one! Husband wouldn't use one anyway, but the point was there was only one.

Maybe there was only going to be one guest staying in that room for the next cruise?

The ending should be as welcoming as the beginong. This should be a training issue. Dining room and room stewards.

Since the observations of these types of things is so wide spread my guess, at least as far as the room stewards are concerned, is that is how they are trained. If you want this to change then directions must come from corporate to change how stewards' are instructed on what to do that last day/evening.

We found the same. On an Equinox med cruise last year. We preferred other bars to molecular. Theres a dry dock in May so timing is about right.

I thought the Equinox was in dry dock last year? Plus I don't see a gap in her scheduled for May. Are you thinking of another ship or were referring to another ship that has a dry dock in May?

The X representative has said it will begin before the drydock and continue into the drydock. When I asked if it would be complete at end of drydock the X rep has yet to respond.....

I got a different response from the Celebrity Rep:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=45512529#post45512529 (Post 85):

"Construction will start during its dry dock, but will not be complete at that time. We expect construction to continue during the sailing immediately after the dry dock."

I guess I'll find out when I board her on March 29th.