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On board now...march 17


Winemyst
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On board now. Lots of positives, couple minor negatives. One major negative- we booked over a year ago and requested early dining. They gave us the third seating at 9:45pm and said they can't change it. After much back and forth they said we can try to come at 6 and see if someone didn't show up. I hope that works bc my 4 year old will not make it to 945. She is asleep at 730.

 

I wish we had known this was the Miami dolphin cruise. No big deal though.

 

I will write a full review on our return.

 

 

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Welcome aboard.... Yes it was mentioned several weeks ago on this board about MSC affiliation with Dolphins. Also have a Cheerleader photo shoot for their calendar coming up I believe on 4/28. Enjoy your cruise.... we board next week!!

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Yeah, I have kids and 9:45 is way to late to eat for them as well. You think they'd realize this. Are you on the Western Caribbean itinerary? If so, any letter about cancelled excursions this week due to safety concerns? Thanks and have fun! :)

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Yeah, I have kids and 9:45 is way to late to eat for them as well. You think they'd realize this. Are you on the Western Caribbean itinerary? If so, any letter about cancelled excursions this week due to safety concerns? Thanks and have fun! :)

 

 

 

We are on the eastern ....sorry

 

 

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Glad you made it on-board safe and sound. Sorry to hear you have been assigned to 9:45 with kids. Do you have bella experience? Fantastica experience is supposed to get their priority in choice of dining times (although that didn't matter when I had fantastica).

 

Also, if you think of it, can you take a stroll through the dinner buffet on deck 8 and see if they are still using this as overflow or if adding the third dinner seating eliminated this need?

 

If it is no longer overflow, it is a full dinner buffet or the scaled down version shown last week?

 

Finally, hate to ask, but any smell? Two weeks ago there were lots of people complaining of the sewer smell, but last week there was only one posting on FB indicating they experienced it and they described it as mild and only in the kids waterpark.

 

Enjoy your week!!

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On board now. Lots of positives, couple minor negatives. One major negative- we booked over a year ago and requested early dining. They gave us the third seating at 9:45pm and said they can't change it. After much back and forth they said we can try to come at 6 and see if someone didn't show up. I hope that works bc my 4 year old will not make it to 945. She is asleep at 730.

 

I wish we had known this was the Miami dolphin cruise. No big deal though.

 

I will write a full review on our return.

 

 

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This is very unfortunate as we are Bella balcony on 7 Apr. My wife and I love to get dressed up and enjoy a nice dinner in the MDR with other guests however we will not be sitting down to dine at 9:45pm this is simply way too late for us. It sounds like we may just leave our evening wear at home and just bring shorts and flip flops. I know MSC is reacting to folks not wanting to eat in a buffet converted area but I wonder if they did a survey and asked given a choice which would most people choose a 1. An earlier Dining time in a modified buffet area; or 2. A 9:45 PM MDR time. Bella passengers please reply :)

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Not many people will want to eat that late especially with young kids, to say you cannot change is a farce and this idea is even worse than using the Market place as a third Dining room or overspill.

If I were a waiter I would be looking for the exit asap because their hours will only get longer and break time even shorter.

It is one thing to listen to your customers but stupid to ignore your workforce, clearly a common sense balance is beyond MSC on this issue.

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I just got off today. The “smell” was present but only in ththe Jungle Water Park area and it’s wasnt that bad. I only noticed it a few times. All this hooplah about cancelling over it are way over blown. Having said that, there were reports that the smell problem was worse. I never smelled it in the buffet either nor did I ever hear anyone complaining about smells.

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I think MSC took a risk, but made a mistake building dining rooms not able to accommodate all passengers and now they are scrambling.

 

Even With two dinner settings in both dining room, only 75% of the guests can be accommodated (approximate).

 

I am unaware of any other cruise ship with this model. If there is another cruise ship where the dining rooms are unable to seat all guests at full occupancy, please identify.

 

 

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Not many people will want to eat that late especially with young kids, to say you cannot change is a farce and this idea is even worse than using the Market place as a third Dining room or overspill.

If I were a waiter I would be looking for the exit asap because their hours will only get longer and break time even shorter.

It is one thing to listen to your customers but stupid to ignore your workforce, clearly a common sense balance is beyond MSC on this issue.

 

I agree.... There is no proper fix with current design of ship. Whats strange is that I do not recall reading any negative or positive feedback from passengers who have been eating dinner in the Marketplace Restaurant. We have gotten some pictures and updates from passengers who have walked by or thru..... Would be interested in hearing feedback from anyone who ate dinner there.

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I agree.... There is no proper fix with current design of ship. Whats strange is that I do not recall reading any negative or positive feedback from passengers who have been eating dinner in the Marketplace Restaurant. We have gotten some pictures and updates from passengers who have walked by or thru..... Would be interested in hearing feedback from anyone who ate dinner there.

 

 

 

Someone did a review saying they had been allocated the buffet MDR. From memory they had requested a table for 2 and they were told to go there for the first night and then see if could be changed after that.

They said they stayed in there as they liked it.

 

 

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Not many people will want to eat that late especially with young kids, to say you cannot change is a farce and this idea is even worse than using the Market place as a third Dining room or overspill.

That's right, I am bella package w a 3 year old and requested early dining. Plenty of time for MSC to alter plans again and make adjustments, but 9:45 dinner is a non-starter. I've never gone to dinner that late in my life. With the little one we are dining at home by 6:30, often earlier.

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I

I am unaware of any other cruise ship with this model. If there is another cruise ship where the dining rooms are unable to seat all guests at full occupancy, please identify.

 

Quantum Class on Royal Caribbean.

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On board now. Lots of positives, couple minor negatives. One major negative- we booked over a year ago and requested early dining. They gave us the third seating at 9:45pm and said they can't change it. After much back and forth they said we can try to come at 6 and see if someone didn't show up. I hope that works bc my 4 year old will not make it to 945. She is asleep at 730.

 

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Hi Winemyst, I hope dinner works out for you. I just got off yesterday and had three kids ages 8-13 with me. We were glad to have gotten a 6pm dinner (considered "early" along with the 5:30 seating in the other restaurant.) But from my experience, I will tell you that if you have a four-year-old with a 7:30 bedtime (as mine also did at that age) the MDR experience may not be great for you at any time. It took us a full two hours almost every night to eat dinner there. One night we were invited to a cocktail party at 7:45pm and we had to ask them to rush our dessert in order to get there only fashionably late.

 

It didn't bother us, except on the one night we had to be somewhere else, as we enjoyed our servers, the food (mostly) and the company, but when I remember my kids as sleepy four-year-olds, I wouldn't recommend it in your situation. If you do have the opportunity to move earlier, you could try it out, and then make use of the Doremi club if you want to have an adults-only dinner sometime.

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Quantum Class on Royal Caribbean.

 

 

Thanks! I was on anthem last year and there was never a problem- no 9:45 dinner seatings and my time dining worked like clockwork. I do remember reading that dynamic dining went down fast, but last year (Easter sailing) I never knew there wasn’t enough seating.

 

I also never realized that anthem is larger than seaside (at 166 gt), but it holds fewer passenger. Perhaps those ratios add to the dining issue. Who knows.

 

 

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I think where MSC is missing it with accomodating the demand for complimentary dinner dining is basically that there are not enough alternative venues that are complimentary. Yes theyhave the buffet although there were initially complaints about the lack of variety in same. I think they need another venue like NCL has the Oshehans pub with daily dinner specials and a great variety of everyday offerings. Why not beef up the Sports bar like the one on Divina. That and continueing to improve upon the buffet with appropriate “dinner” items, not sandwiches would really decrease the demand on the MDRs.

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