"Dynamic dining is going fleetwide"

[OfTheSeasCruiser]

d)I haven't had a waiter or assistant remember my drink since about 1992

 

That must be bad luck with the waiters you get. On our Radiance cruise a couple months ago, our assistant waiter had our drinks on the table every night before we got there!

[sleepless]

Personally, I hope they don't eliminate the traditional fixed dining. That is my preference. I enjoy having the same time dining each night, at the same table, with the same wait staff and table mates. This concept change would be enough to have me look more closely at competing cruise lines when I book my next cruise.

[cruisePAC]

I sure hope this concept isn't going fleet-wide. There are a lot of things I enjoy about cruising and one of them is that I don't have any responsibilities while at sea - I don't have to clean the house, I don't have to go grocery shopping, I don't have to spend the day at a job, I don't have to run errands...you get the picture. I also don't have to figure out what to do for dinner. While cruising, I show up for dinner in the MDR, I have a list of entrees to choose from, I eat the food, and someone else cleans the dirty dishes. My biggest decisions while cruising are what to eat and what souveniers to purchase...wow, first world problems! On less than half of our cruises, we've booked a specialty dining.

I plan enough for a cruise already: the flights, the excursions (extra, extra planning if it's a DIY), what to pack...just like everyone else reading this. I don't want to make dinner plans every night. Heck, there is an occasional night that we pull an audible and go to the Windjammer for dinner because it's been a long day or because we don't want to get dressed up for MDR. Would we get reimbursed if that was a night that we paid a fee for Dynamic Dining?

I cruise Royal Caribbean because I like the cruise experience that I've had on previous Royal Caribbean Cruises. Why then make such drastic changes?

[fishtaco]

I don't know how it would be considered more food choices. Most people will only have a choice of 4 free restaurants, because they are not sailing in a suite. These 4 restaurants will have the same menu each night. When you're on a 7 night cruise, you have a choice of 7 different menus, plus the classic always available items.

 

The food choices will all be prepared at the same food stations by the same cooks in the same galley just as they are now!

 

I agree with you, splitting the dinning choices into separate venues will give no more dinning choices.

 

What it will do is make DD same as MTD is with all users eventually having to Pre Pay Gratuities at booking stage.

 

I would personally prefer Traditional dinning with compulsory Pre Paid grats instead of DD.

[Elvis1209]

I like to know that at 8:00 I go to the MDR and my table is ready, my tablemates are there and my favorite drink is waiting! The waiter and assistant waiter knows what kind of roll I want, and after dinner he knows how I take my coffee. With "Dynamic Dining" we are going to lose that! It's just like their website! They try to make it better but only succeed in screwing it up!

 

Elvis

 

I have 442 days until my next cruise. I can only hope that by then they'll come to their senses!

[fishtaco]

I like to know that at 8:00 I go to the MDR and my table is ready, my tablemates are there and my favorite drink is waiting! The waiter and assistant waiter knows what kind of roll I want, and after dinner he knows how I take my coffee. With "Dynamic Dining" we are going to lose that! It's just like their website! They try to make it better but only succeed in screwing it up!

 

Elvis

 

I have 442 days until my next cruise. I can only hope that by then they'll come to their senses!

 

I also agree with you:)

 

MTD is just like breakfast and Lunch dinning in the MDR as DD will be re wait staff.

[SherriZ366]

I like to know that at 8:00 I go to the MDR and my table is ready, my tablemates are there and my favorite drink is waiting! The waiter and assistant waiter knows what kind of roll I want, and after dinner he knows how I take my coffee. With "Dynamic Dining" we are going to lose that! It's just like their website! They try to make it better but only succeed in screwing it up!

 

Elvis

 

I have 442 days until my next cruise. I can only hope that by then they'll come to their senses!

Agree also. I can see why RCI wants to implement DD but they should also consider the preferences of many of their customers for Traditional Dining.

[OfTheSeasCruiser]

Agree also. I can see why RCI wants to implement DD but they should also consider the preferences of many of their customers for Traditional Dining.

 

I love traditional dining, however, I was open to trying DD. Didn't care for freestyle that much on NCL, but mostly because the quality of the food lacked.

 

I'm considering a Quantum or Anthem cruise, but that was knowing that I had the whole rest of the fleet to go back to if I wasn't a fan of DD. I sure hope it does't go fleet wide. I am still hoping to sail Quantum because I want to experience the new ship with all the other innovations.

 

I thought a good solution would be to have one of the 4 main restaurants as a traditional dining room, with a main and late seating, and have casual/smart casual/formal nights. You would receive same table/tablemates/servers every night. I know it wouldn't be like the formal nights from awhile back when the whole ship got dressed up, but it would be better then nothing! :cool:

[robandana]

Agree also. I can see why RCI wants to implement DD but they should also consider the preferences of many of their customers for Traditional Dining.

 

I think we will find that Royal Caribbean is actually trying to diversify, the basic concept of cruising and ship layout will be the same but depending what ship you book, this will allow you to try different options.

 

I am sure this will not go fleet wide as there are too many people that prefer the old ways of cruising but there are also many that prefer the new styles.

 

Why would a billon dollar company like Royal put all there eggs in one basket...they will have many baskets and attract more customers, it makes business sense.

 

In fact I think the specialty restaurants should be different on each ship and every few years they should change them around...that way the next time you sail you can be surprised by a whole slew of new restaurants...and this will make you want to try them out...

 

I like the current system but its nice to see the company is constantly innovation and trying to WOW us! I mean who ever thought anyone would make a ship that can carry more than 8000 people....

 

Cant wait until November so we can start reading peoples impressions on the New Quantum!

Edited August 15, 2014 by robandana

[Illyria]

Our last Allure trip was like a spreadsheet.....and two of us online and too many "oops honey can't get in that show at that time its all booked....sorry honey can't eat second seating dining because all the shows for earlier are booked" it was just terrible. Too stressful.

That's actually what my husband hated about Allure. On a prior cruise (which happened to be his first), he liked the idea of having dinner-show set times every night, it was nice and relaxing. On the Allure, I juggled reservations as much as I could, and we still ended up having to eat dinner in 35 minutes one night to make a show, and almost missed a show on a different day because we completely forgot about it (it was some random time in the afternoon, like 4:30pm). Having to add "flexible dining times" in any way to this equation would pretty much ruin the vacation for us (not that he ever want to cruise on RCCL again...)

Edited August 15, 2014 by Illyria

[Ramblin' Ma'am]

How weird will this be for solo cruisers? I'm not sure I will like it at all.

 

 

That's what I'm wondering. Will I be dining alone?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[tarheel3559]

Take it for what it's worth, as we all have heard rumors from crew onboard ships....

 

When speaking to the restaurant manager on Freedom last week, he stated Freedom would be getting dynamic dining when it enters dry dock in January.

[SherriZ366]

I think we will find that Royal Caribbean is actually trying to diversify, the basic concept of cruising and ship layout will be the same but depending what ship you book, this will allow you to try different options.

 

I am sure this will not go fleet wide as there are too many people that prefer the old ways of cruising but there are also many that prefer the new styles.

 

Why would a billon dollar company like Royal put all there eggs in one basket...they will have many baskets and attract more customers, it makes business sense.

 

In fact I think the specialty restaurants should be different on each ship and every few years they should change them around...that way the next time you sail you can be surprised by a whole slew of new restaurants...and this will make you want to try them out...

 

I like the current system but its nice to see the company is constantly innovation and trying to WOW us! I mean who ever thought anyone would make a ship that can carry more than 8000 people....

 

Cant wait until November so we can start reading peoples impressions on the New Quantum!

Hope you are right about DD not going fleetwide. I hope RCI just decides to add more specialty restaurants as they did on Navigator and will probably do on FR. That gives more choice.

[SherriZ366]

Take it for what it's worth, as we all have heard rumors from crew onboard ships....

 

When speaking to the restaurant manager on Freedom last week, he stated Freedom would be getting dynamic dining when it enters dry dock in January.

I hope this is wrong. We are sailing on FR on Feb. 22, 2015 and it would be a nightmare in a short time period (from when it would be announced) to make reservations if this was changed. Edited August 15, 2014 by SherriZ366

[ckfred]

I prefer the traditional dining with an MDR. Except for our last cruise, we have had great tablemates and enjoyed the conversation every night (there was nothing wrong with our table mates on our last cruise---we only saw them 2 nights out of 6).

 

Now, we did enjoy Portofino (our travel agent treated us), but I like knowing that we have dinner the same time, the same place every night. Then, we work the rest of the schedule (excursions, on-board activities, etc) around dinner time.

 

I have seen large family groups on 2 cruises (15-20) taking 3 or 4 tables. It seems to me that Dynamic Dining would be difficult to arrange for a very large travel party.

 

One reason why we didn't book a cruise on the Anthem next summer is that we plan to travel with friends, and we didn't want to go through the hassle of trying to decide on locale and time for dinner every night.

[OGCFreddie]

It's stupid. I don't want to eat at 5 PM or 7PM or whatever time when on a cruise. I don't wear a watch and don't give a hoot what time I eat. I like to eat when I feel hungry. People ruin everything, cruising, vacation, even going up in the mountains to relax with watches and computers. This will be my 1st and only time on RCL.

 

I hope you at least pay enough attention to time to know when to get on the ship at the ports. :p

[poncho1973]

Ugh. I hate to hear that. The dynamic dining concept just does not appeal to me, which is one of the reasons I won't sail NCL, freestyle is kind of the same thing.

 

This makes no sense to me, at all.

 

If you don't like the concept, the solution is to cruise exactly the same way you cruise today. There is nothing in Dynamic Dining that prohibits you from doing exactly what you do today, with only minimal planning.

 

The concept still has a main (albeit much smaller) dining room, on Quantum and Anthem it appears that the "Chic" restaurant is most comparable to the MDR now. You could choose one of the others instead. You just make a reservation there for each night at whatever time you are used to eating. They have AT LEAST 8 different dinner options, so most cruises, you could just try something each night. There will, no doubt, be specials and the like as well.

 

It's a little different, but on the whole, you can easily make it very similar to exactly what you do today. You don't have to go to other restaurants unless you want.

[poncho1973]

I also think that CC should implement a tracking option for hypocrites. You could click the "track this poster" button when someone posts statements like:

 

"I hate FEATURE X even though it hasn't come out yet, I will NEVER cruise again!"

 

or

 

"The NEWEST CLASS of ship stinks! I will NEVER sail on that stupid class because, even though I've never been on it, I hate it with the passion of a thousand suns!"

 

or

 

"Royal has lost me FOREVER with POLICY CHANGE Y because that is stupid and restricts my personal freedoms! God! Guns! Constitution! MURIKA, pew, pew, pew!!!!"

 

or

 

"This is the end of CRUISE LINE Z because they've gone and made EVERYONE EVER ON THE PLANET mad with this change. They are cooked! Done for!"

 

 

Mainly because it is amazing to see how the only "NEVER" you see is the poster never actually following through with whatever they are convinced is the biggest deal ever!

[cruiselvr04]

We are open to some changes but our first experience with booking dynamic dining on Quantum did not go so great. I spent over an hour on the phone and got as early as 5:30 and as late as 9 seating and this was almost a year in advance. What I wanted was a consistent time to eat each each evening. I will need a spread sheet to keep track of it all and to me that is not relaxing. We will try it once but if we don't care for it we will be going to Celebrity. Also we really enjoyed meeting with table mates for dinner not dining alone. We shall see...

[RocketMan275]

...Eating beef wellington in a tux in The Grande while looking off the balcony at someone in shorts and a t-shirt eating fried chicken in the American Icon...

 

"Oh, the humanity!"

[ryano]

I also think that CC should implement a tracking option for hypocrites. You could click the "track this poster" button when someone posts statements like:

 

"I hate FEATURE X even though it hasn't come out yet, I will NEVER cruise again!"

 

or

 

"The NEWEST CLASS of ship stinks! I will NEVER sail on that stupid class because, even though I've never been on it, I hate it with the passion of a thousand suns!"

 

or

 

"Royal has lost me FOREVER with POLICY CHANGE Y because that is stupid and restricts my personal freedoms! God! Guns! Constitution! MURIKA, pew, pew, pew!!!!"

 

or

 

"This is the end of CRUISE LINE Z because they've gone and made EVERYONE EVER ON THE PLANET mad with this change. They are cooked! Done for!"

 

 

Mainly because it is amazing to see how the only "NEVER" you see is the poster never actually following through with whatever they are convinced is the biggest deal ever!

 

LOL! Like!

 

Youve been around a while. You probably remember the group here that vowed "NEVER ON OASIS of THE SEAS" and even had an acronym N.O.O.T.S. for said group. They fussed and fussed and fussed about it. Funny how it seems a large majority of them have went against their word, went on Oasis class and now love those two ships. :o

 

Some people LOVE to fuss about stuff they really dont know if they will like or not. It reminds me of people that claim they hate cruising yet have never even stepped foot on a cruise ship.

Edited August 15, 2014 by ryano

[Cruzaholic41]

Mainly because it is amazing to see how the only "NEVER" you see is the poster never actually following through with whatever they are convinced is the biggest deal ever!

 

I've been seeing a lot of that lately. I just read a thread right here on this board where someone who swore off RCI due to the new smoking policy is looking forward to an upcoming RCI cruise.

[Tommy3putts]

I for one am a fan of the DD concept and hope it makes its way over to Celebrity. We were in Aqua Class on the Reflection in June. Loved the flexibility dining in Blu provided us. No set dining time and no formal night dress code fiascos. Many early MDR diners either missed sailaways to got eat dinner elsewhere. Not us. We just adjusted our dining time.

 

We sail on Allure in 2016 and booked MTD, but really will most likely do specialty restaurants. For me the MDR is not that appealing. I hope to have more options through the DD concept.

Edited August 15, 2014 by Tommy3putts
edit

[BamaGuy44]

 

Mainly because it is amazing to see how the only "NEVER" you see is the poster never actually following through with whatever they are convinced is the biggest deal ever!

 

I think you're onto something there.

 

Every policy change is the death of RC and/or the entire cruise industry, according to message boards.

 

Restrict smoking? It will never work, I'm never cruising again! The cruise line will be out of business within a year because of all the business they will lose.

 

Specialty restaurants where you have to pay EXTRA?!?! Dumbest thing I ever heard of. LOL that will never work, cruising is dead. :eek:

 

People on Disney boards literally said they were selling their Disney stock because this policy clearly indicates the decline of Disney as a brand. Not just the cruise line, ALL of Disney. :rolleyes:

 

Remember when all the interweb cruise industry experts declared RC was dead when they announced the Oasis class, years before one had even been built? "They'll never be able to fill those giant floating theme parks, they're idiots, blah blah"

 

Good times.

[Scotty G]

Unlike previous Royal Caribbean ships, Quantum-class ships will not have a main dining room, nor will they have an option for traditional cruise dinners where passengers have the same table and servers each night.[25] Instead, these ships will use a Dynamic Dining concept similar to the Freestyle concept used on Norwegian Cruise Line, with guests being required to make reservations for their choice of restaurant for each night in advance.[26] Each venue will maintain the same menu and staff throughout the cruise.[27]

 

This will not be implemented in the existing fleet as is will on its initial ships since most if not all will have to be modified to accomplish this. They may pick and choose different concepts that will be better fits for classes of ships.

I have discussed this with a friend who is an RCI Hotel Director and they indeed will have to customize and change existing methods for each ship and/or Class of ship.

I believe this entire thread was premature since Adam Goldstein made statements about future plans and it is not in the cards for the immediate future on the rest of the fleet.

But rumors do take root on CC.:rolleyes: