Possible fix to dynamic dining

[Trail46]

How about as a fix to dynamic dining on Quantum, keep the various venues but institute two seatings as in old MDR. Seems like this would avoid long waits and backed up reservations.

[barnacle_boy]

There isn’t enough capacity in the four complimentary restaurants.

 

Restaurant (Capacity):

American Icon Grill (430)

Chic (434)

Silk (434)

The Grande (432)

 

Total capacity is 1,730. Two seatings would only equal 3,460. That is well short of Quantum’s maximum of 4,905.

 

I’m assuming your solution would also mean the end for different menus. There's no way I'd ever eat from American Icon Grill's menu for an entire week!

[Trail46]

Sorry, double posting...but I'm blaming the delay on seeing the original posting up..as in "it's not my fault!"

[Jimmers]

I say leave it the way it is. Those who prefer it can sail on ships that have it, those who don't can sail on ships that don't.

 

Our group didn't care for it on the Quantum and we cancelled our Anthem cruise and re booked on the Liberty. It's a win/win. RCI gets what it wants, $$$, we get what we want, a relaxing cruise.

[Trail46]

Thanks for the capacities - I knew I had seen them somewhere but couldn't find them. Just hope this gets straightened out fast...we sail in March.

[OfTheSeasCruiser]

They can leave Quantum the way she is and send her off to China.. (not such a bad idea anymore???) But don't expand DD to any other ships!!!

[brfan]

There isn’t enough capacity in the four complimentary restaurants.

 

Restaurant (Capacity):

American Icon Grill (430)

Chic (434)

Silk (434)

The Grande (432)

 

Total capacity is 1,730. Two seatings would only equal 3,460. That is well short of Quantum’s maximum of 4,905.

 

I’m assuming your solution would also mean the end for different menus. There's no way I'd ever eat from American Icon Grill's menu for an entire week!

 

How many suites are there? If the suite passenger could only eat in their restaurant would that help? However I agree I would not want to eat in the American Icon Grill all week, not a fan of that menu.

[Trail46]

Actually I was thinking of keeping all the different menus but forcing people to choose one of two times, say 6:30 or 8:30. Not so dynamic, but you'd still have a choice of restaurants and menus, just not much a choice of times. Wonder what the capacities of the paid restaurants are? Would that help the numbers?

[Mythbuster]

Actually I was thinking of keeping all the different menus but forcing people to choose one of two times, say 6:30 or 8:30. Not so dynamic, but you'd still have a choice of restaurants and menus, just not much a choice of times. Wonder what the capacities of the paid restaurants are? Would that help the numbers?

 

The math would never work. Even if you add the Coastal Kitchen's 125 capacity you would only be able to seat 3,710 of the 4,900 passengers per night. None of the ships have 100% capacity since they count on 10-20% eating at Fee based restaurants or the Windjammer but 25% is too much of a difference. The DD allows a table to be turned over 3-4 times per night considering available seating from 5:30-9:45pm.

 

Also I am not sure how reducing the number of available times slots from 17 to 2 would help relieve the problem. With DD if I want a 6pm reservation and it is not available I can probably get a 6:30, 6:45, 7 or 7:30 seating. With a traditional 2 seating I would have to wait until 8:30 if 6:30 is not available.

[Keasel]

Actually I was thinking of keeping all the different menus but forcing people to choose one of two times, say 6:30 or 8:30. Not so dynamic, but you'd still have a choice of restaurants and menus, just not much a choice of times. Wonder what the capacities of the paid restaurants are? Would that help the numbers?

 

The 6 paid restaurants (including Chef's Table but not the pub) have a capacity of 468.

 

You still need to have some tables used a third time per night to accommodate everyone. And if one or more of the restaurants are less desirable so that they're not even averaging twice their capacity per night, you need to have a lot of tables used a third time in the popular ones.

 

This is tough to do if the restaurant opens at 530 and accepts 630 and 645 reservations, leaving tables empty for an hour plus.

 

Maybe they should open the restaurants at 500 and give an early bird free specialty cocktail to anyone who comes in before 530.

[kiyoko]

I had no problem with the concept of DD. It was the execution by RCL that was horrible. From my unsophisticated eyes, it appeared the restaurants were severely understaffed and problems with the technology were the main issues. If RCL could take care of those issues, IMHO most of the issues we encountered would be solved. Even some of the wait staff indicated to me that they were stretched too thin. The chaos, in my opinion, was created primarily by poor planning by RCL and the technology glitches everywhere.

[MAZ100]

They need to start seating people together maybe that would be one fix

 

There are to many seats empty during dining while there are many people waiting on line for a seat..

 

I was seated a table for 4 people and there was only 2 of us and the other 2 seats were never filled because with dynamic dining they don't seat other couples together

[Bmulder1]

They need to start seating people together maybe that would be one fix

 

There are to many seats empty during dining while there are many people waiting on line for a seat..

 

I was seated a table for 4 people and there was only 2 of us and the other 2 seats were never filled because with dynamic dining they don't seat other couples together

 

You are right on the number of seats. On our first night we had reservations and had to wait for about 20 minutes. Not too bad, but once we got in I was very surprised to see that more than half the tables were empty. With a long line of people outside who had no reservations. An other night there were long lines at Silk with more than half the seats empty. I don't think it had much to do with the number of seats at each table but simply not enough staff in the venues.

Edited January 3, 2015 by Bmulder1

[silver7]

Just got off the Quantum today, and at American Icon they told my party the first night that there were two seatings (6pm and 8pm) not sure how accurate that was... my party had a reservation at 6.

 

I think the biggest issue is the actual reservation system - turns out canceling a reservation is almost as hard as it is to make one. We were a party of 11 so making any changes to our reservations was extremely hard (our travel agent booked us at 6pm every night, telling us we can change the time once we boarded, which was obviously not the case). One night we were able to get another reservation at Jamie's at 8:45, but for some reason they did not cancel our 6pm reservation at the Grande. I tried to cancel it through the Royal IQ app and got an error message directing me to go to guest services. I tried calling, but since it was after 4pm I only got an answering service directing me to show up to the restaurant to make any changes. At this point we were all getting ready for dinner, and a few of us had spent over an hour in the afternoon waiting on lines and going from restaurant to restaurant trying to see if anyone could seat us at a later time. Everyone was fed up and nobody wanted to leave the room again and possibly wait on another line or two (at guest services, and at the grande) to cancel a reservation.

 

I believe it is situations like these that are causing the problems, because most restaurants had empty "reserved" tables for people who were not showing up, and the system allows guests to be booked at multiple restaurants each night. It was very common to show up to a restaurant, be told they were booked solid, and see tons of empty tables. I didn't understand why that was happening until I saw first hand that no one was canceling out reservations if you booked another place, and canceling them on your own was not easy to do (most of my group was so fed up from spending so much time trying to make a new reservation, the thought of having to leave the room again and walk around to cancel the old one seemed absurd).

 

That said, everyone in my group absolutely loved the food and really warmed up to the idea of eating in a different venue each night. The service was subpar, but nothing that can't be fixed by hiring additional staff to help out (almost every waiter seemed overworked and overwhelmed). I think Dynamic Dining can work once they create a reservation system that works.

[DKNYC]

If they seat my solo self at a four top (let's say), I will ask them to find some folks on line outside to sit with me. I can eat alone at home. I may not be totally happy with what I get but I am willing to take the chance. May meet a new friend. :)

Also as mentioned above, the reservation system needs to be fixed. Should allow cancelations as easily as reservations...actually cancelations should be easier.

Denise

Edited January 4, 2015 by DKNYC

[omarchs]

We just got off today also and we felt DD worked fine if you were able to make all your reservations in advance. We tried to make a few changes and there is no flexibility to change since everything is always fully booked. Everything we had booked was correct on the ship.

 

We did speak to a few people who winged it and they were having trouble getting into any restaurants so pre-planing is essential. Dining times widely varied from 45 minutes to a max of 2 hours but mostly in the 1 hour 15 minutes timeframe.

 

We actually thought the Grand provided an interesting dynamic to the ship. People might have been into dressing up more since it was a holiday cruise, but there were a pretty decent number of people dressed up in the new "formal" to go to the Grande each night including a fairly large number on the last night of the cruise when everyone is usually in their traveling clothes. It just gave a different vibe to the ship that was kind of different and kind of shook things up in a good way. People seemed to embrace dressing up more when it was their choice rather than being dictated to with designated nights.

[mw_1970]

It doesn't need a fix it needs customers to accept and embrace change and stop being so outraged about change.

 

Time to grow up and grow some people.

[kiyoko]

It doesn't need a fix it needs customers to accept and embrace change and stop being so outraged about change.

 

Time to grow up and grow some people.

 

I'm assuming you weren't one of us that had long waits to get seated, long waits to get fed, got fed cold food that should have been served hot, or were told when reservations that had been made prior to boarding that none could not be found.

[mw_1970]

You don't need reservations

 

You CAN make reservations but its not the be all and end all.

[kiyoko]

You don't need reservations

 

You CAN make reservations but its not the be all and end all.

 

I guess they must have changed the procedures and policies since the Christmas cruise I was on, because without reservations it was difficult or sometimes impossible for some on certain days to get into the restaurants. If you now don't need reservations, that's a big change to what we encountered on our sailing.