Diamond/Sapphire Dining...why didn't it work?

[Murphey]

I'm curious why the 4 themed dining venues didn't work. It seemed like such a wonderful idea.

[ERsecurity]

I was on the Diamond with the themed dining options. Personally I thought it was the very best dining option and quality of food I have had on Princess.

 

I think they went back to charging for the 'Optional' dining. The ever loving $$$$ and cost reduction is on the mind of the Corporate Officers. They missed a great thing when they took this one away.....

[bdjam]

I was on the Diamond with the themed dining options. Personally I thought it was the very best dining option and quality of food I have had on Princess.

 

I think they went back to charging for the 'Optional' dining. The ever loving $$$$ and cost reduction is on the mind of the Corporate Officers. They missed a great thing when they took this one away.....

The official reason given was that it became unruly to control. Because of the additional menus and passenger inexperience, Traditional Dining was waitlisted, and those in Traditional thought in order to get the different kinds of food, they needed to go to the Anytime Dining rooms (when they in fact could have ordered off their own menu) – so they were overcrowded and those who really had Anytime Dining couldn’t get in. Basically, it became a scheduling nightmare. Currently, one of the Anytime Dining rooms is used for early Traditional to handle the demand.

If the reason was money, wouldn’t they have kept the idea – which people seemed to like – and just charged for each of these dining rooms? In reality, they are charging for alternative dining, but it is only Sterling Steakhouse with high-end quality beef. Sabitini was already on the ship and was already for tariff.

[cynbar]

I was on the Diamond Princess last January, and I have to agree that, unfortunately, it didn't work very well. The problem may well have been that the tradtional diners were taking up some of the anytime spaces (please don't do this, guys --- it's not fair to the ones who have selected anytime dining.) But the net result was a lot of stress, the need to make reservations (thus taking away the flexibility inherent in anytime dining on the other Grand class ships) and the difficulty getting a reservation at a desirable time. It was chaos, frankly, which is too bad because we liked the theory of the 4 DRs with different themes and alternative supplement menus. We also heard stories of passengers turned away from the themed DRs and sent to the buffet because there were no spaces available that night. I was attracted to the Diamond partly for the 4 themed DRs, but I was honestly glad, based on my experience, to hear that it was gone.

[Coral]

I didn't sail either ship, I had scheduled to be on the Diamond for a B2B but the sailings were cancelled.

 

I was excited about the themed restaurants but when I found out that the themed menus were so limited - I wondered why they bothered. If the whole menu had been themed, it would have been wonderful but instead they had the regular menu plus 2 or 3 themed entrees on a speciality menu.

[Murphey]

I guess I still don't get it. It seemed pretty simple to me. I don't understand why traditional diners would ever go to anytime dining, and even I understood that the themed menues were available in traditional dining (and I was never on the ship!) Perhaps Princess did a poor job communicating the concept. I'm still amazed with all the questions/confusion that continue with Anytime Dining!! :eek: I still think it was a great, innovative concept to mainstream cruising!!

[DougH]

I sailed on the Sapphire last Oct to Mexico (repeating this year on the Dawn) and was not impressed. My biggest complaint was the lack of choice on the menus. Each theme restaurant had a very limited choice of speciality items and this was never changed during the cruise. With the fixed dining menu and ALL of the "special" menus available anywhere why bother at all? The only thing that changed really was the dining room decor in each venue.

 

Doug

[FredS]

Interesting to read about NCL where there is no Traditional dinning. Every dining room is open. On the new ships they have a computer system scattered throughout the ship that shows how full a dining room is and if there is a wait to get in. Seems like a pretty neat system to let people know the situation. Princesses' computer systems on land and sea seem to lack compared to others.

[Murphey]

Oh Fred...a whole new thread there :D !!! I agree...so what's with not being able to check your bill in your room......this is old technology!!!!!!!! Guess the purser's office needs something to do :eek: !!

[bluehorizonlover123]

I went on the Diamond and we found that the traditional menu was always our choice even when we were in the specialty restaurants. We found the Mexican food to be tasteless on not seasoned properly in that restaurant. I am sure Princess wanted to save money by not having to prepare so many options each evening for dinner.

[merela]

I was surprised to read this thread. We had such a wonderful time in the themed dining rooms on the Diamond August 2004 (my parents were on the Diamond again this past April) and was totally looking forward to the same experience on the Sapphire in October. We loved the idea of 4 different themed PC dining rooms.

 

When did they change? What did they change into? Are there no more themed restaurants, just 4 PC dining rooms with International Dining Room menus? How does it work now?

 

I would appreciate any comments on the PC dining system on the Diamond and the Sapphire these days.

[bdjam]

Interesting to read about NCL where there is no Traditional dinning. Every dining room is open. On the new ships they have a computer system scattered throughout the ship that shows how full a dining room is and if there is a wait to get in. Seems like a pretty neat system to let people know the situation. Princesses' computer systems on land and sea seem to lack compared to others.

I think the difference is that NCL doesn’t offer Traditional Dining. Theoretically, those who choose Traditional should be out of the Anytime mix and therefore should not affect the rest of the passenger load from getting into the other dining rooms. I don’t know whether it was Princess who didn’t communicate or the passengers who didn’t get it (I’d guess the latter) but apparently the Traditional Diners didn’t understand they could have the themed menu fare in the Traditional Dining room. That and the fact that the demand for Traditional was greater than Anytime Dining.

[Dreamer333]

I think that the themed restaurant didn't work as well as hoped, because of the Personal Choice (open) dining...

 

When I was on my Disney cruise, they had themed dining (traditional seating is all they offer on Disney)... and our entire table (along with our waiters), moved to a different restaurant with us each evening.

 

I think it would become a bit chaotic with Personal Choice.

[PescadoAmarillo]

The 4 themed restaurants for Anytime Dining worked, and worked wonderfully, on the Sapphire Princess last fall on a 30 night cruise, perhaps because of the length of the cruise. There was no pressure on anyone's part to dine in a different and specific restaurant every night, as we knew that over the course of 30 nights we would visit them all, and often. Yes, the menus were limited, but they offered people the opportunity to more closely replicate a dining experience in our home towns...if we were in the mood for guacamole and chips, we went to Santa Fe and had them as an appetizer, and then would order the entree from the regular menu and always (always) the Kahlua bread pudding for dessert. Ditto sushi and Pacific Moon and Vivaldi and pasta made tableside (well, kind of tableside...it was made in the dining area).

 

I was really disappointed to hear that this concept didn't work out, and agree with a previous poster that part of the issue was traditional diners "dining around", and the other issue was Princess's difficulty handling Anytime Dining reservations. I would have welcomed the ability to know, if a particular restaurant had a wait list of 20 minutes, that one of the other restaurants had seating available immediately. A computerized integration of the table seating situation between the restaurants never took place, and I imagine on shorter cruises that people got frustrated trying to figure out the reservation mechanics or simply having to wait for 30 or more minutes to be seated without a reservation.

[CroozBlooz]

We sailed on both the Diamond and the Sapphire before the changeover. The reason it didn't work is because Princess permitted traditional diners to dine in the anytime dining rooms. Had Princess controlled this situation, it would have worked just fine.

 

It is true that the traditional diners were offered the "theme" menus and therefore should have had no reason to need to dine in the anytime restaurants. However, they may have wanted to experience the themed ambiance unique to each of the different dining rooms.

 

We like the choices. While I agree that the theme menus were limited, you always could order from the traditional menu as well. As I recall, the best items were the guacamole in the mexican restaurant and the specialty pasta in the italian restaurant (actually, it was great on the Diamond and fair on the Sapphire).

[margu1241]

We were on diamond last spring and felt that it was great-dissapointed that they changed it as we will be on Sapphire next spring. It worked for us because we made reservations for the whole week after looking at the patters that a past cruiser emailed me. I can see how it wouldn't work for those that want to be spontaneous and have their heart set on eating in one particular venue. I think that a large part of the problem is that some were more popular than others (ie: Sterling very popular, mexican not so) and the demand was uneven so people who did not make reservations were left with the less popular choices. If I had not read as much about the dining as I had on this board before leaving, I would have been unhappy too.

Patty

[ERsecurity]

Patty

Exactly correct. I think I enjoyed it so much because on the first day I set up reservations for each day and time. The chatter level on the boards made me do that and it was a very easy decision for me. On one evening I cancelled my reservation and did a repeat on one of the rooms.... It was a very nice concept that I hope they bring back.

[merela]

We had such a wonderful dining experience on the Diamond last August that we are soooo disappointed that the 4 themed PC restaurants didn't work out. This board was great. I was able to see the 4 themed menus and the International Dining Room menus (all 7 nights) ahead of time, I was able to pair International Dining Room menus with the right themed restaurant (i.e. if we were eating in the Sterling room, we would pick a night where steaks was not a big menu item on the International Dining room menu.) We were also able to bring our own wines with us since we knew what would be on the menu.

 

This board warned us to make reservations for the entire 7 days as soon as we boarded the ship, so we were able to go to the Sterling 3 times. But we did see people being turned away from Sterling if they didn't have reservations ahead of time. A lot of people didn't know that reservations are a must in some themed restaurants.

 

I hope they bring this back with improvement.

[Desert Nurse]

I sailed on the Diamond twice in 2004. I'm not at all surprised that Princess eliminated this dining concept. I have never heard so many complainers on a cruise! They wanted a table in one restaurant, with entree from another and dessert from a third. It provided too many choices and the passengers were not happy when they couldn't get the exact combination that they were demanding.

 

In regards to the postings about the traditional diners taking up room in the specialty restaurants, on both cruises I was on your room card was checked as you entered the specialty restaurant. If you had reserved traditional dining, you were asked to give up your traditional dining reservation if you wished to eat in the specialty restaurants. This was also posted daily in the patters.

 

I had traditional dining on both cruises (the only way I personally would cruise) and enjoyed sampling the menus from the other restaurants. On the other hand, it was hard to ignore the complainers every where I went on the cruise.

[Lynda90]

Another major problem was (I hope this was not already mentioned) was that many passengers chose to give up their spot in traditional because they wanted to try PC. This left a huge gap at many tables in traditional. This was most unfair to the wait staff, the table mates, and those who wanted traditional to begin with and could not get in. I can't tell you the count of those missing at the traditional tables each night. It might have worked if Princess did not allow passengers to change once they got on board. It made for over crowded PC dining rooms and large gaps in traditional. That's my opinion, anyway. I still think personal choice is great. I don't like to be held to a firm schedule and it's nice to be able to eat at 9PM in a restauant atmosphere if that is the choice that evening.

[JennJ99738]

I just booked on Sapphire Pricess with Personal Choice for February, 2006. No one told me this wasn't an option? What's the story with the food now? Do I have to contact my T.A. and arrange a seating? I never heard this until I read this board.

Help!!!!

[cynbar]

Don't worry, you can still have anytime dining. The difference is that there are no more alternative supplement menus for the 4 themed restaurants --- now everyone gets the same menus, the menu of the day, and the only difference is the ambiance of the different DRs. I have heard that they still offer some unadvertised specials, like fajitas in Santa Fe, but I'm not positive about this. Hopefully this will cut down on the traditional diners wanting to eat in the anytime DRs, which really seemed to be a big part of the problem!