Do you consider 'A La Carte' Specialty Dining as more nickel and diming by Del Rio?

[LrgPizza]

Me? I'm a rib steak person. If I remember correctly they have to sizes. One's larger than the other. However, the smaller one is.....I can't remember 12 oz? 16 oz? but really is to large for me if I wish to enjoy an app and/or salad before my meal. Dessert? I usually skip that all the time as I never have room.

 

Harriet

I do the big filet, but I eat the whole thing. :D

I think I've only eaten dessert in specialty restaurants twice. I just never save room, and I'm not big on sweet stuff anyway. Boy does that piss off the servers though! They are all dessert bullies.

[LMaxwell]

For example, "Why order the small filet at Cagney's when I can order the giant one? I might not eat it all, but I've already paid for it, so might as well try."

 

I think people know if they like steak and how much they will eat. I doubt many order a larger steak "just because".

 

But with apps and deserts, if there is not an a la carte charge, people might be a little more adventurous and order new / additional / extra items to try not worried if they like it or not because there is no charge. Now that each of those carries charges I don't think you will see multiple orders on a whim.

[hpecorari]

I do the big filet, but I eat the whole thing. :D

I think I've only eaten dessert in specialty restaurants twice. I just never save room, and I'm not big on sweet stuff anyway. Boy does that piss off the servers though! They are all dessert bullies.

 

Oh, I agree. The look they give you when you say, "no dessert, thank you" is worth a million bucks!

 

I wish I was a filet lover.....but I'm not. :(

 

Harriet

[Cauzneffct]

I voted yes as it seems to be a situation of a (potential) increased cost without a corresponding increase in value.

 

Truth be told, I generally have no problem with paying a la carte for things (even on cruises) and do not prefer the truly all-inclusive experience of many resorts as I feel that I end up leaving a lot of money on the table. My issue is that NCL is, again, taking something that was inclusive-ish and made it less so/not at all. It would be one thing if NCL created Der Sausage Haus as an a la carte sausage restaurant (yay!). It is something else if they create Der Sausage Haus as a free or AYCE restaurant and then instituted a per-sausage fee.

 

It also seems that a lot of people can't see past the ends of their own noses; lots of "you don't have to buy it, so who cares?" posts. The issue is that NCL is establishing the precedent that they're willing to tinker with what is inclusive-both in your fare and in your additional purchases -- even up to the point of boarding, and it undercuts my confidence that what I was told I purchased last March is what I will receive next May. I don't really care about the theater shows, but it would still be bogus if NCL started charging a cover. I don't partake in the UBP, but it would still be bogus if NCL instituted a cap on drinks or lowered the threshold for what was included. I don't frequent the specialty restaurants, but its bogus that NCL is taking away the inclusive aspect of them.

 

Finally, as to the issue of costumers v. shareholders, isn't that a false choice? Don't truly successful companies maximize profits while also (if not because of) maintaining high customer satisfaction? optics if not in fact, NCL seems they're not really concerned with repeat business: they'd rather you spend an extra $50 on this cruise even if it means there is no next cruise.

Edited July 15, 2015 by Cauzneffct

[LrgPizza]

Oh, I agree. The look they give you when you say, "no dessert, thank you" is worth a million bucks!

 

I wish I was a filet lover.....but I'm not. :(

 

Harriet

Here's an example of waste: When we had finished our main courses at Shanghai on Epic, the server asked if we wanted dessert. We declined and asked for the check. She insisted we have dessert, and went on and on about how good it was. We again politely declined, and told her we'd had enough to eat. She then vanished for 10 minutes. When she returned, she had not brought the check. Instead she had brought us each a dessert. At that point I asked her if there was someone else we could ask to bring us our ticket, since she refused. She finally went and got it, and we left the desserts sitting there untouched.

 

Obviously Shanghai is an included restaurant now, but still...

[hpecorari]

Here's an example of waste: When we had finished our main courses at Shanghai on Epic, the server asked if we wanted dessert. We declined and asked for the check. She insisted we have dessert, and went on and on about how good it was. We again politely declined, and told her we'd had enough to eat. She then vanished for 10 minutes. When she returned, she had not brought the check. Instead she had brought us each a dessert. At that point I asked her if there was someone else we could ask to bring us our ticket, since she refused. She finally went and got it, and we left the desserts sitting there untouched.

 

Obviously Shanghai is an included restaurant now, but still...

 

I've never had that happen. I've had them ask if I wanted the dessert sent to our room. We decline.

 

Harriet

[LrgPizza]

I've never had that happen. I've had them ask if I wanted the dessert sent to our room. We decline.

 

Harriet

I couldn't believe it! At Le Bistro they seem to be the worst about asking over and over, and staring in disbelief when you decline, but I've never any other time had someone bring one anyway.

[Cauzneffct]

As a former restaurant manager, it seems that NCL is trying to get food waste under control.

 

My restaurant had a salad bar and it's very frustrating, when clearing tables to see full plates of food left untouched. The guests paid their $7.99 for the salad bar so they had the mind set of "it's free, I can take as much as I want and it doesn't matter if I waste it." I wouldn't care if the guests took and ate seven plates of food. Most land restaurants are on a very small margin of profit, so waste drives us crazy.

 

I can see passengers on holiday having this same "it's free" mentality. I've seen posts here that say "order as much as you want. It's free." I'm sure that when the room service was free, many (intoxicated) people would order food and not eat it because "it's free." Passengers taking food from the buffet, but not eating it because "it's free."

 

The reasons some places "nickel and dime" their patrons is because the patrons are wasteful. How much ketchup do you take when it's free vs when you are charged for it?

 

A cruise ship is a floating restaurant with an extra burden. Not only do they need to plan and purchase the food for a week, they also need to pay for the fuel to hall the tons of food around from port to port. Every ton they don't have to load on the ship will save them money and fuel.

 

Now I'm sure I'm going to get flamed for this, but ask yourself, "Can you afford to take a holiday?" If the answer is yes, then you are a lucky minority on this big blue planet. Stop complaining that and just be grateful that you have a choice on when and where you are going to eat.

 

Wouldn't the "less food waste" argument hold more water if they did away with all the different specialty restaurants (and their specific ingredients) as well as the buffet (in which copious amounts of food are prepared, taken, and tossed)?

Edited July 15, 2015 by Cauzneffct

[Jenjer]

I am not happy about it at all. Our Next cruise on Escape might be our last NCL one. I have been recommending Getaway to all my friends and that will stop since they just made it way to complicated and too many questions up in the air.

 

My DH who usually could care less about 95% of the stuff I tell him about our cruises was pissed. I told him to chill and see what happens before we cancel anything.

 

Specialty dinning is a big part of our vacation experience and we know the dinning packages are part of our cruise expense. We also like not having to worry how much it costs for what we or our kids order.....I am on vacation I don't want to do math.

 

Cruises big draw to us are their all inclusive features. NCL is chipping away at that more and more. This might be the straw that went to far.

[warriorking]

Just Glad I got my UDP when I did ...March can't get here soon enough, its hard to tell whats coming next...

One thing is for sure I will be looking long and hard at other cruise lines the next go round, NCL has me concerned about its direction for the future...

One used to worry about pick pockets when exiting the ship, now we have to worry while on board...

Guess I had better brush up on sleeping with one eye open and one hand on my wallet...

Edited July 15, 2015 by warriorking

[LrgPizza]

I am not happy about it at all. Our Next cruise on Escape might be our last NCL one. I have been recommending Getaway to all my friends and that will stop since they just made it way to complicated and too many questions up in the air.

 

My DH who usually could care less about 95% of the stuff I tell him about our cruises was pissed. I told him to chill and see what happens before we cancel anything.

 

Specialty dinning is a big part of our vacation experience and we know the dinning packages are part of our cruise expense. We also like not having to worry how much it costs for what we or our kids order.....I am on vacation I don't want to do math.

 

Cruises big draw to us are their all inclusive features. NCL is chipping away at that more and more. This might be the straw that went to far.

If specialty dining is a big part of your vacation experience, then I fail to see the problem. The absolute only people potentially negatively affected by this are those who only wanted to eat specialties 1 or 2 times. Everyone else can come out way ahead by simply purchasing SDP for however many days they plan to eat in specialties.

[Sizzlechest]

If specialty dining is a big part of your vacation experience, then I fail to see the problem. The absolute only people potentially negatively affected by this are those who only wanted to eat specialties 1 or 2 times. Everyone else can come out way ahead by simply purchasing SDP for however many days they plan to eat in specialties.

 

That's assuming the menu changes are included and not a la carte. It could be reasonably assumed that the SDP/UDP would cover everything on the new menus at Le Bistro, Cagney's, and La Cucina, but we won't know until it's released and implemented.

[maywell]

If specialty dining is a big part of your vacation experience, then I fail to see the problem. The absolute only people potentially negatively affected by this are those who only wanted to eat specialties 1 or 2 times. Everyone else can come out way ahead by simply purchasing SDP for however many days they plan to eat in specialties.

 

Correction - Only the big eaters that want to try everything but only dine out at a specialty restaurant for 1 or 2 days are affected. Everyone else - even lite eaters eating 3 appetizers or just one main entree for 4 nights, for example - will come out ahead.

Edited July 15, 2015 by maywell

[bangzoom6877]

Yes, and as things go up and no longer fit into the budget one must re-examine the priority of things included within the budget and chop some things out in order to meet that initial budget, not go above and beyond the budget in order to have the same experience. I'm not going to blow past what I have allotted for a vacation because a price of an extra increased; I am going to skip the extra and come in under budget.

 

It's a lifestyle philosophy. I abhor debt and carry no debts and have no loans except for our mortgage. Not everyone is disciplined like that and some place a higher value on experiences than I might.

 

But just because I may have budgeted $60-70 for a meal, if that meal is now $100, I am skipping it. I am not going to spend $140 to get three meals. My initial budget was $60-70 and on a cruise I knew that got me an inclusive meal where I could order 5 courses without additional charges. Now I can't. So I won't have a limited experience for my budget. I'll skip it and keep the money.

 

I agree with you completely on this. In my original post, I didn't mean that people should just suck it up and spend extra money, as we also budget and make our decisions on extras based on whether or not they fit into our budget. If a last minute price increase puts us over what we had planned to spend, we cut that from our vacation. We play around with different things and prioritize to make it work within our budget. Example...we allotted a certain amount of money for specialties for this trip. One night in Le Bistro for just the two of us, and one night in Cagney's for all 4 of us. It was early enough that they announced that children will be full price, that we were able to make sure it fits into our budget (my kids will not order from the standard dining room kids' menu, rather they will order from the Cagney's adult menu). However, DH and I also budgeted $298 for spa passes for the two of us for the week, and then a couple of weeks ago those became available online prior to the cruise, with a $20 discount for each spa pass if purchased online in advance. So we saved $40 on something we had already included in our vacation budget.

 

A la carte pricing in specialty restaurants won't make us decide whether to cruise on a particular cruise line. Of course, we don't have our hearts set on specialty restaurants, and we do enjoy dinners in the MDR. We've cruised before without even going to a si glee specialty restaurants years ago. Didn't make or break the vacation experience. But we aren't tied to one cruise line, as we base it on itinerary, affordability, particular ship, etc. We cruise every other year and in two years time, things can change and have changed a lot with any given cruise line.

[LMaxwell]

Correction - Only the big eaters that want to try everything but only dine out at a specialty restaurant for 1 or 2 days are affected. Everyone else - even lite eaters eating 3 appetizers or just one main entree for 4 nights, for example - will come out ahead.

 

Do you work for NCL or a marketing company affiliated with NCL?

[MrJoeBlack]

Do you work for NCL or a marketing company affiliated with NCL?

 

 

Perhaps that's why opinions are so low these days of NCL

[NLH Arizona]

I got the feeling that the poster was comparing the number/amount of food items, not the quality or service.

Exactly, I never said the quality was the same nor the service. Just price for same/like items, which was in response to the poster who said that Ruth's Chris is much more expensive.

[richg35]

Actually, it doesn't affect following 2 types of people - the ones that are using UDP/SDP to pay the meals and those that can only eat one main course and/or appretizers/desserts (small appetite).

 

I would consider one appetizer, main course and dessert to be a "normal" appetite, not a small appetite.

 

In another thread someone was complaining about NCL's buffet having "heavy plates and no trays", and about the portion size at O'Sheehan's being small (which I thought for lunch was a pretty reasonable portion size for a sandwich and fries).

 

It makes me wonder how many people go on a cruise primarily to gorge themselves on food just because it's "included" in the price of the trip.

Edited July 15, 2015 by richg35

[NLH Arizona]

It makes me wonder how many people go on a cruise primarily to gorge themselves on food just because it's "included" in the price of the trip.

I always think the same thing when I see folks ordering multiple appetizers and entrées at the restaurants or loading up their plates at the buffet so high that food is falling all over the place.

[sjbdtz]

As a former restaurant manager, it seems that NCL is trying to get food waste under control.

 

My restaurant had a salad bar and it's very frustrating, when clearing tables to see full plates of food left untouched. The guests paid their $7.99 for the salad bar so they had the mind set of "it's free, I can take as much as I want and it doesn't matter if I waste it." I wouldn't care if the guests took and ate seven plates of food. Most land restaurants are on a very small margin of profit, so waste drives us crazy.

 

I can see passengers on holiday having this same "it's free" mentality. I've seen posts here that say "order as much as you want. It's free." I'm sure that when the room service was free, many (intoxicated) people would order food and not eat it because "it's free." Passengers taking food from the buffet, but not eating it because "it's free."

 

The reasons some places "nickel and dime" their patrons is because the patrons are wasteful. How much ketchup do you take when it's free vs when you are charged for it?

 

A cruise ship is a floating restaurant with an extra burden. Not only do they need to plan and purchase the food for a week, they also need to pay for the fuel to hall the tons of food around from port to port. Every ton they don't have to load on the ship will save them money and fuel.

 

Now I'm sure I'm going to get flamed for this, but ask yourself, "Can you afford to take a holiday?" If the answer is yes, then you are a lucky minority on this big blue planet. Stop complaining that and just be grateful that you have a choice on when and where you are going to eat.

 

I agree 100% with everything you've said.

 

 

 

Wouldn't the "less food waste" argument hold more water if they did away with all the different specialty restaurants (and their specific ingredients) as well as the buffet (in which copious amounts of food are prepared, taken, and tossed)?

 

Food waste isn't a factor of variety, it's a factor of waste. In this regard, the specialty restaurants don't contribute to the problem.

 

Maybe the buffet WILL go away... let's see what happens next.

 

 

 

Stephen

 

.

[wordsjustfly]

As a former restaurant manager, it seems that NCL is trying to get food waste under control.

 

My restaurant had a salad bar and it's very frustrating, when clearing tables to see full plates of food left untouched. The guests paid their $7.99 for the salad bar so they had the mind set of "it's free, I can take as much as I want and it doesn't matter if I waste it." I wouldn't care if the guests took and ate seven plates of food. Most land restaurants are on a very small margin of profit, so waste drives us crazy.

 

I can see passengers on holiday having this same "it's free" mentality. I've seen posts here that say "order as much as you want. It's free." I'm sure that when the room service was free, many (intoxicated) people would order food and not eat it because "it's free." Passengers taking food from the buffet, but not eating it because "it's free."

 

The reasons some places "nickel and dime" their patrons is because the patrons are wasteful. How much ketchup do you take when it's free vs when you are charged for it?

 

A cruise ship is a floating restaurant with an extra burden. Not only do they need to plan and purchase the food for a week, they also need to pay for the fuel to hall the tons of food around from port to port. Every ton they don't have to load on the ship will save them money and fuel.

 

Now I'm sure I'm going to get flamed for this, but ask yourself, "Can you afford to take a holiday?" If the answer is yes, then you are a lucky minority on this big blue planet. Stop complaining that and just be grateful that you have a choice on when and where you are going to eat.

 

You won't receive any flames from me at all. In fact, I will lend you my flame retardant suit if you'd like ;)

 

What you are saying makes sense. Regardless, of whether we acknowledge it or not there is a lot of waste on cruise ships. I have seen many individuals on cruise ships order two or three different entree's and then take a bite, and then say "I don't like this" and push it away. Or order three different desserts and leave them after a bite or two. All of that is waste. What I don't see is a lot of alcohol waste - why? Because they have to pay for that.

 

In my line of work ( I do a lot of Pro bono publico work) and I can tell you that those individuals who pay for their service from myself are much easier to work with, kinder, more respectful, and just all around nicer than the folks who receive my services gratis.

 

It's weird how that works - yes?

 

With that being said I have always wondered when the a la carte pricing was going to happen - and now we know.

 

We will just plan accordingly.

[wordsjustfly]

 

I'm beginning to think NCL releases these press releases with a lack of detail on purpose to gauge the reaction.

 

 

You might be right!

[wordsjustfly]

Here's an example of waste: When we had finished our main courses at Shanghai on Epic, the server asked if we wanted dessert. We declined and asked for the check. She insisted we have dessert, and went on and on about how good it was. We again politely declined, and told her we'd had enough to eat. She then vanished for 10 minutes. When she returned, she had not brought the check. Instead she had brought us each a dessert. At that point I asked her if there was someone else we could ask to bring us our ticket, since she refused. She finally went and got it, and we left the desserts sitting there untouched.

 

Obviously Shanghai is an included restaurant now, but still...

 

See? that kind of crap really irks me. When I am done I am done. For me its even more personal - I have worked super super super hard to lose a lot of weight. And I do watch what I eat. One of the reason we like the specialty restaurants is that I can pick and choose what I want from a menu and it arrives portioned. In fact, I can choose an appetizer and a salad and call it good if I want.

 

If I tell the server I don't want dessert (because for me eating one dessert - I know will trigger me into eating FOUR! hahaha) that means I don't want dessert and I want my damn check.

 

So I am with you - I would have left the dessert as well and it would have sat their untouched and wasted.

 

Oy.

[maywell]

I would consider one appetizer, main course and dessert to be a "normal" appetite, not a small appetite.

 

In another thread someone was complaining about NCL's buffet having "heavy plates and no trays", and about the portion size at O'Sheehan's being small (which I thought for lunch was a pretty reasonable portion size for a sandwich and fries).

 

It makes me wonder how many people go on a cruise primarily to gorge themselves on food just because it's "included" in the price of the trip.

 

What I meant by small appetite is - person gets 1 or 2 course meal, not the full 3 course one. That when a la carte makes the most sense in that case and not a cover charge.

 

Regarding the buffet and portion size - NCL has been doing that for a while and not it ' just now starting' to be more noticeable to some people. :rolleyes: (not rolling my eyes at you, its just at the ones who want to get all mortify now when NCL has been putting passengers on diets for YEARS.). I don't think some people even know what a normal food portion size is anymore, so when they see it in the complimentary places, they assume it ' too small'.

[dna529]

No, I just happen to have more common sense than whiners who aren't thinking clearly. Trust me, some of the people who are complaining about not being able to get everything now that most of the restaurants are going a la carte, forgot to read the part that those restaurants are still included in the UDP/SDP as a cover charge. They also seem to overlook that the Specialty Dining Plan is now broken down to different day amounts with the 3 day being the mininum for $69 per person ($59 plus the 18% tips - $24 per day) - which in foresight, is cheap when one estimates the prices from the announcement to the original cover charges(its not that hard to figure out - the a la carte pricing is similar to Applebees / Ruby Tuesday / a diner prices).

 

 

I give it about 3 weeks for you and the others that are upset to get a revelation in how to figure out your dining problem. (I don't have a 'problem' - the a la carte announcement came just in time since I can't even eat a 2 course meal anymore let alone a 3 course one.). Hopefully a light bulb will turn on in your heads and open your eyes regarding the choices - a la carte, UDP/SDP, complimentary(there's a 4th choice but that just rubbing salt and vinegar in your wounds).

 

I don't pay $30 for a steak at Applebee's and then separately for my sides.

Also, and this is just my opinion, I believe the SDP will be done away with very soon if people are willing to pay for specialties a la carte.