How The Whiners Ruined Dynamic Dining

[rbschultz]

I was on Quantum back when Dynamic Dining first started (or a few months after at least).

 

Pros:

1. The ability to choose the restaurants you want to go to along with the times was excellent.

 

2. Choose whether or not to do formal nights. Don't want to put on a suit/nice clothing? Don't go to The Grande

 

 

Major Con (for my sailing at least): Not enough staffing. There were piles of dirty dishes in the bussing area, and nobody cleaned them up. It was pretty appalling to look at, but they were still shaking out the kinks.

 

 

 

 

My family enjoyed DD as a whole. It was a nice change from traditional, but wouldn't have been able to see us booking SPECIFICALLY for DD.

[brfan]

Harmony came out with different styled venues and never had DD.;)

 

Except Harmony was supposed to have DD, same as Oasis and Allure. That's why Oasis and Allure were upgraded to the DD restaurants during their dry docks. It was only later that the decision was made to not do DD on the Oasis class ships.

[Moltar]

There were 7 daily distinct menu for each restaurant on our Aug. '16 Anthem cruise. Therefore, in a week's sail it totaled 27. he menu repeated on the 8th day of our 9 night cruise.

 

 

Complete BS

[TC1957]

I really feel sorry for this dead horse.

[Biker19]

Except Harmony was supposed to have DD, same as Oasis and Allure. That's why Oasis and Allure were upgraded to the DD restaurants during their dry docks. It was only later that the decision was made to not do DD on the Oasis class ships.

The idea of DD on Oasis class ships was cancelled more than a year before Harmony MDR was decorated at the shipyard. Who is taking bets on what O4 MDR decoration will be?

[DeadPhish]

I really feel sorry for this dead horse.

 

They should rename this forum the Dead Horse. :D

[Clarea]

The idea of DD on Oasis class ships was cancelled more than a year before Harmony MDR was decorated at the shipyard. Who is taking bets on what O4 MDR decoration will be?

I'll bet it's the same as O3.

[johnjen]

Sailed on the Quantum & Anthem and did not experience any of what you are identifying. We had excellent waiters & asst. waiters and it was a big advantage as we had a table for 2 and completed our meal in a little over an hour. We were always the 1st to give our dining orders and did not have to wait for any tablemates which delays the process.

 

Yeah, it was probably at a different cruise, time, etc. It just reminded us of the rush job on Carnival. That experience has us henceforth going to book only Explorer class and below. Had enough of the megaships. Of course, there were other reasons for us to make that decision!

Edited January 4, 2017 by johnjen

[Biker19]

I'll bet it's the same as O3.

 

I'm leaning that way as well, which begs the question:

 

If DD is so dead, why decorate a brand new ship in DD theme?

[Clarea]

I'm leaning that way as well, which begs the question:

 

If DD is so dead, why decorate a brand new ship in DD theme?

Maybe it's not irrevocably dead.

[gkbiiii]

Call me George, "The Deplorable, Dynamic Diner Whiner"!!!

Edited January 4, 2017 by gkbiiii

[rbschultz]

Maybe it's not irrevocably dead.

 

That would be my assumption as well.

[Merion_Mom]

I see that says the Anthem -

 

However, I was on the first 12 night caribbean sailing of the Quantum, the first ship to incorporate the dynamic dinning ordeal- I may say it was AWFUL, and a fiasco - it took several months, with extremely long phone wait times to even make dinner reservations, and some of our group was from the UK - and they couldn't even get into the group because of their home country. (US and Europe could not schedule meals together) On or about the 10th night of the cruise they ran out of food in almost every dining venue. The last two mornings at breakfast they were serving lunch items made into breakfast.

Wait times were about 30+ min behind your reservation times, which made long standing lines outside the restaurants.

 

Do I remember seeing your id and that you also cruised on that sailing too? But I don't think there were many people that enjoyed such a hassle while on a "vacation" that should be relaxing.

 

I think it is such a positive move by RCCL to dump that program.

 

--- I haven't cruised any ship that has had it since the first one I experienced.

 

Truly irrelevant.

[Stitchman]

Call me George, "The Deplorable, Dynamic Diner Whiner"!!!

 

 

Lol .......... We are deplorable .........

Didn't ask for it. Don't want it.

 

Comparisons to the EU and Hilary Clinton then [emoji3]

 

 

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[brfan]

The idea of DD on Oasis class ships was cancelled more than a year before Harmony MDR was decorated at the shipyard. Who is taking bets on what O4 MDR decoration will be?

 

I'm not so sure of that, because it was dynamic dining when the ship opened up for booking, but I don't know when the dining room decorating was done in comparison to when the bookings opened. Also I'm guessing that Royal had already paid for the designs /décor and it might have been too expensive to change it last minute. Likely the same reason Allure was changed during her dry dock, even though I think DD was cancelled before her dry dock.

[rbschultz]

Truly irrelevant.

 

When you sign up to be a guinea pig on a brand new class of ship with a brand new technology and a brand new dining style and expect it to be perfect, you're setting yourself up for failure.

[Biker19]

I'm not so sure of that, because it was dynamic dining when the ship opened up for booking, but I don't know when the dining room decorating was done in comparison to when the bookings opened. Also I'm guessing that Royal had already paid for the designs /décor and it might have been too expensive to change it last minute. Likely the same reason Allure was changed during her dry dock, even though I think DD was cancelled before her dry dock.

The decorations happen quite late in the construction process - probably around February of this year for Harmony. DD on Oasis class was canceled about a year before that.

 

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[Stitchman]

Have we stopped whinging now ?

 

 

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[Biker19]

Give it another month.

[tugboat]

http://creative.rccl.com/Sales/Royal/Anthem/Dining_FAQs_2016

 

since your unhappy have you considered NCL

[nelblu]

since your unhappy have you considered NCL

 

You just woke up to this thread and this is your contribution!

[FireStation46]

I am not familar with Dynamic Dining vs. what they now provide. What was taken away in the switch?

[DonnaK]

I am not familar with Dynamic Dining vs. what they now provide. What was taken away in the switch?

 

It was restaurant style dining. 4 restaurants with distinct menus for each one (different from the standard fleet-wide menus). Initially, you had to make reservations so it was like My Time Dining, but then they added a traditional option where you were assigned a dining time and a restaurant rotation.

 

What was lost in the switch was the unique menus.

[LMaxwell]

I am not familar with Dynamic Dining vs. what they now provide. What was taken away in the switch?

 

On Quantum-class ships they had four distinctly themed dining rooms, each with their own menu (plus the always available portion that was the same for each restaurant). Each restaurant would have more than one menu depending on the length of the cruise (think A menu, B menu, etc.)

 

The original idea was that anyone could choose any restaurant any night for any time. I guess in practice that didn't go so well and people ended up having to do much more planning (not so "dynamic").

 

The four restaurants were Grande (which served lobster nightly but did have a "formal attire" requirement), Chic, Silk, and American Icon (which did not have any formal requirement on any nights; but also no lobster).

 

I believe at some point they basically made the Devinely Decadent restaurant as an included restaurant instead of a pay venue, thus really increasing the number of restaurants to five.

 

It seems menu complaints, capacity issues (none of the restaurants are close to the size of a traditional MDR), not being able to turn tables as fast as anticipated, etc. lead to a less than promised experience. They did try a rotational setup for a while but not sure how long that lasted or the results.

 

Instead of continuing with the concept, Royal reverted back to more of a My Time Dining format in the various restaurants which maintain their decor, but the menus are now standardized. I believe a set time format option has been introduced as well and ship wide formal nights are back, so for those who were advertised lobster every night, that is not an option, and for those who didn't care about formality and were advertised a free wheeling experience and various menus, that is not an option.

 

There may be other details and nuances to this, but that's sort of the gist of it. Hope that helps. Others may be able to explain more succinctly.

[FireStation46]

Thanks, so a nice concept but logistically they coukd not pull it off I reckon.