Is Specialty Dining Goin' Beggin'???

[MyNameIsGermy]

On 12/19/2018 at 12:49 PM, stringbean10 said:

 

Yay!  I knew there were more like-minded folks out there! 

 

Did your son have fun in adventure ocean?  My kids love it!  

 

This was our first time trying it and he went there for a few hours on two nights... after that, he just wanted to hang with us, which was cool by us. 

[ObstructedView2]

Wow, when reading though the comments to this post the only thing that comes to mind is; thank goodness Cruise Critic passengers only make up a teenie tiny miniscule percentage of the cruising public....

 

😜

[Biker19]

2 hours ago, LMaxwell said:

  Anyways, bookmark this, pull it up in about 10 years when they have designed and are building some new class of ships; I would be surprised to see an MDR included in the fare.  Buffet included; a la carte specialty dining, or take a package for the whole cruise. 

RCI folks might start paying attention to how Virgin handles dining. 

[HBE4]

1 hour ago, clean1owner said:

Perhaps Oceania has the model of the future where the base price of the cruise is higher, but you can choose any dining venue on the ship with no upcharge. 

 

Royal could raise the price of a 7-day cruise by $50 pp and make all specialty restaurants included.  The increase would not bust anyone's budget and Royal would end up making more money.

 

I guess they only problem would be trying to squeeze 4000 passengers into restaurants that only hold a few hundred people.

[AdGuyMG]

1 hour ago, Biker19 said:

RCI folks might start paying attention to how Virgin handles dining. 

RCI already attempted to 'revolutionize" main dining a few years ago with a concept called Dynamic Dining.It was yanked due to too much negative feedback.

 

Celebrity is "revolutionizing" main dining on the brand new Edge with 4 separate regional specialty dining rooms (Tuscan / Cypress / Normandie / Cosmopolitan). I thought it was well executed but read about the confusion it's creating on the CEL board.

 

RCI would be making a huge mistake, especially on their 4000 - 6000 passenger Freedom & Oasis class ships, by paying attention to and executing any new dining concepts from an unproven, unlaunced 2700 passenger 1st time luxury class cruise line.

[Hoopster95]

19 hours ago, do_not_spindle said:

We were recently on GoS (12/1 12 night S Carib.) and after some serious issues in MDR (another thread) had several dinners in the 3 specialty restaurants.  I have to say the service in all 3 was excellent, and the food quality significantly superior (arguably as good or better as we've experienced in MDRs on multiple lines going back to 1990s). 

 

It is interesting to note a good percentage (not all) of Specialty comments & opinions on this forum are from those who refuse to pay a cent more than their original cruise fare for extra food... and then due to circumstances, perhaps like you, discover the difference is between MDR and Specialty is significant.

 

4 hours ago, HBE4 said:

 

Royal could raise the price of a 7-day cruise by $50 pp and make all specialty restaurants included.  The increase would not bust anyone's budget and Royal would end up making more money.

 

 

I disagree. A large majority of RCL cruisers are bargain hunters, myself included.... mass market cruise lines selling cabins at the lowest possible advertised price and then adding upcharges for absolutely everything. This is because the market they attract demand bargain basement base fairs which are always on WALMART type sales (60% off second passenger, etc etc etc). If you wish to pay $50 per day more ($350 on a 7 day cruise) it is so astronomically easy to simply look at Celebrity cruises with their many Free gratuity + free drink package deals for example.

 

6 hours ago, clean1owner said:

 

Perhaps Oceania has the model of the future where the base price of the cruise is higher, but you can choose any dining venue on the ship with no upcharge. 

Allow me to repeat my previous post.....

 

I was extremely ignorant. Being a well versed RCL cruiser I thought I knew what service, food and cruising was supposed to be.

I was wrong. The quality, food, service I experienced on O was a massive and outstanding step up from RCL .... You will not see on this Forum CCers posting about how they wish to change from Oceania to RCL.... go to the Oceania forum, there are many posts of RCL and X cruisers switching to Oceania and not coming back.

[richstowe]

This has been a amazing thread . Interesting and varied perspectives . True Loyal Royals who are disappointed with where Royal is going . Others who point out empty or not , upcharge places are worth it . Better food but especially a nice ambiance away from the maddening crowd . 

And then there is the fact that Royal is not alone . Leading the way is NCL , as often is the case , where you minimize the appeal of the MDR by pushing the specialty restaurants and include free dining packages as well as drink packages . (Free if you forget the 20% gratuity which ends up at around $400 a week a couple)

Then there were all the posts about stores having multiple year going out of business sales . And Royal jerking up the price of upcharge places to ridiculous levels and continually offering BOGO's to try and fill the joints up . 

And I must end with my bedrock cruising belief that loyalty is for family and friends not monster corporations.

So it's been an interesting thread . Thank you .

 

[richstowe]

Oops

 

Edited December 23, 2018 by richstowe
Double post

[voyager70]

2 hours ago, Hoopster95 said:

 

It is interesting to note a good percentage (not all) of Specialty comments & opinions on this forum are from those who refuse to pay a cent more than their original cruise fare for extra food... and then due to circumstances, perhaps like you, discover the difference is between MDR and Specialty is significant.

 

 

I disagree. A large majority of RCL cruisers are bargain hunters, myself included.... mass market cruise lines selling cabins at the lowest possible advertised price and then adding upcharges for absolutely everything. This is because the market they attract demand bargain basement base fairs which are always on WALMART type sales (60% off second passenger, etc etc etc). If you wish to pay $50 per day more ($350 on a 7 day cruise) it is so astronomically easy to simply look at Celebrity cruises with their many Free gratuity + free drink package deals for example.

 

Allow me to repeat my previous post.....

 

I was extremely ignorant. Being a well versed RCL cruiser I thought I knew what service, food and cruising was supposed to be.

I was wrong. The quality, food, service I experienced on O was a massive and outstanding step up from RCL .... You will not see on this Forum CCers posting about how they wish to change from Oceania to RCL.... go to the Oceania forum, there are many posts of RCL and X cruisers switching to Oceania and not coming back.

 

Not really fair to compare O to Royal, or any mass market line.  They, along with Azamara, are on a level between the mass market lines and luxury lines.  I'm sure the experience was a major step up, so are the prices.

 

[HBE4]

9 hours ago, Hoopster95 said:

I disagree. A large majority of RCL cruisers are bargain hunters, myself included.... mass market cruise lines selling cabins at the lowest possible advertised price and then adding upcharges for absolutely everything. This is because the market they attract demand bargain basement base fairs which are always on WALMART type sales (60% off second passenger, etc etc etc). If you wish to pay $50 per day more ($350 on a 7 day cruise) it is so astronomically easy to simply look at Celebrity cruises with their many Free gratuity + free drink package deals for example.
 

 

Actually I meant $50 total for the entire cruise.  And it could be a sliding scale so $25 for interior, $50 for balcony and $75 for suite.  That shouldn't bust anyone vacation budget and the cruise line will make more money since everyone is now paying for it. And people won't have to worry about paying for a meal twice.

[Iamcruzin]

12 hours ago, voyager70 said:

 

Not really fair to compare O to Royal, or any mass market line.  They, along with Azamara, are on a level between the mass market lines and luxury lines.  I'm sure the experience was a major step up, so are the prices.

 

By the time you spend money for all of the extras like dining, and deluxe drink packages and Royal keeps coming up with new ways to empty your pockets like the key, how much of a gap is it?

[clean1owner]

6 hours ago, Iamcruzin said:

By the time you spend money for all of the extras like dining, and deluxe drink packages and Royal keeps coming up with new ways to empty your pockets like the key, how much of a gap is it?

 

 

I think the gap narrows every day.

 

[later]

Just did a B2B on the Serenade -21 days. We bought the UDP on sale precruise at $19/day.  

 

The ship Only has 3 specialty restaurants but the food and service in all 3 was great all week.  (Chops, Giovanni, Izumi) This included lunch on sea days (5 on each cruise) and except for day 1 all 3 were open for lunch.

 

I have been on Oasis several times though where the specialty dining experience was not very good at Chops. 

Edited December 23, 2018 by later

[HBE4]

1 hour ago, later said:

Just did a B2B on the Serenade -21 days. We bought the UDP on sale precruise at $19/day.  

 

The ship Only has 3 specialty restaurants but the food and service in all 3 was great all week.  (Chops, Giovanni, Izumi) This included lunch on sea days (5 on each cruise) and except for day 1 all 3 were open for lunch.

 

I have been on Oasis several times though where the specialty dining experience was not very good at Chops. 

 

Just from reading these kinds of threads, it seems the specialty restaurants perform better on smaller ships. Maybe it's because of a more relaxed pace or smaller volume?  idk.

 

I had Chops 3 times and had the full range of experiences (in order) : Loved it (Serenade), it was okay (Liberty) and was disappointed (Oasis).  Of course, this was over a 5 or 6 year period so a lot could/has changed.