Windjammer Open For Dinner

[Oshawapilot]

2 hours ago, lovelife said:

Seems like more....

 

What I observed was that with a lot of the usual activities on hiatus (a lot of the entertainment through the day - poolside stuff, the silly stuff like cake-making contests, towel folding classes, etc etc etc) because of not wanting to have crowds gather, people are naturally gravitating to the same areas out of a lack of other things to do that would normally break things up.   So it seemed a lot busier on the ship than the raw number of passengers would suggest.

[Miloomar]

2 hours ago, lovelife said:

Guest Services checked their computer and told me there are 3478 guests on board currently. Seems like more....

That's more than 50%.... why wouldnt the windjammer be open?

[Oshawapilot]

12 minutes ago, Miloomar said:

That's more than 50%.... why wouldnt the windjammer be open?

 

Food waste issues, likely.     When a good portion of the ship eats in the MDR every night, the percentage of people left in the windjammer is pretty small in comparison to normal with the ship at 50-60% to begin with.

[Miloomar]

17 hours ago, Oshawapilot said:

 

Food waste issues, likely. When a good portion of the ship eats in the MDR every night, the percentage of people left in the windjammer is pretty small in comparison to normal with the ship at 50-60% to begin with.

Royal has said the WJ will come back on ships sailing over 50%... 

[Oshawapilot]

Just now, Miloomar said:

Royal has said the WJ will come back on ships sailing over 50%... 

 

Except there’s been a few cruises where the capacity was over 50% and it wasn’t.  

[Miloomar]

1 minute ago, Oshawapilot said:

 

Except there’s been a few cruises where the capacity was over 50% and it wasn’t.

Thats my point... inconsistency and lies.. 

[lovelife]

On Symphony for my second leg - around 3650 guests and still Windjammer is not open for dinner. Hopefully next week.

[hollins2007]

Windjammer was only open for breakfast and lunch on Serenade last week (Nov 8 sailing).  I hadn’t ridden Royal before so was disappointed they didn’t have dinner buffet, not realizing it was a COVID thing.  I think capacity was just under 50%.

 

also noticed the reservations required on the Cruise Compass but never needed to make reservations.  Just scan the Sea Pass going in and out.

 

things are weird for cruising but glad to be cruising again!

[orville99]

12 hours ago, Heymarco said:

 

 

Harmony WJ is open for dinner now. Future weeks may not be updated in app yet but buffet will be open from here on out. Cheers!

Thanks for the update. Hopefully they will stay open from now on.

[Palm City Cruiser]

15 hours ago, lovelife said:

On Symphony for my second leg - around 3650 guests and still Windjammer is not open for dinner. Hopefully next week.

Was on the same Symphony cruise and the Solarium Bistro was open for buffet dinner with advance reservations. The Symphony Bistro is significantly larger than those on the other Oasis class ships.

[Cigar King]

17 hours ago, Heymarco said:

Harmony WJ is open for dinner now. Future weeks may not be updated in app yet but buffet will be open from here on out. Cheers!

Thanks for letting us know.  I'm sure I'll be there at least once.

[cruiserjt]

I wonder if this may also be related to workforce issues.  They need so many wait staff to run the buffet with the new restrictions and serving protocols.  With all dining rooms open - can it be that there is just not enough people around to serve the food.

[lovelife]

On my third week on Symphony. Just got confirmation from hotel director that Windjammer will be open on Symphony for dinner for the first time since cruising resumed. The app shows Solarium Bistro open for dinner every day also.

 

3783 guests booked this week with 820 children.😮

[Miloomar]

1 minute ago, lovelife said:

On my third week on Symphony. Just got confirmation from hotel director that Windjammer will be open on Symphony for dinner for the first time since cruising resumed. The app shows Solarium Bistro open for dinner every day also.

 

3783 guests booked this week with 820 children.😮

Not on this sailing, but I just came to post this while looking at the app from home. Let us know if you notice any more changes compared to your other 2 weeks

[marktwothousand]

Hmmmm! Buffet open for dinner = good news. But I wonder if that means solarium will be going pay-only. Can anyone confirm?

[Biker19]

12 minutes ago, marktwothousand said:

Hmmmm! Buffet open for dinner = good news. But I wonder if that means solarium will be going pay-only. Can anyone confirm?

It was an included venue pre COVID, not sure why anyone would think it would be converted to a pay venue. 

[marktwothousand]

Just now, Biker19 said:

It was an included venue pre COVID, not sure why anyone would think it would be converted to a pay venue. 

I thought I read somewhere that the whole rationale for it being free post-COVID was to alleviate some of the crowding in the MDR for people who wanted to do my time dining and also to generally just spread out the crowds

[Biker19]

1 minute ago, marktwothousand said:

I thought I read somewhere that the whole rationale for it being free post-COVID was to alleviate some of the crowding in the MDR for people who wanted to do my time dining and also to generally just spread out the crowds

The spreading out of customers makes sense, but again, not sure where the converting it to a pay venue comes in - other than a general thinking that RCI is always about making more money. Some of this may also be ship specific. 

[lovelife]

4 hours ago, Miloomar said:

Not on this sailing, but I just came to post this while looking at the app from home. Let us know if you notice any more changes compared to your other 2 weeks

 

One change is, due to so many children on board,  they have two dining room decks assigned to the unvaxed and only one for vaxed - just the opposite of the last two weeks. The youngins' are out in force. Haven't seen this many since one Spring break out of Jersey a while back. It's good to see them having fun though (hope my positive outlook continues).

 

Another change: we had purple ribbon vax bands last week and purple again this week so we could just keep our old ones if we wanted or get new ones.

[Miloomar]

21 hours ago, lovelife said:

 

One change is, due to so many children on board, they have two dining room decks assigned to the unvaxed and only one for vaxed - just the opposite of the last two weeks. The youngins' are out in force. Haven't seen this many since one Spring break out of Jersey a while back. It's good to see them having fun though (hope my positive outlook continues).

 

Another change: we had purple ribbon vax bands last week and purple again this week so we could just keep our old ones if we wanted or get new ones.

 

Does the vaxx room feel crowded? Hopefully by my sailing enough of the 5-11 on the ship are vaxxed and it's back to 2 vaxx rooms. They have to have had shot 1 already though, so fingers crossed.

 

The purple ribbon is still the annoying cloth ones with the dangly bit off the end?

[lovelife]

11 minutes ago, Miloomar said:

 

Does the vaxx room feel crowded? Hopefully by my sailing enough of the 5-11 on the ship are vaxxed and it's back to 2 vaxx rooms. They have to have had shot 1 already though, so fingers crossed.

 

The purple ribbon is still the annoying cloth ones with the dangly bit off the end?

We haven't  eaten in the MDR yet but will tonight and let you know how crowded it is.

 

Yep, still the purple ribbon this week. How I wear mine on my watchband.

 

[Oceansaway17]

On 11/10/2021 at 11:31 AM, Oshawapilot said:

It showed the same thing on our oasis sailing a few weeks ago, however we just showed up and nobody ever seemed To actually need a reservation.
 

The only difference we noticed was that you had to tap your seapass coming in as well as exiting so they could presumably keep tabs on the number of people coming and going. 

 

 

correct the sea pass card last week on Anthem was so they could keep track of metrics.  One reason is to see how folks get tired of dining room and come to buffet too.  The greeter did say to me that they have not removed the words reservations needed even though they were not.   Confusing like many things on that ship last week.  Was an experience but go with the flow so you can cruise. 

 

BTW lunch at Jamie Olivers was wonderful.  I recommend it

[Ocean Boy]

57 minutes ago, lovelife said:

We haven't  eaten in the MDR yet but will tonight and let you know how crowded it is.

 

Yep, still the purple ribbon this week. How I wear mine on my watchband.

 

That is a great idea. The thought of not taking that thing off all week and getting it wet in the shower is gross.

[tinkertwo]

1 hour ago, lovelife said:

We haven't  eaten in the MDR yet but will tonight and let you know how crowded it is.

 

Yep, still the purple ribbon this week. How I wear mine on my watchband.

 

Love the watch!  It's a 'want' for sure.

[Miloomar]

4 hours ago, lovelife said:

We haven't eaten in the MDR yet but will tonight and let you know how crowded it is.

 

Yep, still the purple ribbon this week. How I wear mine on my watchband.

 

Sadly the only watch I wear is my cellphone so that wont work =\