Solis Restaurant

[LongIslandTravel]

40 minutes ago, skybluewaters said:

 

Exactly

 

10 hours ago, sfvoyage said:

Too bad for guests who see a premium wine list at Solis/TK Grill/Restaurant 2 and just assume that house wines are not available at that venue.  How peculiar and illogical. Seabourn is all inclusive; why would anybody assume that wines are not included at a particular dining venue?!  If they are new and unsure, they simply just have to ask. If they don't speak English or any of the languages that the crew speak, just use Google  Translate.  There is no conspiracy to defraud! 👎

Totally agree with this sfvoyage!!   This is totally ridiculous that someone thought they had to order from the premium wine list.  You'd have to work hard at it and be utterly clueless of what you were doing and who Seabourn is and what you paid for to miss the complimentary wine offerings.  And it seems focusing on them trying to "make a buck" instead of focusing on what is good about the whole thing is not something I want to be familiar with either.  Who CARES if they point out the premium wines?  Say no.  They might have pointed out the premium wines, and never did we feel they pushed it on us.  To the point that I don't even remember!  At Solis or any other venue on the ship.   Anyone can focus on that or some other negative and that's their call.  I don't choose that road. 

[lincslady]

Some passengers would naturally assume from the attitude of the staff that it was expected that they would order from the premium list.  Staff should be saying 'if you would prefer to have  premium wine to the everyday ones, here is the list', or similar.  In my experience this does not happen, so if you are new and uninformed you would feel obliged to do so.  In our case, we were definitely slightly treated as second class citizens when we asked for the included chardonnay or whatever it was.  I am going back to TK days, but fear this has not changed.

[nancygp]

18 hours ago, LongIslandTravel said:

We had absolutely no experience at all like that with the wine or the wait staff.  No one pushed premium wines or were circumspect with the complimentary wine offerings.  Were you on Ovation?  We had nothing resembling your experience at all.  And we certainly didn’t find having premium wines listed on the back page offensive….  Why would that even an issue?

Same experience the past 2 weeks on the Sojourn.  The crew knew my wine preferences from the complimentary offerings and where delighted to pour them.

 

Nancy

[brittany12]

Most everyone has eyes, but all maybe some don't see as well as others. And maybe it just was different for you, but don't tell me what I saw, personally experienced or criticize how I feel. You can have your attitudes and acceptances but so can others. And other passengers we spoke felt the same. Let me try to explain it again.Yes, I find it offensive if the company I'm dealing with, whether cruise line or car dealership or resort hotel, is not completely transparent in its dealings with me and  trains its staff to try to sell their customers a more expensive product, through clever marketing efforts, that many if not most don't need or want. 

 

And to be clear, I'm talking more about Solis as a dining venue and not so much the DR, even though I saw vestiges of this upbuy marketing effort there too.

 

Don't get me wrong, if you want to order from the premium wine list, go do it. I have myself on occasion.. But on a luxury cruise line where we are already paying top fares for the overall product, which boasts about its included "fine wines", (we can differ on that definition and quality), no customer should have to inquire in Solis about ordering the regular fine wines that one has drunk with satisfaction in the DR. The initial effort to get the "normal" stuff should not have to come from the customer. As LinksLady from the UK so aptly just said, there has been an attitude from the staff that it is assumed anyone dining in Solis, as it was with Keller, will want to order from the premium list.

 

 If maybe 25-35 percent of its dining customers are influenced by some subtle and some not-so-subtle means to order wines from the premium wine list, the business entity will make a lot more money than otherwise. Any percentage helps tha bottom line. And cruise lines need a lot of money today from many onboard sources, like this and over-priced excursions and private car costs, to help get over the deep Covid financial losses and begin to pay back the costly bank loans they took. Does anyone doubt this is in their business plan to make more money by selling premium wines wherever possible, at, may I add, inflated prices to begin with, to willing customers? Or do you think they  just sell these wines for our dining and drinking pleasure and don't care about the extra profit they are realizing to help pay the rent.

 

Their including the premium list right there on the back page of the Solis menu is an attempt to influence the guests dining there to order from it once the guests' interest is visually stoked. It does not have to be "pushed." Sure, when a guest then asks the server or sommelier instead  about access to the regularly included "fine wines," they have been trained to open up and graciously serve and pour them. In my experience, not too many Solis waiters, unless they are dealing with return customers from that cruise, open up with the free wines first. This subtle attempt through clever marketing to make us upbuy is damn good salesmanship. But lets recognize it for what it is.

[nancygp]

26 minutes ago, brittany12 said:

Does anyone doubt this is in their business plan to make more money by selling premium wines wherever possible,

Of course most don’t doubt this!  This isn’t unique to Seabourn.  I sailed another lux line for many years prior to Covid and once in 2021.  This was and currently in their business plan to make more money selling premium wines.

 

I’ve always admired good salesmanship across many industries.

 

Nancy

Edited August 13 by nancygp

[SLSD]

We dined at Solis last night.  There was no mention of premium wines.  We ordered our usual complimentary wines with no pushback or comments.  We HAVE experienced pushy wine selling on a previous voyages and I did find it a bit offensive/funny as the waiter really exchanged words with  me about it.  I only experienced that one time.  We are not wine connoisseurs so the complimentary wines are fine for us.  I have noticed some new European varieties this summer which I am enjoying.  I figure there are notes in our SB profile which say that we never order premium wines.  

[Mauzac]

2 minutes ago, SLSD said:

We dined at Solis last night.  There was no mention of premium wines.  We ordered our usual complimentary wines with no pushback or comments.  We HAVE experienced pushy wine selling on a previous voyages and I did find it a bit offensive/funny as the waiter really exchanged words with  me about it.  I only experienced that one time.  We are not wine connoisseurs so the complimentary wines are fine for us.  I have noticed some new European varieties this summer which I am enjoying.  I figure there are notes in our SB profile which say that we never order premium wines.  

 

Ditto the same for us.  I've never noticed the premium wine list, and we just ask for our favourite included wines when asked what we would like.  This is after the delicious cocktail though, so we're never in a hurry!

We love Solis and very much looking forward to it on our next cruise.

Surely a "no, thank you" suffices if asked about premium wines?   We're not easily influenced so it's never a problem for us!