Day 1 of the new Premier Package has arrived

[lx200gps]

2 minutes ago, PacnGoNow said:

This will be the rush to the SD, instead of the Sanctuary….upon boarding!  😆

Quite probably. Gotta love that Elite status and priority embarkation ;o)

[555]

44 minutes ago, PacnGoNow said:

This will be the rush to the SD, instead of the Sanctuary….upon boarding!  😆

Except that now you have to rush around to each of the ships DR's in hopes of landing a specific time. 

[Beuwolf]

One thing they could do is add Crown Grill lunch.  I think they do this on Holland. 

[canadarocks]

5 minutes ago, Beuwolf said:

One thing they could do is add Crown Grill lunch.  I think they do this on Holland. 

They do. And it’s lovely. But a totally different menu from dinner (which actually makes it that much lovelier. )

[Cruisemeister2002]

4 hours ago, cruising.mark.uk said:

That certainly wasn't the case last night.  The staff could very comfortably have dealt with twice the number of tables that were occupied.

 

And, as has been discussed on other similar threads, I'm confident that - following a little testing and adjusting - it will be more than possible to staff the SD restaurants in future to handle maximum capacity without diminishing the service anywhere else.  Most people only eat one dinner per night.  So, if there are sufficient staff to make that happen now, there will still be enough staff to make it happen when the new arrangements are fully in force.  There's no extra people to be fed.  All that will change is where some of them are fed, with an uptick in SD and a corresponding reduction in numbers for the MDR.  How many pax will eat in which SD will basically be known in advance, so all that will be required is to flex the staff to match the demand.

 

I know some posters don't think that will work, but I see no reason at all why it shouldn't, even if a few days extra training might be needed for some.

Unless staff have to be specially trained I see no reason why if one restaurant has staffing problems why they cannot just switch staff from one area to another. That's what they do in hotels if they have special functions on in one room. Admittedly sometimes for wedding staff are brought in from outside, which is a bit difficult on a ship.

[voljeep]

19 minutes ago, 555 said:

Except that now you have to rush around to each of the ships DR's in hopes of landing a specific time. 

i believe you can, or could, book any specialty dining venue from the one that was open immediately upon boarding for this specific purpose.

[memoak]

9 minutes ago, canadarocks said:

They do. And it’s lovely. But a totally different menu from dinner (which actually makes it that much lovelier. )

1. I would not want to pay dinner prices for a lunch

2. I really don’t want to eat a big piece of meat at 1:00

[lx200gps]

7 minutes ago, voljeep said:

i believe you can, or could, book any specialty dining venue from the one that was open immediately upon boarding for this specific purpose.

Absolutely. We have never had any problem booking all restaurants by visiting the first one we come to. They are all connected "electronically" and can book into any of the others on the ship.

[voljeep]

14 minutes ago, memoak said:

1. I would not want to pay dinner prices for a lunch

2. I really don’t want to eat a big piece of meat at 1:00

2. I really don't want to eat a big piece of meat at 8:00pm

[cruising.mark.uk]

34 minutes ago, memoak said:

1. I would not want to pay dinner prices for a lunch

2. I really don’t want to eat a big piece of meat at 1:00

Those with Premier 90 wouldn't be paying dinner prices for a lunch.  The uplift between 2 x SD on Premier and unlimited SD on Premier 90 is $10 a day, so the marginal cost of each meal there is much less than the standard price for SD and gets lower for every meal they eat there after their second.

[Coral]

They used to offer speciality dining for lunch on sea days. I remember going to Desert Rose (Tex-Mex/Southwestern themed) on the Grand or Golden Princess.

Edited September 1 by Coral

[walkingsoon]

1 hour ago, lx200gps said:

Quite probably. Gotta love that Elite status and priority embarkation ;o)

Is it just me, or is pushing to the front of the line, engaging in a foot race onto the ship and then fighting to get all your entitlements not rather tasteless? Just another version of 'chogging'.

 

I've seen on other lines that getting seats at the specialty restaurants onboard turns out to be a lot easier than the hype here on CC would have you believe. Hopefully, the same will be true for Princess, despite their shifting to a megaship glutton-pandering model.

[gailisacruzin]

Random thought. If they start serving lunch in speciality restaurants and the premier package includes unlimited SD.  What’s stopping someone to book one at lunch and another for dinner.  Not saying I could eat that much.  

[555]

50 minutes ago, lx200gps said:

Absolutely. We have never had any problem booking all restaurants by visiting the first one we come to. They are all connected "electronically" and can book into any of the others on the ship.

Well I certainly hope so.

We usually only go to one Specialty restaurant per cruise and never had the occasion to book multiple DR's on different nights from one location.

I guess I'll have to plan out the the shortest route to the nearest Specialty DR from the embarkation doors. 

[voljeep]

1 minute ago, 555 said:

Well I certainly hope so.

We usually only go to one Specialty restaurant per cruise and never had the occasion to book multiple DR's on different nights from one location.

I guess I'll have to plan out the the shortest route to the nearest Specialty DR from the embarkation doors. 

to the one that is open ... 

[555]

4 minutes ago, gailisacruzin said:

Random thought. If they start serving lunch in speciality restaurants and the premier package includes unlimited SD.  What’s stopping someone to book one at lunch and another for dinner.  Not saying I could eat that much.  

I suppose you could do exactly that but from our past cruises the lunch menu isn't that overfilling. 

Edited September 1 by 555

[555]

53 minutes ago, voljeep said:

2. I really don't want to eat a big piece of meat at 8:00pm

What about one SD at around 5 PM and another one at around 9 PM? There some people that could do it. 😋

[paddingtonbear]

Don’t you think P will simply continue to hike the price of Premier until there are a sensible number of passengers so there isn’t a rush as soon as people are on the ship? That’s what they’ve done with the sanctuary isn’t it? 
 

SD must cost the more so if all the SD restaurants are full every night it’s going to cost P a lot. 

[memoak]

17 minutes ago, gailisacruzin said:

Random thought. If they start serving lunch in speciality restaurants and the premier package includes unlimited SD.  What’s stopping someone to book one at lunch and another for dinner.  Not saying I could eat that much.  

 It some would 2 meals a day all booked in advance. Can’t wait to see how that works out

[Kay S]

Looking forward to the stories.  😄  Bliss?  Bloodshed?

[paddingtonbear]

Wouldn’t it have been so simple to increase the SD offer on premier to 2 per 7 day cruise then 3 etc until the breaking point was reached? 

[memoak]

1 hour ago, voljeep said:

2. I really don't want to eat a big piece of meat at 8:00pm

You might if you generally don’t go to bed till 1or 2 AM

[Astro Flyer]

1 hour ago, Coral said:

They used to offer speciality dining for lunch on sea days. I remember going to Desert Rose (Tex-Mex/Southwestern themed) on the Grand or Golden Princess.

@Coral As I recall that was their first specialty dining option…IIRC it was about $5 with a margarita…that was a long, long time ago. ☺️

 

[Coral]

9 minutes ago, Astro Flyer said:

@Coral As I recall that was their first specialty dining option…IIRC it was about $5 with a margarita…that was a long, long time ago. ☺️

 

I think our memories are correct. They tried to say we had to pay $5 (or whatever) because our tips that we paid in cash in envelopes didn't cover them.

 

Around the same time, they rolled out Sterling Steakhouse in the Sun Class ships. I want to say it was around $6. I remember being on the Sun Princess in Acapulco eating on Deck 15 outside a steak at sunset. It was amazing.

 

Was Sabatini's on those ships when they were built? Or was it later retrofitted?

[JimmyVWine]

3 hours ago, PacnGoNow said:

This will be the rush to the SD, instead of the Sanctuary….upon boarding!  😆

Brings back memories of when DCL first launched. The MDR food was miserable and the only way to book Palo (the SD Restaurant on Magic and Wonder) was to rush to the restaurant immediately upon boarding. The available slots for the 3 and 4 day itineraries were all booked up long before everyone in line could be served. People not only had to rush to the restaurant once they boarded, but also had to strategize to figure out which Magical Express Bus to get on when leaving from WDW. Not much fun starting your cruise with a 2 hour wait in the Palo queue.