has anyone had the hot/cold hors d'ouevres on RCL?

[sarah1981]

My fiance and I currently have 16 people sailing with us on our wedding cruise in March '07. We originally wanted to have the lunch buffet which has a 25 min. requirement. We are now faced with the hot/cold hors d' ouevres and we are getting a little worried that people will think it's not good enough since they are paying so much $ to be a part of this.

 

Has anyone chose this option? If so, how did it go?

[sas80]

My fiance and I currently have 16 people sailing with us on our wedding cruise in March '07. We originally wanted to have the lunch buffet which has a 25 min. requirement. We are now faced with the hot/cold hors d' ouevres and we are getting a little worried that people will think it's not good enough since they are paying so much $ to be a part of this.

 

Has anyone chose this option? If so, how did it go?

 

There was another review on here a few days ago of a couple who got married and had this option and she said it was perfect.

 

I have had the H/C appetizers through a cruise critic party and they were great. Based on the previous brides pictures they looked like the same appetizers to me.

 

There are a few ways you can look at this....

1. Realize that people are going to be eating and drinking all week long so an appetizer reception isnt going to seem like a lack of food.

2. I assume that you are doing this on a port day. An appetizer reception will be short enough to allow them time to go explore the port of call OR, if this is a departure day, an appetizer reception will give everyone enough time to enjoy the reception and still have a few hours before dinner to explore the ship and settle in to their cabins.

3. From the previous brides post, there is an over abundance of appetizers availiable - no one is going to go hungry!

 

If you are still left feeling "cheap" then consider arranging for everyone to have dinner at Chops or Portofino together, one night on the cruise. At $20 a head, that would be a nice celebratory addition to your wedding cruise.

 

Relax though - even with an appetizer reception, it's going to be a "wedding cruise", an event that no one will forget - an event that no one is going to remember only the appetizer reception.

[moviegirl11]

Hi! I was the person who posted the review of my Royal Caribbean wedding and yes, we did the hot/cold hors d ouevres reception (read the full review here!).

 

I STRONGLY recommend going with the hors d ouevres rather than a full reception. There was so much free food on the ship that it made no sense to pay extra for even more food for our guests. The hors d ouevres were perfect. Very tasty and there was more than enough for everyone. Our wedding was at 2 so it was around 3 that people got to eat and drink. The hors d oevres tided everyone over until dinner time (only a couple of hours later. If people are really hungry they can hit the windjammer afterwards or hang on until dinner but everyone in our group (there were 18 of us in total) ate their fill at the reception.

 

Here's a pic I took of the cold hors d ouevres (after our guests had already helped themselves)

 

 

I didnt get a pic of the hot hors d ouevres but my sister may have (she loves photographing food) so if she sends me one, I'll post it.

 

Everything Sas said was right on the money. Your guests are going to have such a fun time that they're not going to be put off at the lack of a full buffet. The hors d ouevres reception worked out perfect for us because it gave everyone a chance to hang out and enjoy a bit to eat and (a lot to) drink while our photographer took me and my husband around to take pictures. Then when we got there and did the champagne toast and cake cutting about 20 minutes into the reception everyone was feeling pretty good!

[RIP1]

3 years ago I did the hot/cold appetizers. It was perfect. When my family boarded the ship they all went to the Windjammer and ate lunch. The appetizers will be plenty.

 

Robyn

[scottishflower]

Agreed with above posters; there's so much food and drink avail at all hours on the ship that the h/c apps was perfect. The open bar was more value for our guests since this is not a freebie on the rest of the ship.

 

The apps were good too - plenty for our guests - you'll be fine.

[sarah1981]

Agreed with above posters; there's so much food and drink avail at all hours on the ship that the h/c apps was perfect. The open bar was more value for our guests since this is not a freebie on the rest of the ship.

 

The apps were good too - plenty for our guests - you'll be fine.

 

Thank you so much for all of your advice everyone! I am def. feeling much better about it.. Has anyone had their reception at the Schooner Bar? They have a piano there and I am thinking of doing hot.cold there.

[scottishflower]

We did ours at the Viking Crown on Enchantment; there was a sound system, so we could play pre-burned CDs, but no piano. Nice views.

 

The Schooner is a bit smaller, the only thing I didn't like about it was that it was a smoking area, and got too smokey in the evening when we went there for a Martini. But this may not be an issue for you if you'll be there earlier.

[moviegirl11]

Sarah, as I expected - my sister did take pictures of the food at our reception! Here's some shots of the hot AND cold hors d oeuvres:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was all delicious (even though some of the stuff I wasnt sure exactly what it was!). There were 18 of us in total and everyone had plenty to eat! I'm not sure if they replenished the food at some point but I do know we got there over 20 minutes after our guests did (because we were off getting photos taken) and when we arrived everyone had helped themselves but there was still plenty for us to eat.

[vacruzer007]

thank you sooo much for sharing your wedding pictures. I had the same concerns as those who previously posted. I'm planning a wedding for april 2007 on the sovereign of the seas and I am getting so stressed- wondering did I chose the right cruise line, the right ship should I do hors d'oevres etc etc etc. but I feel so much better now :) thank you!

 

was that the bouquet that came with your package or did you upgrade? it's very pretty. I'm going with the harmony package.

 

so everything went well? what about during the planning stages did you have any issues with RCCL? or their wedding dept?

[moviegirl11]

My advice if you're going through royal romance is to contact them about 2 months before the wedding to go over any enhancements (reception, flowers, etc). If you're getting married in St. Thomas or any other place thats NOT florida, contact the RR people in FL and get the phone number of the RR branch on the island where you'll be married. Make all of your specific arrangements with those people because the people in FL dont always know which end is up.

 

The flowers in the pics are the ones that came with the harmony package. I think you get roses if you get married on a sailing day but we got married in Port in St. Thomas so we got the tropical arrangement. We opted to add on the groomsman boutineer (sp?) and the maid of honors bouquet.

 

Expect excellent treatment from royal caribbean. The Royal Romance people are a separate company and I thought they were kind of in-and-out as far as service but they got the job done. The royal caribbean staff (the events coordinator, the photographer, the waitress at the reception) were all fantastic.

[sarah1981]

My advice if you're going through royal romance is to contact them about 2 months before the wedding to go over any enhancements (reception, flowers, etc). If you're getting married in St. Thomas or any other place thats NOT florida, contact the RR people in FL and get the phone number of the RR branch on the island where you'll be married. Make all of your specific arrangements with those people because the people in FL dont always know which end is up.

 

The flowers in the pics are the ones that came with the harmony package. I think you get roses if you get married on a sailing day but we got married in Port in St. Thomas so we got the tropical arrangement. We opted to add on the groomsman boutineer (sp?) and the maid of honors bouquet.

 

Expect excellent treatment from royal caribbean. The Royal Romance people are a separate company and I thought they were kind of in-and-out as far as service but they got the job done. The royal caribbean staff (the events coordinator, the photographer, the waitress at the reception) were all fantastic.

 

Moviegirl,

 

Did you stand the entire time for the hors d'ouevres? I was hoping you could sit if you wanted to.

[moviegirl11]

no there were tables and chairs there - enough for everyone! I stood during the cake cutting and the toast and thats pretty much it!

 

Hang on and i'll rehost the food pics since the ones i posted dont seem to be working - and i have a couple pics that show the tables and chairs

[moviegirl11]

K here you go:

 

hot food:

 

cold food

 

small tables for our guests

 

and some comfier chairs as well

 

You can see the room is pretty plain. We didnt even think to decorate it but to be honest, I didnt feel the lack of decorations either. The view of St. Thomas was spectacular.

[moviegirl11]

K here you go:

 

hot food (ALL really tasty!):

 

cold food

 

small tables for our guests

 

and some comfier chairs as well

 

You can see the room is pretty plain. We didnt even think to decorate it but to be honest, I didnt feel the lack of decorations either. The view of St. Thomas was spectacular.

[vacruzer007]

thanks moviegirl! I'm getting married day we set sail - to get the party started! :)

So basically RR they just book everything, but when it comes to the actual wedding etc you deal with RC? am I understanding it to be that way?

how long was your reception? sorry you may have stated that in your email, I just got to excited !

oh yeah, another question? is that a single tier cake you had? did you order the rose cake topper?

so you had a CD playing during the reception? did you bring you own cd player? did you do any of the traditional things like garter toss, father daughter dance etc?

[moviegirl11]

The RR people are responsible for handling the license stuff, getting you to the ceremony, getting the ceremony started, then the champagne toast and the cake cutting. At least with mine thats how it was.

 

The photographer is RC, the reception is run by RC staff as well. There were also a couple RC people at the actual ceremony (they were all really nice and seemed genuinely excited about the wedding).

 

The way it went for us was that we got up, got breakfast, and then as per the message left by the RC events coordinator, we were to meet our driver down on the gangway and he would take us to the courthouse where we would meet our RR coordinator. We got down to the gangway and there was a driver with a sign that said our names. The RC person also showed up to introduce herself and just make sure we were ok.

 

We went to the courthouse, met our coordinator and got our license stuff done. Then we went back to the ship (without the coordinator) and had time to eat before we went to get our hair done in the onboard salon. Then we got dressed and our coordinator met us in our staterooms and escorted us up to the chapel. We had the ceremonies (with us it was 2 ceremonies, one for me and then one for my sisters wedding) and then the RC photographers took us around the ship for pictures while our guests were brought to the reception. We were taking pictures for like 20 minutes. The reception was supposed to be 1 hour long so the photos cut into our reception time.

 

We got to the reception and the RR coordinator wanted to do the cake cutting and toast so we did that and then the RR people left. We were enjoying the food and drinks for a while and when it got to 4 pm (the time the reception was technically over, someone in RC told us we could have a bit more time since the brides and grooms missed part of the reception because of the photos so we got an extra 20 or 30 minutes of food and open bar! They never even had to kick us out of the room. They did call Last Call at one point but they werent in any hurry to have the room back (since it was a private room, I guess they didnt need it for anything)

 

The cake was the one that came with the Harmony package - no upgrades.

 

We didnt have music or dancing at our reception. With just 18 guests we decided to keep it pretty low-key. We're having a party in June to celebrate with all of our friends and family and will do all the dances and what-not then.