Main, Late, or None

[sptrout]

We just got home last night from our first VOS cruise. When time permits, I will try to post some comments about the trip (which was great), but I wanted to place this post first to see if any of you have any comments about a suggestion I wrote on the “Customer Survey Form.”

 

When a person first books a cruise on any cruise line that has assigned dinner seating, the person must answer whether they want “main” or “late” dinner seating. My comment to RCL (issue not RCL specific, applies to any line with assigned seating with multiple dining options) was that there should be a third option called “no preference,” and possibly a forth option called “none.”

 

The current system forces a customer to pick one of two seating options when in reality they never plan to use the main dining room at all, but instead plan to use only the other dining facilities. This situation can cause many people to be assigned to a seating different from what they prefer, when the seating they really want is not full at all.

 

This point was “driven home” to us this past week when we were assigned to a table during the main seating for eight. We had the entire table to ourselves; no one else ever showed-up! The waiter had a list of the people that were assigned to our table and he could not explain why the other six folks never came to the dining room. Of the six missing folks, one was a couple with two teenage sons, so it is my guess that they never intended to use the main seating at all, just picked it because they had to pick something.

 

It was a weird feeling for the two of us to be sitting at a large empty table. The waiter could not make any changes because he could not know if any of the other folks would ever show up, and his other tables were full so he could not move us. The third or fourth night the Head Waiter came by for the first time and said something about giving us a candle or something (he had a heavy accent so we really could not understand him). By this time, we really liked our waiter and did not want to move to another area even if it had been offered.

 

Finally, on the fifth evening the folks that were at a table for six located right beside us felt sorry for us and ask if they could join us! Great, and it turned-out that they all lived with 25 miles of where we do.

 

One other thought on this subject, if a customer is assigned a table I think that if they don’t show-up, or at least tell the waiter they will be coming within a night or so, then their seating should be made available to customers that are unhappy with the forced seating assignment.

[melgray13]

We love the dining room - traditional or anytime. The buffet is a nice option but we eat the vast majority of our meal in the main dining room.

 

I think this is definately an interesting suggestion.

 

I think the next thing that would come up would be if these people should still tip the dining room staff (I believe they should because they serve in other stations on the ship) but some would argue against. Maybe 2 differnt tip structures are the way to go.

[negc]

We love the dining room - traditional or anytime. The buffet is a nice option but we eat the vast majority of our meal in the main dining room.

 

I think this is definately an interesting suggestion.

 

I think the next thing that would come up would be if these people should still tip the dining room staff (I believe they should because they serve in other stations on the ship) but some would argue against. Maybe 2 differnt tip structures are the way to go.

 

While I occasionally see a post where someone suggests that they don't intend to dine in the dining room any night during their cruise, I can't believe that this is a widespread practice. We have never encountered a situation where our assigned tablemates did not join us except on the occasional evening when they dined in one of the alternative restaurants or one of them was under the weather. I think that the OP may be suggesting a new procedure for which there is really little need for one. :) If I did encounter a situation such as the OP described, I believe that after the second night I would have discussed with the Maitre'd, the possibility of being moved to another table that had vacancies. :)

[johnd737]

I think that is a great idea.

[Nliedel]

RCI has assigned seating times because of the ginormous passenger load. That said, if your teablemates never showed up, you should have been asked if you would prefer to move.

[sptrout]

RCI has assigned seating times because of the ginormous passenger load. That said, if your teablemates never showed up, you should have been asked if you would prefer to move.

 

Agree about the load distribution issue, but it is the customer who makes the first choice, and I think it is a random choice in some cases. With a "no preference" option this would give the cruise line a slightly greater chance of placing more folks in the seating they want.

 

We would have asked to be moved, but as I said, by the time we knew for sure that no else was going to join us, we all ready really liked our waiter and did not want to leave (who knows where we would have ended up anyway..).

[Conanc]

I think it's a great idea.

The same thing happened to us once but they found out that the people at our table cancelled their cruise at the last minute. They wanted to move us the second night and the few nights following, but we liked our table and waiter and were fine with it.

[pjlee3333]

I like this option. I know we are in the minority but my mom and I actually prefer to eat in the Windjammer for dinner. We've tried asking our travel agent and crown and anchor to not reserve us a table for dinner. They have told us this isn't possible. As suggested here, we go to see the people in the dining room as soon as we get on the ship (since we live close to the pier we're usually on shortly after they start boarding) and the dining room staff isn't interested in talking to us since we have second seating and they say they only need more seats for first seating. Therefore we have no way of letting the people assigned to sit with us at dinner or the waiter and assistant waiter know that we won't be in the dining room for that cruise.

[cb at sea]

This happened to us once--it wasn't pleasant! I love having lots of tablemates--you're always guaranteed some interesting people to talk to, but when only one other couple shows, it's nowhere NEAR as much fun!

I think it's a GREAT idea to say you won't be using the DR at all, if you won't be there! That way, they can assign the tables in a much better manner!

[mckinna]

While I occasionally see a post where someone suggests that they don't intend to dine in the dining room any night during their cruise, I can't believe that this is a widespread practice. We have never encountered a situation where our assigned tablemates did not join us except on the occasional evening when they dined in one of the alternative restaurants or one of them was under the weather. I think that the OP may be suggesting a new procedure for which there is really little need for one. :) If I did encounter a situation such as the OP described, I believe that after the second night I would have discussed with the Maitre'd, the possibility of being moved to another table that had vacancies. :)

 

We have never had tablemates show up at dinner, so I don't think it is all that uncommon. I know it may be because we ask for a smaller table, and on 2 cruises, we were at a table for just our family. We wondered about the other people who were assigned to the table, and our waiters had not heard from them.

 

I love reading all the threads about bad or funny tablemates, and I wish I had a story to tell. I think it would be interesting. I do agree that those who don't show up need to let them know, so maybe the tables could be more evenly assigned.

 

Regarding the tip question, after reading how the tips are distributed, I would do the tips as recommended, since those servers do rounds through the Windjammer. I have also read about a tip box being left in the windjammer- in that case, they could be left there the end of the cruise. But I bet there are a lot of folks who eat in the WJ and never tip at all- that's not right.

[RetireeWannabee]

I think this is a great option as the number of 'alternative venues' continues to grow. The system as it is has not adjusted. The couple at the giant otherwise empty table is uncomfortable, the wait staff is uncomfortable, and there's not much that can be done about it!

 

it's impossible to know until they don't show up that they won't show up. You cannot assume that every cruiser that doesn't plan to eat in the dining room will let anyone know. It's not feasible to take you from your big empty table to another because you can't just take someone else's assigned seats!

[pjlee3333]

[Regarding the tip question, after reading how the tips are distributed, I would do the tips as recommended, since those servers do rounds through the Windjammer. I have also read about a tip box being left in the windjammer- in that case, they could be left there the end of the cruise. But I bet there are a lot of folks who eat in the WJ and never tip at all- that's not right.

 

I can't speak for how others handle the situation but I like prepaying the tips and then eating in the Windjammer the entire cruise. I then use anything that I would have tipped above for the wait staff to tip the perosn in the Windjammer that helped me. (I tend to sit in the same area every evening so I usually have the same person coming by and helping me and cleaning up the table etc.)

[dak_friendly]

It totally agree that they should add a "no preference".

 

However, I don't think they would do the "none". Too many people would assume they could do that and skip tipping any dining staff. "None" would probably appear if they started doing required pre-paid gratuities.

[amybear912]

I like this idea... We always choose the late seating so we've never run into the problem of being assigned to a seating we didn't want... We always eat dinner in the dining room...

 

BUT... the friends that we choose to cruise with NEVER eat in the dining room for various reasons...

 

Last cruise, we linked our reservations so that we would all be assigned the same table and we were... an intimate table just for the four of us... however, our friends still opted not to eat in the dining room which left us at a table with just the two of us... personally, we would have preferred to be seated with a bunch of others as we enjoy meeting new people over dinner... but the table for two was nice also and it left our friends with the option of joining us but they opted not to... not a big deal but...

 

For them, they would have loved to have had the option of choosing 'none'...

 

That being said, if given the "none" option, perhaps a tip structure could be created for those types who choose not to eat in the dining room... have it added in ahead of time or whatever...

 

But lately, I see lots of people on these boards who don't want to eat in the dining room for whatever reasons and would probably appreciate the opportunity to select "none" from the beginning of the reservations process...

[CrissyBarrows]

I too feel no preference is a good option! We love main seating and on our last cruise we were changed to late at the pier and they put us with a bunch of ppl our age in the back of the dining room. I guess they felt us younger ppl could eat later or something. Still a great cruise though, that was my only complaint!

[ssantow]

It totally agree that they should add a "no preference".

 

"None" would probably appear if they started doing required pre-paid gratuities.

 

Requiring Pre paid or automatic non removeable gratuities is the number one reason passengers give for not returning to NCL for a second cruise.

But then that is not the subject of this thread. It is dining options. If there were a no preference option the cruise line coud assign seatings to those who actually have a preference and then fill in with the no preference people. This would make many more people happy as they would get the seating they prefer. And by the way NCL's "Whenever Dining" is the number one reason people return for a second cruise.

[dak_friendly]

Requiring Pre paid or automatic non removeable gratuities is the number one reason passengers give for not returning to NCL for a second cruise.

 

But then that is not the subject of this thread. It is dining options. If there were a no preference option the cruise line coud assign seatings to those who actually have a preference and then fill in with the no preference people. This would make many more people happy as they would get the seating they prefer. And by the way NCL's "Whenever Dining" is the number one reason people return for a second cruise.

 

I agree. I do not think pre-paid gratuities would fly with the RCCL cruiser mindset. Not one bit. :) I also think that some people seeing "none" as an option would go "Hey, I can avoid tipping if I go this route". With enough people thinking that way on a particular cruise, the staff would be doing different things on ship. I can imagine the staff wouldn't be happy with that ... especially the no tipping part.

 

I have a hypothetical example. If a large number of people chose "none", they might reassign a lot of staff to work the Windjammer causing a traffic jam of staff.

 

I see an impending shift coming with the Anytime Dining testing. I believe that soon, on any cruise, you'll have "main", "second", and "anytime". If you haven't chosen one of the first two, you'll be assigned "anytime" along with the others that chose it. This way, the management can allocate the right amount of staff to the different seating variants before anyone even boards the ship. Good efficiency on the business side, and the passengers will be happier too.