Poll: Do you Like the idea of Dynamic Dining?

As long as don't allow reservations and it is first come first serve.

I would not know what place to eat until that evening.

In case there are not enough threads on the subject:rolleyes: I figured I would start a poll .

It would seem to give more options on the shorter cruises but less on the longer cruises. There seems to be a lot of different options in each one of the menus but they did serve a different menu each night for the 12 day cruises and now it will be 4 menus. We don't always eat in the MDR so I'm not sure that it will effect us that much -- we'll have to try it and see.

Too bad we can't on the Oasis in January. I hear Oasis won't have it till March.

Same as My Time Dining, except traditional dining is eliminated and there are only 4 menus to choose from.

I do not consider this the same as My Time Dining because you have to make all your reservations ahead of time and try to schedule it around the entertainment that you were able to book.

It remains to be seen what will happen if someone needs to change their time/restaurant or can't book until the last few months.

I am open to trying DD (lets face it I don't have much option if sailing on one of the ships doing it).

However, if in a suite I would be interested to know how they handle in-room dining from the current MDR. How will that change, will the perk disappear completely. It is quite a biggie for me as I am disabled and often quite tired in the evenings and it has been nice to have the option of good food in the cabin.

Wonder what people's thoughts are on this :)

I do not consider this the same as My Time Dining because you have to make all your reservations ahead of time and try to schedule it around the entertainment that you were able to book.

 

It remains to be seen what will happen if someone needs to change their time/restaurant or can't book until the last few months.

Are you saying that Dynamic Dining has no "walk-up" ability, that you must have reservations?

On this video Lisa clearly says that you can eat at whatever restaurant you desire, at whatever time, depending on your mood that night. At 1.20 into the video....

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/quantumoftheseas/dining/restaurants/#prettyPhoto/0/

But reservations are required, obviously with the numbers of passengers they are dealing with.... what happens if everyone is in the mood for one particular menu?

Are you saying that Dynamic Dining has no "walk-up" ability, that you must have reservations?

I bet they are ordering a lot of beepers, along with the tablets they mentioned, so you can go walkabout until a table is available :rolleyes:

I voted No for Dynamic Dining for the following reasons:

-Dining Alone (for solos with no assigned tablemates)

-Different Waitstaff (The MDR waitstaff are not happy with the DD concept)

-Need to make nightly reservations and/or have to wait in line, then wait

for a table. No more walking right in to your table on your SeaPass card.

-Limited menus at the 4 "complimentary" restaurants.

-Jackets required at The Grand, now only 3 "complimentary" restaurants

for me.

Dynamic Dining goes beyond Norwegian by totally eliminating the MDR with a rotating menu. DD is designed to remove all passengers from the comfort of the MDR and force them to eat at a different restaurant each night and hoping more will eat at the extra charge restaurants.

My family and I are not at all happy about this change. We forsee many issues with this new system of dining. First off, we have a group of 14 people and by the sounds of it, it will not be easy to reserve us a table everynight. We enjoyed the easy simplicity of having our very own table and waiter there for us every single night. Reserving dinner and shows every single night for 14 people? That doesn't sound like a vacation! That sounds like work!

Not only, not all of these new dining options come with the price of your ticket, some of my family members cannot afford to pay "fees" every single night for dinner! So, even if we can reserve a place big enough for a dozen or more people, will we be able to get the time that we want or need? Will this prevent us from being able to see the shows we desire? Before, with our set times we planned our whole evenings around that set time, 8:30, now I fear it won't be our choice of time any longer. With a big group such as ours it might end up more like a "get what we can come by" sort of situation. We might need a table for 14, but the only time available for a group that big is 7:30, right in the middle of an important show....now what? Try a different resturant? Try another after that? Once again, this is not a fun idea.

Lastly, I would just like to say that I am very unhappy with the way they have decided to go about this. My family and I have booked and started to pay for a Thanksgiving week cruise, 2015 on the Oasis of the Seas. We have had this planned already for 6 months or more and this is NOT the experience we were expecting to pay for when we signed up. I am a young person, just out of college who wants to vacation with my large family, my hard earned money is precious to me and I want what I am paying for. I signed up for this cruise with a dining room in mind, some of my best cruise memories have been at dinner time! Sitting at our own large table, with our waiter who knew our names and preferences. That is something that I always bragged about RC, the waiters are always amazing. They know by the 2nd night that someone likes coffee with their dessert, that one person is diabetic and is always looking for sugar free options and by the time your cruise is over, you are friends.

This is only a few of the things that have come to my mind the past couple days after hearing this news, and my conclusion has come to a THUMB DOWN.:mad:

MissAtomic Bomb: You sorta sound like me.

I agree with you 100%. I have gathered 28 members of my family and closest friends to go on Oasis next summer. I have sailed with RCI before. Only one cousin has sailed on RCI. I am the group lead, I was so looking forward to all of us having dinner together, as we all don't live in the same city.

The majority of us has sailed before and always had dinner in the dinning room together. (Carnival or Princess Cruise Lines)

After all the planning I've done, a contract was signed with a hotel in Fort Lauderdale, we have 13 rooms for 3 nights pre-cruise as this was a big deal for us. An Alligator Tour, A Duck Tour, A Day in Miami, transportation to the hotel, to the ship, from the ship, etc.

So far we had paid in over $12,000 to RCI

And now I'm finding out bits and pieces of this Dynamic Dinning?

I read somewhere on this board, the dinning room can hold groups up to 16 people, so which 16 will eat first? We're a close knit family, we do everything together.

I am not too happy at the moment, I have not told my family about the Dynamic Dinning Program. I guess we will work thru it.

Too much work and time to undo anything.

Thumbs Down!!!!!!!

Although I prefer traditional dining I don't have any inherent objection to the idea of Dynamic Dining. However, have you taken a look at the Quantum menus for the "main" dining rooms? They're terrible. In most of them you wouldn't be able to get a cup of soup! I'm booked on the Quantum for next April and am looking forward to the ship's WOW features but I have my doubts about how much I will enjoy dinner time!

Exactly. I can't even imagine trying to reserve and scedule every single moment of your vacation with that many family members. So much planning goes into vacations as it is, before this....now we have even more work to do? Just take my money and let me sit with my family at dinner every night like we always have, haha.

How about tipping, is everyone going to have to prepay at final with DD?

 

 

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Once it is fully rolled out then yes because it is no different to MTD! So using OBC to pay for grats will be a thing of the past.

I prefer smaller ships, which don't have this level of dining offerings. The change is unlikely to apply to me.

 

Additionally, I enjoy having the same waitstaff nightly, so I doubt I'd be someone who jumped around from one venue to another nightly. Not that I would mind trying something new, but would likely choose a "regular" venue and branch out occasionally from there.

Eventually it will be rolled out on all ships in the fleet so on smaller ships it will be like having MTD only with no set seating in MDR,the concept will ultimately require everyone to pre pay their gratuities:)

I do not consider this the same as My Time Dining because you have to make all your reservations ahead of time and try to schedule it around the entertainment that you were able to book.

 

It remains to be seen what will happen if someone needs to change their time/restaurant or can't book until the last few months.

Reservations are not required with DD, you have the option of walking in.

I think DD requires a complete change in perspective. Traditional cruising has accustomed us to view dining as a scheduled activity. Every night in the MDR at 6:00 sharp.

Even when we do MTD we tend to make reservations around other scheduled ship activities.

I think with DD we will schedule our shows and activities and just let dining happen. We'll eat when we're hungry and we'll choose a restaurant based on our mood. And if we're hungry again a few hours later we'll choose another one. :D

Of course the proof will be in the pudding. But if we can dine 7 nights with the longest wait being 15 minutes and other times walking right in that seems fine to me. If a restaurant has a 20 minute wait then we'll choose another one and maybe make a reservation for another evening.

If you're cruising with a group or you'd like to eat at 7:00 with no wait then make a reservation. It's nice to have that option.

I think all this angst over onerous scheduling may be unnecessary.

Exactly. I can't even imagine trying to reserve and scedule every single moment of your vacation with that many family members. So much planning goes into vacations as it is, before this....now we have even more work to do? Just take my money and let me sit with my family at dinner every night like we always have, haha.

That was my thought on this also. The reason we enjoy the IOS is because we DON'T have to pre-book shows, dining, etc. I just want to go on a cruise and do things spur of the moment and have fun. I don't KNOW what I am going to want to eat on day 5 of my cruise six months in advance. While I DO like the idea of having many options, I don't like having to reserve everything beforehand.

As someone who hasn't been in the MDR at all on his last five cruises, I LOVE the idea of Dynamic Dining. My biggest hope is that with the increase in NUMBER of venues, and thereby a commensurate decrease in the VOLUME served at each venue, the quality will improve. As the ships got bigger and bigger, the MDR undeniably drifted more and more away from restaurant quality to banquet quality. That is one of the biggest appeals of the specialty restaurants, the potential for higher quality, made-to-order meals.

 

I hope Dynamic Dining accomplishes this as well.

That idea would work for smaller groups of travelers, like 2-4....but what about all the friends and families who go together and would like to dine together each night? The people who are already trying to reserve their dining options on the Quantum are already having issues with groups of 6 and more, having to stay on the phones for HOURS to make reservations that won't conflict with their already OTHER reservations made (like shows). If the venues get smaller, then what? Can I not eat at the same table as my parents and grandparents? We all have to split up? It seems off putting, since we are all doing our own things during the day, the time spent at our large dinner table in the MDR was our time to talk about our days and then plan our next.

Reservations are not required with DD, you have the option of walking in.

 

I think DD requires a complete change in perspective. Traditional cruising has accustomed us to view dining as a scheduled activity. Every night in the MDR at 6:00 sharp.

 

Even when we do MTD we tend to make reservations around other scheduled ship activities.

 

I think with DD we will schedule our shows and activities and just let dining happen. We'll eat when we're hungry and we'll choose a restaurant based on our mood. And if we're hungry again a few hours later we'll choose another one. :D

 

Of course the proof will be in the pudding. But if we can dine 7 nights with the longest wait being 15 minutes and other times walking right in that seems fine to me. If a restaurant has a 20 minute wait then we'll choose another one and maybe make a reservation for another evening.

 

If you're cruising with a group or you'd like to eat at 7:00 with no wait then make a reservation. It's nice to have that option.

 

I think all this angst over onerous scheduling may be unnecessary.

Funny how people think:D

What makes you think you can go to one DD venue and then choose another if you are hungry again later on, unless you are talking the buffet?

You will have your seapass scanned on entering the dinning venue showing up on a log that you have had your main meal:D lol

Funny how people think:D

 

What makes you think you can go to one DD venue and then choose another if you are hungry again later on, unless you are talking the buffet?

 

You will have your seapass scanned on entering the dinning venue showing up on a log that you have had your main meal:D lol

Perhaps you're right (but you can order 2 entrees at the MDR so who knows).

Anyway, it was just a throw away one liner. Nothing to do with the point of my post.

"If you're cruising with a group or you'd like to eat at 7:00 with no wait then make a reservation. It's nice to have that option."

I doubt it will be that easy. Think of trying to find a place to dine with your group of 14 people. I ahve already read numberous reviews of people who are having issues reserving places to eat for groups of 6 and more...now double that? It sounds like a nightmare. These people have mentioned they have spent HOURS on the phone with RC reps trying to reserve everything months in advance, since they have large groups. I do not want to work that hard to have dinner with my family.....If it were just me and my fiance it would be a different story. Fitting 2 people in a venue is alot easier than 14!

"If you're cruising with a group or you'd like to eat at 7:00 with no wait then make a reservation. It's nice to have that option."

 

 

 

I doubt it will be that easy. Think of trying to find a place to dine with your group of 14 people. I ahve already read numberous reviews of people who are having issues reserving places to eat for groups of 6 and more...now double that? It sounds like a nightmare. These people have mentioned they have spent HOURS on the phone with RC reps trying to reserve everything months in advance, since they have large groups. I do not want to work that hard to have dinner with my family.....If it were just me and my fiance it would be a different story. Fitting 2 people in a venue is alot easier than 14!

Doesn't sound like fun.

But dining groups of 14 or more make up such a tiny percentage of the ship they really aren't going to be considered when the cruise line makes their plans. Harsh but true.

The Oasis is getting the DD change next March....

Here is the breakdown of the Dinner Venues (atleast on the Oasis, not sure about the Quantum)

These are Complimentary:

1. American Icon Grill

2. CHIC...

3. The Grande (Formal attire only)

4. SILK

There is Coastal Kitchen BUT it's exclusively only to Suites owners

Now these are Charge Restaurants $-$$$

1. Wonderland -$45 pp

2.Michael's pub ---A-La-Carte

3. Chops Grille--$35 pp

4. Jamie Italian-$25 pp

5. Chef Table-$89 pp

6. Izumi Japanese cuisine--A-LA-Carte

If I had a large group that I wanted to have together at the same time each night for dinner I would give RCCL a call. Captains club if I was a member and ask them to do the legwork and book me X amount of tables (largest table sizes possible) at each restaurant on a rotating basis at a certain time.

Not sure if they can do that but surely worth a try before just throwing your hands up in the air and becoming frustrated.

I don't get the angst with working around shows either. IF you just make all your reservations at around 6pm like we did for our upcoming Quantum cruise then you are in exactly the same boat as if you had selected early dinning.

I have also heard that the plan is to keep many dinning spots available to just book on board on the day. There will also be a lot of places opening up I would think as people like us who just booked to try the system and insure we had a place somewhere will change our mind as to time, venue once on board. This will be a challenge for restaurant management trying to maximise the venues capacity if people that have a booking just don't turn up and don't bother to cancel.

In summary while I don't think there are too many problems with the concept of DD the logistics will certainly produce some challenges. I think the latter will ultimate decide on it's success and acceptance.

I also understand though why some people are upset because they have booked a cruise which in this case included traditional dinning and once booked have had the product that they booked changed. I think cruise lines as in all business should announce planned changes before booking windows open as everyone should get delivered a product that is as close to foreseeable to the one which they purchased.

Perhaps you're right (but you can order 2 entrees at the MDR so who knows).

 

Anyway, it was just a throw away one liner. Nothing to do with the point of my post.

Yes I know thats why I laughed:D

If I had a large group that I wanted to have together at the same time each night for dinner I would give RCCL a call. Captains club if I was a member and ask them to do the legwork and book me X amount of tables (largest table sizes possible) at each restaurant on a rotating basis at a certain time.

 

I also understand though why some people are upset because they have booked a cruise which in this case included traditional dinning and once booked have had the product that they booked changed. I think cruise lines as in all business should announce planned changes before booking windows open as everyone should get delivered a product that is as close to foreseeable to the one which they purchased.

Thank you for your post!

We have indeed given them a call and they assured us it wouldn't be a problem, but I have read other peoples reviews on their process for their upcomming trips on the Quantum and it is very discouraging. I want to put my faith in RC and hope that they have a good system worked out for this.

As for the second paragraph, yes...my family is indeed upset. I am young...I cannot afford a lot of luxuries in my life and cruising if definetly in that grouping. I choose to spend my money with RC, my families favorite line, expecting one thing and suddenly getting another.