New Years cruise on the Regal Princess

I will start by saying we love Princess our favorite cruise line. The Regal is our favorite ship. My DH & I became elite on this cruise. Having said this our dining experience was the worse out of all our 36 cruises. We were on the Regal 2014 on the Transatlantic cruise it was amazing. We were very surprised at the level of service or lack of service in the MDR. We had 7:45 fixed dining in the Concerto DR. We were 2 & 1/2 hrs in the dinning room each night. Never saw any management come around checking to see how we were enjoying our meal. Wait staff had problems with food orders as well as drink orders. DH is big ice tea drinker never got a refill until finished with his meal. Had to ask over and over each night to get coffee with desert. Not like Princess at all. Twice we had to leave before desert in order to get to the 10:00 pm show.

Cruise staff seemed fine. We don't do anything much that the cruise staff runs. We do not do passenger shows where the passenger is the entertainer. We don't do trivia or game shows. Nothing wrong with these just not our thing.

Other entertainment was good. We enjoyed the cruise ship shows thought they were good to great. The entertainment brought on board was ok to good. We enjoyed MUTS and other movies offered during the day.

My thoughts on the drink card. I feel they have reduced the number of bar servers based on already getting your money up front. Hard to get a drink in some bars. In the evening in Crooners could not get waited on. We tried this a couple of nights before dinner. Moved to the Wheelhouse bar a little better. Out on deck hard to get waited on. Most of the time we had to go to the bar ourselves to get a drink. We were a party of 4 couples 2 out of our group had the card. The rest of us did not. We only had 3 sea days on this cruise my DH & I just could not make the $$ work for the card on this cruise. Princess lost money on us. We would have drank more if there had been more bar staff on hand to wait on us. As for us getting the card in the future it is unlikely based on the service issue alone. I am big wine drinker & DH drinks mostly beer so not sure price works for us anyway.

Other thoughts we did the Crown Grill one night. It was good we enjoyed it but it also took about 2 & 1/2 hrs to eat that night. I would highly recommend the Wine Makers dinner 3 out of our group did this one night. Best meal all cruise. Everything about it amazing.

If I can be of help or answer questions I will be glad to. I am hoping the MDR problems were just a one time thing. We heard these complaints from many others on the cruise. I was told by a crew member that the dining staff had an almost complete turn over the middle of December. Maybe that was part of the problem.

Other areas of service were fine, room steward was great as always. Only used RS for coffee in the mornings, once for breakfast, always came within a few minutes.

Since you picked one of the busiest cruises of the year I can understand things being a little slow.

I am sorry to hear this about the dining. We were on the Regal in early November and all four of us remarked that dining and service in the dining room was perhaps the best we have experienced on any Princess ship. We will be back on the Regal in February so anxious to see if I experience the good service and food again, or have the service that you and a couple of other recent Regal cruisers have reported.

I think holiday cruises are often the problem. We were on the Oasis of the Seas with family over Thanksgiving and it always felt as if the staff was stretched way too thin for the number of people (and kids/teens) on board.

So sorry you had less than expected service. We also love the Regal.

You said you were wine drinkers...........did you try Vines? On the Regal and the Royal they are a full service as well as wine bar. We were there most nights before dinner.

On our last cruise on the Royal..........many had the sip and sail (AIBP). We did not experience any problems with service. My DH bought the package and I did not. Did enjoy several bottles of wine with 40% discount ( for me) and some bubbly.

We also attended the wine makers dinner and chef's table on that cruise........and both were outstanding.

Just reread your post and I do think that the turn over of staff in December may have contributed to the slower service.

We have been fortunate to have the same bar staff in Vines on several of our cruises and they were leaving for contract break before Christmas.

I am just throwing this out there as I don't have as much experience cruising as many of you. I have been on cruises, however, just started traveling again the last year and a half...anyway - we were on the Regal right after Thanksgiving and last year same week as well. This year we spoke to a few of the waiters and other service people and all of we met and made time to converse with said they were all moving to the Majestic Princess after Christmas. Do any of you think that could be why some are seeing a decline recently (based on some reviews) of some services? Just wondering? We had a terrific trip and can't wait to plan our next one.

I am just throwing this out there as I don't have as much experience cruising as many of you. I have been on cruises, however, just started traveling again the last year and a half...anyway - we were on the Regal right after Thanksgiving and last year same week as well. This year we spoke to a few of the waiters and other service people and all of we met and made time to converse with said they were all moving to the Majestic Princess after Christmas. Do any of you think that could be why some are seeing a decline recently (based on some reviews) of some services? Just wondering? We had a terrific trip and can't wait to plan our next one.

Same thing on the Royal in Nov. All their experienced help seem to be moving to the new ship.

I will start by saying we love Princess our favorite cruise line. The Regal is our favorite ship. My DH & I became elite on this cruise. Having said this our dining experience was the worse out of all our 36 cruises. We were on the Regal 2014 on the Transatlantic cruise it was amazing. We were very surprised at the level of service or lack of service in the MDR. We had 7:45 fixed dining in the Concerto DR. We were 2 & 1/2 hrs in the dinning room each night. Never saw any management come around checking to see how we were enjoying our meal. Wait staff had problems with food orders as well as drink orders. DH is big ice tea drinker never got a refill until finished with his meal. Had to ask over and over each night to get coffee with desert. Not like Princess at all. Twice we had to leave before desert in order to get to the 10:00 pm show.

 

Cruise staff seemed fine. We don't do anything much that the cruise staff runs. We do not do passenger shows where the passenger is the entertainer. We don't do trivia or game shows. Nothing wrong with these just not our thing.

 

Other entertainment was good. We enjoyed the cruise ship shows thought they were good to great. The entertainment brought on board was ok to good. We enjoyed MUTS and other movies offered during the day.

 

My thoughts on the drink card. I feel they have reduced the number of bar servers based on already getting your money up front. Hard to get a drink in some bars. In the evening in Crooners could not get waited on. We tried this a couple of nights before dinner. Moved to the Wheelhouse bar a little better. Out on deck hard to get waited on. Most of the time we had to go to the bar ourselves to get a drink. We were a party of 4 couples 2 out of our group had the card. The rest of us did not. We only had 3 sea days on this cruise my DH & I just could not make the $$ work for the card on this cruise. Princess lost money on us. We would have drank more if there had been more bar staff on hand to wait on us. As for us getting the card in the future it is unlikely based on the service issue alone. I am big wine drinker & DH drinks mostly beer so not sure price works for us anyway.

 

Other thoughts we did the Crown Grill one night. It was good we enjoyed it but it also took about 2 & 1/2 hrs to eat that night. I would highly recommend the Wine Makers dinner 3 out of our group did this one night. Best meal all cruise. Everything about it amazing.

 

If I can be of help or answer questions I will be glad to. I am hoping the MDR problems were just a one time thing. We heard these complaints from many others on the cruise. I was told by a crew member that the dining staff had an almost complete turn over the middle of December. Maybe that was part of the problem.

 

Other areas of service were fine, room steward was great as always. Only used RS for coffee in the mornings, once for breakfast, always came within a few minutes.

Like you our dining in the mdr was the worst also, so from then on we go to the buffet which is much better and faster.

I was on 1/8/17 Regal cruise. We did not have any issues with the main dinning room. The head waiter would come by twice a night to see if all was well. They had my decaf ice tea waiting for me each night. I can say one bad thing about the dinnig service. Maybe we got lucky.

Your dining and bar experience are different from what we have experienced last October on the Regal . Sorry it had declined during your cruise. Hope it was just an isolated one. Thanks for the feedback.

Thanks for the comments.

We were also on this cruise. We also love the Regal and Royal ships. We had early fixed in the Concerto and had our best pair of wait staff to date. Our only complaint was the usual move up by 15 min (6:00 to 5:45) was moved up 30 min to 5:30. This was pushing it a bit. However, we were out by 6:45 each night. Head waiters smiled and waved, but never came to the table, but we never really needed them because of our able servers. We thought of switching to late fixed when we found out about the 5:30 time change, but now are glad we didn't based on your comments.

We enjoyed the entire cruise. Ate at the Crown Grill twice and the Crab Shack once. All meals were great.

Thanks for sharing your comments.

Safe Journeys, Paul

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So sorry you had less than expected service. We also love the Regal.

 

You said you were wine drinkers...........did you try Vines? On the Regal and the Royal they are a full service as well as wine bar. We were there most nights before dinner.

 

On our last cruise on the Royal..........many had the sip and sail (AIBP). We did not experience any problems with service. My DH bought the package and I did not. Did enjoy several bottles of wine with 40% discount ( for me) and some bubbly.

 

We also attended the wine makers dinner and chef's table on that cruise........and both were outstanding.

 

Just reread your post and I do think that the turn over of staff in December may have contributed to the slower service.

 

We have been fortunate to have the same bar staff in Vines on several of our cruises and they were leaving for contract break before Christmas.

I would love to go to Vines. I am the wine drinker DH is not. So vines does not really work for him. For drinks before dinner I was the only wine drinker in our group they wanted cocktails. We have a cruise booked on the Crown in July to the Baltic. Friends that are traveling with us are wine drinkers so Vines will be the place to be.

Since you picked one of the busiest cruises of the year I can understand things being a little slow.

Not sure this had anything to do with it. There were some families but not many. We were told the cruise over Christmas was much more crowded. We did the 12/28-1/8 cruise over New Years. The only areas that were crowded were the Deck area on sea days. The Bars not so much, in Crooners there were plenty of places to sit just not enough servers. Like I said we moved to the Wheelhouse that seemed to have better service. My experience was a definite decline in service from our cruise on the Regal in 2014 and our cruise on the Coral in March of 2016. I am hoping for better service on the Crown in July. I am not giving up on Princess.