Dynamic Dining postponed for Oasis & Allure

[SF]

I contacted Royal today and was told that our online cruise planners should reflect the type of dining we originally booked by Feb 1st. Hopefully that will give a better idea for those of you with Oasis cruises "later in the year."

 

Even if they do change it back to what was originally booked by February 1st it means nothing. RCCL can change it right back again anytime they want to institute DD. So if you've made final payment and it says traditional or MTD they can change it to DD afterwards for your sailing and you'd have no say.

[kerrydee]

Even if they do change it back to what was originally booked by February 1st it means nothing. RCCL can change it right back again anytime they want to institute DD. So if you've made final payment and it says traditional or MTD they can change it to DD afterwards for your sailing and you'd have no say.

 

SF, i have a group on may 16th. i was told today i would not have DD. gee i sure hope that's right. when i told my coordinator i was very happy to be back to traditional dining she said "gee everybody says that". and my group still says DD.

[Clarea]

I contacted Royal today and was told that our online cruise planners should reflect the type of dining we originally booked by Feb 1st. Hopefully that will give a better idea for those of you with Oasis cruises "later in the year."

That's way too logical for Royal.;)

[steamboats]

I read some reviews that mentioned with DD there are no assistant waiters ...is this true?

 

Yes, that´s true. The waiter orders via tablet. There are "runners" in the "background" who are picking up the ordered dishes and bring them to the wait stations. Then the waiter picks them up and serves them at the tables.

 

I have a Med cruise on the Allure coming up. My cruise planner always and still shows main seating (never showed DD). Actually I´m a bit mixed up. Although I prefer traditional dining I was looking forward to try out DD (and the new menus).

 

I too was a little disappointed on the Quantum pre inaugural. The menus had much less items than they had announced before. The choice was sort of limited. No declaration of the food (used to be gluten free, lactose free, vegetarian, vitality). No veggie dishes available (said on the menu "ask your waiter" but they didn´t have a clue and even the galley had no answer).

 

And according to the VP Food & Beverage the menu was not supposed to change on a 7 night cruise. I´m not a picky eater but I thought that many people will be disappointed by this type of limited choice. Sure, you can chose between 4 menus (or 4 restaurants) but not really as you have to make a reservation if you want to dine and enjoy the shows. BTW after years of Freestyle Dining without online reservations NCL just recently does offer an online reservation system.

 

The idea of Dynamic Dining is not too bad. But I can see with picky eaters and larger groups you might get into a problem - especially to come up with a consent on where to have dinner each night. A similar concept has been tried out on the new Mein Schiff 3 (which is a joint venture of TUI and RCCL). There they do have 3 themed restaurants. Menus change once throughout a 7 night cruise. No online reservations. They´ve also tried out the tablet order thing on there (and it didn´t work from the beginning!!). So they should have had some experiences prior to launching the Quantum and DD.

 

steamboats

[BekkaW]

Actually I´m a bit mixed up. Although I prefer traditional dining I was looking forward to try out DD (and the new menus).

 

Me too! I love traditional late seating, but was excited to try something new. We're booked on Allure for October, so perhaps DD will have rolled out by then.

[SF]

SF, i have a group on may 16th. i was told today i would not have DD. gee i sure hope that's right. when i told my coordinator i was very happy to be back to traditional dining she said "gee everybody says that". and my group still says DD.

 

I don't think they've updated their system yet back to the dining option people had originally since they announced DD will be coming out later in the year. Our dining option never showed it changed from traditional to DD even prior to their announcement that it was going to be delayed. Personally I think their IT system is messed up presently. We just knew we would have had DD as we are sailing after March but no where in our booking did it show that. Now basically we have no idea what we're going to have as like I said they can implement it again at any time. That's what concerns us as we would not want to have made final payment and then find out that they're trying DD again and be the guinea pigs on the first few voyages.

[cublet]

Hello,

 

There is no announcement on postponement on the RCI UK website - just that DD will start on Oasis on 14th March.

 

Regards,

 

Cublet

[ocav]

Hello,

 

There is no announcement on postponement on the RCI UK website - just that DD will start on Oasis on 14th March.

 

Regards,

 

Cublet

 

 

Not getting it here either, tbh I think it might be a mistake

[zjc]

I can confirm I have spoken with a few friends who work on Oasis and they have said its been postponed. I have also spoken with C and A who said the same

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[steamboats]

The German RCI website is totally mixed up... It still mentions DD for the Oasis starting March 2015 and the Allure May 2015. But according to the German version The Grande, American Icon Grill and Silk are already operating on the Oasis (since Oct 2014 :rolleyes:). Also for the Allure you will only find Chicago, no word about Mamma Mia! :rolleyes:.

 

steamboats

[Debde]

first you could wait to be seated for an hour or two. then, the tips are added to your sea pass account every day.

 

Auto tips can be stopped on day one and you can tip in cash.

[Haber]

Ok. So what happens on January 1st. Can I go in and book dynamic dining times anyway? Or just the regular specialty restaurants?

 

I'm March 14th so I'm confident that the delay includes me, but yeah, as far as people booked later in the year, what do you do on January 1st?

 

And why is it taking 5 weeks to get it updated?

 

1970's technology?

[poncho1973]

The end of cruising is near!!!! It's over!!! We're all going to be without a vacation!!!

 

Hahahaha

 

 

This thread is a Who's Who list for people you shouldn't have to sit next to on at a dining table on a cruise ship.

 

Relax! Let it happen. You'll wind up loving your cruise anyway! It's a vacation, not a lab experiment.

[wyldkarma]

We just sailed on the Quantum of the Seas Dec 1st 11 night voyage. Dynamic Dining is NOT for us, we hated it as did everyone we spoke to on the ship. We did not find one single person who liked it. We hope they decide to postpone it indefinitely on all ships. Whoever did the market survey to design this nonsense should be fired.

 

Dynamic Dining is now a deal breaker for us and we will NOT cruise on any ship that has it. We have cruised 9 other times on RCL ships and enjoyed all our Main Dining experiences. Dynamic Dining is like going on a scavenger hunt each evening trying to find where you can eat as most of the restaurants book out many months before the cruise even sails. So if you don’t get your reservations early you will be eating in the Windjammer the whole cruise.

 

The only decision we want to make on a cruise is whether we want early or late dining in the main dining room. Spending hours of our precious vacation time trying to wrangle reservations is most definitely a deal breaker for us.

[Georgeny]

While I agree with that, I just think it's nuts for people to have so much hatred for something they haven't tried. Same for people who LOVE it so much without trying it..

 

We tried it, HATE IT!

 

George in NY - Just back from 12/20 Disaster Dining Holiday cruise.

[rt1092]

In May of 2003 we were on the fist sailing from NYC of the Norwegian Dawn. They were starting their "free style dining". We didn't like it, It almost killed cruising for us. Luckily we took a chance on Royal the next year.

We will be on the Quantum in May. We will try what they have. Will be on Oasis next month glad it is traditional dining.

[dz9yvr]

Yes, that´s true. The waiter orders via tablet. There are "runners" in the "background" who are picking up the ordered dishes and bring them to the wait stations. Then the waiter picks them up and serves them at the tables.

 

I have a Med cruise on the Allure coming up. My cruise planner always and still shows main seating (never showed DD). Actually I´m a bit mixed up. Although I prefer traditional dining I was looking forward to try out DD (and the new menus).

 

I too was a little disappointed on the Quantum pre inaugural. The menus had much less items than they had announced before. The choice was sort of limited. No declaration of the food (used to be gluten free, lactose free, vegetarian, vitality). No veggie dishes available (said on the menu "ask your waiter" but they didn´t have a clue and even the galley had no answer).

 

And according to the VP Food & Beverage the menu was not supposed to change on a 7 night cruise. I´m not a picky eater but I thought that many people will be disappointed by this type of limited choice. Sure, you can chose between 4 menus (or 4 restaurants) but not really as you have to make a reservation if you want to dine and enjoy the shows. BTW after years of Freestyle Dining without online reservations NCL just recently does offer an online reservation system.

 

The idea of Dynamic Dining is not too bad. But I can see with picky eaters and larger groups you might get into a problem - especially to come up with a consent on where to have dinner each night. A similar concept has been tried out on the new Mein Schiff 3 (which is a joint venture of TUI and RCCL). There they do have 3 themed restaurants. Menus change once throughout a 7 night cruise. No online reservations. They´ve also tried out the tablet order thing on there (and it didn´t work from the beginning!!). So they should have had some experiences prior to launching the Quantum and DD.

 

steamboats

 

Here's another idea for RCL. Maybe they should just leave the tablets on the table and everyone can order their own meal and drinks. The runners can bring whatever is requested. Any questions or suggestions can be addressed in an FAQ section. This should be much quicker for the diners and cheaper for RCL. As an added bonus no one will need to tip the waiters or assistant waiters.

[OfTheSeasCruiser]

Here's another idea for RCL. Maybe they should just leave the tablets on the table and everyone can order their own meal and drinks. The runners can bring whatever is requested. Any questions or suggestions can be addressed in an FAQ section. This should be much quicker for the diners and cheaper for RCL. As an added bonus no one will need to tip the waiters or assistant waiters.

 

Please don't give them anymore ideas! ;)

[Julesben]

We just sailed on the Quantum of the Seas Dec 1st 11 night voyage. Dynamic Dining is NOT for us, we hated it as did everyone we spoke to on the ship. We did not find one single person who liked it. We hope they decide to postpone it indefinitely on all ships. Whoever did the market survey to design this nonsense should be fired.

 

Dynamic Dining is now a deal breaker for us and we will NOT cruise on any ship that has it. We have cruised 9 other times on RCL ships and enjoyed all our Main Dining experiences. Dynamic Dining is like going on a scavenger hunt each evening trying to find where you can eat as most of the restaurants book out many months before the cruise even sails. So if you don’t get your reservations early you will be eating in the Windjammer the whole cruise.

 

The only decision we want to make on a cruise is whether we want early or late dining in the main dining room. Spending hours of our precious vacation time trying to wrangle reservations is most definitely a deal breaker for us.

 

Our thoughts exactly after our 1st December quantum sailing.

Non stop issues with the dining experience.

When we managed to get into complimentary dining the food was either cold, didn't turn up at all or we waited excessively too long and got past the point of eating.

We did manage to get in the Grande which was like the MDR experience with its menu.

American icon grill was dire for us, the three scenarios mentioned above were regular occupancies in this restaurant.

We think DD is going to struggle to work, not enough seats for every passenger in complimentary dining.

The choice of where you eat should be yours (the customer) and not rccl's.

The new concept is designed to get more people in speciality restaurants, every night there will be an amount of people with no other choice, you will read about these people on CC.

[SF]

We just sailed on the Quantum of the Seas Dec 1st 11 night voyage. Dynamic Dining is NOT for us, we hated it as did everyone we spoke to on the ship. We did not find one single person who liked it. We hope they decide to postpone it indefinitely on all ships. Whoever did the market survey to design this nonsense should be fired.

 

Dynamic Dining is now a deal breaker for us and we will NOT cruise on any ship that has it. We have cruised 9 other times on RCL ships and enjoyed all our Main Dining experiences. Dynamic Dining is like going on a scavenger hunt each evening trying to find where you can eat as most of the restaurants book out many months before the cruise even sails. So if you don’t get your reservations early you will be eating in the Windjammer the whole cruise.

 

The only decision we want to make on a cruise is whether we want early or late dining in the main dining room. Spending hours of our precious vacation time trying to wrangle reservations is most definitely a deal breaker for us.

 

Great post. Totally agree with everything you said. Dynamic dining is definitely NOT for us either and we will not sail on any ship that has it. We've cruise with Royal Caribbean many times and will continue to do so but ONLY on ships that do not have dynamic dining. I just hope Royal Caribbean is reading all these negative comments about their new concept. Personally I don't think even with the extra time they're going to be able to fix all the problems involved with DD. It's not one problem there's several.. starting with the problem getting reservations, the problem with slow service, the problems with shows changing times etc....

[Julesben]

We just sailed on the Quantum of the Seas Dec 1st 11 night voyage. Dynamic Dining is NOT for us, we hated it as did everyone we spoke to on the ship. We did not find one single person who liked it. We hope they decide to postpone it indefinitely on all ships. Whoever did the market survey to design this nonsense should be fired.

 

Dynamic Dining is now a deal breaker for us and we will NOT cruise on any ship that has it. We have cruised 9 other times on RCL ships and enjoyed all our Main Dining experiences. Dynamic Dining is like going on a scavenger hunt each evening trying to find where you can eat as most of the restaurants book out many months before the cruise even sails. So if you don’t get your reservations early you will be eating in the Windjammer the whole cruise.

 

The only decision we want to make on a cruise is whether we want early or late dining in the main dining room. Spending hours of our precious vacation time trying to wrangle reservations is most definitely a deal breaker for us.

 

Spellcheck for me "occurencies", predictive text is about as clever as DD.

[nelblu]

Here's another idea for RCL. Maybe they should just leave the tablets on the table and everyone can order their own meal and drinks. The runners can bring whatever is requested. Any questions or suggestions can be addressed in an FAQ section. This should be much quicker for the diners and cheaper for RCL. As an added bonus no one will need to tip the waiters or assistant waiters.

 

Chili's does exactly that.

[twindaddy]

The end of cruising is near!!!! It's over!!! We're all going to be without a vacation!!!

 

Hahahaha

 

 

This thread is a Who's Who list for people you shouldn't have to sit next to on at a dining table on a cruise ship.

 

Relax! Let it happen. You'll wind up loving your cruise anyway! It's a vacation, not a lab experiment.

 

Loving seeing these two posts, right next to each other. Do you think the person below "loved their cruise"? After seeing post after post after post like the one below, I feel pretty secure in not being comfortable with dynamic dining. If that makes me not worthy to sit next to you at your table while everyone takes bong hits and "lets it happen", I guess I will have to eat at the windjammer that night.

 

 

We just sailed on the Quantum of the Seas Dec 1st 11 night voyage. Dynamic Dining is NOT for us, we hated it as did everyone we spoke to on the ship. We did not find one single person who liked it. We hope they decide to postpone it indefinitely on all ships. Whoever did the market survey to design this nonsense should be fired.

 

Dynamic Dining is now a deal breaker for us and we will NOT cruise on any ship that has it. We have cruised 9 other times on RCL ships and enjoyed all our Main Dining experiences. Dynamic Dining is like going on a scavenger hunt each evening trying to find where you can eat as most of the restaurants book out many months before the cruise even sails. So if you don’t get your reservations early you will be eating in the Windjammer the whole cruise.

 

The only decision we want to make on a cruise is whether we want early or late dining in the main dining room. Spending hours of our precious vacation time trying to wrangle reservations is most definitely a deal breaker for us.

[LetsGetWet!]

The end of cruising is near!!!! It's over!!! We're all going to be without a vacation!!!

 

Hahahaha

 

 

This thread is a Who's Who list for people you shouldn't have to sit next to on at a dining table on a cruise ship.

 

Relax! Let it happen. You'll wind up loving your cruise anyway! It's a vacation, not a lab experiment.

Loving seeing these two posts, right next to each other. Do you think the person below "loved their cruise"? After seeing post after post after post like the one below, I feel pretty secure in not being comfortable with dynamic dining. If that makes me not worthy to sit next to you at your table while everyone takes bong hits and "lets it happen", I guess I will have to eat at the windjammer that night.

Are you including yourself on that list, Poncho? If that post, along with some of your other derogatory ones are indicative of you in person, you should be!

Edited December 28, 2014 by LetsGetWet!
Grrr

[setsail]

. I just hope Royal Caribbean is reading all these negative comments about their new concept. ....

 

I am sure they are and are having a good laugh at the # of people who have not tried DD yet, much less sailed on the one ship that has it:p

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/misc.php?do=whoposted&t=2140943