Dynamic Dining postponed for Oasis & Allure

[SherriZ366]

Until recently, NCL did not do reservations for the MDR, and in my experience, Freestyle worked very well. No long waits, you just ate when you wanted to. I think one problem with Dynamic Dining may be that guests seem to think they need to make reservations or they won't get in, and so even folks who might not want to be booking dinner in advance may be practicing "defensive dining reservations." It's also possible that the four included restaurants don't have sufficient capacity to handle true freestyle dining.

I think you may be onto something about the four included restaurants not having sufficient capacity to handle true freestyle dining.

[connes1]

I think you may be onto something about the four included restaurants not having sufficient capacity to handle true freestyle dining.

A great way to promote specialty restaurants. Make complimentary dining so inconvenient people choose specialty restaurants.

[SherriZ366]

Excuse me if I seem like I've just butted into a conversation half way through but I'm new here! I've been reading about 'Dynamic Dining' because we (my wife and I) experienced it on Quantum's Inaugural Transatlantic last November. We had already cruised on Independence in May. Two cruises in one year?, well we had both reached certain age milestones.

Independence had a 3 tier main dining room. I am a coeliac, (some spell it celiac and in Canada I think we are Silly Yaks) which means no gluten whatsoever, ever again. I have to be careful with food. I have to be sure of its contents. Eating out in a new establishment is always fraught with problems. I have to explain to waiters. I have to ask which dishes don't contain gluten. Waiters have to find out for me, asking kitchen staff if necessary. Main Dining worked brilliantly for me on Independence. I registered with the staff as a coeliac shortly after boarding. Everyone who dealt with our dining experiences knew that I was coeliac. I hardly ever had to mention it again once they knew. Same desk staff, same waiter, same matre d every evening. I was given the following day's menu each evening to choose my meal from, and gluten free bread would be provided without me even asking for it.

Now imagine Dynamic Dining on Quantum. Different restaurant each time. Different desk staff. Different waiter every time. How many times should a person have to explain that if they ingested a tiny amount of gluten it would give them a severe stomach upset, an autoimmune reaction would occur, the body's immune system would attack the gluten proteins in the gut, the gut lining would be attacked and the little villi that extract nutrient would be flattened, resulting in malabsorption, anaemia, bone weakening, possible bowel cancer...not good material to discuss with a table full of strangers in a restaurant present.

If it were not for my CD, DD would be OK. As it was, on Quantum I was lucky if there was one main course on each menu in each restaurant that I could eat. I had the same grilled banana split in three different restaurants, and chicken curry three times on the day we visited the oriental restaurant. I will certainly be avoiding any cruise ship that doesn't have a main dining room in future.

SIL has family members who are celiac or gluten-free. On traditional dining ships, having the Head Waiter visit at the end of the meal so a gluten free dinner can be ordered really worked well. I think RCI was banking on their IT using the tablets would take the place of this type of service. It doesn't seem to be working. I wonder if the IT is sufficient for the ship to communicate with the Special Needs department about Celiac or other special dining needs.

[cruise 4 fun]

I'm sorry if this has already been answered in this thread, but if our reservation has been changed to DD and this doesn't occur on our cruise, will the reservation to back to our original choice of dining? Or...has that been lost now that DD has been entered into the system?

[Ocean Boy]

OK-Had my introduction to this the other day but I think I may be getting this now!!:o

 

My unprofessional opinion and someone who worked as a waitress for many years..........

 

Being cruising is so day by day and really hard to plan anything from way far out, yes, I think going to no reservations at all is probably the way to try. If the dining room is full, you can have a few drinks and be put on the wait list or go to another if that is not your only dining preference for the night. Making reservations from months out and not showing up can screw everything up and Royal needs to know how long the average table sits and not over book one would think. I'll bet not enough thought went into that-obviously.

 

Also-I'm thinking the kitchen also needs to learn how to stagger the meals. Before they just put everything out at the same time, easy peasy. To be chef and have to stagger this all night long takes some talent. One I could not even fathom to attempt.!! :eek: Wait staff does tend to hide when the natives are hungry and food is not ready!!;)

 

MTD worked because I think it did not deal with the amount of walk ins as so many still like traditional dining.

 

Who knows I'm just sitting behind a computer screen solving world problems!! LOL:p I'm just worried my Windjammer will get more busy now!!!:(

 

A VERY big concern for me too.

[coeliac]

I wonder if the IT is sufficient for the ship to communicate with the Special Needs department about Celiac or other special dining needs.

 

I'm sure the biggest problems on Quantum's maiden voyage were caused by their I.T. systems not working as they should have.

At the start of the cruise it went down. People were unable to make bookings. Shows got booked up even though it wasn't working. We got charged for drinks when we had bought the Ultimate package.

Many tables in the Windjammer were occupied by groups of what appeared to be I.T workers at the end of their shifts, still using their laptops.

Someone told us that RCL had dropped over a hundred staff at Southampton. We think the ship had to take a whole crowd of I.T workers across the Atlantic to try to fix the technical problems. I wouldn't have been surprised if some of the restaurant staff had been dropped to release cabins for I.T workers. Maybe some of the waiters in the restaurants were realy actually I.T workers posing as waiters. Some of them didn't seem to have much idea. To be fair, RCL did refund some cash to us and give us discount vouchers for our next cruise, should we decide to take one. However, I don't think anything would make up for the atmosphere created on the cruise. Everyone was moaning about something, but it was hard not to in the circumstances.

[LetsGetWet!]

I'm just worried my Windjammer will get more busy now!!!:(

A VERY big concern for me too.

Not to worry! They can fix that easily by just instituting a small up charge for the Windjammer! :D

[Debde]

Not to worry! They can fix that easily by just instituting a small up charge for the Windjammer! :D

 

Once they started up charging for cupcakes-there is not a for fee that Royal would come up in the future with that would surprise me!! :D

[Biker19]

A great way to promote specialty restaurants. Make complimentary dining so inconvenient people choose specialty restaurants.

This theory has been suggested by many way before even the first sailing of a ship with DD. The theory however doesn't hold much water since the seating in the fee based venues is so limited that you'd have an even tougher time getting in there than the complimentary venues. A more believable theory would be that RCI wants more folks to go to the Windjammer since that costs them less than a seat in any restaurant.:cool:

 

In theory DD should work better on Oasis class ships since they have higher seating capacity than Quantum class ships. RCI made the assumption that they can turn over the tables fast enough on the Quantum to allow for 3 seatings - unfortunately human nature (lots of folks want to dine at 7:30), IT issues (tablet orders don't work as needed), staffing levels and other issues have prevented that from working as designed.

[SamFritz]

This theory has been suggested by many way before even the first sailing of a ship with DD. The theory however doesn't hold much water since the seating in the fee based venues is so limited that you'd have an even tougher time getting in there than the complimentary venues. A more believable theory would be that RCI wants more folks to go to the Windjammer since that costs them less than a seat in any restaurant.:cool:

 

 

 

In theory DD should work better on Oasis class ships since they have higher seating capacity than Quantum class ships. RCI made the assumption that they can turn over the tables fast enough on the Quantum to allow for 3 seatings - unfortunately human nature (lots of folks want to dine at 7:30), IT issues (tablet orders don't work as needed), staffing levels and other issues have prevented that from working as designed.

 

 

I think that's a big thing. They expected to have each table seat 3 or more parties each night. But if dining times are mostly dictated by show times there will be little demand for times that conflict with the shows.

 

 

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[Ocean Boy]

Not to worry! They can fix that easily by just instituting a small up charge for the Windjammer! :D

 

Not funny.:eek:

[SherriZ366]

I'm sure the biggest problems on Quantum's maiden voyage were caused by their I.T. systems not working as they should have.

At the start of the cruise it went down. People were unable to make bookings. Shows got booked up even though it wasn't working. We got charged for drinks when we had bought the Ultimate package.

Many tables in the Windjammer were occupied by groups of what appeared to be I.T workers at the end of their shifts, still using their laptops.

Someone told us that RCL had dropped over a hundred staff at Southampton. We think the ship had to take a whole crowd of I.T workers across the Atlantic to try to fix the technical problems. I wouldn't have been surprised if some of the restaurant staff had been dropped to release cabins for I.T workers. Maybe some of the waiters in the restaurants were realy actually I.T workers posing as waiters. Some of them didn't seem to have much idea. To be fair, RCL did refund some cash to us and give us discount vouchers for our next cruise, should we decide to take one. However, I don't think anything would make up for the atmosphere created on the cruise. Everyone was moaning about something, but it was hard not to in the circumstances.

Very interesting.

[SherriZ366]

I think that's a big thing. They expected to have each table seat 3 or more parties each night. But if dining times are mostly dictated by show times there will be little demand for times that conflict with the shows.

 

 

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And dining times like 4:30 and 9:30 PM that I read were offered for complimentary dining venues were not very attractive.

[OfTheSeasCruiser]

I just called C&A to see if I could get any other info regarding the postponement of DD and my sail date. I simply said "Dynamic Dining is postponed on Oasis, correct?" (just to make sure the rep knew what I was talking about :p), he said yes, and then I asked about the May 23 sailing. He simply said that no, it won't be implemented by then and that the reservation will still reflect DD until about mid-January when we will be able to update our reservations to Early/Late/MTD.

 

But he said all of this in a way that sounded as if Dynamic Dining was not going to be coming for a good amount of time. It seems as if he was treating the word "postponed" as "cancelled". Will be interesting to see how this all plays out...sort of strange. Just wanted to post this update.

Edited January 3, 2015 by OfTheSeasCruiser

[SherriZ366]

I just called C&A to see if I could get any other info regarding the postponement of DD and my sail date. I simply said Dynamic Dining is postponed on Oasis, correct? (just to make sure he know what I was talking about :p), he said yes, and then I asked about the May 23 sailing. He simply said no won't be on there and that the reservation will still reflect DD until about mid-January when we will be able to update our reservations to Early/Late/MTD.

 

But he said all of this in a way that sounded as if Dynamic Dining was not going to be coming for a good amount of time. It seems as if he was treating the word "postponed" as "cancelled". Will be interesting to see how this all plays out...sort of strange. Just wanted to post this update.

Interesting --thanks for posting. Edited January 3, 2015 by SherriZ366

[Clarea]

I'm sorry if this has already been answered in this thread, but if our reservation has been changed to DD and this doesn't occur on our cruise, will the reservation to back to our original choice of dining? Or...has that been lost now that DD has been entered into the system?

No one knows the answer to this. For whatever reason, Royal has not released any details yet.

[Charles4515]

But he said all of this in a way that sounded as if Dynamic Dining was not going to be coming for a good amount of time. It seems as if he was treating the word "postponed" as "cancelled". Will be interesting to see how this all plays out...sort of strange. Just wanted to post this update.

 

Workers at call centers don't know any more than we do. What it says on the web site. That is that Dynamic Dining has been postponed. You can't glean anything from the way he said it.

[Charles4515]

I'm sorry if this has already been answered in this thread, but if our reservation has been changed to DD and this doesn't occur on our cruise, will the reservation to back to our original choice of dining? Or...has that been lost now that DD has been entered into the system?

 

You should have your travel agent call.

[OfTheSeasCruiser]

Workers at call centers don't know any more than we do. What it says on the web site. That is that Dynamic Dining has been postponed. You can't glean anything from the way he said it.

 

That is true and I wasn't saying that I believe it was cancelled, I was just posting an update of what the rep had said. And anyone with experience with the Royal reps know that they are not always reliable. :D

Edited January 3, 2015 by OfTheSeasCruiser

[kerrydee]

No one knows the answer to this. For whatever reason, Royal has not released any details yet.

 

it should be on your reservations on february 1st.

[hoff80601]

No one knows the answer to this. For whatever reason, Royal has not released any details yet.

 

We were contacted by our TA asking us to let them know which dining time we wanted. We booked this cruise more than a year in advance and were originally signed up for early dining, apparently when DD was announced that information was lost to our TA. We're back on early dining, but we had to let them know what we wanted. We also had to have our other cruisers reservation numbers re-linked to ours for dining. Just my personal experience. Hope it helps.

[Clarea]

We were contacted by our TA asking us to let them know which dining time we wanted. We booked this cruise more than a year in advance and were originally signed up for early dining, apparently when DD was announced that information was lost to our TA. We're back on early dining, but we had to let them know what we wanted. We also had to have our other cruisers reservation numbers re-linked to ours for dining. Just my personal experience. Hope it helps.

When is your cruise?

[molly361]

When is your cruise?

 

A bit of detective work shows they are sailing 5/16/15

[Clarea]

A bit of detective work shows they are sailing 5/16/15

Dang, it's before ours. Still hoping we can get back to traditional. Thanks for the detective work.:)

[Sunny AZ Girl]

We were contacted by our TA asking us to let them know which dining time we wanted. We booked this cruise more than a year in advance and were originally signed up for early dining, apparently when DD was announced that information was lost to our TA. We're back on early dining, but we had to let them know what we wanted. We also had to have our other cruisers reservation numbers re-linked to ours for dining. Just my personal experience. Hope it helps.

 

ThAnks for the update. I usually book through a TA, but this time we are booked drectly through RCI. It looks as if will have to get on the phone and wait on hold to talk to a clueless rep to make sure we are put back on main dining wth our group! I just don't know if should do that now or wat until the reservation no longer says Dynamic Dining? What a mess.