Anthem eliminates Dynamic Dining

[bigbeergut]

RIP Dynamic Dining. It was a bad idea from the start., that's why it was never extended to Oasis or Allure during the dry dock modification. It's too bad Oasis still stuck with the awful decorating they did for DD.

[DaOldCruisers]

Don't get me wrong, our wait in line was very short. We did not mind what so ever. The other people in line were the ones complaining.

I agree with you. On our 'Quantum' cruise last year the only long lines we saw were for those who didn't have reservations, the ones with reservations may have waited a couple of minutes at the most. Once seated you could run into a wait because of the lack of sufficient staff.

 

As for the idea of picking a cruise or ship for the dining venue, baffles me. I don't pick what cruise to take simply based on dining, I pick the ship and maybe the time of the year. I've never had a bad dining experience other than our 'Quantum' cruise last year, but only because of the trouble I had trying to make reservations on-line. But once on the cruise we went to the 'Diamond Lounge' the first day and the RCI rep assigned to the lounge helped us by making all of our reservations for us and we wound up having lobster almost every night. I would also like to say that we have done the specialty pay for restaurants and aside from the fact that they are highly overpriced, the food and the service wasn't all that much better.

 

Jack

Edited September 13, 2016 by DaOldCruisers

[beachbuddy]

RIP Dynamic Dining. It was a bad idea from the start., that's why it was never extended to Oasis or Allure during the dry dock modification. It's too bad Oasis still stuck with the awful decorating they did for DD.

 

 

 

They should have never even tried to put it on Oasis. Just left it on one class ship that was made for it.

 

 

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[OfTheSeasCruiser]

They should have never even tried to put it on Oasis. Just left it on one class ship that was made for it.

 

 

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I think Royal's original attitude about DD put a bad taste in a lot of loyal cruiser's mouths. The idea that Royal was going to add DD to every ship they could, as fast as they could, scared a lot of people away from the concept, I think. JMHO.

Edited September 13, 2016 by OfTheSeasCruiser

[boatseller]

$1 says the biggest problem was the crew rotation. I never understood why this was a big deal. But the whole concept of "Traditional" dining is horrific to me anyway. So, other than the menu consolidation and elimination of rotation, there really is no change.

 

I think it's been mentioned but this is the same dining experience you find on Norwegian's Breakaway class ships where the three MDR all share the same menu. It works very well for them.

 

Sailed three times on those ships and we never had a problem getting seated anywhere, MDR or specialty, without reservations. Reservation issues seems are way overblown.

 

Finally, if you didn't follow these forums, you would never notice the change.

[Biker19]

They should have never even tried to put it on Oasis. Just left it on one class ship that was made for it.

I chuckle at comments like this as if there's this huge night/day difference between the current version of DD and what happens on Oasis. Except for the fact that Quantum class has 4 venues instead of 3 on Oasis and a different menu (which is changing), the basic options are the same. Traditional and MTD = DD Classic and Choice. The big difference that has not been mentioned is the proportion allotted between the options. It's about 70/30 on Anthem Choice/Classic vs. about 60/40 traditional/MTD on Oasis.

[beachbuddy]

I think Royal's original attitude about DD put a bad taste in a lot of loyal cruiser's mouths. The idea that Royal was going to add DD to every ship they could, as fast as they could, scared a lot of people away from the concept, I think. JMHO.

 

 

 

I agree with that. LOL

 

 

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[Greenmomma]

Don't understand the Silk hate. I was on the hurricane cruise in Feb. Silk was our favorite of the four comp restaurants. American Icon our least. Admittedly our experience was scewed by the circumstances.

[hapster85]

RIP Dynamic Dining. It was a bad idea from the start., that's why it was never extended to Oasis or Allure during the dry dock modification. It's too bad Oasis still stuck with the awful decorating they did for DD.

 

Having experienced it for myself on Anthem, I do not agree that it was a bad idea. We rather enjoyed it. But to each their own.

 

Don't understand the Silk hate. I was on the hurricane cruise in Feb. Silk was our favorite of the four comp restaurants. American Icon our least. Admittedly our experience was scewed by the circumstances.

 

While I can't speak for others, we chose not to book Silk after seeing the sample menus online. We aren't big seafood or Asian food fans. Had we known beforehand about the sharing of the "classic" left side of the menu between venues, we may have given it a try. I haven't heard any actual hate towards it though.

[jerseyk]

Great news! Got off a few weeks ago and hated changing dining places every night. Thank you RCI for getting rid of DD and doing traditional in one place for the whole cruise:D

 

Walter

[toutou]

Very sad new for me :mad:

[Biker19]

Great news! Got off a few weeks ago and hated changing dining places every night. Thank you RCI for getting rid of DD and doing traditional in one place for the whole cruise:D

Ah, so the rotation was the problem.

[John&LaLa]

Ah, so the rotation was the problem.

 

I think DD Classic killed it. To complicated for little benefit.

[beachbuddy]

Ah, so the rotation was the problem.

 

 

 

Of course it was. What cracks me up is why would people book this ship knowing it wasn't traditional dining but book anyway just so they could complain. Very disappointed with this change, but in final payment already so will go and hopefully have a great time, but won't be booking it again. Since we'll be in 1 of the 4 dining rooms for 12 nights I'd rather just do MTD in a large main dining room on another ship.

 

 

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[gaylemh]

I think DD Classic killed it. To complicated for little benefit.

 

I agree. Never had a problem with Choice on 70+ nights on Quantum and Anthem. They just never gave DD enough time to settle down without adding classic.

[steveru621]

DD was not the worst thing in the world. I didn't think I would like it on Quantum, but it was almost passable.

 

What was wrong?

 

1. Impossible to get anyreservations for any venue if you didn't book months in advance.

 

2. No reservations? Show up every morning at 8:30 AM and wait in line. Magically reservations that were not available on a PAD device were available.

 

3. Large table requests drove them nuts. I enjoy meeting fellow cruisers.

 

4. We got one large table, one night. Dinner took THREE hours.

 

5. Those PADs that would speed ordering, waiters didn't use them.

 

6. Started out with no assistant waiters.

 

7. Reservations would take up to a 4 hour block for one table. If you were able to book @ 8 PM. Your table was held from 6:15 PM to 10 PM. Obviously no one else was using that table.

 

8. I just didn't like to work that hard to SCHEDULE your dinner and shows.

 

I thought DD Classic was a good compromise, but it seems even that was not workable for RCI. I'm not sad to see it go, we avoided Quantum after the first try.

 

Those of you that will miss the 4 choices, I agree with you. I guess MTD and specialty restaurants will have to suffice. For me, I'm going back to traditional late seating.

[mjwcruising]

The difference is that with dynamic dining, you had a choice of reserving 4 different restaurants each night with each restaurant having an unique menu of its own. With the new way of dining, you will be assigned to just one restaurant for the duration of your cruise and all restaurant menus will be the same across all 4. There will no longer be unique menus for each restaurant. There is no MDR on this ship-instead there are 4 smaller restaurants. For example, if you ate at Silk, menu was geared toward Asian food. That will no longer happen. Very disappointed because we really enjoyed eating at different places each night and seeing the decor of each.

 

 

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I agree with you, we enjoyed the dynamic dining concept.

[steveru621]

Of course it was. What cracks me up is why would people book this ship knowing it wasn't traditional dining but book anyway just so they could complain. Very disappointed with this change, but in final payment already so will go and hopefully have a great time, but won't be booking it again. Since we'll be in 1 of the 4 dining rooms for 12 nights I'd rather just do MTD in a large main dining room on another ship.

 

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LOL, that is certainly not true. Passengers booked the Quantum and Anthem wanting a different experience. What I found was a maze of problems that we did not anticipate. (If you remember, the initial bookings for Quantum no one was told about DD.)

 

Add in all of the other lines you needed to navigate. IFly, NorthStar, etc...

[beachbuddy]

I agree with you, we enjoyed the dynamic dining concept.

 

 

 

Hi Mary, nice to see you over here. We're the 1st cruise to experience this change. 3 other couples that were on the Silly with us are coming too. I'm sure we'll have a good time. Just hope things run smoothly.

 

 

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Edited September 14, 2016 by beachbuddy

[mjwcruising]

Hi Mary, nice to see you over here. We're the 1st cruise to experience this change. 3 other couples that were on the Silly with us are coming too. I'm sure we'll have a good time. Just hope things run smoothly.

 

 

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Did RCCL contact you about the change in the dining concept for your cruise?

 

We don't sail until Sept. 2018 to Canada/New England. We just booked recently with 2 other couples. We had to pick Dynamic Choice which was fine with me because I didn't want to Dynamic Classic (we didn't care on Silk on our Quantum cruise). Now with the new dining concept we would like to do MDR at 6:00 in Grande or Chic. Do you think I can change our dining reservation by calling RCCL?

[beachbuddy]

LOL, that is certainly not true. Passengers booked the Quantum and Anthem wanting a different experience. What I found was a maze of problems that we did not anticipate. (If you remember, the initial bookings for Quantum no one was told about DD.)

 

 

 

Add in all of the other lines you needed to navigate. IFly, NorthStar, etc...

 

 

 

What isn't true? Making reservations was a bit of a hassle in the beginning but that's because of Royals crappy website. My friend called them, made all out reservations and linked 5 couples together. We had no issues. We even changed a couple reservations during our 12 nights once we were onboard and had no problem doing it. We loved eating at different places each night. They even let us eat in Coastal Kitchen one night. We had great service and great food. Dinners were much quicker than sitting for 3 hours in a MDR. We never waited in line for dinner.

 

You maybe had a different experience but we had a great one and that's why we booked it again.

 

They advertised DD way before the ship was even completed. They had a huge affair in NY for TA's and gave samples of food and raved about it. There were quite a few press conferences on the web about it and their website certainly had all the information. If someone didn't know about it, it's because they had no computer and/or their TA didn't tell them about it.

 

 

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[beachbuddy]

Did RCCL contact you about the change in the dining concept for your cruise?

 

 

 

We don't sail until Sept. 2018 to Canada/New England. We just booked recently with 2 other couples. We had to pick Dynamic Choice which was fine with me because I didn't want to Dynamic Classic (we didn't care on Silk on our Quantum cruise). Now with the new dining concept we would like to do MDR at 6:00 in Grande or Chic. Do you think I can change our dining reservation by calling RCCL?

 

 

 

Mary, Dee made all our reservations and linked 8 people. RCI sent her the email yesterday so she called them. They are honoring our 7:45 dinner time - just changed it from DD to MTD. I read that they are going to be adjusting some show times as well to coordinate with traditional dinning times. I think our late shows that we booked might be ok, but we had a few earlier ones booked too. Dee is going to call and see if we need to change any of those. We were all set and excited about the dinning rooms and now they burst our bubble and we'll be stuck in American Icon or Silk for the duration. Maybe we'll hit the WJ a couple nights. Plus we all bought the 2 night dinner BOGO for specialty restaurants. LOL.

 

If you want to change your dinning to traditional 1st seating, do it now before they book up.

 

 

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[KansasK]

I never tried DD, so I cannot say if it really worked or not.

 

What I wish RCI had not done was to remodel the dining rooms on Oasis and Allure into three separate dining rooms before they knew they were actually going ahead with DD. The dining room looked better with the chandelier and the open area joining the three levels, but what is done, is done. There is still an open area, but much smaller. The main chandelier is kind of a huge lamp shade now.

 

I have been on the Oasis and the Allure since the remodel and was assigned to two of the new dining rooms on the two different ships. Both were remodeled in a good way for dining, of course, and other than our first look at the changes, we were fine with the way the dining rooms each looked and enjoyed our experience dining.

[beachbuddy]

I never tried DD, so I cannot say if it really worked or not.

 

 

 

What I wish RCI had not done was to remodel the dining rooms on Oasis and Allure into three separate dining rooms before they knew they were actually going ahead with DD. The dining room looked better with the chandelier and the open area joining the three levels, but what is done, is done. There is still an open area, but much smaller. The main chandelier is kind of a huge lamp shade now.

 

 

 

I have been on the Oasis and the Allure since the remodel and was assigned to two of the new dining rooms on the two different ships. Both were remodeled in a good way for dining, of course, and other than our first look at the changes, we were fine with the way the dining rooms each looked and enjoyed our experience dining.

 

 

 

I agree. It's a shame they took the chandelier down on Oasis. . I wasn't aware that they did that to Allure too. Wonder what they are doing to Harmony.

 

 

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[OfTheSeasCruiser]

What I wish RCI had not done was to remodel the dining rooms on Oasis and Allure into three separate dining rooms before they knew they were actually going ahead with DD. The dining room looked better with the chandelier and the open area joining the three levels, but what is done, is done. There is still an open area, but much smaller. The main chandelier is kind of a huge lamp shade now.

 

 

Actually, the size of the open area was not changed.

 

There were no structural changes to Oasis and Allure's MDRs. Only redecoration.