Symphony TA - Ultimate Dining & Deluxe Beverage Packages Review

[Guest BigRoger]

Hi folks, this post is a bit long but I hope its helpful to at least someone. If anyone wants any specific queries or details of aspects please shout and we'll do our best.

 

I post this because members of the community were good enough to spare their time to give views and perspectives when I asked a few months ago regarding the beverage package. I thought it only fair to reciprocate with our post game review thoughts.

 

We decided to buy both package - the ultimate dining and the deluxe beverage package.... RCL could join them together in cruise planner under the heading of 'ultimate blow out package'....

 

Rationale for Buying

Dining

1. We love Chops, we'd never done 150CP in 35 cruises and mostly wanted to try Hooked (wow).

2. The clincher was the ability to use the package on both sea days and boarding day - no scrum at the Windjammer this time!

3. We could also use the package at Playmakers, as well as JR

 

Beverage

1. Deliberate intention to have maximum flexibility.

2. We knew the Diamond Lounges would be a nightmare and wanted to stay away.

3. We had become a bit slavish to the Diamond lounge and free drinks (with little choice in the 3 free)

4. We don't drink much at home (honestly no more than 1-2 glasses of wine 3-4 days a week) BUT its vacation time and we do drink on cruises!!! (Particularly TAs).

5. 3 of our last 4 cruises were all-inclusive (Celebrity and MSC) and we did enjoy the 'why not..' flexibility.

 

Results

Dining

1. C&A threw a bit of a spanner into our plans by allocating Chops to the Pineapples for lunch - this did impact a bit re ability to move around the restaurants at different times of the day.

2. Overall we loved the ability to go to lunch and dinner in the gorgeous Central Park each day, to great restaurants and atmosphere. The food was pretty much spot on each time.

3. BUT-  it was a lot of food..... we deliberately ate little for breakfast and pretty much never had desert or bread at lunch or dinner (except the totally awesome 'cheese biscuits with garlic butter' at Hooked).

4. AND - we became too regimented with our dining times and the slavish routine of lunch at 12.30pm, then dinner at 7.30pm (or thereabouts). It was a bit too repetitive.

5. AND - we probably tried to get to much value from the package (we ended up not doing the full 12 dinner and 10 lunches as it became we became a bit fed up with filet mignon/ tender loin for the 6th, 7th, 8th time... first world problems I recognise!). But we did need a break once in a while.  

6. It totally paid for itself though and the enjoyment was overall excellent.

 

Restaurants

1. Jamie's - loved it. The meat plank and the garlic shrimp linguini were just awesome. (9 out of 10)

2. Chops - overall loved it but was a bit inconsistent. Was crazy on first night as everyone tried to use C&A BOGOs and service and food suffered a bit (understandably) but later in the cruise it just got better and better. The cooking of the steak was also a bit inconsistent though - it was never the same twice even though we ordered the same degree of cooked each time. (We had 7 dinners there so we could tell!) On occasion the sides were also a bit luke warm. (9 out of 10)

3. 150CP - got to say it didn't really do it for us. The food was very good (tenderloin better than chops filet) but the service was average and ambiance not great. One night we chose to complain and the host was very defensive and simply wanted to buy us off with a return visit for free or a bottle of wine sent to the room.... clearly with the 'blow out package' we wanted neither and only when he realised we were not 'after' anything did he start to take our points seriously. (We did go back and it was better but it definitely was not a fine dining experience). (6/10)

4. Playmakers - good solid bar food in huge quantities. Definitely a sharing experience but a bit of a question why pay for food that you can pretty much get elsewhere on the ship for free. Having said that the burger was excellent. (7/10)

5. BEST OF ALL  - HOOKED - just a total wow experience. We loved everything about this restaurant - we went so many times we could review everything on the menu! But safe to say it is all fantastic with great friendly service too.ps they also had the best white wine on the ship Paco & Lola Albarino... simply gorgeous. (12 out of10)

 

Learning for next time (and there will be with the package).... take a more flexible approach to timings and don't be afraid to take a break from speciality dining during the cruise... you get enough value anyway! (top quality beef for 9 dinners is a wee bit heavy... yes 1st world problems again). 

 

Beverage Package

1. We loved the flexibility - what we wanted, when we wanted, where we wanted.... no hassles.

2. We avoided the diamond lounges! and felt liberated to avoid the crowds.

3. We drank a lot.... but over a very long period of time each day.

4. We never felt 'more than happy' once all cruise (really honestly) - this might be because the measures for spirits seemed a lot smaller than on previous cruises. Maybe bartenders were more generous to pay as you go but for us they were small measures. (Only the pool bar was more generous incidentally).

5. Unlimited water bottles were a god send.

6. Overall we reckoned we spent around $350-$400 a day (at RCL on board prices) on the combination of soft and alcoholic drinks..... we certainly got value from the package....

7. Clearly we were drinking 'because we could' but the benefits for us of the flexibility were great.

 

A typical day for us (and don't judge us if you happen to have a different perspective yourself!) was as below: (below are for each of us, so double for us both)

- smoothie from Vitality café x1

- fresh squeezed juice x1

- pre-lunch vodka and coke x 2

- morning soda can x 1

- lunch white wine x3

- pre-dinner G&T/ cocktail x2

- Dinner red wine x3

- speciality coffee x1

- evening vodka/ coke, baileys, Kahlua x2

- water bottles over day and cabin x6

(confession for me alone add 1x pre-lunch V&C, 1x white wine, 1x G&T and 1x red wine - do not judge me its medical! and we genuinely were never remotely drunk... well from what  can remember....some of it might be a touch hazy... joking!).Overall the drinks package is expensive but definitely worth it!   

 

General

Just a few observations re the Sy TA overall:

 

1. Thank you to all posting and engaging with their plans from up to 19 months before, adventures pre boarding and all wider thoughts and fun posted on the facebook page and the CC roll call and wider RC board. You made it a very special and exciting build up and the cruise did not disappoint! We literally 'bought the Tshirt' and wore it with pride on boarding day.

2. Thanks to all on board for the energy and fun - so much better than the Anthem crossing in 2015 at the same time - dull in comparison.

3. As to the cruise - ship fab, crew fab, captain fab, shows fab.... you get the picture - we loved it.

4. Didn't mind the immigration stuff at PC - would have delayed everything by hours at Miami and you would have had both disembarking and next set of passengers all at the terminal together... it was chaos enough outside. RCL played fair with the free shuttles if people chose to use them.

5. Thanks to twangster - we were on board and followed his review each day - we loved it.

6. We did see some bad behaviour - entitled people 'do this for me...now', some barging to get off buses or jump queues, some poor bullying to get tables at speciality restaurants when people had no reservations (including a situation of one getting the restaurant manager to instruct the restaurant to give them a table - 'you are full, that's just BS...'  nice.

7. A special mention to the very brave guy who elbowed me in the head ordering his drinks at the Trellis bar and who after I had admonished him for doing this, then repeated the action and had the nerve to want to clink his miller lite bottle with my glass once I 'had words' again.... given I'm much younger 6ft 2 and 215lbs (I was 10lbs lighter at the start of the cruise - see dining package comments) with a tight end/ rugby player physique he was very brave... even the very excellent Dev the bar supervisor for the trellis bar apologised to me about it when he didn't do anything... the guy just seemed to think it was fine... he had his Miller!

8. Bobby (we have not historically been his biggest fans) did a great job.

 

Overall it was a brilliant cruise.

 

PS we loved Alex Miles - mad as a hatter but so friendly and talented with it. If you didn't get to see her you missed out. (She is now on Serenade).  

 

Hope its of some use! (Currently trying to persuade for another round in January/ February for the superbowl....).

 

Big Roger

 

    

[romesauce]

Thank you for your UDP review! We're planning on buying it for our sailing on Symphony in December. I do have a question. Was the UDP available for purchase on the ship on Day 1? We have a lot of OBC that we thought we could use towards the plan but I can only use this OBC on board and not before the sailing.

[SilkySal]

Thanks for the great review Big Roger! Kudos to you for not "knocking that guy's lights out"🤩, which I am sure a lot of folks would have! I am boarding the lovely Oasis on Super Bowl Sunday🏈 on February 3rd with one of my bff's, if you'd care to join! Oasis is probably my favorite ship! The best cruise is always the next one!! CHEERS!!😎

[Guest BigRoger]

Romesauce - We didn't spot anyone selling the package on the ship, but to be fair we were not looking as we'd already bought through the cruise planner so others may correct me on this. They were pushing beverage packages but I didn't see anything re dining packages. Re OBC - in my experience you can usually use it to book the package online with the cruise planner (we only had $100 obc but used that for the dining package). It may be worth a chat with RCL to see if you can use it upfront?

 

SilkySal - Re January cruise, it's funny you mention Oasis on superbowl night... Oasis is (and still is) our favourite ship and currently 'negotiations are at a delicate stage' regarding the possibility of that cruise happening.... you never know! You'll be able to spot us as the overfed and over watered ones....

[Pratique]

Thanks for sharing your observations.

 

We did not have the UDP on the TA. I was originally sailing solo but ended up bringing my father with me. I pre-booked dining reservations for myself when specialty was on sale. When I added my dad I did not make any changes to the reservations and figured that we would just pay his cover charge on board. Chops and Hooked added the charge, no problems. Jamie's did not charge us for the second guest on any of the three times we went there. I believe this was purposeful, since the servers told us we were getting a "discount," and of course we didn't question that. Although reservations were hard to come by on board, we were able to add the third Jamie's visit midway through the cruise at a time that was good for us. The Jamie's 3x hidden "discount" was an unexpected surprise but sometimes these things happen, I just go with the flow. 😉

 

The only items we noticed that they ran out of during the cruise were the rocket salad at Jamie's on Day 11 and the good wines at Schooner after Halloween.

 

Also agreed Bobby did a good job and was very visible and accessible around the ship every day, and a great cruise overall. No complaints here (I even let the chair hogs in the Solarium slide, there were plenty of other places to sit).

Edited November 13, 2018 by Pratique

[HicksRA]

Nice review. We were on the TA as well and I enjoyed your review.  We only had the 5 night dining pkg, but got to hit all the speciality restaurants except Izumi. 

My favorite too was Hooked. The caramel butter they served with the broiled lobster was beyond description. The best broiled lobster I’ve ever had. 

I found 150 Central Park to be very steep competition to Chops and was impressed with their tenderloin for two. 

We did not do the UDP, but braved the Diamond drinks nightly. Due to the fact that there were over 2600 Diamond and aboves on the ship, RCL was kind enough to open up Jazz on 4 and The Attic night clubs as well as the DL for happy hour which diluted the chaos quite a bit and we really enjoyed it. They also granted free speciality coffee anywhere it was served rather than just the DL which was nice. 

Overall, a great experience on an awesome ship. 

[sammyreddog]

6 hours ago, romesauce said:

Thank you for your UDP review! We're planning on buying it for our sailing on Symphony in December. I do have a question. Was the UDP available for purchase on the ship on Day 1? We have a lot of OBC that we thought we could use towards the plan but I can only use this OBC on board and not before the sailing.

 

Hi Rome:

 

We are leaving next week and had OBC that wasn't going to be applied until boarding (from RC credit card points).   I called RC and they told me that the type of OBC we had would  refunded if we didn't use it all, so we went ahead and ordered the UDP using the cruise planner.  That way we got double points for using our RC card, and if we don't us the OBC during our cruise, we will get a refund anyway.  Have fun!

[sammyreddog]

7 hours ago, BigRoger said:

Hi folks, this post is a bit long but I hope its helpful to at least someone. If anyone wants any specific queries or details of aspects please shout and we'll do our best.

 

I post this because members of the community were good enough to spare their time to give views and perspectives when I asked a few months ago regarding the beverage package. I thought it only fair to reciprocate with our post game review thoughts.

 

We decided to buy both package - the ultimate dining and the deluxe beverage package.... RCL could join them together in cruise planner under the heading of 'ultimate blow out package'....

 

Rationale for Buying

Dining

1. We love Chops, we'd never done 150CP in 35 cruises and mostly wanted to try Hooked (wow).

2. The clincher was the ability to use the package on both sea days and boarding day - no scrum at the Windjammer this time!

3. We could also use the package at Playmakers, as well as JR

 

Beverage

1. Deliberate intention to have maximum flexibility.

2. We knew the Diamond Lounges would be a nightmare and wanted to stay away.

3. We had become a bit slavish to the Diamond lounge and free drinks (with little choice in the 3 free)

4. We don't drink much at home (honestly no more than 1-2 glasses of wine 3-4 days a week) BUT its vacation time and we do drink on cruises!!! (Particularly TAs).

5. 3 of our last 4 cruises were all-inclusive (Celebrity and MSC) and we did enjoy the 'why not..' flexibility.

 

Results

Dining

1. C&A threw a bit of a spanner into our plans by allocating Chops to the Pineapples for lunch - this did impact a bit re ability to move around the restaurants at different times of the day.

2. Overall we loved the ability to go to lunch and dinner in the gorgeous Central Park each day, to great restaurants and atmosphere. The food was pretty much spot on each time.

3. BUT-  it was a lot of food..... we deliberately ate little for breakfast and pretty much never had desert or bread at lunch or dinner (except the totally awesome 'cheese biscuits with garlic butter' at Hooked).

4. AND - we became too regimented with our dining times and the slavish routine of lunch at 12.30pm, then dinner at 7.30pm (or thereabouts). It was a bit too repetitive.

5. AND - we probably tried to get to much value from the package (we ended up not doing the full 12 dinner and 10 lunches as it became we became a bit fed up with filet mignon/ tender loin for the 6th, 7th, 8th time... first world problems I recognise!). But we did need a break once in a while.  

6. It totally paid for itself though and the enjoyment was overall excellent.

 

Restaurants

1. Jamie's - loved it. The meat plank and the garlic shrimp linguini were just awesome. (9 out of 10)

2. Chops - overall loved it but was a bit inconsistent. Was crazy on first night as everyone tried to use C&A BOGOs and service and food suffered a bit (understandably) but later in the cruise it just got better and better. The cooking of the steak was also a bit inconsistent though - it was never the same twice even though we ordered the same degree of cooked each time. (We had 7 dinners there so we could tell!) On occasion the sides were also a bit luke warm. (9 out of 10)

3. 150CP - got to say it didn't really do it for us. The food was very good (tenderloin better than chops filet) but the service was average and ambiance not great. One night we chose to complain and the host was very defensive and simply wanted to buy us off with a return visit for free or a bottle of wine sent to the room.... clearly with the 'blow out package' we wanted neither and only when he realised we were not 'after' anything did he start to take our points seriously. (We did go back and it was better but it definitely was not a fine dining experience). (6/10)

4. Playmakers - good solid bar food in huge quantities. Definitely a sharing experience but a bit of a question why pay for food that you can pretty much get elsewhere on the ship for free. Having said that the burger was excellent. (7/10)

5. BEST OF ALL  - HOOKED - just a total wow experience. We loved everything about this restaurant - we went so many times we could review everything on the menu! But safe to say it is all fantastic with great friendly service too.ps they also had the best white wine on the ship Paco & Lola Albarino... simply gorgeous. (12 out of10)

 

Learning for next time (and there will be with the package).... take a more flexible approach to timings and don't be afraid to take a break from speciality dining during the cruise... you get enough value anyway! (top quality beef for 9 dinners is a wee bit heavy... yes 1st world problems again). 

 

Beverage Package

1. We loved the flexibility - what we wanted, when we wanted, where we wanted.... no hassles.

2. We avoided the diamond lounges! and felt liberated to avoid the crowds.

3. We drank a lot.... but over a very long period of time each day.

4. We never felt 'more than happy' once all cruise (really honestly) - this might be because the measures for spirits seemed a lot smaller than on previous cruises. Maybe bartenders were more generous to pay as you go but for us they were small measures. (Only the pool bar was more generous incidentally).

5. Unlimited water bottles were a god send.

6. Overall we reckoned we spent around $350-$400 a day (at RCL on board prices) on the combination of soft and alcoholic drinks..... we certainly got value from the package....

7. Clearly we were drinking 'because we could' but the benefits for us of the flexibility were great.

 

A typical day for us (and don't judge us if you happen to have a different perspective yourself!) was as below: (below are for each of us, so double for us both)

- smoothie from Vitality café x1

- fresh squeezed juice x1

- pre-lunch vodka and coke x 2

- morning soda can x 1

- lunch white wine x3

- pre-dinner G&T/ cocktail x2

- Dinner red wine x3

- speciality coffee x1

- evening vodka/ coke, baileys, Kahlua x2

- water bottles over day and cabin x6

(confession for me alone add 1x pre-lunch V&C, 1x white wine, 1x G&T and 1x red wine - do not judge me its medical! and we genuinely were never remotely drunk... well from what  can remember....some of it might be a touch hazy... joking!).Overall the drinks package is expensive but definitely worth it!   

 

General

Just a few observations re the Sy TA overall:

 

1. Thank you to all posting and engaging with their plans from up to 19 months before, adventures pre boarding and all wider thoughts and fun posted on the facebook page and the CC roll call and wider RC board. You made it a very special and exciting build up and the cruise did not disappoint! We literally 'bought the Tshirt' and wore it with pride on boarding day.

2. Thanks to all on board for the energy and fun - so much better than the Anthem crossing in 2015 at the same time - dull in comparison.

3. As to the cruise - ship fab, crew fab, captain fab, shows fab.... you get the picture - we loved it.

4. Didn't mind the immigration stuff at PC - would have delayed everything by hours at Miami and you would have had both disembarking and next set of passengers all at the terminal together... it was chaos enough outside. RCL played fair with the free shuttles if people chose to use them.

5. Thanks to twangster - we were on board and followed his review each day - we loved it.

6. We did see some bad behaviour - entitled people 'do this for me...now', some barging to get off buses or jump queues, some poor bullying to get tables at speciality restaurants when people had no reservations (including a situation of one getting the restaurant manager to instruct the restaurant to give them a table - 'you are full, that's just BS...'  nice.

7. A special mention to the very brave guy who elbowed me in the head ordering his drinks at the Trellis bar and who after I had admonished him for doing this, then repeated the action and had the nerve to want to clink his miller lite bottle with my glass once I 'had words' again.... given I'm much younger 6ft 2 and 215lbs (I was 10lbs lighter at the start of the cruise - see dining package comments) with a tight end/ rugby player physique he was very brave... even the very excellent Dev the bar supervisor for the trellis bar apologised to me about it when he didn't do anything... the guy just seemed to think it was fine... he had his Miller!

8. Bobby (we have not historically been his biggest fans) did a great job.

 

Overall it was a brilliant cruise.

 

PS we loved Alex Miles - mad as a hatter but so friendly and talented with it. If you didn't get to see her you missed out. (She is now on Serenade).  

 

Hope its of some use! (Currently trying to persuade for another round in January/ February for the superbowl....).

 

Big Roger

 

    

 

 

Hi Roger:

 

Did you have any problems getting reservations in the specialty restaurants with the UDP?

 

 

[Guest BigRoger]

Hi sammyreddog

 

It wasn’t easy to deal with reservations given the crazy situation where RCL don’t allow those purchasing the dining package (spending more money with them!) to book in advance online.

 

Our approach was to board pretty early and go straight to the dining desk on board and have a pre-prepared schedule of ‘ideal’ restaurants and times for dinner and lunch but to know we might have to be flexible to get to the right place.

 

Given that there was nearly 3,000 diamond/ plus/ pineapples on board the first 2 nights when all were using their BOGOs was a challenge and chaos in the restaurants themselves but it was easier to book for later in the cruise if you were prepared to make the bookings on day 1 and stuck with them.

 

(On the first night we got a reservation at Chops but then still had to wait 25 mins for a table and 45 mins for food - not a problem or something we felt the need to moan about at all - it just indicated how busy they were).

 

Lunches are easier than dinners and some restaurants did have pretty flexible options mid cruise (but we’re also very full towards the end). We did see some people able to ‘waitlist’ to get in having turned up with no reservation.

 

Once the hosts and waiters get used to seeing you at their restaurant given you’ve been a few times on the cruise they will try their very best to help you if you want to move things around later in the cruise.

 

Basically have a plan of desires, then be flexible and try to book all asap when on board. They will help all they can.

 

Hope this helps!

 

regards,

 

Big Roger

[IRMO12HD]

What a great review!  Thank you for all of the information :-)

 

I tried searching the boards for an answer to this, I really did -- so please forgive me if it's already been answered somewhere -- does the Deluxe Beverage Package cover beverages at Coco Cay (or any other RCI-owned/operated port of call)?

Edited January 14, 2019 by IRMO12HD
thank OP for review

[taglovestocruise]

We were also on the TA and loved it even though it was crowded in the Diamond lounges. Spent most Diamond hour nights in the Attic or Wonderland bar. We had the BOGO and the five night package, no problem getting all our reservations in the 8 - 8:30  time slot.  We did not use any package until night 3.  Even 8 nights in specialty dinning was a bit redundant, stayed away from Hooks and Izumi because of my wife's allergy  to sea food. Line was long in the Promenade for specialty dinning, went up to Wonderland and found the reservation line was very short.  Just booked the Allure TA in 2020 for the return after it's refurb.  happy  cruising

[Guest BigRoger]

IRMO12HD,  Hi we’ve no direct experience of being able to use the DBP on CocoCay etc but we saw (I think In a post elsewhere on CC) that it should be able to be used for all drinks in CocoCay and Labadee.

 

Post script to our review is that we said afterwards we’d plan to go back to Diamond drinks and ‘normal’ dining for the upcoming Oasis transatlantic to Barcelona... partly because of the very high price of the 2019 DBP and UDP.... but the UDP then went down a lot and became a great deal... and recently we just kept coming back to how nice it was to have total flexibility... therefore we swallowed the big price tag and the Ultimate Blow Out package will be in play again in April!!!! 

 

(Even better I got a set of the Royal Caribbean monopoly game for Xmas from DW...!!!!)

[tinkr2]

Was playmakers also a credit or 35 each? and was that the same at lunch and dinner? it does not sound like you ate at Izumi? is that open sea days for lunch and what is the credit?

Oh and it was nice that everyone was civil about your drinks chart. Sounds like you had a great time.

[skiiergirl]

I have been told by RC that Playmakers and Johnny Rockets are not included in UDP.   Were you able to use UDP at both of these on SY?   Since JR is open both port and seadays...and hours other than "lunch"....how do you determine it is being included in UDP?  (Don't want to eat JR at 3:00 and then be told at another restaurant later that we have already used "dinner" for that day.)???

 

[Guest BigRoger]

It was awesome having the freedom to drink if/ when/ where and what we wanted rather than 'diamond drinks slaves'.... we have bought the package for Oasis and booked 2020 cruises including the drinks packages in the booking as a result.

 

Re playmakers we went for lunch on a sea day (with it being a TA) and there is so much food in the 'bar food' choices they have (we had the nachos, burger, plus popcorn shrimp all as sharers between two) that we couldn't finish it between us and once we had 'negotiated' with our evidence that RCL had clearly confirmed to us in advance that it was in the UDP Mark the Manager simply zero'd out the check (which was nowhere near $35 for both us combined). 

 

Re Johnny Rockets - we didn't do it for lunch or dinner but we 'understood' that both options were included in the UDP (with lunch being only on sea days).

 

Re IZUMI - no we didn't do this on Symphony (which was a mistake on our part which we plan to correct on Oasis).

 

Ps I've seen some conjecture of CC about whether the UDP can be used on boarding day.... our experience was that there was no problem using it on Symphony to eat at Jamie's Italian once we'd boarded.

 

PPs for both UDP and DBP don't worry when you first board on Symphony if you don't have your sea pass (its in the stateroom which might not be available yet), you can still purchase drinks/ dining - they take your room number and note it down. 

[skiiergirl]

9 minutes ago, BigRoger said:

It was awesome having the freedom to drink if/ when/ where and what we wanted rather than 'diamond drinks slaves'.... we have bought the package for Oasis and booked 2020 cruises including the drinks packages in the booking as a result.

 

Re playmakers we went for lunch on a sea day (with it being a TA) and there is so much food in the 'bar food' choices they have (we had the nachos, burger, plus popcorn shrimp all as sharers between two) that we couldn't finish it between us and once we had 'negotiated' with our evidence that RCL had clearly confirmed to us in advance that it was in the UDP Mark the Manager simply zero'd out the check (which was nowhere near $35 for both us combined). 

 

Re Johnny Rockets - we didn't do it for lunch or dinner but we 'understood' that both options were included in the UDP (with lunch being only on sea days).

 

Re IZUMI - no we didn't do this on Symphony (which was a mistake on our part which we plan to correct on Oasis).

 

Ps I've seen some conjecture of CC about whether the UDP can be used on boarding day.... our experience was that there was no problem using it on Symphony to eat at Jamie's Italian once we'd boarded.

 

PPs for both UDP and DBP don't worry when you first board on Symphony if you don't have your sea pass (its in the stateroom which might not be available yet), you can still purchase drinks/ dining - they take your room number and note it down. 

Thanks.  I have been totally by RC that JR and Playmakers are definitely not part of UDP.  Which is sad since we loved Playmakers.  (We will still go and pay....but seems silly to pay if doing it on a seaday lunch when we could be at Jamies, Chops, etc. Oh well!) I guess maybe they "clarified and confirmed" shipboard and landside to "get in sync" with the packages now. Thanks for the info.

[Guest BigRoger]

Just a live update on this - Royal have confirmed today that Johnny Rocketts is definitely included in the UDP on Oasis.....

[katiel53]

On 11/13/2018 at 12:13 PM, romesauce said:

Thank you for your UDP review! We're planning on buying it for our sailing on Symphony in December. I do have a question. Was the UDP available for purchase on the ship on Day 1? We have a lot of OBC that we thought we could use towards the plan but I can only use this OBC on board and not before the sailing.

 

I haven't sailed on Symphony, but on Harmony a couple of weeks ago, they were selling the dining package.  We paid $155 plus gratuities for a total of $183.  Onboard, it was $238 including gratuities.  I realize we purchased the package when it was on sale, but there seemed to be a huge difference.  

 

If your OBC is refundable, such as that from your TA if you used one, you can cash it out the last day at guest services.  I'd find some way to use that difference in price during the cruise as opposed to spending $100 for 2 onboard for no reason.  YMMV.

[Guest BigRoger]

Post script to the post script....

 

....in confirming JR was included they managed to forget 150CP was included... when we queried (knowing it is included) the response was the person 'wasn't sure...' and they thought 'it might be a tasting and wine pairing menu... which isn't covered..' - they were talking about chefs table not 150CP.....

 

One thing you can rely on with RCI they are consistently inconsistent! 

[skiiergirl]

On 2/5/2019 at 4:42 PM, BigRoger said:

Just a live update on this - Royal have confirmed today that Johnny Rocketts is definitely included in the UDP on Oasis.....

Thanks for the update!

On 2/6/2019 at 11:16 AM, BigRoger said:

Post script to the post script....

 

....in confirming JR was included they managed to forget 150CP was included... when we queried (knowing it is included) the response was the person 'wasn't sure...' and they thought 'it might be a tasting and wine pairing menu... which isn't covered..' - they were talking about chefs table not 150CP.....

 

One thing you can rely on with RCI they are consistently inconsistent! 

Yep....Royally Consistently Inconsistent!