Is Specialty Dining Goin' Beggin'???

[stringbean10]

1 hour ago, katiel53 said:

  I like being able to order a drink when I am seated and receiving it within a couple of minutes as opposed to having it served near dessert.  

 

I like the food and presentation more in the specialty restaurants.  The waiters we have had in the specialty restaurants have not been rushed and are able to provide excellent service as they are not waiting on as many tables as the dining room.  

 

The price of the UDP, to us, is just part of the price of the cruise.  We no longer do excursions, been there, done that, nor do we get photos, play bingo or shop onboard.  I do spend money in the casino and do go to a few of the shows.

 

I think we all have different ideas of how to spend our money, how to enjoy a cruise and how often we cruise etc.  We are happy with our choices and plan to continue doing so for as long as possible.

 

Another one of my 'people'!

 

At least in the Caribbean, we rarely get off the ship too...except at Labadee for a free beach day.  

 

I'd rather spend my time drinking my 'free' drinks poolside and enjoying a less crowded ship.  When I look at the beach excursions for our upcoming cruise, I find it difficult to justify the extra $200 to sit by the ocean to drink 'free' drinks and eat nachos.  I can do that on board without any of the hassles of disembarking with 2 little kids. I don't want to be hassled by vendors.  Safety concerns, etc.   I am sure some people might think that is nuts.

 

Cruises are vacations for us.  They are not "travel" to me - I am under no illusion that I have actually 'been' to these countries.

 

Have I been to Haiti?  I guess - Labadee - that is technically correct -   (the best kind of correct - lol)  but I don't consider myself as actually traveled to Haiti.  When we travel, we try to have a rick steeve's type of experience.  When we vacation, we tend to pick cruises or all inclusive resorts.  I guess the 'not sweating the small stuff' vacation mode helps some of the occasional service issues slide right off my back. 

 

 

[Biker19]

2 minutes ago, stringbean10 said:

  When we travel, we try to have a rick steve's type of experience. 

Don't try that in Haiti.

[stringbean10]

 

8 minutes ago, MyNameIsGermy said:

 

Great post.... we are basically in the same demographics (2 dads and our 5-year-old son) and we do the same thing. We just got off Harmony a bit ago and we did the Ultimat Dining Package and it was great. Food and service were fantastic and didn't have to deal with the cattle call MDR. 

 

Well worth the additional cost!

 

As for the comments I've seen about it being empty, definitely was not the case on Harmony. We ate mostly at Chops and Jamies and they were always full.

 

-germ

1

Yay!  I knew there were more like-minded folks out there! 

 

Did your son have fun in adventure ocean?  My kids love it!  

[stringbean10]

3 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

Don't try that in Haiti.

 

Lol -  See, you, I like you....

 

Throw Haiti in with Jamaica, or Mexico or the Bahamas....a lot of these ports have active state department warnings and are very dangerous places.  I believe Jamaica is home to the most dangerous city in the world right now.

 

So, it's Boat drinks by the pool for me. 

 

I promise I am not a scardey cat - I don't  think these places or people are 'bad' - I'm just not interested in 'visiting' them anymore. 

[Biker19]

1 minute ago, stringbean10 said:

  I believe Jamaica is home to the most dangerous city in the world right now.

Parts of Kingston are OK and the jerk chicken is good.

[stringbean10]

9 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

Parts of Kingston are OK and the jerk chicken is good.

If it was just me and my husband, I might ask you for recs but not going to risk it with the wild cards aka kids. 

 

I know now there are good parts to these places - that’s what I tried to convey by stating I don’t think they are ‘bad’ places.  

 

I’ve lived in two US murder capitals, Chicago & Atlanta, and they are awesome!  

[island lady]

1 hour ago, Biker19 said:

Don't try that in Haiti.

 

You got that right...my sister is a doctor that volunteers in Haiti, flying down there once a year with other doctor volunteers for week long trips.  She has since stopped going, she comes back really sick after each trip.  😮 

Edited December 19, 2018 by island lady

[SargassoPirate]

Since I started this thread, I have received two more emails offering me fifty percent off on a specialty dining package before an upcoming cruise.

 

Economics 101: the law of the marketplace is that you charge what the traffic will bear.  If specialty dining is indeed goin' beggin', crew members are roaming the MDR hawking specialty dining, and passengers are receiving multiple emails offering fifty percent off, this ole country boy is thinking they are/have been charging too much for something that ain't all that special.

 

 

I've never gone hungry on a cruise and never felt that I need to pay twice for food - included plus specialty 

 

To each his own.

[clean1owner]

2 hours ago, stringbean10 said:

I'm not sure I missed the point of your first response....but I certainly missed the point of the complete rundown of specialty restaurants on Epic in your last post.  Was it that you can have bad and good experiences in specialty restaurants too?  I'm trying to understand. 

 

I stand by the statement that "Our memory tends to wear rose colored glasses."  

 

You are telling me you are accurately remembering the entire experience of a single dinner 35 years ago?  I can barely remember what I had for breakfast sometimes.  I promise you that you are remembering the idea of that meal.   

 

That's why I said it would be fun to have the time machine to compare the food quality then and now!  Our memories can't always be trusted. 

 

Lots of variables impact our experiences and our memories. First, you were younger and admittedly, you had never had a lobster to before to compare it to....It was literally the best lobster you had ever had because it was the ONLY lobster you had ever had....sometimes the excitement of the 'first time' or the surrounding circumstances color the experience - honeymoon? amazing! Trip with Norovirus?- don't think I'd say the trip or the memory of the trip would be the same. 

 

As for reasons as to why service and quality may vary - I think Hoopster said it best:

 

 

I would also add that the sheer number of people they are serving has tripled or quadrupled.  It is hard to scale up to serve 5k people.  You will be able to serve half or a third of that better and easier.

 

My "great service indicator" is not someone remembered what I had to drink the night before. What if they brought it and I didn't want it? lol.  I also do not want my servers to sing to me - some do!  By these boards,  these seem to be two yardsticks by which some people measure their 'amazing' service.  I don't. 

 

 

This is a very interesting complaint,  are you saying you do not receive adequate refills now?  What seems to have made the impression is that someone got in trouble for not serving you correctly.  You spent a lot more time focusing on that...how they got in trouble, how they had to apologize, etc.  HMMMMMM

 

It is my opinion that the specialty restaurants are better than the MDR.   You can have a one off of an 'amazing lobster tail' in the MDR or that fantastic server.  But, in order to get consistently better food and service - the old adage is "you get what you pay for."

 

 

 

 

 

 

By design

 

Like one of the Wayans brothers used to say on In Living Color

 

Homey don't play that

[HBE4]

On 12/17/2018 at 10:11 AM, SargassoPirate said:

We have a cruise departing in a couple of weeks. I have just received a third email from RCI offering a fifty percent discount on specialty dining. She Who Must Be Obeyed mused that they must be getting desperate to fill the specialty venues.

 

 

 

I agree. During my last cruise, we had no problem getting into a specialty restaurant on a few hours notice. Had our pick of times too. On the other days, I notice most of the venues were not filled to capacity, some less than half-full.

 

Since the quality seems to vary between ships, I'm guessing that Royal has finally found the max price people are willing to pay. Rather than reduce the price, they'll just have forever, never-ending sales.

 

FYI - we did Giovanni's on Liberty. Superb food and service.

 

[stringbean10]

3 minutes ago, HBE4 said:

 

I agree. During my last cruise, we had no problem getting into a specialty restaurant on a few hours notice. Had our pick of times too. On the other days, I notice most of the venues were not filled to capacity, some less than half-full.

 

Since the quality seems to vary between ships, I'm guessing that Royal has finally found the max price people are willing to pay. Rather than reduce the price, they'll just have forever, never-ending sales.

 

FYI - we did Giovanni's on Liberty. Superb food and service.

 

 

This!  

 

 Why wouldn't any company attempt to find the max price?   

 

People love sales - did anybody pay attention to the recent JC Penny 'no more sales' debacle?  People would rather see X amount off!!! SALE!!! GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!!! Then a reasonable rack rate.  And if a few suckers that pay full price, what does RCI have to lose?  Everyone else has that great endorphin rush of getting a "deal."

 

This thread started with a certain amount of schadenfreude that the restaurants 'appeared' to be struggling.  

 

I've been to several poorly attended Bingo games - do I conclude they must be losing money on this?  Do I care?  No.  

 

Sometimes my husband and I are the only people (out of 5k)  at the craps table. Is craps 'failing' - maybe?  Or it could be a loss leader for the casino...gamblers like to play craps - maybe if we offer it they will stick around and hit the horrible slots.   Could it be that people that eat at specialty restaurants spend more on their trips in general?  They are willing to pay for other 'upgraded experiences'  - I would bet so!  Especially with all the 'I would never spend an extra dime!' talk here - great!  No one is making you....

 

There is a lot of "never felt that I need to pay twice for food"  and "I've never tried it and can't understand why...."   Several people who HAVE tried them and WILL pay extra have chimed in and explained why. 

 

RCI is not throwing darts at a wall to come up with pricing.  I am sure they run the numbers and adjust accordingly -  even during the cruise! Gotta boost those alcohol numbers, let's offer the drink card, fire up the 'sales' on purses, etc.

 

RCI's stock has steadily trended up over the last five years - I think they know what the are doing.  

[Biker19]

9 minutes ago, stringbean10 said:

People love sales - did anybody pay attention to the recent JC Penny 'no more sales' debacle?  People would rather see X amount off!!! SALE!!! GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!!! Then a reasonable rack rate.  And if a few suckers that pay full price, what does RCI have to lose?  Everyone else has that great endorphin rush of getting a "deal."

Some may complain that while all other items do have a list price at which some poorly informed consumer could actually buy the item/service, that is not possible with cabins - those prices are totally made up, you can't buy at the "list" price of a cabin even if you tried.

[HBE4]

24 minutes ago, stringbean10 said:

Why wouldn't any company attempt to find the max price?   

 

People love sales - did anybody pay attention to the recent JC Penny 'no more sales' debacle?  People would rather see X amount off!!! SALE!!! GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!!! Then a reasonable rack rate.  And if a few suckers that pay full price, what does RCI have to lose?  Everyone else has that great endorphin rush of getting a "deal."

 

Once they went above the max price people are willing to pay, they start losing customers and are no longer maximizing revenue.  At $25 pp, Chops was a deal. At $35 pp, not a great deal but still, not to bad. At $42-$49 pp, forget about it.  So rather than have the place sit empty or reduce it back tp $30-$35 range, they start the never-ending sale cycle. The problem with that, people will expect it to be one sale and never pay full price. Much like JC Penny. And Macy's. They have about 5 one-day sales each week now (counting preview days). Go into the store the other 2 days & it's empty.

 

Of course, to get the sale price, you have to get a 3 or 5 night dining package. For someone who only wants to pay for a SP once or twice on a 7 night cruise, well they are out of luck.

 

24 minutes ago, stringbean10 said:

This thread started with a certain amount of schadenfreude that the restaurants 'appeared' to be struggling.  

 

I agree, Chops is the only consistent.  How many versions of an Italian / Mexican / Seafood restaurants have we seen over the years?  Seems to me, they are still trying to find a successful formula.

 

24 minutes ago, stringbean10 said:

There is a lot of "never felt that I need to pay twice for food"  and "I've never tried it and can't understand why...."   Several people who HAVE tried them and WILL pay extra have chimed in and explained why. 

 

I'm okay with people spending their money for 7 night dining packages. Helps keep the cabin rates low for the rest of us!   As do those that pay for spas, suites, etc.

 

And I always buy the ultimate drink package, so I'm doing my part to help keep cabin rates low too!

Edited December 19, 2018 by HBE4

[HBE4]

10 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

Some may complain that while all other items do have a list price at which some poorly informed consumer could actually buy the item/service, that is not possible with cabins - those prices are totally made up, you can't buy at the "list" price of a cabin even if you tried.

 

^ This!

[clean1owner]

57 minutes ago, HBE4 said:

 

 

 

Since the quality seems to vary between ships, I'm guessing that Royal has finally found the max price people are willing to pay. Rather than reduce the price, they'll just have forever, never-ending sales.

 

 

Just like Furniture stores!

[clean1owner]

20 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

Some may complain that while all other items do have a list price at which some poorly informed consumer could actually buy the item/service, that is not possible with cabins - those prices are totally made up, you can't buy at the "list" price of a cabin even if you tried.

 

 

And no matter what they are calling the current promotion, the final price ends up being the same!

[HBE4]

1 minute ago, clean1owner said:

 

Just like Furniture stores!

 

There are a few stores in my area that have a "Going Out of Business" sale for at least 3-4 years now.  It's got to be the longest bankruptcy proceeding ever.

[coaster]

People have different priorities. We normally don’t pay extra for specialty restaurants. We did awhile back on Freedom at Sabor and it was not worth it as service was worse than MDR and food just as equal to MDR. I would be open to spend the extra for specialty at least one night or two on a longer cruise of 10 days or more for just a change of pace. Otherwise, we are content with what is included in our original fare.

 

I did negotiate a deal on our last Rhapsody cruise for the champagne lunch and galley tour. It was not worth the asking price,  but the reduced price seemed reasonable to me

Edited December 19, 2018 by coaster

[karena1]

8 hours ago, Biker19 said:

But unlike the MDR where the extra entree is free, in specialty dining, they charge for it.

We never do Specialty restaurants.  However, we were on a B2B on Mariner so decided to try Jamie's with our BOGO.  Made reservations and told the girl we wanted to do it the last night - no problem but have to charge us the first day.  Fine, I am okay with that.  So we went the last night and our waiter TOLD us to order at least 2 apps and at least 2 main courses each so we could taste different things.  We really enjoyed it.  I am not a specialty restaurant person at all, but if we ever do it again, it would be Jamie's.  Food/Service were fantastic.

[Ken Greco]

8 hours ago, stringbean10 said:

Or they could be extending you a courtesy for booking a large group?  Could you have negotiated a different perk for your group?

First, I am paying for all the cabins, just a way to thank people for being supportive of me for the past 50 years. Second, My AAA travel agent has gotten me a lot of other perks, a bottle of wine in each cabin, along with the two bottles we can bring on board, $100 credit on each cabin, separate check in, private party, $600 rebate from  the AAA credit card and the best one dinner with the captain or another crew member in a formal night. I also will become a diamond member of my February cruise on the ROS which will qualify me for free drinks every night.

[stringbean10]

 

2 minutes ago, Ken Greco said:

First, I am paying for all the cabins, just a way to thank people for being supportive of me for the past 50 years. Second, My AAA travel agent has gotten me a lot of other perks, a bottle of wine in each cabin, along with the two bottles we can bring on board, $100 credit on each cabin, separate check in, private party, $600 rebate from  the AAA credit card and the best one dinner with the captain or another crew member in a formal night. I also will become a diamond member of my February cruise on the ROS which will qualify me for free drinks every night.

Nice!  Sounds like a loyal customer who is paying a significant amount on board already - exactly who I would comp a lunch  for if I was in charge.  Keep good loyal customers happy 🙂

 

Have a great trip! Is it your 50th birthday?  If so - happy birthday!

[Ken Greco]

1 minute ago, stringbean10 said:

 

Nice!  Sounds like a loyal customer who is paying a significant amount on board already - exactly who I would comp a lunch  for if I was in charge.  Keep good loyal customers happy 🙂

 

Have a great trip! Is it your 50th birthday?  If so - happy birthday!

70th Birthday! With all the changes on RCCL over the past 3o years I still would only chose RCCL for my birthday cruise.

[Iamcruzin]

7 hours ago, HBE4 said:

 

There are a few stores in my area that have a "Going Out of Business" sale for at least 3-4 years now.  It's got to be the longest bankruptcy proceeding ever.

I work for a retailer. We are closing one of our stores due to a rent hike. Business has never been better in that branch since they put the going out of business sign up. This small volume store is doing double digit increases while the rest of us struggle. This branch is selling the items at the same prices as the rest of the chain but since they have the signs up people assume they are getting a bargain and are just loading up.

[springfire]

On 12/17/2018 at 11:13 AM, not-enough-cruising said:

 I have certainly noticed recently that specialty dining venues are being utilized less than in the past.  Perhaps the cost has reached a point where it’s no longer worth it to many people.  Maybe we will see the price go down a little across the board. (doubtful but one can dream)

It is not only the high price they charge but the food is just not that good.  The MDR is just a better option. 

[BNBR]

6 hours ago, Iamcruzin said:

I work for a retailer. We are closing one of our stores due to a rent hike. Business has never been better in that branch since they put the going out of business sign up. This small volume store is doing double digit increases while the rest of us struggle. This branch is selling the items at the same prices as the rest of the chain but since they have the signs up people assume they are getting a bargain and are just loading up.

 

Exactly what I was thinking. The prices are only high for specialty dining because they offer huge deals constantly. You double the price then sell for 50% off and people think it's a bargain. 

 

They do also sell the specialty dining packages super cheap. $160 or so for 10+ meals.