Sapphire benefit Dinner with the officers

[The Traveling Man]

19 hours ago, complawyer said:

54 points away from diamond, i think i'll pass on dinner with the officers. not knocking those who want to experience this, but i have no interest whatsoever

We really enjoy it.  The opportunity to meet the officers as well as the chance to chat with other Diamond members can be entertaining and often quite enlightening.

[complawyer]

as i stated, im not knocking anyone who takes advantage of this perk, it's just not something i'd be interested in doing

[cruiseat50]

Do they tell you who the officer or dept. head will be hosting?

 

[www3traveler]

10 minutes ago, cruiseat50 said:

Do they tell you who the officer or dept. head will be hosting?

 

No, not until you are introduced to them shortly before going to the dining room for dinner.  If you are selected for the dinner, you are told a date, time and location to meet.  You are introduced to those being seated at your table, introduced to the one hosting the table and then led into the dinner room.  Most of the time it is a very interesting evening.  I have been hosted by all sorts of people once even the Captain.  I have been to about 30 dinners.

[The Traveling Man]

15 hours ago, cruiseat50 said:

Do they tell you who the officer or dept. head will be hosting?

 

Maybe one-third of the time we have been told in advance who the officer would be, usually when we dined with the Captain, Chief Engineer, of the GM.  The rest of the times we found out when we got to the restaurant.  We have had dinner with two Captains, two Chief Engineers, five GMs, about a dozen three stripe officers, and almost 20 junior officers.

Edited February 18, 2023 by The Traveling Man

[BostonGal35]

is there a standard night this usually falls on?  I have done it only once and intend to do it again in a couple of weeks on Getaway, if offered.  but of course ive already prebooked all my specialities.  im sure that the dinner will fall on one of those nights lol.

[julig22]

3 hours ago, BostonGal35 said:

is there a standard night this usually falls on?  I have done it only once and intend to do it again in a couple of weeks on Getaway, if offered.  but of course ive already prebooked all my specialities.  im sure that the dinner will fall on one of those nights lol.

Mine was on a sea day, day 8 on a 14 day cruise.  They may have multiple dinners, really no way to know. Got my invite a few days ahead of time.

[ChiefMateJRK]

4 hours ago, BostonGal35 said:

but of course ive already prebooked all my specialities.  im sure that the dinner will fall on one of those nights lol.

Next time, book one more specialty than you intend to use.  Then you can cancel the one with the conflict.

[babba]

My take on some of these benefits ... we were most recently on the Gem ... we are Diamond.

 

"Dinner With An Officer" is usually "Dinner With A Crew Member" (should be renamed) ... our last dinner was with one of the hostesses from the casino on Valentine's Day. I think the choice of day was deliberate to weed out those wanting a "romantic dinner" ... we were also told that those "chosen" are by lottery ... is it a perk then ?

 

"Wines Around The World" was very disorganized ... I felt like it was their first time doing this. There were four stations and you had to stand to sample the wines and they would rinse your glass above this large container ... too much "splish-splashing" and handling of my glass for me to feel comfortable after coming out of a Covid pandemic. Everyone then rotated to the next station. Four wine people would speak at the same time. We left. 

 

"Mixology Class" was AMAZING. It was held at the great outdoors bar. It featured all of their "sustain" beverages ... all yummy! 

[LoungerOnBalcony55]

I'd love to hear some of the comments the officers make to each other about these dinners. I'm sure it's just their absolute favorite thing to do 🙂

 

Me? I can do without an awkward evening of small talk with the spa manager. 

[Sailing12Away]

We went to our dinner last night, and it was lovely. They had us in Savor at 6pm, 2 crew members and 6 passengers. Had a great chat with both of them as well as our fellow guests, nothing awkward about it at all.

 

Starlink is coming, but will take about a year to implement in all ships. At a minimum you leave with a full belly, free wine if you don't have the drink package, and a nice photo to take as a souvenir.

 

Both of our officers were ecstatic about the photo and being able to show their wives back home.

[vacation44]

17 minutes ago, Sailing12Away said:

We went to our dinner last night, and it was lovely. They had us in Savor at 6pm, 2 crew members and 6 passengers. Had a great chat with both of them as well as our fellow guests, nothing awkward about it at all.

 

Starlink is coming, but will take about a year to implement in all ships. At a minimum you leave with a full belly, free wine if you don't have the drink package, and a nice photo to take as a souvenir.

 

Both of our officers were ecstatic about the photo and being able to show their wives back home.

Thanking you posting your experience.   

[yankprintster]

Just had my first dinner with officers. This is my first cruise as Diamond.  Was never able to so it as Sapphire since the program was not running due to COVID restrictions.

 

The invite letter said the Chief Engineer would be joining, and during the actual dinner the Chief plus the Shore Excursion Manager also showed up. 

 

We had one guest no-show.  There were four other guests besides myself.  Two of the guests were on a B2B2B or so (42 days on ship, this is only an 11-day segment).  Due to their long stay, they mentioned they also got a personal tour of the bridge by the Captain on one of their earlier segments.  One of the other guests was on their first cruise ever, and the final guest was on their first NCL cruise ever.  I'm not sure if they had been on a wait-list or maybe had a suite. 

 

A photo was taken but I haven't received it yet (been 3-4 days). Guess I'll run down to cruise next and ask them about it. We dined in the Main Dining Room. 

 

I also asked about Starlink and heard the tests NCL was doing on the other ships was going well at sea, the problem was when in port, Starlink doesn't have licenses to be used in all the countries the ship visits yet and they are still working out the details with that.

 

Everyone had a nice time.

[SEA DOGY]

1 hour ago, yankprintster said:

Just had my first dinner with officers. This is my first cruise as Diamond.  Was never able to so it as Sapphire since the program was not running due to COVID restrictions.

 

The invite letter said the Chief Engineer would be joining, and during the actual dinner the Chief plus the Shore Excursion Manager also showed up. 

 

We had one guest no-show.  There were four other guests besides myself.  Two of the guests were on a B2B2B or so (42 days on ship, this is only an 11-day segment).  Due to their long stay, they mentioned they also got a personal tour of the bridge by the Captain on one of their earlier segments.  One of the other guests was on their first cruise ever, and the final guest was on their first NCL cruise ever.  I'm not sure if they had been on a wait-list or maybe had a suite. 

 

A photo was taken but I haven't received it yet (been 3-4 days). Guess I'll run down to cruise next and ask them about it. We dined in the Main Dining Room. 

 

I also asked about Starlink and heard the tests NCL was doing on the other ships was going well at sea, the problem was when in port, Starlink doesn't have licenses to be used in all the countries the ship visits yet and they are still working out the details with that.

 

Everyone had a nice time.

First time NCL cruises  getting envied to dinner with the officers ? It’s kinda unusual  maybe they are in the owner’s penthouse or maybe they just roll de dice 

 

 

[mking8288]

@yankprintster  Nice.  Which ship were you just on ?  Last time we had a bridge tour was 10 years ago on the GEM and since then, not offered to anyone for security reasons.  Behind The Scene tour started up on the ship yet, apparently gradually resuming on other ships lately.  

 

We had an official "Dinner with Officers" Getaway group photo in 2022 and everyone's copy was autographed.  Did that again in January but no group photo, oh well ...  There're apparently many onboard getting selected & invited, with different officers hosting dinner on multiple nights - ours being the senior officer in charge of housekeeping, chats around the changes & transition to once a day cabin cleaning.  

 

Starlink can't come to the ships fast enough - good to know the issues with licensing for use while in ports (NCL used to turn off their WiFi when docked but they still need their satellite access for bridge & operations).  Once we docked and can ping land's local cellular towers, we switched over to 4G and 5G where available - much faster these days than ship's EMC signal.  

[yankprintster]

21 minutes ago, mking8288 said:

@yankprintster  Nice.  Which ship were you just on ?  Last time we had a bridge tour was 10 years ago on the GEM and since then, not offered to anyone for security reasons.  Behind The Scene tour started up on the ship yet, apparently gradually resuming on other ships lately.  

 

We had an official "Dinner with Officers" Getaway group photo in 2022 and everyone's copy was autographed.

 

I'm on the Sky.  I had to go to the Photo Gallery to request my photo and it looks like I need to pay for it.  Not expecting any autographs.  I did see a $35 OBC on my account from a few days ago.  Not sure if that is to offset my photo cost or if it was for some other reason.

 

Earlier in the cruise I did the free CruseNext behind the scenes tour and also did the $89 paid behind the scenes tour.  The paid tour included three areas not included in the free tour. Bridge, Engine Control Room, and provisioning area (fridges, freezers). The free tour included laundry, theatre, and main galley only.  The paid tour included those same areas as well as an included photo of yourself on the bridge.

[The Traveling Man]

20 hours ago, babba said:

 

"Dinner With An Officer" is usually "Dinner With A Crew Member" (should be renamed) .

That hasn't been our experience.  We've had dinner with 28 different NCL personnel. There have been ten 4-stripe officers (five GMs, two Captains, two Chief Engineers, one Staff Chief Engineer), ten 3-stripe officers, six 2-stripe officers, and two others (a casino pit boss and a gift shop manager).

Edited March 2, 2023 by The Traveling Man

[The Traveling Man]

5 hours ago, yankprintster said:

 

I'm on the Sky.  I had to go to the Photo Gallery to request my photo and it looks like I need to pay for it.  Not expecting any autographs.  I did see a $35 OBC on my account from a few days ago.  Not sure if that is to offset my photo cost or if it was for some other reason.

We were on the Sky last week and had dinner with GM Jean-Michel.  It was only the third or fourth time that a photo was taken of the group.  As on previous occasions, though, a copy was delivered to our room the following day without any charge.

[yankprintster]

2 hours ago, The Traveling Man said:

We were on the Sky last week and had dinner with GM Jean-Michel.  It was only the third or fourth time that a photo was taken of the group.  As on previous occasions, though, a copy was delivered to our room the following day without any charge.

 

Weird, I wonder why I had to pay for mine on the Sky this week.  I assume you must mean two weeks ago, as last week is still the current cruise.

[mking8288]

18 minutes ago, yankprintster said:

I wonder why I had to pay for mine on the Sky this week.  

We had ours taken last April by one of the Getaway photographer from the studio, he came back before we left the MDR that evening - it was complimentary and no costs, each of us received one and we all put our autograph on it.  The senior ranking on the right was the ship's public health officer and the junior person came from HR based out of Miami HQ, that was either the 1st or 2nd week of resuming DWO, it continued on the following week's cruise and then suspended again due to the Spring surge.  DWO did not resume on subsequent cruises on the Joy in May and September.  

 

Oh, except for the September cruise, we also received OBC as BTS hasn't resumed (2 out of 3 NCL cruises) that was no longer given last Fall.  (Platinum - $25 per cabin and Sapphire - $50 per cabin)  

 

[The Traveling Man]

16 hours ago, yankprintster said:

 

Weird, I wonder why I had to pay for mine on the Sky this week.  I assume you must mean two weeks ago, as last week is still the current cruise.

We were on the Sky 6-17 February.  Can't say why you were asked to pay for your photo.  We always have received ours at no cost, delivered to our stateroom a day or two after the dinner.