Dining Room service is awful

[LMaxwell]

16 hours ago, weacat said:

The first night we sat with 2 other couples and there was only 1 waiter taking care of us - no assistant.  We understand that the first night is always a little "rough".

 

 

I have never understood why the first night is ever an issue at Any Time Dining, on any cruise line/ship.  It's often repeated and accepted, but makes zero logical sense why it would be that way. 

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

We just spent 90 days on the Rotterdam and we thought the Dinning Room service was GREAT...

[Fe Maiden]

Just disembarked the NA on the 11/13-20 sailing and service in the MDR was slow.

Had breakfast the first day at sea and to the waiter’s credit he did warn us it would take a while for our food to be served (I think we officially entered Brunch).
Out of the 5 dinners 3 were long. We were Anytime dining and would usually arrive at 8. Always got seated promptly but time between courses/drinks really dragged. We don’t mind a leisurely meal but this went beyond. 
Otherwise had a great time.

[Florida_gal_50]

2 hours ago, albingirl said:

When we've had bad service, or no service at all, we've just gotten up and left. Someone always comes running over like they've never seen anything like this before. We've also left when the MDR is so loud you can't hear your dining companion.  When we cruise, we like it a bit elegant and not like a lousy restaurant.  We can stay home for that.

While I think they would notice in the past I don’t think it would even register now.  I bet they wouldn’t even notice because most hal ships are so packed.  I don’t think they even care.  People are going to tire of that.  

[LMaxwell]

3 minutes ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

While I think they would notice in the past I don’t think it would even register now.  I bet they wouldn’t even notice because most hal ships are so packed.  I don’t think they even care.  People are going to tire of that.  

I mean, you make a good point, but I''ve been paying extra for HAL and Celebrity to get away from the purposely designed to be bad service on the mainstream lines.  I've been pretty content with go along/get along, but I'm back to having 5-6 cruises a year booked and not going to continue accepting poor service.  My HAL cruise in October MDR was spotty for evening dinner; went twice for breakfast - once was great - other we sat nearly an hour and got cold food - it was weird.  

[cruisemom42]

Dining room service should never be "awful".  And if it IS bad, a word to the MDR management should have an effect.

 

Having said that, I know individual ships in many lines are still struggling with Covid outbreaks among staff and crew and at times it could very well be that the MDR is understaffed. On my recent BTB cruises on Celebrity, I had two different stewards (due to Covid) and two different dining room teams -- the waiter was out for a while, and then the assistant. Truthfully, when the assistant went out it made the most difference as I think the replacement was very green and seemed to have difficulties with timing of retrieving orders from the kitchen ... although I've also heard that in those (long) lines, seniority also counts for something so I may just have gotten the short end of the stick.

 

I also think people should have reasonable expectations. I see several people who frequently mention that they want to be "in and out" in an hour. For a venue that provides (or makes an effort to provide) a multiple course fine-dining experience, that seems almost unreasonable. Perhaps you are only ordering two courses but others around you may be ordering three or four. A short pause between courses is customary.  On the other hand, 30 minutes does not constitute a short pause!

[Florida_gal_50]

2 hours ago, cruisemom42 said:

Dining room service should never be "awful".  And if it IS bad, a word to the MDR management should have an effect.

 

Having said that, I know individual ships in many lines are still struggling with Covid outbreaks among staff and crew and at times it could very well be that the MDR is understaffed. On my recent BTB cruises on Celebrity, I had two different stewards (due to Covid) and two different dining room teams -- the waiter was out for a while, and then the assistant. Truthfully, when the assistant went out it made the most difference as I think the replacement was very green and seemed to have difficulties with timing of retrieving orders from the kitchen ... although I've also heard that in those (long) lines, seniority also counts for something so I may just have gotten the short end of the stick.

 

I also think people should have reasonable expectations. I see several people who frequently mention that they want to be "in and out" in an hour. For a venue that provides (or makes an effort to provide) a multiple course fine-dining experience, that seems almost unreasonable. Perhaps you are only ordering two courses but others around you may be ordering three or four. A short pause between courses is customary.  On the other hand, 30 minutes does not constitute a short pause!

In and out in an hour is not reasonable.  I'm having lunch in the mdr and i wasn't even acknowledged for about 15 minutes.  That is not reasonable. It's not even super busy.

[Florida_gal_50]

Well that was just like eating st McDonald's.  Waited for food forever then they brought everything at once.  So classy.

[iceman93]

I've thought the same thing as @cruisemom42 regarding expectations of a multiple-course fine dining experience.  In my mind, dinner at the MDR should be about two hours from start to finish in order to enjoy each course, our company and conversation, and beverages (which usually include a pre-dinner cocktail, a bottle of wine, and an after-dinner drink).  Obviously there are others who want to be in-and-out in an hour; trying to keep all kinds of guests happy must make it extremely difficult on the dining room staff.

[albingirl]

24 minutes ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

In and out in an hour is not reasonable.  I'm having lunch in the mdr and i wasn't even acknowledged for about 15 minutes.  That is not reasonable. It's not even super busy.

Yikes, that's awful.

[idiebabe]

We do the Main Seating (8 pm) and have had very good Service except for Alaska on Eurodam last May.  The Ship had 2000 passengers onboard and they were short-staffed.  My Daughter went on Eurodam again a few months later and had excellent Service.  We don't do Open Seating but hear more complaints about slow service coming from the Open Dining than Fixed Dining.

 

There have been improvements since they first started Sailing after the Restart with Beverage Service.  We've had the HIA on several of our Cruises and they will do double Pours if you ask them.  It makes it easier on them and no waiting for us for a 2nd Vino.  

[Andi Land]

18 hours ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

I can tell you I would not be happy to be in anytime dining on the koningsdam tonight.  I came to club orange at about 5:40 tonight and it was full.  The line up to get into the mdr was half way down the ship for probably an hour.  I recently read that there is no line up on the koningsdam for anytime dining.  Tell that to the people that were probably 300 deep in line to get in 🙄.

I just got off the K on Saturday after 2 weeks on board. The line up for anytime dining was long both weeks. Week one with had Club Orange and week 2:we had fixed dining. There were  2 nights during the MDR week that dinner took over 3 hours. On our final sea day we had lunch at the Pinnacle. We arrived at noon and left at 2:15. We were the last ones in the restaurant. They lost our order and then found it after they started cooking for a group of 25 or more people. The manager apologized when we questioned why we hadn’t seen our appetizers after an hour long wait. That’s when he checked with the kitchen and let us know what happened. The food was good when it finally arrived but service was super slow. 

[mcrcruiser]

27 minutes ago, Andi Land said:

I just got off the K on Saturday after 2 weeks on board. The line up for anytime dining was long both weeks. Week one with had Club Orange and week 2:we had fixed dining. There were  2 nights during the MDR week that dinner took over 3 hours. On our final sea day we had lunch at the Pinnacle. We arrived at noon and left at 2:15. We were the last ones in the restaurant. They lost our order and then found it after they started cooking for a group of 25 or more people. The manager apologized when we questioned why we hadn’t seen our appetizers after an hour long wait. That’s when he checked with the kitchen and let us know what happened. The food was good when it finally arrived but service was super slow. 

We have open seating on Dec 10 th & 17th  B2B  on Kdam   just hope we don't run into a blizzard  waiting 

[Florida_gal_50]

33 minutes ago, Andi Land said:

I just got off the K on Saturday after 2 weeks on board. The line up for anytime dining was long both weeks. Week one with had Club Orange and week 2:we had fixed dining. There were  2 nights during the MDR week that dinner took over 3 hours. On our final sea day we had lunch at the Pinnacle. We arrived at noon and left at 2:15. We were the last ones in the restaurant. They lost our order and then found it after they started cooking for a group of 25 or more people. The manager apologized when we questioned why we hadn’t seen our appetizers after an hour long wait. That’s when he checked with the kitchen and let us know what happened. The food was good when it finally arrived but service was super slow. 

It's night and day difference for me from last week.  This week they don't seem to give a rats behind.  Maybe every other week the muster the effort. 

[Florida_gal_50]

7 minutes ago, mcrcruiser said:

We have open seating on Dec 10 th & 17th  B2B  on Kdam   just hope we don't run into a blizzard  waiting 

I hope it's better for you.  I'd not be happy.  I eat mostly in specialty because I have a number of freebies.  Hopefully the numbers will be less then.  I hear the numbers are in the 2900's for passengers.  These are tentative.

[cruisemom42]

2 hours ago, Andi Land said:

I just got off the K on Saturday after 2 weeks on board. The line up for anytime dining was long both weeks. Week one with had Club Orange and week 2:we had fixed dining. There were  2 nights during the MDR week that dinner took over 3 hours. On our final sea day we had lunch at the Pinnacle. We arrived at noon and left at 2:15. We were the last ones in the restaurant. They lost our order and then found it after they started cooking for a group of 25 or more people. The manager apologized when we questioned why we hadn’t seen our appetizers after an hour long wait. That’s when he checked with the kitchen and let us know what happened. The food was good when it finally arrived but service was super slow. 

 

OMG -- and they didn't offer you anything (like a bottle of wine if your meal was gratis) after that wait?

[riffatsea]

Wow!! We just booked our first Holland cruises and reading these comments makes me cringe!

I know cruisemom from the Rome forum on Trip Adviser so appreciate her comments but still .....We've done 3post covid cruises on Princess with excellent mdr service!

I expect the same on Holland

We'll  be in a Neptune suite on the Volendam

Hope it's better by December 2023

 

[Florida_gal_50]

1 minute ago, riffatsea said:

Wow!! We just booked our first Holland cruises and reading these comments makes me cringe!

I know cruisemom from the Rome forum on Trip Adviser so appreciate her comments but still .....We've done 3post covid cruises on Princess with excellent mdr service!

I expect the same on Holland

We'll  be in a Neptune suite on the Volendam

Hope it's better by December 2023

 

I just wonder if they are out of their groove from handling so many passengers.  I sure hope that’s it.

[Andi Land]

35 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

 

OMG -- and they didn't offer you anything (like a bottle of wine if your meal was gratis) after that wait?

Not only did they not offer anything, the PG manager “disappeared” after explaining that our order was misplaced and we never saw him again…

[Crew News]

4 minutes ago, Andi Land said:

Not only did they not offer anything, the PG manager “disappeared” after explaining that our order was misplaced and we never saw him again…

Hopefully, you utilized the "Let us know" feature of the Navigator app to express your displeasure.  It is my experience that doing so will get you a phone call response very quickly.

 

Some PG Managers and waiters come directly from land-based restaurants and have difficulty adapting to cruise dining operations.  Negative comments will play a major role in HAL not renewing their contracts.

[Florida_gal_50]

16 minutes ago, Andi Land said:

Not only did they not offer anything, the PG manager “disappeared” after explaining that our order was misplaced and we never saw him again…

Isn’t that special?  Stuff happens.  It’s how you fix it that matters.  Clearly it doesn’t matter.  There was a really terrible waiter in there is March.  There have been a boatload of complaints about him.  I thought for sure he’d never be back given how he’s known far and wide and not for good.  Well he’s back like a bad rash.  The employment pool must be very shallow.  I’ve gone twice for lunch (I refuse to go for dinner) and told them I didn’t want “mr wonderful” as a waiter.

[Florida_gal_50]

3 minutes ago, Crew News said:

Hopefully, you utilized the "Let us know" feature of the Navigator app to express your displeasure.  It is my experience that doing so will get you a phone call response very quickly.

 

Some PG Managers and waiters come directly from land-based restaurants and have difficulty adapting to cruise dining operations.  Negative comments will play a major role in HAL not renewing their contracts.

I’ve sent both good and bad through the app this time. Crickets.  Last time in March I did get phone calls.  Read my post above this one about renewal of a contract.

Edited November 21, 2022 by Florida_gal_50

[Crew News]

1 minute ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

I’ve sent both good and bad through the app this time. Crickets.  Last time in March I did get phone calls.

Pre-Covid, HAL had a group of long-term PG Maitre'ds that ran excellent restaurants.  The PG Maitre'ds on my last four cruises with 50% capacity since the HAL restart left much to be desired and the food preparation spotty. 

 

Reassembling the excellent HAL pre-Covid crews has not been easy and now with capacity back to full strength, there are a lot of rookie crew members that need time to mature in their positions.  It has been more than a year since the HAL restart and the customer service skills of restaurant managers should be well established by now.  It is time to send the poor performers home and promote from within the HAL family. 

 

Two of the best pre-Covid PG Maitre'ds in my memory were my former Nieuw Amsterdam PG waiters.  Their goal was dinner service in one hour and they held their staff to that goal quite well when I encountered them in subsequent cruises.

[jimmy2x]

So, we are booked for a b to b 21 day cruise on Rotterdam next February. The booking (thru a TA) has us listed for anytime dining. If you were us, would you try to get it changed to fixed?

[Wakepatrol]

Why is everyone in such a hurry? There!s nothing to do after dinner anyway