Awful State of Ocean View Cafe for dinner

[TMaine]

Is the ice cream bar still open in the evening? 

 

 

[RichYak]

2 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

Wait a minute, this is LLP, isn't it?

Maybe, maybe not. But it is purely a shareholder perspective.

[JeanieC,Aston]

1 hour ago, Spif Barwunkel said:

Whether filled or not, we don't sit by the hole.  

Rather sit in the OVC eating Fish Fingers saying ‘Yeh! This is the fine dining we paid $x000 for.

[flviking]

The dramatic rise is pricing (well above inflation) plus the decrease in value will cause us and surely others to consider alternatives. We live in Floriduh so we easily can cruise to get away, have some good live entertainment and enjoy some good food.  If entertainment is diminished al a NCL and food declines booking a cruise will not be our go to answer. We tried an all inclusive near Cozumel. Nightly multiple entertainment options, seven different dining venues, 24 hour room service including bar service. Drinks included.  Very good staff throughout.  Lower price than a seven day balcony at current prices.  When we want to splurge on a suite Celebrity price increases have brought Oceania and Seabourne into the competition. My point is Celebrity has given us a reason to look at other options.  May not have been the intended consequence.

We board Infinity in less than two weeks.  We'll see how it goes.

[NMTraveller]

7 minutes ago, flviking said:

The dramatic rise is pricing (well above inflation) plus the decrease in value will cause us and surely others to consider alternatives. We live in Floriduh so we easily can cruise to get away, have some good live entertainment and enjoy some good food.  If entertainment is diminished al a NCL and food declines booking a cruise will not be our go to answer. We tried an all inclusive near Cozumel. Nightly multiple entertainment options, seven different dining venues, 24 hour room service including bar service. Drinks included.  Very good staff throughout.  Lower price than a seven day balcony at current prices.  When we want to splurge on a suite Celebrity price increases have brought Oceania and Seabourne into the competition. My point is Celebrity has given us a reason to look at other options.  May not have been the intended consequence.

We board Infinity in less than two weeks.  We'll see how it goes.

Hmmm.  Entertainment...

 

If you want world class entertainment, go to Las Vegas.

 

Cruise ship entertainment is B grade entertainment.  Still entertaining but lacks the WOW factor.

 

I would rather that X cuts the entertainment budget than the food budget.

 

I would pay extra for a headliner for entertainment if X brought one in.

Edited January 16, 2023 by NMTraveller

[NutsAboutGolf]

11 minutes ago, bonagrad said:

Oh, they read these boards.  No doubt about it.  The more vocal people are here, on social media, and providing direct feedback, will cause them to react.  This industry is quick to make changes, but even quicker to react based on bad feedback!

 

Generally, no one at X is paid to read the boards or take action.  All levels of employees do read these boards on their own and occasionally the employee will take action, sometimes that action is passenger-friendly and other times it's cruise line-friendly

[NutsAboutGolf]

4 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

Hmmm.  Entertainment...

 

If you want world class entertainment, go to Las Vegas.

 

Cruise ship entertainment is B grade entertainment.  Still entertaining but lacks the WOW factor.

 

I would rather that X cuts the entertainment budget than the food budget.

 

I would pay extra for a headliner for entertainment if X brought one in.

 

Totally agree and many frequent X cruisers stopped going to shows.  I've been on 7 nights and a 15 nighters, every night but two is in form or another is a musical, one night a comedian and one night is a magician.  RCL/CCL/NCL offer far more varied entertainment

[chamima]

2 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

Generally, no one at X is paid to read the boards or take action.  All levels of employees do read these boards on their own and occasionally the employee will take action, sometimes that action is passenger-friendly and other times it's cruise line-friendly

 

Are you sure about that?

Years ago I posted something positive about a crew member on a Princess cruise we were on and the next day he told me my post was sent to his supervisor from Corporate and printed out and hung in the employee area and he had an extra day off because of it.

So, granted that was a while ago and it was Princess but someone at Corporate was obviously reading the boards.

[bonagrad]

4 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

Generally, no one at X is paid to read the boards or take action.  All levels of employees do read these boards on their own and occasionally the employee will take action, sometimes that action is passenger-friendly and other times it's cruise line-friendly

I'm not so sure.  Companies are much more in tune with things like Reddit, forums, etc.  They can't afford not to be.  My companies does this type of monitoring for companies.

[NMTraveller]

11 minutes ago, bonagrad said:

I'm not so sure.  Companies are much more in tune with things like Reddit, forums, etc.  They can't afford not to be.  My companies does this type of monitoring for companies.

With technology today, companies can "scrape" the web and do sentiment analysis using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.  They can analyze the words that are being used to describe their company.  This is all automated by computers and data scientists.

 

You can tell from this analysis what the strong points of a company are and what the weak points of a company are.  It was very entertaining to do this for the airline companies.  You could use this type of analysis to rank the companies in various categories according to the customers.

Edited January 16, 2023 by NMTraveller

[chamima]

46 minutes ago, LMaxwell said:

Careful.  Posts about buffet have limited shelf life here.  Nearly 50 page thread that correctly called the change was zapped. *someone* didn't like it

 

That thread didn't disappear - it was just locked to new posts.

I think CC has some kind of limit to what it can support in number of posts on each thread. I follow a long time thread on here that they had to ask us to open a new thread because ours had too many posts.

[Spif Barwunkel]

1 hour ago, bonagrad said:

Maybe because you we're extremely judgmental?  Believe you me, I'm 100% comfortable in my logic and as a consumer who has already paid said company in full, I'm going to continue to provide X with my feedback.

And well you should. In my judgement, anyway. By the way, I too provide feedback, positive and negative.

[NutsAboutGolf]

9 minutes ago, chamima said:

 

Are you sure about that?

Years ago I posted something positive about a crew member on a Princess cruise we were on and the next day he told me my post was sent to his supervisor from Corporate and printed out and hung in the employee area and he had an extra day off because of it.

So, granted that was a while ago and it was Princess but someone at Corporate was obviously reading the boards.

 

9 minutes ago, bonagrad said:

I'm not so sure.  Companies are much more in tune with things like Reddit, forums, etc.  They can't afford not to be.  My companies does this type of monitoring for companies.

 

Things can change at any time yet do we have any recent examples of action taken?  95% of people wanted the buffet to continue to be staff-served, that ship has long sailed

[NutsAboutGolf]

2 minutes ago, Spif Barwunkel said:

And well you should. In my judgement, anyway. By the way, I too provide feedback, positive and negative.

 

What negative feedback have you provided?

[Spif Barwunkel]

1 hour ago, TopoChico said:

You’re commenting on what you personally have yet to experience, basing it on a video. Your experience in the past is not relevant to your judgement of people basing it on the present.  You question the morals of others who don’t enjoy or accept mediocrity when we were sold an expectation of quality.  Your logic is shaped like a pretzel. 

Based on your knowledge of my cruising experience you are right, of course. But really, how twisted is that?

[stringbean10]

My hot take: Buffets in general are disgusting. Especially in this time of covid, flu, RSV and norovirus.  People sneezing and breathing on tepid food in warming pans - no thanks. 

 

You can find me at Daniel Boulud's restaurant.  

 

I imagine that the people making these decisions are privy to a lot more information than we are aware of here on these boards.  I imagine they know the numbers of people in and out of their free buffet.  I also imagine they know who eats there and how much that person spends on average per person.  I think they are more than willing to lose (but they probably won't!) these customers in order to shift their focus to a more profitable customer base. 

[chamima]

2 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

 

Things can change at any time yet do we have any recent examples of action taken?  95% of people wanted the buffet to continue to be staff-served, that ship has long sailed

 

That doesn't mean they don't read it - just means they've decided to ignore what they read or that eventually we'll all stop complaining.

OR that eventually they'll rescind.

Remember the pillow chocolates?

[Ipeeinthepools]

1 minute ago, chamima said:

 

That doesn't mean they don't read it - just means they've decided to ignore what they read or that eventually we'll all stop complaining.

OR that eventually they'll rescind.

Remember the pillow chocolates?

 

Or Kobe Beef Burgers

[TeeRick]

28 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

I would rather that X cuts the entertainment budget than the food budget.

 

I second this statement!

[TeeRick]

3 minutes ago, Ipeeinthepools said:

 

Or Kobe Beef Burgers

They were never real Kobe beef.  Just a marketing ploy.

[TeeRick]

46 minutes ago, TMaine said:

Is the ice cream bar still open in the evening? 

 

 

Yeah but probably limited to one scoop of one flavor (vanilla). 

[bonagrad]

17 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

With technology today, companies can "scrape" the web and do sentiment analysis using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.  They can analyze the words that are being used to describe their company.  This is all automated by computers and data scientists.

 

You can tell from this analysis what the strong points of a company are and what the weak points of a company are.  It was very entertaining to do this for the airline companies.  You could use this type of analysis to rank the companies in various categories according to the customers.

Yep, this is exactly what we do.  I'm well versed in these platforms, having used most of the major software.  In my opinion, all companies should be doing this.  You catch onto things so much faster than sitting around waiting for news to come to you.  Allows a company to react, or not react, so much quicker.

[Guest TopoChico]

10 minutes ago, stringbean10 said:

My hot take: Buffets in general are disgusting. Especially in this time of covid, flu, RSV and norovirus.  People sneezing and breathing on tepid food in warming pans - no thanks. 

 

You can find me at Daniel Boulud's restaurant.  

 

I imagine that the people making these decisions are privy to a lot more information than we are aware of here on these boards.  I imagine they know the numbers of people in and out of their free buffet.  I also imagine they know who eats there and how much that person spends on average per person.  I think they are more than willing to lose (but they probably won't!) these customers in order to shift their focus to a more profitable customer base. 

In other words, shield your eyes from the peasants looking for free handouts in the ocean view soup kitchen. 😂

[bonagrad]

22 minutes ago, stringbean10 said:

My hot take: Buffets in general are disgusting. Especially in this time of covid, flu, RSV and norovirus.  People sneezing and breathing on tepid food in warming pans - no thanks. 

 

You can find me at Daniel Boulud's restaurant.  

 

I imagine that the people making these decisions are privy to a lot more information than we are aware of here on these boards.  I imagine they know the numbers of people in and out of their free buffet.  I also imagine they know who eats there and how much that person spends on average per person.  I think they are more than willing to lose (but they probably won't!) these customers in order to shift their focus to a more profitable customer base. 

I'm approaching my late 40s , am a DINK, planning on early retirement in Florida with the intention of cruising a lot more.  We are Elite, due to being Diamond on Royal and planned on cruising X a lot more.  We have potentially decades of cruising ahead of me.  We're about to do 180 on Celebrity and look elsewhere.  Is that a smart business decision to alienate younger generations when they need passengers to fill new, larger ships?

Edited January 16, 2023 by bonagrad

[Guest TopoChico]

1 hour ago, TMaine said:

Is the ice cream bar still open in the evening? 

 

 

There’s always Gelato. Every ship has a Gelateria but I never see anyone actually eat it. Does anyone really want Gelato?  They seem to all have a big area dedicated to it.
I’d like to see a little sushi/tapas area instead.  Princess had/has? that and we loved it.  
 

I remember when they used to have sushi on all the buffets, really good sushi. Now  they have a sushi restaurant.. we paid $340 for four people. I literally got an $18 bowl of Oodles of Noodles soup with “lobster” but they forget to put the lobster meat in, he just swam around in the pot apparently.

Edited January 16, 2023 by TopoChico