Dining Review after recent return from 2 sailings

[shirazcruiser]

26 minutes ago, travelberlin said:

Since this is your first cruise, you might want to go for Celebrity if the price is similar.

We just returned from 19 days on Reflection in a suite and the food was as described by RCCL cruisers and we dined in Luminae (plus the MDR menu). We just cancelled all of our 2024 Celebrity cruises.

[bretts173]

2 hours ago, travelberlin said:

Thank you very much for your post. I am very sorry to hear that things are so wrong with Royal dining, especially with my time dining. I wish someone from Royal would read and answer this type of comments. I was very much looking forward to my cruise with the Royal but now I am not so sure.

I know it must be disappointing but remember negative reviews are always the loudest. I have been on 3 royal cruises in the last 6 months and the food has been great on all on them.  I have been in facebook groups for them.and the first couple of reviews are always negative, but then 100's come on disagreeing and saying the opposite. 

[travelberlin]

2 hours ago, shirazcruiser said:

We just returned from 19 days on Reflection in a suite and the food was as described by RCCL cruisers and we dined in Luminae (plus the MDR menu). We just cancelled all of our 2024 Celebrity cruises.

Then maybe is a common problem in all ships of the Royal Caribbean family…It is a pity. Royal Caribbean shall really look at the complains and tell clients that at least there are trying to improve things. I do not believe very much those who come saying how 100% everything was perfect. Those seem to be robots and not real. Nothing is 100% perfect and nothing is 100% bad. But when a cruise critic fellow writes a good description of his or her experience in a way that seems balanced, then I do believe it. 

Edited October 30, 2023 by travelberlin

[printingchick]

The MTD comments are worrying me. We're cruising on a small ship "Enchantment" in February and have MyTime dining. I noticed that MTD times have pushed later, but we made 6:45 reservations nightly. On past cruises, if you utilized MTD and made reservations, they'd assign you to a table. It was like traditional dining, only you sat with your own group and chose the dining time. If we're going to find ourselves standing in long lines, what was the point of even making reservations? We may find ourselves in the WJ more than I'd like to be on our upcoming vacation.

[shirazcruiser]

16 minutes ago, printingchick said:

The MTD comments are worrying me. We're cruising on a small ship "Enchantment" in February and have MyTime dining. I noticed that MTD times have pushed later, but we made 6:45 reservations nightly. On past cruises, if you utilized MTD and made reservations, they'd assign you to a table. It was like traditional dining, only you sat with your own group and chose the dining time. If we're going to find ourselves standing in long lines, what was the point of even making reservations? We may find ourselves in the WJ more than I'd like to be on our upcoming vacation.

Years ago, we dined in MTD on BOS and it was great when they had a portion of the top floor of the MDR carved out; however, my understanding is that MTD now fills empty tables in between the traditional times. I've read that there are very long waiting times even with reservations. So with the waits and the complaints of the MDR food, we purchased the Unlimited Dining Package for our upcoming JOS cruise so we can enjoy ourselves.  It's a pity that RCCL made MTD worse and that we chose to purchase a dining package after we're already paying for meals. 

Edited October 30, 2023 by shirazcruiser

[The Fun Researcher]

37 minutes ago, printingchick said:

The MTD comments are worrying me. We're cruising on a small ship "Enchantment" in February and have MyTime dining. I noticed that MTD times have pushed later, but we made 6:45 reservations nightly. On past cruises, if you utilized MTD and made reservations, they'd assign you to a table. It was like traditional dining, only you sat with your own group and chose the dining time. If we're going to find ourselves standing in long lines, what was the point of even making reservations? We may find ourselves in the WJ more than I'd like to be on our upcoming vacation.

Hopefully with your reservation you'll be fine.  Yes, they ruined the MTD process now (and to a certain extent early seating in the process).  When they carved out a portion of the MDR for MTD, it worked great just as you described.  This new process forces early traditional too early, and makes waiting for MTD a mess.  We've been doing early traditional for the last few cruises due to the screwed up MTD, but have not liked how EARLY early seating is now.  Both options are worse than they used to be.

[printingchick]

1 hour ago, The Fun Researcher said:

Hopefully with your reservation you'll be fine.  Yes, they ruined the MTD process now (and to a certain extent early seating in the process).  When they carved out a portion of the MDR for MTD, it worked great just as you described.  This new process forces early traditional too early, and makes waiting for MTD a mess.  We've been doing early traditional for the last few cruises due to the screwed up MTD, but have not liked how EARLY early seating is now.  Both options are worse than they used to be.

Early seating is TOO early, particularly on port days. And late seating is way too late for me. If I had to choose one or the other, I'd go early. But I shouldn't have to choose one or the other. That was one of the big benefits to MTD. I could CHOOSE the time I wanted to eat. And I didn't mind making reservations because it meant I was always seated with the same dining room staff. This is the first I'm learning about this new method and it sounds absolutely HORRIBLE! So disappointed to hear this. It will really put a damper on our experience. Not just the waiting in line, but being seated with a different crew at a different table each night. What a huge step BACKWARD in customer service!!!

 

[The Fun Researcher]

26 minutes ago, printingchick said:

Early seating is TOO early, particularly on port days. And late seating is way too late for me. If I had to choose one or the other, I'd go early. But I shouldn't have to choose one or the other. That was one of the big benefits to MTD. I could CHOOSE the time I wanted to eat. And I didn't mind making reservations because it meant I was always seated with the same dining room staff. This is the first I'm learning about this new method and it sounds absolutely HORRIBLE! So disappointed to hear this. It will really put a damper on our experience. Not just the waiting in line, but being seated with a different crew at a different table each night. What a huge step BACKWARD in customer service!!!

 

Took the words right out of my mouth.

[travelberlin]

How about lunch on sea days? It is better to go to the MDR than to the WJ? Does everybody who wish to have lunch on the MDR get a seat? Are they still offering the salad buffet on the MDR?

[Biker19]

2 hours ago, travelberlin said:

Does everybody who wish to have lunch on the MDR get a seat?
Are they still offering the salad buffet on the MDR?

Yes. 
No. 

[The Fun Researcher]

2 hours ago, travelberlin said:

How about lunch on sea days? It is better to go to the MDR than to the WJ? Does everybody who wish to have lunch on the MDR get a seat? Are they still offering the salad buffet on the MDR?

Kind of depends on what you’re looking for.  If you want the quiet, slower paced, served meal then the MDR for lunch is great.  If you want broad variety, quickly, the buffet is great for that.

[LobsterStalker]

7 hours ago, shirazcruiser said:

Years ago, we dined in MTD on BOS and it was great when they had a portion of the top floor of the MDR carved out; however, my understanding is that MTD now fills empty tables in between the traditional times. I've read that there are very long waiting times even with reservations. So with the waits and the complaints of the MDR food, we purchased the Unlimited Dining Package for our upcoming JOS cruise so we can enjoy ourselves.  It's a pity that RCCL made MTD worse and that we chose to purchase a dining package after we're already paying for meals. 

... And maybe this example is the reason they are not rushing to fix it . Seems to be a lot of factors pushing cruisers away from traditional and straight over to Specialty !

 

Cheers

[HappyTexan44]

3 minutes ago, LobsterStalker said:

... And maybe this example is the reason they are not rushing to fix it . Seems to be a lot of factors pushing cruisers away from traditional and straight over to Specialty !

 

Cheers

 

And the WJ must be cheaper for them.   So people skipping the MDR in favor or WJ and/or Specialty seems like Win/Win for Royal.  

 

 

 

 

 

[sgmn]

12 hours ago, printingchick said:

 This is the first I'm learning about this new method and it sounds absolutely HORRIBLE! So disappointed to hear this. It will really put a damper on our experience. Not just the waiting in line, but being seated with a different crew at a different table each night. What a huge step BACKWARD in customer service!!!

 

On Serenade in Sept we booked MTD on the planner nearest we could get to 7pm, sometimes it was 7.30 or 7.45.  We had a four top (just us though) with great waiters and asst waiters. They said we could have the same table each night. No waiting, except 3-5 min the first night .

[Harrisonkid]

Thanks...I found many of the same issues on our last cruise too