Changes coming in the food and beverage department

This is a bad move IMO, I enjoyed having dedicated restaurant bar servers separate from the food waiters. Each were able to specialize and were more knowledgeable and efficient by sticking to their assigned roles. This allowed for better and more personalized service overall. I would not have wanted some of the food servers offering advice on wine as they were generally clueless in so much as wine knowledge is concerned. I think Seabourn is dumbing down the experience to move closer to a mass market clientele.

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I remember a back to back Quest cruise a few years back that the barista I liked in Seabourn square became my sommelier on the following cruise. There isn’t a whole lot of training obviously......

I remember a back to back Quest cruise a few years back that the barista I liked in Seabourn square became my sommelier on the following cruise. There isn’t a whole lot of training obviously......

Especially when he handed you the premium coffee list at dinner!!!

This is a bad move IMO, I enjoyed having dedicated restaurant bar servers separate from the food waiters. Each were able to specialize and were more knowledgeable and efficient by sticking to their assigned roles. This allowed for better and more personalized service overall. I would not have wanted some of the food servers offering advice on wine as they were generally clueless in so much as wine knowledge is concerned. I think Seabourn is dumbing down the experience to move closer to a mass market clientele.

 

 

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I am on Silver Shadow at the moment and they do something similar to what it seems is proposed by Seabourn. It is actually something I have thought made sense.

The initial included wine was suggested by the a wine staff member. Then during the evening if our food wait staff noted our wine or water needed topping up they would do so, all without having to wait to get the wine staff.

We have had a few premium wines and the Head Sommelier has been very knowledgable and had time to interact regarding wine choices.

Julie

It sounds an excellent idea to me,I’m sure there will not be any shedding of staff.

It does free up the Sommelier to recommend and sell wines from the wine list and not have to waste their time with guests that will only drink the included wines that will be easily explained by the waiting staff.

 

 

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Why would the Sommelier be wasting their time providing a guest with advice on the included wine list (which is not published or readily available)? Isn’t that their job and part of what makes Seabourn a luxury cruise? The average food waiter can not properly explain the different wine options, the type of grape, sugar content etc. To them, white is one choice and red is the other....they know nothing else. A lot of training would need to be done to get them up to speed.

I wish all if these discussions would wait until after the rollout of a new system to see what the actual effect is instead of before when everything is mere conjecture!

If you removed conjecture from CC then there would be very few posts remaining.

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If you removed conjecture from CC then there would be very few posts remaining.

 

 

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But what remained would be worthwhile and useful.

We will also be joining in Cape Town as a last minute vacation. Just booked a couple weeks ago. We were on the Odyssey in November. I will give this a chance as some nights, especially in the Colonnade, the servers were so backed up and the wine servers were not able to help.

Seems like it could flow better and allow as mentioned the sommelier to spend time with the groups who really have specific questions and preferences.

Travelbug,

Please join our little Roll Call for this voyage. Hoping to meet up with our fellow CC cruisers after the boat drill at the Sky Bar!

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This thread began not so long ago. Post number 19 is timely. Going back and reading older threads how so many were stating no fear of HAL influence makes for more fun reading.

Oregon50,

Post 19 was written from Tristan de Cunha about 11 days before the unannounced “peep” I would have expected surprised and appalled us with the Projecf SMART changes to beverage service post Cape Town. Specifically, when a junior MDR waiter offered us a “red of the day” when all of the menu starters would have paired with one of the complimentary whites, I cottoned on that all was not well. I then asked about whites and he showed one chardonnay, with the addition of “it’s the only chardonnay we have”. That did it.

I am terribly disappointed at the poor rollout and worse training the waiter staff endured. With perfect hindsight everyone can see - if they open their eyes - that the project was doomed to confuse staff and guests, and that the “trainers” set themselves to fail. Why they did not roll this out to a small section of the MDR where the guests were preadvised, and why the trainers did not stand by to step in and coach these waiters, I have no idea. But the result speaks for itself.

Yep, as I wrote in post 19, and as you allude, this mess reminds me of HAL standards. Same difference. As a wine waiter on the Eurodam’s MDR offered when I asked him several years ago about the reds in the wine package I had bought at embarkation, “I’ll get you a nice one.” That did not fly for us on that ship and it certainly won’t fly for us on any Seabourn ship.

Happy and healthy sailing!

This is a bad move IMO, I enjoyed having dedicated restaurant bar servers separate from the food waiters. Each were able to specialize and were more knowledgeable and efficient by sticking to their assigned roles. This allowed for better and more personalized service overall. I would not have wanted some of the food servers offering advice on wine as they were generally clueless in so much as wine knowledge is concerned. I think Seabourn is dumbing down the experience to move closer to a mass market clientele.

 

 

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This is what I posted earlier in this thread. I agree with Markham, you don’t need to wait and see how a bad idea is implemented. It was a bad idea to begin with...anyone with some common sense and knowledge of proper restaurant service standards would have foreseen the results. I chuckled at the project name head office gave this “project”, smart it certainly was not! Sounds like the objective was not to improve service, but to save money. Is that really “smart” if you are annoying your best customers?

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When yesterday's best customers realize they are no longer in the target demographic group, but rather part of the expected not to go elsewhere group, the better for all concerned.

Oregon50,

How so? Seems like an odd remark based on peculiar and biased assumptions.

Over to you.

Happy and healthy sailing!

You are correct........an odd remark based upon peculiar and biased assumptions.

I thought the change worked fine, I can't see that it is cost cutting when they have the same amount of staff, just trying to better utilise the staff. The majority of restaurants that we go to have the same people serving both the food and drinks and I'm sure people cruising with Seabourn already know what wines they prefer anyway and they also have the option of trying something different as a recommendation of the day. Obviously it will take a little while to get the staff trained up which is to be expected and on our recent cruise on the Sojourn they had a very nice Sommelier from Head Office on board doing training