which is your favorite free dining venue

[Boston lab girl]

I don't know if this has been started before but I am curious how everybody favors the dining venues. I would like to just do the 5 free dining venues not the specialties

 

mine would be Grande, American Idol, coastal kitchen, chic then silk. Anybody else?

[margeecruiser]

Hey, Boston

 

You hit all my picks right on the head. I'll add Chef's Table and be a happy cruiser!!

 

Margee

[marci22]

Mine would be Coastal Kitchen, Silk, Chic, American Idol, then Grande last, only because it requires formal wear, not because of the men. Menu-wise it would probably be right in the middle.

[silver7]

Mine would be: Silk, American Icon, Grande, Chic.

[London-Calling]

I like the sound of the 'Grande' especially as it's formal.

 

I hope RCL's free options are better than NCL's - they tend to be mediocre.

[pihanettie]

I don't know if this has been started before but I am curious how everybody favors the dining venues. I would like to just do the 5 free dining venues not the specialties

 

mine would be Grande, American Idol, coastal kitchen, chic then silk. Anybody else?

 

I agree. And since I have to dress up I will do Grande twice.

[marci22]

Mine would be Coastal Kitchen, Silk, Chic, American Idol, then Grande last, only because it requires formal wear, not because of the men. Menu-wise it would probably be right in the middle.

 

American Idol lol

[crookedhalo]

I've booked one night in each of the complimentary venues for our eight night trip, leaving the other three nights for WJ and/or specialties (really intrigued by Wonderland;)). But then again, I was booking for 11 people so very glad we were able to book early - Coastal Kitchen only seats 128 people, so large groups will have a hard time being accommodated there:(.

[Boston lab girl]

Thanks for responding I hope I get to be able to get reservations for my choices when ever they finally open up to everyone. Still don't think it's fair some people get to book earlier than others.

[crookedhalo]

Thanks for responding I hope I get to be able to get reservations for my choices when ever they finally open up to everyone. Still don't think it's fair some people get to book earlier than others.

 

I'll be honest with you, I understand what you mean, but given RCCLs IT record, I think they're doing what they need to do to ensure that when they do open it up it's usable. The two CVPs I worked with both struggled with pieces of the platform and were making notes for the software developers while putting in the reservations. I think this will avoid a whole lot of headache in May. JMHO:)

[DEIx15x8]

I'll be honest with you, I understand what you mean, but given RCCLs IT record, I think they're doing what they need to do to ensure that when they do open it up it's usable. The two CVPs I worked with both struggled with pieces of the platform and were making notes for the software developers while putting in the reservations. I think this will avoid a whole lot of headache in May. JMHO:)

 

If this was a test for the IT side of things we may want to worry more about May 15th than we are. From what I've heard the current test is 100% phone only. This means that people are calling in and an employee is entering the information into the system using a management service on their side. A proper test of this side of the process would be to point the dining system against a test reservation system and then have the people answering the phones all have to place a Quantum of the Seas reservation and do dynamic dining reservations for it. I would hope this already occurred as it would be the only way to know if the system truly worked good enough to open to the public for the current test. If they did do this though there should not be that many questions or issues right now. The current test has a major flaw though, it does not test the public app. This app, unlike the phone service, cannot be tested properly internally. Their is no way for Royal Caribbean to test for all the different variables that exist on personal devices without opening it to the public at some level. I would expect that prior to May 15th they will have to do another test with other people to verify the app works. But that leads to the big question of will they do an overall test. A proper test would have all components in place so that they can analyze what percentage of the people use each method and how many struggle so they can have the proper IT resources, IT support, and phone services in place for May 15th and beyond to handle the load.

 

In the end we have not heard about the entertainment system. Perhaps this "Dynamic Dining" system is not a real system. Maybe we will hear about "Dynamic Entertainment" in the next event and instead the booking system will be a "Dynamic Sailing" app that will be tested after the entertainment reveal prior to May 15th. We know a lot, but their are still some things that don't seem right in how they are testing and some elements we still don't know about entirely.

[crookedhalo]

If this was a test for the IT side of things we may want to worry more about May 15th than we are. From what I've heard the current test is 100% phone only. This means that people are calling in and an employee is entering the information into the system using a management service on their side. A proper test of this side of the process would be to point the dining system against a test reservation system and then have the people answering the phones all have to place a Quantum of the Seas reservation and do dynamic dining reservations for it. I would hope this already occurred as it would be the only way to know if the system truly worked good enough to open to the public for the current test. If they did do this though there should not be that many questions or issues right now. The current test has a major flaw though, it does not test the public app. This app, unlike the phone service, cannot be tested properly internally. Their is no way for Royal Caribbean to test for all the different variables that exist on personal devices without opening it to the public at some level. I would expect that prior to May 15th they will have to do another test with other people to verify the app works. But that leads to the big question of will they do an overall test. A proper test would have all components in place so that they can analyze what percentage of the people use each method and how many struggle so they can have the proper IT resources, IT support, and phone services in place for May 15th and beyond to handle the load.

 

In the end we have not heard about the entertainment system. Perhaps this "Dynamic Dining" system is not a real system. Maybe we will hear about "Dynamic Entertainment" in the next event and instead the booking system will be a "Dynamic Sailing" app that will be tested after the entertainment reveal prior to May 15th. We know a lot, but their are still some things that don't seem right in how they are testing and some elements we still don't know about entirely.

 

It sounded to me like they were using the customer facing app but putting the info in as if they were the passenger. They kept mumbling things like 'oh that should look different' or 'that doesn't work' and you could hear them writing stuff down - at least that was my experience with the two CVPs I worked with.

[DEIx15x8]

It sounded to me like they were using the customer facing app but putting the info in as if they were the passenger. They kept mumbling things like 'oh that should look different' or 'that doesn't work' and you could hear them writing stuff down - at least that was my experience with the two CVPs I worked with.

 

That makes a lot more sense then. Hope that is the case.

[nenasmum]

Am I right from reading this that the reservations are done on the phone. How will this work for my cruise- Anthem - a generally US based ship, sailing out of the UK and I am in Australia- help!! Time difference nightmare!!

[sandian]

My choices would be, Costal Kitchen, Grande, Chic and Silk don't really fancy the other one. Would love to try a couple of the speciality's but will see how things work out. Also fancy trying Balcony dining but in 13 nights it'going to be difficult to fit it all in.

[marci22]

Am I right from reading this that the reservations are done on the phone. How will this work for my cruise- Anthem - a generally US based ship, sailing out of the UK and I am in Australia- help!! Time difference nightmare!!

 

They are doing phone bookings in the testing phase. Once that is over you should be able to book online.

[Boston lab girl]

We all know may 15 is going to be a disaster so I do have a suggestion.

They need to stagger the opening. They should only let November sailings do May 15 then maybe two days later do December ect ect. It might take some pressure off the servers. The first time my school registered on line for classes the kids all went on at the same time and the server crashed. Now we staggered them.