Dynamic Dining "Green Light" Process

[DEIx15x8]

If you've been calling Royal Caribbean's Dynamic Dining line nearly daily since it opened on the 12th like I have you've probably heard someone mention waiting for the "green light". It's a term that seems to have been given out in some official form as I've heard it repeatedly from multiple people now all in the contexts of still having issues with the system and not being able to do much until they receive the green light that everything is working.

 

The other day I got transferred to someone higher up who had an hour long discussion on what it means and what their process is going to be. Apparently they were officially told to expect it by the end of last week but it never happened. Their was a major upgrade that took the system down Monday night at 8:30 pm EST to 9am EST tuesday morning that fixed some of the issues but the system still has many more. They are now hoping to receive the green light by the middle of next week. Once they are given the green light by IT the entire site should be functioning properly without any bugs. The a select group of agents (sounds like it kept growing to encompass most of the original Dynamic Dining agents) has been taken off the phones to sort through all of the reported issues and build cases. Upon receiving the green light they will begin contacting every person that has had an issue in order to correct them. They have access to a history of every single dining time that you have ever booked. He even went through and listed each of the past times and changes I made so they do have them all. The agent will work to get you back to which ever reservation is correct. I asked for more detail on this and he said that they will work for any time that you had already booked. So if you have a reservation that got messed up and you worked to try to get back to your time it doesn't matter, you can still ask for that original time back. Unfortunately though I did ask about a reservation I made on the 12th that seemed to disappear when I later checked for it and he had no record of it. When I asked him about that and the many times I have called about a time that was available only for the system to say it couldn't be booked because of various issues he said that they would not be able to grant those but RCCL hasn't finalized what they are supposed to do to handle situations like that so a procedure may be coming for that.

 

In my reservation I have many duplicate bookings and I asked him about that issue. He said that it was not limited to me, it was not even a small group, it was an extremely wide spread issue. He couldn't say for sure what kinds of times may be opening up but said to expect availability to slowly start opening up as they go through this process of correcting all the issues and remove all the duplicates.

 

Unfortunately though I did ask about if i should just sit back and wait to be contacted so that they can get me the times I want changed or keep on calling hoping for a change and he was hesitant to answer but recommend continuing what I'm doing. So if you are dealing with issues, reservations that changes, or anything else it sounds like you can just sit back and wait for them to contact you and they'll put them back. If like me you want to improve times though you're best bet is to still keep calling and slowly make improvements.

 

On a side note I asked about the payment box and tab disappearing from my profile for both Quantum sailings but not my future Jewel sailing. He compared them and said that when they redid the site in the fall they changed the categories for cabins and my Jewel has those but the Quantum doesn't. The payment system doesn't know how to handle that. I said that it didn't disappear until the 16th and he said it could have slipped through the cracks in the fall and the Dynamic Dining updates brought the issue out. For this issue he once again said to wait it out and hope that when they receive the green light everything will be resolved, other wise the process to correct it is to rebook the cruise which loses all of the pre cruise planner data including dynamic dining reservations which obviously is not a viable solution. I'm not sure how many other people have this issue, but they are now aware of it and will be working on some kind of solution but have no timeline on it. While the payment section was down I asked for a copy to be emailed. I found out that they switched me to prepaid gratuities. I called and questioned them doing it without notifying me. They looked and said it shouldn't have happened, the system refused to allowed the changed, but they got an override and put it back. Official policy is that you can do prepaid or pay by day gratuities with Dynamic Dining but IT messed up when they switched all of the reservations to Dynamic Dining.

 

If anyone else learns anything about the resolution process please add it. Their are a lot of threads discussing issues, but not many discussing how things will be taken care of.

[rjrpar]

If you've been calling Royal Caribbean's Dynamic Dining line nearly daily since it opened on the 12th like I have you've probably heard someone mention waiting for the "green light". It's a term that seems to have been given out in some official form as I've heard it repeatedly from multiple people now all in the contexts of still having issues with the system and not being able to do much until they receive the green light that everything is working.

 

The other day I got transferred to someone higher up who had an hour long discussion on what it means and what their process is going to be. Apparently they were officially told to expect it by the end of last week but it never happened. Their was a major upgrade that took the system down Monday night at 8:30 pm EST to 9am EST tuesday morning that fixed some of the issues but the system still has many more. They are now hoping to receive the green light by the middle of next week. Once they are given the green light by IT the entire site should be functioning properly without any bugs. The a select group of agents (sounds like it kept growing to encompass most of the original Dynamic Dining agents) has been taken off the phones to sort through all of the reported issues and build cases. Upon receiving the green light they will begin contacting every person that has had an issue in order to correct them. They have access to a history of every single dining time that you have ever booked. He even went through and listed each of the past times and changes I made so they do have them all. The agent will work to get you back to which ever reservation is correct. I asked for more detail on this and he said that they will work for any time that you had already booked. So if you have a reservation that got messed up and you worked to try to get back to your time it doesn't matter, you can still ask for that original time back. Unfortunately though I did ask about a reservation I made on the 12th that seemed to disappear when I later checked for it and he had no record of it. When I asked him about that and the many times I have called about a time that was available only for the system to say it couldn't be booked because of various issues he said that they would not be able to grant those but RCCL hasn't finalized what they are supposed to do to handle situations like that so a procedure may be coming for that.

 

In my reservation I have many duplicate bookings and I asked him about that issue. He said that it was not limited to me, it was not even a small group, it was an extremely wide spread issue. He couldn't say for sure what kinds of times may be opening up but said to expect availability to slowly start opening up as they go through this process of correcting all the issues and remove all the duplicates.

 

Unfortunately though I did ask about if i should just sit back and wait to be contacted so that they can get me the times I want changed or keep on calling hoping for a change and he was hesitant to answer but recommend continuing what I'm doing. So if you are dealing with issues, reservations that changes, or anything else it sounds like you can just sit back and wait for them to contact you and they'll put them back. If like me you want to improve times though you're best bet is to still keep calling and slowly make improvements.

 

On a side note I asked about the payment box and tab disappearing from my profile for both Quantum sailings but not my future Jewel sailing. He compared them and said that when they redid the site in the fall they changed the categories for cabins and my Jewel has those but the Quantum doesn't. The payment system doesn't know how to handle that. I said that it didn't disappear until the 16th and he said it could have slipped through the cracks in the fall and the Dynamic Dining updates brought the issue out. For this issue he once again said to wait it out and hope that when they receive the green light everything will be resolved, other wise the process to correct it is to rebook the cruise which loses all of the pre cruise planner data including dynamic dining reservations which obviously is not a viable solution. I'm not sure how many other people have this issue, but they are now aware of it and will be working on some kind of solution but have no timeline on it. While the payment section was down I asked for a copy to be emailed. I found out that they switched me to prepaid gratuities. I called and questioned them doing it without notifying me. They looked and said it shouldn't have happened, the system refused to allowed the changed, but they got an override and put it back. Official policy is that you can do prepaid or pay by day gratuities with Dynamic Dining but IT messed up when they switched all of the reservations to Dynamic Dining.

 

If anyone else learns anything about the resolution process please add it. Their are a lot of threads discussing issues, but not many discussing how things will be taken care of.

 

Thanks for the info. There is no excuse to release a system for general use until it has been thoroughly tested and is in what they call "green light" condition. Makes one wonder how effective RCCL management really is on all other business issues.

[Steeler Nation At Sea]

Regarding the payment box disappearing, I have that issue and it's unrelated to DD. Changed cabins on Splendour on B2b. Was told by a C&A rep to remove the cruise from My Cruises. No way that I can see to do that. Opened a ticket and just got the same response. I must remove then add with myself as owner. Again, I see no way to do this. I'm booked solo.....I wonder who they think "owns" the reservation? Maybe that owner will be so kind as to make my final payments!

 

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[DEIx15x8]

Regarding the payment box disappearing, I have that issue and it's unrelated to DD. Changed cabins on Splendour on B2b. Was told by a C&A rep to remove the cruise from My Cruises. No way that I can see to do that. Opened a ticket and just got the same response. I must remove then add with myself as owner. Again, I see no way to do this. I'm booked solo.....I wonder who they think "owns" the reservation? Maybe that owner will be so kind as to make my final payments!

 

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On both of my reservations though the rep was able to confirm that I am the owner. The only difference between the two Quantum sailings and Jewel sailing was related to the cabin codes used since Jewel was booked after the fall site upgrade that changed them all. If they say it is an owner issue for you try calling back. It sounded like the person I originally talked to believed that at first until he confirmed it wasn't. If it was he said he was going to correct it so maybe a different rep will be able to do more for you.

Edited June 9, 2014 by DEIx15x8

[Steeler Nation At Sea]

The second set of instructions came by email. Of course, I'll have to call eventually, if for no other reason, than to make final payment by phone. I can live without the payment button.. It's just annoying that it happened and the instructions provided to fix it twice now, don't appear to be valid as there is no option to remove it yet that's what they are telling me to do.

 

On the plus side, no issues at all with DD res on my Quantum sailing.

 

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Edited June 9, 2014 by Steeler Nation At Sea

[mommomporkchop]

The second set of instructions came by email. Of course, I'll have to call eventually, if for no other reason, than to make final payment by phone. I can live without the payment button.. It's just annoying that it happened and the instructions provided to fix it twice now, don't appear to be valid as there is no option to remove it yet that's what they are telling me to do.

 

On the plus side, no issues at all with DD res on my Quantum sailing.

 

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

 

I had the same issue with the payment tab disappearing on my Quantum reservation. I booked it last year when the reservations opened, all was fine until one day, poof, the payment tab was gone. This happened back in February. I was told about 6 different reasons why it happened, but it was always going to be fixed within 24 hours. Never happened. During one call with a rep I was told that "yes, we can certainly fix it, but we would have to "recode" it and the price would go up". I thought he was kidding, but, nope, I would have to pay more for a cruise I bought almost a year before so it could be fixed.

 

That statement just boiled my blood, so off went an email to Mr. Goldstein. Three days later I got a call from the executive office and the process to fix it began. I ended up on the phone with a very nice lady from the IT group who talked to me the entire time she was correcting the issue. She did have to cancel and rebook all my DD reservations, but I was able to keep the times I had.

[AntiCat]

It looks like the pre cruise planer is offline. Does any one know if they are making the update now?

[DEIx15x8]

It looks like the pre cruise planer is offline. Does any one know if they are making the update now?

It disappeared from my reservations yesterday. When I called about a separate issue (IT deleted the wrong booking) I mentioned that it was not their. They were not aware of the system being down and it was not down on their end. They then checked around and no one was informed of it being down so they notified IT of it. She then went on to fix another issue and the entire royal caribbean system (The entire main reservation and profile system, not just the DD component) crashed so she had to end the call. It's still not showing today, no idea when it will be back but if it's up on their end they aren't doing any kind of upgrade.

[AntiCat]

It disappeared from my reservations yesterday.

 

Thank you for the feedback.

[suzyluvs2cruise]

It looks like the pre cruise planer is offline. Does any one know if they are making the update now?

 

This worked for me.......go to My Cruises and click on the reservation number. Across the top there are several TABS, click on the Cruise Planner tab and then the yellow "Get Started". You should now be in the Cruise Planner for

your reservation.

 

Why do they make it so complicated.........:(

Edited June 14, 2014 by suzyluvs2cruise