How do you plan to utilize dynamic dining?

[jillmom2]

If you don't plan to do a lot (if any) for fee dining..how to most of you plan to do DD on your typical 7 day cruise. I think my family is planning to rotate through each of the three restaurants twice...(Iwill be on Oasis)...do each one once and then repeat...leaving one day for specialty or Windjammer but if we decide we didn't like one of the restaurants then we have time to cancel the second round and make other plans...I think it was easier when I just had to show up for dinner and not plan ahead so much...but I hope the new restaurants are a better quality of food...

[cruzin lady]

We don't intend to do DD. We will be sailing on a ship with traditional

dining, or not at all. We don't want a cruise to be a job prior to it!

 

Cruzin Lady

[cb at sea]

We always try to eat all or most meals in the dining room. Breakfast and dinner, for sure. We only do WJ for lunch, if we're at the pool!

[dplusd]

I look forward to DD for the elimination of formal night! Yeah!

[SPacificbound]

I look forward to DD for the elimination of formal night! Yeah!

 

Agree. ;)

 

I eat to live, I don't live to eat, so it is no big deal to me. I think some are making a mountain out of a molehill. It's just food.

[fairweather]

Sounds like a great plan to me. I like the idea of trying new things but don't want to repeat a bad experience twice. Glad you can change reservations easily with your TV.

 

I, too, hope the quality is better with all these new smaller venues instead of getting the usual MDR menu that is cooked and served banquet style. However, I've never really had a bad meal there.

 

More choices doesn't stress me out. It just makes the experience more adventuresome. And there is always the buffet, room service and pizza/Park Cafe/Promanade Cafes.

[GUT2407]

Sounds like a great plan to me. I like the idea of trying new things but don't want to repeat a bad experience twice. Glad you can change reservations easily with your TV.

 

I, too, hope the quality is better with all these new smaller venues instead of getting the usual MDR menu that is cooked and served banquet style. However, I've never really had a bad meal there.

 

More choices doesn't stress me out. It just makes the experience more adventuresome. And there is always the buffet, room service and pizza/Park Cafe/Promanade Cafes.

 

 

Will it be that easy to change reservations? If one or two venues become very popular getting into them could become all but impossible.

[suekay]

We don't intend to do DD. We will be sailing on a ship with traditional

dining, or not at all. We don't want a cruise to be a job prior to it!

 

Cruzin Lady

We booked a cruise with traditional dining only to find it changed to dd after booking[emoji107]

[HiCSailor]

Like you, we plan to do each complementary option twice with one specialty restaurant. My daughter and I are looking forward to Wonderland. My son will do Windjammer or room service that night, not being anything near an adventurous eater. I would also love to do chef's table, but the sticker shock [emoji33] so I will play that one by ear.

 

Also, in the unlikely event I can swing dinner with the captain or other officers, I would jump at the chance, but not sure how this will work on DD ships ( or how it's worked on other ships for that matter)

 

I'm trying to keep an open mind, but the main dining room (with my time dining) was honestly my favorite aspect of my first cruise and DD has been a lot of work so far.

 

Pre-booking dining and entertainment has taken a lot of the spontaneity out of cruising. I liked planning the next day with my family over the freshly printed cruise compass and watching the cruise director's nightly antics to see what was coming, then adjusting dinner time to match our plans. Now I feel my cruise social calendar is fully booked and I'm still nearly a month out.

[3CatsInMA]

I am waiting to hear some "real-time" experiences with DD. I like the concept, but I do not like the idea of having to make reservations months in advance. So you can count me as undecided until we actually see the system in action.

[lilobelle]

How early can we book the DD?

[Paulxyz2004]

Not going to utilize it at all, I will sail a ship that offers a MDR. If a Change of lines is needed for that, so be it.

[John&LaLa]

Plane on booking twice in Grande and American Icon, once in Silk, once at Giovanni and not sure about the other evening. Can't wait for Jan 1

 

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[josumello]

Do you have to prebook or do you have the option of booking once on board? I like the DD concept but don't like having to prebook. Makes it seem too structured.

 

 

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[lacruiser]

I would be surprised if the quality of food is substantially different than that in the MDR for the non-fee restaurants. After all, they are serving 400+ pax. That, in my book, constitutes banquet food.

 

Like others, I'll be interested to hear actual experiences.

[printingchick]

I don't think I'll ever have to deal with this dilemma since I prefer the smaller ships.

[eel]

Do you have to prebook or do you have the option of booking once on board? I like the DD concept but don't like having to prebook. Makes it seem too structured.

 

 

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You don't have to pre-book. But your choices for times and venues may be limited if you don't. I believe you can also just show up for dinner at one of the restaurants without a reservation but you will probably have to wait for a table. There will probably be a way to see the wait times at each restaurant so that would be one way to choose.

[dacsmom]

I love the idea of having so many choices for meals and cannot wait to try a ship with DD. I like the idea of rotating through each one and then repeating a favorite or two.

[1ParticularHbr]

I love the idea of having so many choices for meals and cannot wait to try a ship with DD. I like the idea of rotating through each one and then repeating a favorite or two.

 

I agree completely! We love cruising w/Royal and are excited that they're making changes to keep the cruise experience fresh and new. Best part is, for those who love traditional dining, they'll have plenty of RCI ships where they can enjoy that for the foreseeable future. As for how we'll use DD....I think our problem will be choosing....7 nights doesn't seem like enough :D

[cot427]

I would like to say that I am surprised by the negative responses about DD all across the RCI board, however I'm not. After cruising with passengers who complain so much and dislike change, especially my recent Explorer cruise, I can see it.

 

However for me, I am ecstatic that RCI is finally doing something about their lackluster main dining room experience. When I first started cruising RCI over 10 years ago, the MDR experience was much more pleasant, the food was better, and the service was better. The past couple years have proved that wasn't the case anymore. For those people who would rather not waste your time and book months in advance or hate the idea, simply don't go like many of you said.

 

DD seems like it is a well thought-out dining system that will hopefully bring a higher quality of food and a higher level of service in a smaller venue. The pictures and descriptions of the food on the dynamic dining website look and sound amazing. On the Oasis, I plan on trying each restaurant twice, leaving one night open for a specialty restaurant.

 

I am wondering though how they are going to do breakfast/lunch like in the MDR. My though was that they would just use the American Icon Grille when necessary.

[Desert Cruizers]

I am not apposed to DD, but it will be a couple years before we experience it. I will form my opinion once I see it and since I plan way ahead I don't see a problem making reservations. It just means one more thing to have to plan and reserve for.

[pcur]

I created a document with all the free dining menus, and my husband and I went over it. We decided on our first DD cruise we would pre-book the restaurants we liked for one night each. I think we are passing on the Asian-fusion restaurant.

 

Then, if we like the restauarant, we will book an additional night until we are booked for the whole 7 night cruise. Repeat as necessary for longer cruises.

 

DD is not really a big deal for us, since we like MTD, anyway.

 

However, we would like to settle on a waiter in each restaurant we rebook, if we can. We like having our waiter/assistant waiter know our preferences. That would be the only negative for us, and we can get around that with requesting a certain table at a certain time like we do with MTD.

[DonnaK]

We don't intend to do DD. We will be sailing on a ship with traditional

dining, or not at all. We don't want a cruise to be a job prior to it!

 

Cruzin Lady

 

Same here. We will only book ships that have a main dining room. We do not pay for additional meals when we cruise, and the restaurant concept does not appeal to us at all. We like having the same table and wait team every night, with a rotating menu.

 

(We are doing the 3 day Quantum sailing this month. We booked it before DD was announced, and the only reason we didn't cancel it is that we got an excellent price, and we are doing one night in each of the complementary restaurants excluding the formal one)

[Lionesss]

Waiting to hear how the new suite dining venue is, then we will decide what other dining options we will try......

 

Want to experience them all so hope they are all providing tasty meals.

 

Sea Ya

[hummy0605]

I have only just seen the threads about dynamic dining and need some help/advice please.

We are a party of 8 booked on the allure august 2015. We had late sitting in the main dining room and haven't had any emails from rci about any changes. I am going to log onto my cruises to see what it says.

 

Anyway... Does this mean we won't have the option to use mdr (we have only used mtd once as prefer having the same wait staff).

Are they doing away with formal nights?

Will the dynamic dining mean we can eat in any restaurant each night but will we have to pre book? With being a table for 8 it would probably be advisable though so we don't just turn up and maybe have a wait.

Do you know if there will be a charge for certain or most restaurants for doing this? Would we be able to prebook before we go or just have to do it onboard on the tv?

 

Sorry for all the questions.. I have logged on here today and picked up some conversations so before i tell the rest of our group wanted to get all the facts.

 

Thanks in advance