Unlimited Dining Package

[Ken at the beach]

37 minutes ago, Baggies58 said:

Also, am I correct in saying that at any time, if we just wanted an entree early, we could go back later for desert or something light. Am I also reading it right, that we can even change venue on the same night ??

That is always subject to space being available.  Personally I wouldn’t do the UDP on a smaller ship that has few specialty dining options. Since it’s your first cruise why not look at a 3 night dining package to compliment the MDR. 

[Baggies58]

4 hours ago, Ourusualbeach said:

That is always subject to space being available.  Personally I wouldn’t do the UDP on a smaller ship that has few specialty dining options. Since it’s your first cruise why not look at a 3 night dining package to compliment the MDR. 

Thank you Ourusualbeach for taking the time to read my post and reply.

We actually did look at the 3 night dining package but for less than double the price, you got the 4 extra nights and lunch on sea days so looked better value.

[Tulsacoker]

8 minutes ago, Baggies58 said:

Thank you Ourusualbeach for taking the time to read my post and reply.

We actually did look at the 3 night dining package but for less than double the price, you got the 4 extra nights and lunch on sea days so looked better value.

definitely a better value.... around $22 per meal. We have done unlimited on Oasis and Liberty, as Ourusualbeach said, bigger ships have more choices but I still love having it on smaller ships 

[Anita Latte]

On 3/3/2020 at 12:23 PM, MICruser said:

If I purchased the package online before the cruise, can anyone confirm it includes tipping?  Also, is it true that we can order seconds if desired at any of the specialty restaurants we go to?  

 

On 3/3/2020 at 1:05 PM, MICruser said:

For those that have purchased it in the past, what was your experience?  We are cruising on Oasis.

 

I purchased the UDP for the first time for our recent Feb Harmony cruise. The going price seemed to be $199 pp, but it dropped down to $175 pp a couple times, and after not grabbing it the first time it dropped, I decided to snag it the second time I saw it drop. This was a 7-night sailing. My main concern with purchasing the UDP was feeling obligated to eat in specialty restaurants at every opportunity in order to break even, but I quickly calculated (with Harmony having Wonderland, especially) that we didn't have to eat UDP for every meal and would easily hit that break even point and then some with the places I wanted to try.

 

I was also concerned with the process of having to book my reservations on board, the wording that says "subject to availability" and if I would be able to get what I wanted when I wanted it.

 

After boarding Harmony, hitting Starbucks (because the morning was crazy and we didn't have time to even have coffee let alone eat breakfast), and enjoying our lattes with an ocean view on one of the wings of Deck 7 aft (the caffeine need being more pressing than food)...we decided to head toward Jaime's for lunch, because my parents had been able to eat at Jaime's for lunch on Harmony the previous June or July. On the way, we passed 150 Central where a server was standing outside the open doors with a menu, encouraging business there. I knew I wanted to eat dinner there so it made sense to me to stop and talk and get a reservation.

 

I ended up working with Alex there, who seemed to be the one in charge of things at 150 Central and he helped me make all my dinner reservations for the week. We had show reservations for embarkation night and so based on the show time, we ended up with a 6:45 PM dinner reservation...and we were able to make that our dinner time for the whole week. There was one night where we had wanted to go to Chops, but 6:45 was unavailable, so we ended up going to Jaime's before Chops, but that was literally the only "trouble" I had getting what I wanted.

 

I didn't make any lunch reservations.

 

We then headed over to Jaime's for lunch, but were informed that Jaime's and Chops were not available for the UDP on embarkation day, however, we could go to Sabor or Johnny Rockets. So we headed back out to the Boardwalk and ate at Sabor which ended up being a wonderful atmosphere and really good tacos and guac.

 

We used the wine bottle discount several times because we did not get a beverage package. When we could, we also used our BOGO drink coupons to test out an unfamiliar bottle of wine. Getting the wine bottles, we were told that the wine could be sent to the place of our next dinner reservation, but our plan was to bring the bottles with us to our evening shows, which we typically made reservations for in the after 8-9 PM hours. So we took our wine bottle into Grease, with empty glasses given to us by 150 Central, poured a glass upon arrival while waiting for the show to begin, and poured a second glass about half way through.

 

It worked so well, we did the same thing for the Aquatheater later in the week.

 

If we felt that we had received exceptional service, we left additional tip...however, we did not always leave additional. When you are given the receipt to close out the evening, the line items are Gross Sales; Discount; Subtotal; Tax; Service Charge; Cover Charge; Additional Tip; Total, which lead me to believe that the service charge functioned as the automatic gratuity that is always talked about (the 18%), which was always 0% for the dinner bill and appropriately 18% for any wine purchased.

 

I wanted to be hungry for dinner (as much as is possible on a cruise) and didn't want lunches to be a big deal, so we generally ate at one of the complementary lunch places for lunch with two exceptions...embarkation day at Sabor and our San Juan port day lunch at Sabor. Sabor (and Johnny Rockets IIRC) opened for lunch at 1:00 PM on port days. We ate twice in the buffet (the made to order woks in the back were so satisfying), once in Solarium Bistro, once takeaway from Park Cafe to our CP balcony, and once at CocoCay.

 

Using the UDP, we ate at:

 

Wonderland ($55 cruise planner price)

Chops 2X ($50)

150 Central 3X ($45)

Jaime's ($46)

Sabor 2X ($22)

 

For a total cruise planner price of $380 (based on the prices for my cruise planner on the days I was looking at them LOL). All meals being equal, we paid an average of $22.11 pp per meal. Had we eaten at specialty lunches for our 3 Sea Days, we could have reduced that average pp per meal to as little as $16.58.

 

An example of our experience is summed up with our first night in 150 Central where, DH and I each ordered the same appetizer that was one of the two most recommended by our server. He ALSO brought out the other recommended appetizer for DH and I to "share". DH and I each ordered one of the two most recommended entrees. Our server ALSO brought out the other one for us to "share". When it became obvious that we didn't care for our entrees, and were MEH about the shared entree, he brought us out a FOURTH entree, so that we could have a taste of something that was really good and not be unhappy with our meal.

 

For my meals, I want good food, but I don't need variety...and what I appreciate almost as much as good food is good atmosphere. I much prefer the smaller dining venues to the banquet hall MDR. I enjoy the attention to creating unique ambience in each venue and how some specialties can be quieter with a less hectic atmosphere.

 

I found great value in the UDP on Harmony because there are so many different specialty restaurants to choose from and it was a blessing to reduce the magnitude of the Oasis class ship to the capacity of the specialty dining restaurant, which was often not full to capacity. The price that I snagged also let me feel comfortable in checking out all the complementary options for lunch and opting to pick one of those when it felt like more fun to just eat on our balcony for lunch OR go get one of those woks for lunch.

 

I had sailed Allure previously (but only went to Chops and Jaime's one time each) and DH had never been on Oasis class. I debated the UDP because there are so many complementary dining options and ultimately decided FOR the UDP because there are so many specialty dining options. We had a fun week of food, eating breakfast in every available complementary dining venue while repeating only once, eating a variety of lunch and a variety of dinner such that no two days were exactly same on our vacation. Super fun.

[crusingcouple]

14 hours ago, rsuther223 said:

Does anyone know what is on the children's menu? Thanks.

We are just off Harmony.  The kids menus at most restaurants are burgers/chicken strips/ect.  Occasionally there is an item or two that is more "themed" (they had a simple pasta with red sauce at Jamie's).  

We have a 10 year old who is a foodie.  We were told by several people that it would be a $10 surcharge if our kiddo wanted something off the actual menu.  All restaurants except 150 CP did this.  Unfortunately we dined at 150 CP the first night and it was a bit of a disaster getting everything sorted out!  Most restaurants didn't even charge us the extra $10 for him so we just added it onto what we were already leaving for an extra tip 🙂

Edited March 4, 2020 by crusingcouple
Spelling error

[rsuther223]

Thank you Cruisingcouple. 

[DCL2RCI]

2 hours ago, crusingcouple said:

We are just off Harmony.  The kids menus at most restaurants are burgers/chicken strips/ect.  Occasionally there is an item or two that is more "themed" (they had a simple pasta with red sauce at Jamie's).  

We have a 10 year old who is a foodie.  We were told by several people that it would be a $10 surcharge if our kiddo wanted something off the actual menu.  All restaurants except 150 CP did this.  Unfortunately we dined at 150 CP the first night and it was a bit of a disaster getting everything sorted out!  Most restaurants didn't even charge us the extra $10 for him so we just added it onto what we were already leaving for an extra tip 🙂

I guess I've been misinterpreting the fine print - I read it as a $10 charge for kids to eat there from the kid's menu (ages 6-12), full adult charge if they wanted to order from the real menu. Our kids would want to order from the real menu (my son in particular hasn't ordered from a kid's menu in at least two years).

I actually discarded the idea of the UDP on that basis as it seemed too expensive.

Here's part of the many self-contradicting paragraphs of fine print: 

Children between the ages of 0-5 are complimentary and ages 6-12 are $10 per child; children must order from the kids menu.

[crusingcouple]

10 minutes ago, DCL2RCI said:

I guess I've been misinterpreting the fine print - I read it as a $10 charge for kids to eat there from the kid's menu (ages 6-12), full adult charge if they wanted to order from the real menu. Our kids would want to order from the real menu (my son in particular hasn't ordered from a kid's menu in at least two years).

I actually discarded the idea of the UDP on that basis as it seemed too expensive.

Here's part of the many self-contradicting paragraphs of fine print: 

 

 

 

It's pretty confusing!  I would not pay $10 for them to eat a burger they can get anywhere else on the ship for free!  We would have happily bought him a UDP but were told by several before going that we did not need to.  They also told us that there would be similar options on the kids menu, just smaller portions.

 

The person at Guest Services explained that with any of the venues, it's as many apps/entrees/desserts you want so they charge the $10 and assume parents will just order the extras when they order.  Why make my kid order chicken strips he's not going to eat?!  

Wonderland, Jamie's, and Sabor didn't even charge us.  They just brought everything out family style and it was really a non-issue.

150 Central Park made us pay full price (we purchased a 3-night dining package thinking it would be an issue all week).  But then, they put the package under my husband (he and I had UDP) and still charged us the $10 kids surcharge which is when we started asking questions.  Ironically, they brought us 2 extra entrees to try, which we took only a couple bites of.

They ended up reversing the dining package and just charged the surcharge in the end, but it was a bit annoying to get it sorted out, resulting in several trips to guest services.  We did not eat at Chops but were planning to just have him order off the kids menu and getting things to share there as well, figuring it would be the other dining option where we might run into issues.

I would not write off the UDP/specialty restaurants, but I would probably avoid 150 Central Park or plan to order extra entrees your kiddos would enjoy!