Windjammer

[matt1]

Sailing on Anthem of the Seas in 55 days - first time on this class of ship, and first time back on Royal Caribbean since 2012. 
 

At this point I’ve completely resigned myself that the Windjammer, as well as the Solarium Bistro, will both be closed for dinner. Since I don’t frequent the MDR, I’ll be using Sorrento’s and Café 270 (a lot), checking out the room service dinner menu, and have several specialty restaurant reservations. Already have Plans B, C, and D. LOL 
 

I’ll most definitely be missing the Windjmamer for dinner.

 

😎

Edited October 11, 2021 by matt1

[poocher]

No reports of the solarium bistro being closed for dinner that day be seen.  And dinner menus show in the app.  🤷‍♀️

[matt1]

2 minutes ago, poocher said:

No reports of the solarium bistro being closed for dinner that day be seen.  And dinner menus show in the app.  🤷‍♀️

Hmmmm. I do remember reports (?) from somewhere, maybe it was YouTube videos by passengers on the Anthem of the Seas sailings out of the UK, that the Solarium Bistro was closed for dinner? I’ll have to follow more closely as she begins her Bayonne departures to see how things progress. 👍

[KarmaElectra]

I'm on the Oasis next week, and we have dinner reservations for one night at Solarium Bistro. 

[Mikew0805]

Hmmm We are talking breakfast & lunch? On Freedom, Odyssey both times, Symphony, and Mariner there was no reservations, just walk in like normal, scan your card in, wash hands and go get your food. When done, we scanned out. 

 

[kernow]

4 hours ago, matt1 said:

Hmmmm. I do remember reports (?) from somewhere, maybe it was YouTube videos by passengers on the Anthem of the Seas sailings out of the UK, that the Solarium Bistro was closed for dinner? I’ll have to follow more closely as she begins her Bayonne departures to see how things progress. 👍

Solarium Bistro was closed for all meals on Anthem last week.

[cruise*chic]

I am very covid cautious but at the same time I know life has to get back to normal slowly. I was hoping to take a cruise 3 day cruise to test the cruise waters. My plan was to eat from the windjammer every meal and but take my meals to my balcony or find a nice place on deck. Will that be possible? Do you see other people having meals outside or do they make you stay in dining areas?

[taglovestocruise]

On 10/8/2021 at 9:05 PM, BirdTravels said:

The Windjammer is not open for dinner. And for Breakfast and Lunch, 1/2 or less of the buffet line is actually open. There are insufficient passengers to warrant more service than that. With a very limited number of passengers onboard, they also have reduced the crew, so there aren't crew members to open the Windjammer, even if they wanted (especially with the "no self serve" COVID rules still in effect). 

Just saw a video fro Carnaval Magic sailing last week from California. Buffett was fully opened, self serve and the ice cream machine on the upper deck was also self serve. Even though it was very cold and rainy the pools and hot tubs were very full.  Bars were allowing seating at the bar. Masks still required indoors but many were not following the rules. 

[Biker19]

16 hours ago, crzndeb said:

I have heard once capacity reaches 50%, Windjammer will open for dinner. It did this week on Ovation.

Oasis at 52% this week, WJ still closed for dinner.

[Biker19]

dup

Edited October 11, 2021 by Biker19

[BirdTravels]

4 minutes ago, taglovestocruise said:

Just saw a video fro Carnaval Magic sailing last week from California. Buffett was fully opened, self serve and the ice cream machine on the upper deck was also self serve. Even though it was very cold and rainy the pools and hot tubs were very full.  Bars were allowing seating at the bar. Masks still required indoors but many were not following the rules. 

Buffet and ice cream on NCL ships are self serve and no masks are required. The benefit of being on a 100% vaccinated cruise where 100% of the passengers are tested at check-in. 

 

Norwegian Encore Buffet - August 2021

 

 

Edited October 11, 2021 by BirdTravels

[crzndeb]

20 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

Oasis at 52% this week, WJ still closed for dinner.

Bummer. We are over 70% capacity this week, so maybe percent is higher, or they had food in the freezer to get rid of on last cruise….LOL

[poocher]

46 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

Buffet and ice cream on NCL ships are self serve and no masks are required. The benefit of being on a 100% vaccinated cruise where 100% of the passengers are tested at check-in. 

 

Norwegian Encore Buffet - August 2021

 

 

OMG you are making me hungry!!!  I want to eat that entire turkey!!!!

[tserface]

3 hours ago, cruise*chic said:

I am very covid cautious but at the same time I know life has to get back to normal slowly. I was hoping to take a cruise 3 day cruise to test the cruise waters. My plan was to eat from the windjammer every meal and but take my meals to my balcony or find a nice place on deck. Will that be possible? Do you see other people having meals outside or do they make you stay in dining areas?

We are pretty cautious about COVID as well, but we never felt any kind of issue eating in the Windjammer.  On our cruise it was only open for breakfast and lunch (not enough people on the ships yet to have dinner there as well).  We ate there often and they are *very* careful about handling the food.  The food was really good and always served by staff and behind glass.  They won't even let you wait for cooked eggs in the morning because they don't want crowds forming so they bring them to your table after you order them (they give you a number).  The whole cruise seemed very safe.  In fact, we thought we were likely more safe than on land since everyone had recently been tested and most were vaccinated and almost everyone adhered to mask wearing rules.  There were a few people who don't understand about wearing masks and leave their noses sticking out (not sure why they don't get it by now), but the staff were constantly telling them to fix their masks.

We also felt safe in the dining room.  All of the wait staff are wearing masks and we had to wear ours until we got to the table. The tables were reasonably distanced.

We never saw anyone eating outside of dining areas except for maybe a few people eating ice cream cones outside.

[JMKreno]

We just got off the Oasis of the Seas. Attempting to put up a review but life is already in the way..

 

That being said, we RARELY ate in the Windjammer. However, we did eat lunch a few times and we never had reservations. We walked right up and entered through the correct entries (they did have in/out designated), no issues at all. Food was served but little issues getting what we wanted/amount we wanted.  Not having dinner available was a non-issue for us. We ate in the dining room 6/7 nights (one night we had a free specialty dinner from our TA in Giovanni's Table) and had outstanding service and food. No complaints at all! Our servers were so happy to be serving us and did a great job. You can tell they are still learning/getting back up to speed/shaking off rust now and then but nothing terrible. 

 

This was probably the BEST cruise we've ever taken, or at least a VERY close 2nd (hard to beat the 1st!!). IF YOU CAN GO, GO!! We are SO eager to book another one before everything comes back...

 

And as for Covid worry, pretty much non-existent. The airports and planes were MUCH worse than the ship. People generally had masks on all the time where needed (and FYI the masks were a non-issue 99% of the time to the point I often forgot I had them on and wore them in many places I wasn't required to, I was to distracted having fun or doing other things to be bothered). We are Covid paranoid and have been vaccinated since we were able (I even volunteered for weeks to get it much earlier than I would have otherwise), wear masks non-stop, sanitize, social distance, etc. We had no issues and felt pretty safe actually. 

Edited October 11, 2021 by JMKreno

[coaster]

Royal not allowing folks to serve themselves seems to be a good thing over NCL. Hope it sticks. Always hated to see the 'finger lickers' roaming around Windjammer knowing they would touch the serving utensils. Really wanted to confront them when I saw it, but I kept it to myself. Noro is a concern but has been not in the spotlight recently due to the Covid thing.

[matt1]

On 10/11/2021 at 8:52 AM, poocher said:

No reports of the solarium bistro being closed for dinner that day be seen.  And dinner menus show in the app.  🤷‍♀️

I see now in the Cruise Planner for Anthem of the Seas December 5th sailing both the Solarium Bistro and Windjammer are showing as open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with a phone number listed for reservations.

 

🤔

Edited October 12, 2021 by matt1

[Sunshine3601]

On 10/11/2021 at 1:32 PM, kernow said:

Solarium Bistro was closed for all meals on Anthem last week.

Curious what was the passenger count for anthems uk sailing last week?  

If low that may be why the bistro was closed.

[kernow]

6 hours ago, Sunshine3601 said:

Curious what was the passenger count for anthems uk sailing last week?  

If low that may be why the bistro was closed.

It was around 1800, I don't think the bistro has been open all summer, highest numbers have been around 2800 and reported to be around that for 25/10 cruise. This week is over 2000 and neither bistro or Windjammer open.

[cublet]

35 minutes ago, kernow said:

It was around 1800, I don't think the bistro has been open all summer, highest numbers have been around 2800 and reported to be around that for 25/10 cruise. This week is over 2000 and neither bistro or Windjammer open.

Hello,

 

This week, 9th October 6 night sailing:

 

WJ open for breakfast and lunch only. Solarium Bistro open for dinner only.

 

Regards,

 

Cublet.

[kernow]

21 minutes ago, cublet said:

Hello,

 

This week, 9th October 6 night sailing:

 

WJ open for breakfast and lunch only. Solarium Bistro open for dinner only.

 

Regards,

 

Cublet.

Didn't realise they had opened the Solarium Bistro this week, wish it had been a week earlier.

[JMKreno]

The Solarium Bistro was open for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner on the Oasis on our 10/3 cruise.

[cublet]

11 hours ago, kernow said:

Didn't realise they had opened the Solarium Bistro this week, wish it had been a week earlier.

Hello,

 

When I read of the SB's "new and innovational" cuisine, I reach for the pork pie!

 

Regards,

 

Cublet