Is Club Class Worth the Extra Cost

[MissP22]

51 minutes ago, caribill said:

 

Likely since Princess cannot control the sped at which people finish their dinner.

 

For example, this quote from another thread: "Waiter and drink service was good, we sat at our table for over 2 hours but that was our choice and drinks were being offered regularly."

 

Anyone who had "reserved" that table would have had to wait or dine at a different table.

That's exactly why I can't understand their new system is expected to work. How can it be possible to take reservations for a specific time  when you'll never know what the available seating capacity will be at that specific time - No less promising a specific table and waiter. 

Some group dreamed up this idea at headquarters thinking it sounded good on paper and now the DR crew has to try and make it work. 😄 

I know that at 5 PM my seat will be empty until I arrive. 

[Grislap]

On 6/11/2022 at 6:12 AM, wowzz said:

Every table in Club Class dining had a plain white tablecloth on our cruise a couple of weeks ago.

Yes, this also was our experience on the Royal just over a week ago. We stayed in a suite and ate in the Club Class section of the Concerto dining room. All the tables had a white tablecloth and gray napkins with stitched "CC" lettering.

To the point of the OP: This was our first Club Class experience and we loved it. We eat early, typically around 5 p.m., and usually were the only ones there for a while. Never felt crowded or hurried. We got spoiled and intend to do Club Class from now on. Plus, being in a suite (again, first time), we had breakfast at Sabatini's each morning which was wonderful and again uncrowded. Add in the other suite benefits and I think we're pretty much ruined for life. We may travel less because of it, but it will be more relaxing when we do it.

[Grislap]

3 hours ago, MissP22 said:

That's exactly why I can't understand their new system is expected to work. How can it be possible to take reservations for a specific time  when you'll never know what the available seating capacity will be at that specific time - No less promising a specific table and waiter. 

Some group dreamed up this idea at headquarters thinking it sounded good on paper and now the DR crew has to try and make it work. 😄 

I know that at 5 PM my seat will be empty until I arrive. 

We like to eat at 5 p.m. at home, and that turned out to be perfect on the Royal just over a week ago. Granted, we were in Club Class, too, but we were always the first ones there and often were there a while before anyone else entered.

[MissP22]

3 minutes ago, Grislap said:

We like to eat at 5 p.m. at home, and that turned out to be perfect on the Royal just over a week ago. Granted, we were in Club Class, too, but we were always the first ones there and often were there a while before anyone else entered.

We always eat at 5 PM regular dining so we've never had a need to spend the extra on CC. Eating early only provides that extra dish or dessert. (and special tablecloth) 

[wowzz]

11 hours ago, MissP22 said:

On the Enchanted in March once aboard we had 5 PM reservations

But only a few people want to eat dinner in the afternoon,  which is why you got your table. 

[rbtan]

On 6/11/2022 at 4:58 PM, tetleytea said:

I would escalate that to guest services and management if I had to.  If I got a full suite and put up a silver tablecloth, I'd be like, man, I want my gold tablecloth.  I don't care if you have to pull it out of a closet, give me my doggone gold tablecloth. 

Actually, they sat us at a "gold" table one night, as they knew a suite pax had booked a specialty rest. Boy did we feel special(yeah like the church lady "Aren't you special)

Edited June 13, 2022 by rbtan
spelling

[Thrak]

We just sailed on Royal and sailed with a couple of cruising friends from Canada. They asked if I could make the dining reservations as the app was working fine on my phone and I'm more "techy" than they are. They like to eat early so I made reservations for 5:40 PM every night. Other than the first night we had the same table and waitstaff every night. We just showed up and were escorted to our table. If one or the other couple showed up first we were seated and when the other couple arrived they were escorted to the table. It was a lot like MDR used to be. I was quite relived that it worked so well.

 

We make our own dining times. We don't have to get up early for work and we normally go to bed around midnight. I often don't eat anything at all until 11:00 AM or even noon and then it is often just a bagel. We tend to eat dinner when and if we get around to it. Sometimes we just grab whatever we feel like when we feel like it. Other times we cook a meal. (Tonight it will be a roast chicken as we went to Costco a short while ago.)

 

We used to do the "slightly later but not late" dining time on Princess. Then they started giving us the 5:00 PM time and it was just too early so we switched to anytime dining. Now we like to eat fairly early so we have a choice of evening activities. We often go to the show in the theater but also enjoy trivia or Liar's Club or activities of that sort. Eating late seemed to make it so we were always missing half of the things we wanted to do. If we eat early we have a full gamut of choices and, if we don't really have something that strikes our fancy, we can always have drinks and catch some music.

 

I'm personally happy that there is such a wide variety of times that people like to eat. It makes things much less crazy than if everybody wanted to eat at the same time. If they hadn't gone to DMW we would have simply stuck with Anytime Dining but that may not work as well as it used to. In our case we ate at 5:40 PM on our recent cruise because it worked well with the wishes of our friends and caused us no hardship. We had excellent service and the food, while not fabulous, was quite good and we didn't have to cook it or clean up afterward.

 

It's always a hard to come home and realize you have to make your own coffee, cook your own meals, clean up your own mess, make your own bed, and nobody serves you drinks! The horror!!! (I love to be spoiled when cruising.)

 

In the spirit of the original question of this thread: I think we would love Club Class dining but we won't even spring for a regular mini suit let alone a Club Class mini or a full suite.

Edited June 13, 2022 by Thrak

[MissP22]

16 hours ago, wowzz said:

But only a few people want to eat dinner in the afternoon,  which is why you got your table. 

I think so but there's still a crowd waiting to get in at 5 PM. Maybe they're getting there early just to avoid the rush that builds up just a little later?

They could just show up at 5 PM, get a table in the DR, have a leisurely drink and order dinner 45 minutes later while the line builds up at the door? If they had their drink at a bar the queue would already be formed. 

[tetleytea]

We are having no crowd on the Caribbean at 5 pm.  Especially if you're willing to share a table. 

[Tedferg]

15 hours ago, Thrak said:

In the spirit of the original question of this thread: I think we would love Club Class dining but we won't even spring for a regular mini suit let alone a Club Class mini or a full suite.

My sentiment too, so comparing Club Class with regular balcony is expensive for a small benefit. How about adding club class dining to Premiere package instead of Specialty dining. That might make Premiere attractive to all passengers regardless of cabin type.

[wowzz]

11 minutes ago, Tedferg said:

My sentiment too, so comparing Club Class with regular balcony is expensive for a small benefit. How about adding club class dining to Premiere package instead of Specialty dining. That might make Premiere attractive to all passengers regardless of cabin type.

I think the problem with that is the numbers would be too great, and the walk in aspect and personal service feel would be lost.

[Tedferg]

4 minutes ago, wowzz said:

I think the problem with that is the numbers would be too great, and the walk in aspect and personal service feel would be lost.

Good point, did not think of that.

[memoak]

17 minutes ago, Tedferg said:

My sentiment too, so comparing Club Class with regular balcony is expensive for a small benefit. How about adding club class dining to Premiere package instead of Specialty dining. That might make Premiere attractive to all passengers regardless of cabin type.

If you did that you would have to expand the area quite a bit to ensure that there would be minimal waits and the splendid service

[1emerald1]

Does anyone remember the Sitmar days when first seating was at 6:15, the service was splendid with sommeliers, true assistant waiters, leisurely service with time to chat with the servers, amazing food, table side food preparation by the head waiter and you were still able to make it to the 8:00 show?

 

Maybe someday when the ships are fully staffed club class might resemble those days.

[memoak]

47 minutes ago, 1emerald1 said:

Does anyone remember the Sitmar days when first seating was at 6:15, the service was splendid with sommeliers, true assistant waiters, leisurely service with time to chat with the servers, amazing food, table side food preparation by the head waiter and you were still able to make it to the 8:00 show?

 

Maybe someday when the ships are fully staffed club class might resemble those days.

We were on the Majestic in April with club class. Wonderful service, as good as I can ever remember.  Never waited more than 30 seconds for a table and were able to pace the meal like we wanted to

[JF - retired RRT]

5 hours ago, Tedferg said:

My sentiment too, so comparing Club Class with regular balcony is expensive for a small benefit. How about adding club class dining to Premiere package instead of Specialty dining. That might make Premiere attractive to all passengers regardless of cabin type.

And make the promise of Club Class "seated with little or not wait" impossible...unless they make CC a whole MDR.