Awful State of Ocean View Cafe for dinner

[Bo1953]

1 hour ago, LGW59 said:

Hopefully absolutely, but unfortunately many don't bother to read everything BEFORE making their deposit, they just complain after

Here, at that... LOL

 

bon voyage

[LGW59]

Just now, Mrearl said:

Agree but it still is cheaper then buying them separate.  I just got back from NCL Joy and I had to pay gratuities on the free drink package $160 for each of us. We did not have to pay extra gratuities on Celebrity and the drink package if cheaper on Celebrity.  

Oh yes, I definitely agree, if you're going to do it, pay before cruising, makes so much more sense.  I don't drink alcohol but I always get the premium drink pacakge, overall cost I don't recover but I exclusively drink Pellegrino, Perrier, cappuccinos, lattes, smoothies, so it just makes it a lot easier.  I'm just struggling to accept and understand Celebritys current pricing especially when I compare to Oceania and Azamara.

[Bo1953]

1 hour ago, RD64 said:

Agreed but people are not going to cancel. They will continue to cruise and complain after the fact.

rd - I may resemble that comment OR at least observe it in others... LOL

 

bon voyage

[mpdog42]

3 minutes ago, Bo1953 said:

It has always been an option for staff to eat in The OVC as there is a dining venue for them already...

 

bon appetit and bon voyage

Would you like to eat in the staff  dining room?

[Bo1953]

1 hour ago, RD64 said:

Also in Canada! Viking and Disney yes on traditional tv but nobody else.

.... and I detest the viking commercials I see and hear...

 

I have told my spouse to not expect us to sail on that line anytime soon, unless something changes, especially their payment due date or I come into some unexpected riches to give it to them for such a long lead time IMO... LOL

 

bon voyage

[Bo1953]

2 minutes ago, mpdog42 said:

Would you like to eat in the staff  dining room?

In fact, I would in fact... getting food which is not served in The OVC or MDR except upon request, that is if one knows to request it... and I have often times made those requests...

 

bon appetit and bon voyage

[LGW59]

4 minutes ago, Bo1953 said:

rd - I may resemble that comment OR at least observe it in others... LOL

 

bon voyage

I don'y know Bo, I feel like I'm going to see you venturing over to try Oceania soon...I won't tell anyone, it'll be just between us!

[bonagrad]

3 hours ago, Ipeeinthepools said:

 

Cancel upcoming cruises and send LLP a note telling her why you cancelled.

We're doing a side-by-side with Regal Princess, have a friend joining us on Reflection, and non refundable.  Not losing that money.  I've already contacted LLP twice to voice my displeasure.

[Bo1953]

lw - I Am doing my best to convince my spouse...

 

I understand the value proposition presented by Oceania, but, but, but, but My spouse prefers X's ship size and many of the activities offered...

 

I do prefer the smaller ship offerings and presentation...

 

Maybe I can try it at least once... and most likely by myself, at that... LOL

 

Cannot wait to read about your take on Oceania...

 

Cheers and bon voyage

[Cap_D]

34 minutes ago, mpdog42 said:

Cutbacks in Food & Service:

Inflation….Supply Chain Issues…Covid….I Love You….Checks in the mail….

Anymore Excuses???

100% agree.  The excuses don't jive when a company can purchase food through master contracts for the entire Royal Caribbean fleet, and many people pay thousands and have other options (albeit are locked in months or years in advance).  Celebrity will quickly be known as having the best bologna and bread pudding stations among cruise lines.  The Circus Circus casino buffet has more options, and not sure the quality or age of the dishes here are any better.

 

There's a lot of room between heat lamp turkey, chicken chop suey, the bread pudding, and cold looking pizza and anything that has been suggested by CC's on a parallel thread (like some cooked to order stations) as a substitute. 

 

Also, had Celebrity been thinking they'd have designed the OVC space to be more adaptable than to look like a ghost town at less than lunch numbers, too.  All that kitchen equipment and its not used, even the pizza bar is misplaced (on the other side of the area in the video facing aft) and not seemingly used during the dinner hours.

 

In addition, on Edge Class ships the Rooftop Grill lacks sufficient wind screening (and likely heaters) to make it a viable speciality restaurant, and many of the menu items are pub / BBQ joint food that can be mass produced and should be included in the fare (Disney and Carnival do included BBQ and burgers, and Royal has the tex mex that's included (and essentially protein stored in steam trays)).  If one has OBC (and many do) the specialty dining can become "included," but the marketing positions OBC as a promotional item so that's how the specialty restaurants are viewed by passengers in terms of access, value, and quality.  

 

Ships around 3,000 pax +/- apparently cannot financially support more than a main dining room (chopped into 4 themes with a central kitchen on E-Class), and a very limited number of seats for pay options of varying quality and laboring needs (e.g., Eden seems more difficult to execute than flaming a steak).   

 

The room service charge seems silly.  The staff are already onboard and available, as are the kitchens and food.  The small amount of cost or revenue is a drop in the bucket, but enough to be annoying and seem like nickel and diming.  And throwing staff at the MDRs from room service and the OVC reductions won't magically make that food any better or less dependent on banquet style food plated before being served.  Also, isn't room service the saving grace for anyone who should stay in their room due to covid or other contagious illness?

 

All of the above is also happening while the MDR menus are apparently placing emphasis on, again, roast turkey and other sliced roasts, and other pre-cooked items.

 

Edited January 16, 2023 by Cap_D

[sherylc]

29 minutes ago, Mrearl said:

I have also seen people eat up to 5 lobster tails at dinner.  A cruise line can not do this with the price of lobsters going up.  What do you think you would pay for a dinner out for lobster tail.  How about the price of a hotel for a night and meals for a day.  You will be paying a lot more then what you are paying for a day on the cruise line. 

No self respecting restaurant would serve the 3-4 bite lobster tails that have become the norm on most non-premium cruise lines including Celebrity. You need at least 3 or 4 of them to have a decent size portion of protein!

[Georgia_Peaches]

7 minutes ago, bonagrad said:

I've already contacted LLP twice to voice my displeasure

Have you received any response?

[Bo1953]

Well, my only thought is, it is a good thing that We have other cruise lines to which we can flee for the buffet spreads that are grand and pricing is lower or comparable to what is forked over to X for the current product rolled out...

 

The other lines are happy to take us on aboard and thank X for their changes to make a few old timers to look elsewhere for better.

 

bon appetit and bon voyage

[bonagrad]

20 minutes ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

Have you received any response?

I got calls both times, within two hours each time.  I spoke to two different women.  The second time I offered suggestions as well as noted the feedback that I've seen here and on social media.  I noted that we're not asking for a full return to the full OVC, rather a happy medium between full and this extreme cut back.

Edited January 16, 2023 by bonagrad

[drowelf]

6 minutes ago, sherylc said:

No self respecting restaurant would serve the 3-4 bite lobster tails that have become the norm on most non-premium cruise lines including Celebrity. You need at least 3 or 4 of them to have a decent size portion of protein!

Charging 22.78 (18.99 + 20%) for a 3 or 4 oz additional lobster tail is ridiculous. I can get them at my local food store for about 6 bucks. I can get a 1 lb or so lobster at my local seafood restaurant for between $30-35 and that includes sides!

 

Also never understood the rationale behind listing something as $xx.xx + 20%. Why not just list the price so that folks don't have to do the math, or get surprised when they actually see the bill. 

[Accessor]

IF you think PAX are unhappy, I bet you the staff/crew that have the privilege of eating at the OVC at night are SUPER PISSED! Can you imagine if they have been eating onboard for months and suddenly are stuck with this slop and selection???

 

Happy crew = Happy paxs....this cut goes far deeper than what you see on the surface!

 

[retird]

2 hours ago, HeddaGarbled said:

Wasn’t the buffet a bit of a ghost town in the evenings anyway prior to this recent change? It doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable to me to try to minimise waste and cut costs in an under-used venue. 

You are correct.    I was on Reflection in November and ate dinner in OVC 5 of the7 nights. I ate at different times between 6 and 7:30 pm.  Each night the place was almost empty.  Maybe 75 to 100 people in total.  I was in there 2 or 3 evenings after early show and it was mostly staff and a few officers there

 

 

[CruisersTimesThree]

Fish fingers!?  Are they feeding mostly 6 yr olds in the OVC at dinner time? 

[Cap_D]

10 minutes ago, CruisersTimesThree said:

Fish fingers!?  Are they feeding mostly 6 yr olds in the OVC at dinner time? 

Agreed.  Head scratcher.  They are on the kids menu for MDR (https://www.celebritycruises.com/things-to-do-onboard/camp-at-sea/kids-menu).  Hopefully, at least fresh stock, and not sitting in the freezer for six months (we've seen bags of fries at Mast Grill and used throughout the ship that seem unattainable in the U.S. on a final Carribean cruise in 2022 - they were fine, but overused and the repetition added an institutional feel to anything they accompanied day-after-day).  Nothing wrong with advance purchasing, but fish sticks are not even higher end freshly made fish and chips.  

Edited January 16, 2023 by Cap_D

[retird]

What is really sad about most of the posts about food availability/quality/volume  on the current Celebrity sailings are by people who have not been on any of the ships since the changes.    You are trashing a Cruise Line’s reputation based on what you read and in some cases snippits of misinformation.   Things change and most of us roll with the changes.   People commenting on here number a hundred or so compared to the hundreds of thousands who sail on Celebrity yearly and some, i have talked to dont even frequent these boards anymore because of the negative rhetoric and misinformation.    Im not blowing Celebrity’s horn and my cruising alternates between four major lines.    

[bonagrad]

2 minutes ago, retird said:

What is really sad about most of the posts about food availability/quality/volume  on the current Celebrity sailings are by people who have not been on any of the ships since the changes.    You are trashing a Cruise Line’s reputation based on what you read and in some cases snippits of misinformation.   Things change and most of us roll with the changes.   People commenting on here number a hundred or so compared to the hundreds of thousands who sail on Celebrity yearly and some, i have talked to dont even frequent these boards anymore because of the negative rhetoric and misinformation.    Im not blowing Celebrity’s horn and my cruising alternates between four major lines.    

There are plenty of examples from people who have been onboard.  It's easy to see the difference between what it was and what it is now.  I booked based on what I knew the OVC to be, which was drastically cut back, literally overnight, with no notice ahead of time.  Celebrity has marketed themselves as a step up from entry level lines, so the critique is warranted, given that they now have the worst dinner buffet offering at seas.

[RichYak]

5 minutes ago, retird said:

What is really sad about most of the posts about food availability/quality/volume  on the current Celebrity sailings are by people who have not been on any of the ships since the changes.    You are trashing a Cruise Line’s reputation based on what you read and in some cases snippits of misinformation.   Things change and most of us roll with the changes.   People commenting on here number a hundred or so compared to the hundreds of thousands who sail on Celebrity yearly and some, i have talked to dont even frequent these boards anymore because of the negative rhetoric and misinformation.    Im not blowing Celebrity’s horn and my cruising alternates between four major lines.    

You clearly didn’t watch the video in the OP did you. 

[dreamer321]

I have yet to see anyone who is actually onboard say the rumors are false and everything is as good as it’s ever been.. in addition, the room service charges, fees for second lobster are documented in the App itself.

 

I think people’s concerns are valid even if they haven’t experienced it first hand yet.

[Ipeeinthepools]

3 minutes ago, dreamer321 said:

I have yet to see anyone who is actually onboard say the rumors are false and everything is as good as it’s ever been.. in addition, the room service charges, fees for second lobster are documented in the App itself.

 

I think people’s concerns are valid even if they haven’t experienced it first hand yet.

 

There's no doubt that the changes are Celebrity's idea of a new normal

[RichYak]

23 minutes ago, retird said:

I ate at different times between 6 and 7:30 pm.  Each night the place was almost empty.  Maybe 75 to 100 people in total.

It doesn’t take long to eat dinner in OVC. Maybe 20-30 minutes. If you saw 75-100 at various points in time during dinner, that would indicate to me that 300-500 people are eating dinner there in total. That doesn’t include passengers that took the food elsewhere like cabins or out on deck. That’s significant.