Ziplocks, NCL is turning cruisers into squirrels

[JoeTec]

Is there still a small snack table late at night in the casino?

[rxlowry]

20 minutes ago, Cruise5life said:

Oh I will for sure.   I’ve struck up a conversation with the pizza maker and I’m sure if I ask he will help me out.   
being born and raised in a NY pizza place I’m kinda a pizza snob lol. Always searching for the best pizza.   
just has Frank Pepe’s ina new spot in Florida.  Was amazing 

Frank Pepe’s clam pizza is next level.  Not comparable to any cruise pizza. 

[sailorusvi]

I work in the hospitality industry and my husband is a chef.  Just the other day we were at dinner with 4 other chefs.  They all were complaining about food costs.   1 case of romaine was $128  (was in the 40's a year ago).  Fry oil has tripled, eggs were selling for $99 for a 30 dozen when a year ago it was in 25 something.   

 

Then add labor.  2 years ago dishwashers were making $14-15 an hour here (note minimal wage here was $13, now it's $14.20) . Now it's more like $18-20 p/h.    Sure cruise lines typically pay a lot less, but with the current labor market even they have to start paying more.   Also, people LOVE to be served, but the amount of people who want to do the serving has decreased imensly. 

 

This is the reality we live in right now.  If cutting out underutilized areas saves some money, I get it. Doesn't mean I don't also get people's frustrations.    There has always been a lot of food waste on cruise ships, with the current environment it's not surprising they have to reel it in some.  Even with some changes, I doubt anyone is walking off starving.

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by sailorusvi

[rxlowry]

Just now, JoeTec said:

Is there still a small snack table late at night in the casino?

I’m wondering if that will be the next cutback.  

[DCGuy64]

Just now, sailorusvi said:

Then add labor.  2 years ago dishwashers were making $14-15 an hour here (note minimal wage here was $13, now it's $14.20) . Now it's more like $18-20 p/h.    Sure cruise lines typically pay a lot less, but with the current labor market even they have to start paying more. 

I have to chuckle at this one. I know lots of people who say wages should be higher, and then are the first ones to complain when those higher wages translate into higher cruise fares and/or reduced selection. What did they THINK was going to happen?

[Cruise5life]

10 minutes ago, PATRLR said:

If you've never eaten at an Applebees, then how do you know the food was good?

Or, are you saying you found the food on NCL to be very good?  If that's the case, then I'd suggest you probably would find Applebees to be very good too.  Enjoy!

 

Nope no Applebees.   And yes the food quality at the buffet was good.    Prime rib 5 nights. And never a bad cut.    
 

I found most everything I ate in the buffet was good.    But hey we all can’t be entitled heaven people.    

[PATRLR]

18 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

I have to chuckle at this one. I know lots of people who say wages should be higher, and then are the first ones to complain when those higher wages translate into higher cruise fares and/or reduced selection. What did they THINK was going to happen?

I think what people are complaining about is the higher cruise fares AND the reduced selection.   Shouldn't have it both ways.

The resort I work part time at instituted an across the board $20/hour minimum wage (for all their resorts across the country).  The result was dramatic increase in services because now they were able to hire help.  All dining facilities open, all infrastructure working to full capacity, etc, etc.  Funny how that works - pay a wage that you can live on and people will come to work. 

Edited January 24, 2023 by PATRLR

[DCGuy64]

6 minutes ago, PATRLR said:

Funny how that works - pay a wage that you can live on and people will come to work. 

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I'm libertarian about this and 100% opposed to minimum wage laws. If you have to pay everyone more, the cost of everything goes up and poof! there goes your extra wages. But as I said, agree to disagree. The cruise industry is still reeling from 2020-2021 and there are bound to be cutbacks, sad but true. I still say it's good value, though. I see higher prices and less selection to be all but guaranteed at this point.

[SeaShark]

58 minutes ago, PATRLR said:

I wasn't talking about the food in the post you quoted.

 

Well, what (given that food is the topic) lowered quality were you talking about if not the food. Context always helps.

[Karaboudjan]

2 hours ago, skeeter195 said:

I cannot believe how many people are commenting on bringing ziplock bags to put food into for use later on.  I get the frustration over no late night grab and go options but I just can't bring myself to take food away from a place in a ziplock bag.  To me it would feel cheap.  Yes NCL is depleting their brand quite a bit lately with these little things but we all are still paying a lot of money to go on a cruise and want a nice experience.  Taking food away in a ziplock is just lowering yourself down to NCL's level, IMO.  Some may disagree but I think it looks cheesy.    

 

What are we talking about here?  I certainly would not ladle curry into a bag to take away, but how is taking away some cookies or fruit really different from asking a restaurant to give you your dessert to go? 

 

If it's just the look of it why not bring some sort of small generic bag and put your ziplocks in that?  

[DaCruiseBug]

2 hours ago, skeeter195 said:

I cannot believe how many people are commenting on bringing ziplock bags to put food into for use later on.  I get the frustration over no late night grab and go options but I just can't bring myself to take food away from a place in a ziplock bag.  To me it would feel cheap.  Yes NCL is depleting their brand quite a bit lately with these little things but we all are still paying a lot of money to go on a cruise and want a nice experience.  Taking food away in a ziplock is just lowering yourself down to NCL's level, IMO.  Some may disagree but I think it looks cheesy.    

 

NCL has a horrible selection of late night food. It's either O'Sheehan's or room service...that's it.

 

I had a friend on the Bliss over New Years and obviously the entire ship was going to be awake well past midnight...doesn't take a genius to figure this one out. At 1:00am the line for O'Sheehan's had over 50 people in it (host said it would be about 2 hour wait) and room service wasn't answering. They ended up going to bed hungry.

 

Did it kill them? No.

 

But come on...it's total BS. Open up a pizza stand or extend the hours of the buffet at least on certain nights like this.

Edited January 24, 2023 by DaCruiseBug

[farmecologist]

2 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

NCL has always provided late night dining (24/7 - but not really) that is far superior to Royal (we sail multiple times a year on both lines). Royal does not provide a late night buffet, they provide pizza that some rave about (but I think is really bad - cheap slap and go). 

 

Like the old midnight buffet, and the old chocolate buffet, if a restaurant is under utilized and the majority of food gets ground and thrown out as fish food nightly,,, maybe it is something nice for a very few, but not worth the money. At the end, 10's of thousands of pounds of chocolate were being fed to fish each week across the NCL fleet from the chocolate buffet... and creating the chocolate master pieces took hundreds and hundreds hours of labor to prepare. And the select few complained when it went away. 

 

Yup, we used to stop by the late buffet and pick up some food just before closing, then were sad to see trashcans brought out and can after can of food be thrown out (no you can't take left overs and feed it to the crew or put it in the freezer for left overs). The change to the late buffet occurred between our October and December NCL cruise. But we just shifted to wings at The Local. 

 

Smart business to eliminate something that served a very, very few across the fleet each night. 

 

I agree.  On many of NCL's ships The Local is open all the time...isn't it?  If so, I'm not seeing a problem here...People *really* seem to overreact around here sometimes. 

 

Remember that a large portion of internet traffic these days seems to be 'people complaining about stuff'.  And even more prevalent here on CC.  🤣 

 

With that said...yes, late night pizza service would be nice...not going to argue there.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by farmecologist

[RocketMan275]

55 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

I have to chuckle at this one. I know lots of people who say wages should be higher, and then are the first ones to complain when those higher wages translate into higher cruise fares and/or reduced selection. What did they THINK was going to happen?

They didn't think. Period.  They like to imagine magical outcomes.  The cruise line can always reduce their profits... 

[weltek]

Personally, the Observation Lounge snacks on the newer ships took away any potential desire I have to take food back to our room. My need for snacks was always something light (okay, one exception: chicken wing craving) while having a drink and reading. The Observation Lounge experience brings together those kinds of snacks with a beautiful, comfortable setting.  


 

[PATRLR]

34 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I'm libertarian about this and 100% opposed to minimum wage laws. 

Then you ought to love what I posted seeing as it was free enterprise making the decision to raise it's minimum wage and not the government.  Free enterprise - isn't that how it's supposed to work?

[DCGuy64]

21 minutes ago, PATRLR said:

Then you ought to love what I posted seeing as it was free enterprise making the decision to raise it's minimum wage and not the government.  Free enterprise - isn't that how it's supposed to work?

Yes, it is, but in my experience, for many people it's a quick jump from voluntary to compulsory, i.e. "Company X is doing it, let's change the law and make ALL businesses do the same." Yes, I've been living in Washington, DC for far too long! Can you tell?  😄

[DCGuy64]

31 minutes ago, DaCruiseBug said:

They ended up going to bed hungry.

Oh please, cue the violins. You could just as easily say they could have planned better and eaten something before lining up at O'Sheehans. Guests were just as guilty as NCL there. But I would agree that providing something would have been better.

[carohs]

57 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

If you have to pay everyone more, the cost of everything goes up and poof! there goes your extra wages. 

I'm like minded. I always felt that when min wage increased the cost of everything going up more than ate up the tiny increase to the paycheck.

 

I also don't use ziploc baggies. Goes right there with plastic straws. Maybe I'm tacky but I do put food on my plate and bring it back to my stateroom; or even eat in the elevator! People walk around with food/drinks all the time. I never saw it as an issue.

[stefmaia]

1 hour ago, JoeTec said:

Is there still a small snack table late at night in the casino?

Not anymore. 😢 That was where I used to get my late night , casino shenanigans , sandwich. I was sad to see that go. A little sandwich later in the evening after my 6pm dinner was all I needed.

[dbrown84]

1 hour ago, JoeTec said:

Is there still a small snack table late at night in the casino?

yes.  and the snacks are pretty good.

[vacation44]

2 hours ago, trivimp said:

I guess we've been squirrels for years.  We always seem to have a few ziploc bags of cookies from the afternoon buffet for late night snacking, for long excursions, for the plane ride home... The white chocolate macadamia ones are the best 🙂 

Squirrel here too...............

[AwesomO]

42 minutes ago, Karaboudjan said:

 

What are we talking about here?  I certainly would not ladle curry into a bag to take away, but how is taking away some cookies or fruit really different from asking a restaurant to give you your dessert to go? 

 

If it's just the look of it why not bring some sort of small generic bag and put your ziplocks in that?  

This is my thought. Are people actually ordering full meals and then dumping into Ziploc bags? I can't imagine they'd actually want to do that. But some snack items? Why not? If I can grab some cookies for later, or other small, snack-y, not so messy items, why not? Even in some relatively cheap hotels, I've been able to get cookies in the lobby at night. I may not want a full meal at 11pm. Maybe I just want to sit in my pajamas and have a wind down snack on my balcony. Or sometimes the kids wake up earlier than us and want a morning snack while they wait for breakfast, or wait for everyone to be ready to go. idk. In room snacks are important for my family when we are vacationing, personally. 

 

I wasn't planning on bringing Ziploc bags, but now I might knowing my choices are limited. 

[farmecologist]

1 hour ago, sailorusvi said:

I work in the hospitality industry and my husband is a chef.  Just the other day we were at dinner with 4 other chefs.  They all were complaining about food costs.   1 case of romaine was $128  (was in the 40's a year ago).  Fry oil has tripled, eggs were selling for $99 for a 30 dozen when a year ago it was in 25 something.   

 

Then add labor.  2 years ago dishwashers were making $14-15 an hour here (note minimal wage here was $13, now it's $14.20) . Now it's more like $18-20 p/h.    Sure cruise lines typically pay a lot less, but with the current labor market even they have to start paying more.   Also, people LOVE to be served, but the amount of people who want to do the serving has decreased imensly. 

 

This is the reality we live in right now.  If cutting out underutilized areas saves some money, I get it. Doesn't mean I don't also get people's frustrations.    There has always been a lot of food waste on cruise ships, with the current environment it's not surprising they have to reel it in some.  Even with some changes, I doubt anyone is walking off starving.

 

 

There is also an ingredient cost issue for small breweries.  Some small operations have already closed...and many others are starting to price themselves out of the budget of many.   Tough situation, for sure.  And breweries have much lower overhead than restaurants do.  I can only imagine how tough the restaurant business must be these days.

 

[farmecologist]

17 minutes ago, carohs said:

I'm like minded. I always felt that when min wage increased the cost of everything going up more than ate up the tiny increase to the paycheck.

 

I also don't use ziploc baggies. Goes right there with plastic straws. Maybe I'm tacky but I do put food on my plate and bring it back to my stateroom; or even eat in the elevator! People walk around with food/drinks all the time. I never saw it as an issue.

 

On the flip side...do we want people out on the street or what?  Rents have skyrocketed...and the increase in pay for many doesn't even cover the rent increase.  I have a front row seat to the ridiculousness as well ( two struggling early twenty something kids ).  It has been absolute insanity in the rental markets...absolutely no 'reasonable' rents at all where they live.  

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by farmecologist

[dbrown84]

8 minutes ago, stefmaia said:

Not anymore. 😢 That was where I used to get my late night , casino shenanigans , sandwich. I was sad to see that go. A little sandwich later in the evening after my 6pm dinner was all I needed.

oh, then maybe I spoke too soon.  they still had snacks/food on my October Getaway cruise.  When did you see it was no longer offered?