Has Dinner With the Officers and Behind the Scenes tours started back up yet?

[PC Skier]

We will be on the Joy in May and just wondered if the Dinners with officers and Behind the scenes tours have started up again?

[Joken35]

It was not available on the Getaway this past January

[www3traveler]

Do not know about all the ships, but it is being reported that both the Officers'Dinner and the Behind the Scenes have begun again.  Might be on a ships by ship and cruise by cruise basis.

[Katie H]

Both were available on Dawn last week.

[FLAHAM]

Had the dinner on Prima a month ago.

[ronheg]

The jewel had it last week

[julig22]

Available on the Star starting mid-February.  Start-up date varies by ship.

[MagnoliaBlossom]

The BA had it two weeks ago

[SlipperyP]

BTS was available on Epic last week.  I don’t know about the dinner with officers.

[dexddd]

Caveat, some things, not user friendly, have to be booked first night like bts and wine tasting if you are those levels.

[TSUmom]

5 minutes ago, dexddd said:

Caveat, some things, not user friendly, have to be booked first night like bts and wine tasting if you are those levels.

Do we sign up at the cruisenext desk?

[ggTexasGal]

Just now, TSUmom said:

Do we sign up at the cruisenext desk?

Yes, as soon as possible!

[TSUmom]

Just now, ggTexasGal said:

Yes, as soon as possible!

Thank you!

[NikiPinkston]

Is the Behind the Scenes Tour for Platinum and above? Would love to do it but we won't be at that level until after our next cruise next month.

[TSUmom]

21 minutes ago, NikiPinkston said:

Is the Behind the Scenes Tour for Platinum and above? Would love to do it but we won't be at that level until after our next cruise next month.

Yes I believe it is Platinum and above.  We are now Sapphire and have never known how to go about signing up for the tour.

[NikiPinkston]

Thank you, @TSUmom! We'll just have to wait until our next-next cruise this fall. If I figure it out, I'll let you know. 🙂

[Viajera7]

On 3/16/2023 at 11:49 AM, TSUmom said:

Yes I believe it is Platinum and above.  We are now Sapphire and have never known how to go about signing up for the tour.

I had both  BTST and DWTO on the Star last week and DWTO on the Getaway in October.  To book these experiences, go to the Cruise Next desk as soon as possible on embarkation day. If you are Sapphire you also get the Wines of the World.They didn’t have it on the Star last week because they said they only had one sea day. They had it on the Getaway in October and the Epic in December.

[acct1975]

This is probably a side topic but can someone explain to me what the BTS tours are all about? where in the ship is the tour? My husband is fascinated with the inner workings of cruise ships so I want to get an idea what it's like to see if it would be worth doing.

[mearsfansinboise]

Check out this thread - she's got BTS pictures from last week and talks about the dinner with the officers (spoiler alert:  it was not a great experience for her).

 

  

[coscab]

We went to cruisenext desk on day 2 to sign up for wine tasting, was offered dinner with officer and behind scenes tour but refused as we only wanted wine tasting, the fact that they were pushing the dinner and behind the scenes maybe means you could sweet talk them into putting you on a wait list, tell them you will be eligible after cruise, we are sapphire and there was hardly anyone at the wine tasting and the Escape was full that week.

[egurbi]

BTS and Officers Dinner back on Getaway.

[CaptainHollywood]

We were on the Bliss last week and signed up for the Behind the Scenes tour at the Shore Excursion desk as soon as we boarded.  We're not Platinum and paid $129 for the tour which had just 16 people on it.  The tour was never advertised so you had to know to ask for it. Despite the cost, it was a fantastic experience as we had access to the heads of multiple areas to ask questions. We made many stops including the MDR galley, butchery, bakery, food storage, engineering room, laundry, I95, backstage of the theatre, and the bridge. 

 

I'd also recommend the "How to Run a Cruise Ship" Q&A on the first sea day. They didn't promote it as such, but it was Q&A with the Captain, Chief Engineer, and the ship's General Manager and the attendance was light so we had tons of time to ask questions and get to know them.  The Captain confirmed the change back to eMuster starting next month based on guest feedback, and told some amazing stories about their time spent on the ship during the Covid lockdown. 

 

Regarding the dinner with officers, we saw this in action one night while we were dining at Le Bistro.

[genealogyfan]

On 3/16/2023 at 10:25 AM, NikiPinkston said:

Is the Behind the Scenes Tour for Platinum and above? Would love to do it but we won't be at that level until after our next cruise next month.

It's available to anyone. At least last time I took it, but we had to pay for it.  There are limited amount of tickets available.

[ziggyuk]

34 minutes ago, genealogyfan said:

It's available to anyone. At least last time I took it, but we had to pay for it.  There are limited amount of tickets available.

 

They are, but they are also slightly different tours, the "pay tour" is longer and covers more areas than the free Platinum tour.

[eileeshb]

2 hours ago, CaptainHollywood said:

We were on the Bliss last week and signed up for the Behind the Scenes tour at the Shore Excursion desk as soon as we boarded.  We're not Platinum and paid $129 for the tour which had just 16 people on it.  The tour was never advertised so you had to know to ask for it. Despite the cost, it was a fantastic experience as we had access to the heads of multiple areas to ask questions. We made many stops including the MDR galley, butchery, bakery, food storage, engineering room, laundry, I95, backstage of the theatre, and the bridge. 

 

I'd also recommend the "How to Run a Cruise Ship" Q&A on the first sea day. They didn't promote it as such, but it was Q&A with the Captain, Chief Engineer, and the ship's General Manager and the attendance was light so we had tons of time to ask questions and get to know them.  The Captain confirmed the change back to eMuster starting next month based on guest feedback, and told some amazing stories about their time spent on the ship during the Covid lockdown. 

 

Regarding the dinner with officers, we saw this in action one night while we were dining at Le Bistro.

Was that $129 each?? It was about half that when I did it pre-covid and they also did a photo in the galley that we got a print of at the end of the tour.