Changes in buffet hours - when did this happen?

[JamieLogical]

57 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

Simple. Go to the 24/7 restaurant (The Local/O'Shehan's). No need to hoard cookies. 

 

I think the OP had a valid point that sometimes, especially late at night, you want a grab and go option. You don't want to have to wait for a table and then wait a long time for your food to be delivered, because the place is totally slammed since it's the only place that is open.

 

Waiting for table service would likely be even less popular with kids and teens.

 

Edited July 10, 2023 by JamieLogical

[JGmf]

On 7/8/2023 at 12:11 PM, Snate said:

I am on currently on the Prima (Day 3) and this is my first NCL cruise.  My biggest gripe about the buffet is it closes at 3pm-5pm and isn’t open late 9pm-midnight as an example.  The food hall also closes around 3-5pm along with everything else except The Local meaning if any of the 3K people want something to eat it has to be at The Local which becomes a total zoo.

 

Totally agree.  Really like the Prima as a ship, but thought the major downside were the late afternoon and later night periods of minimal/marginal food options.  Sure, no one starved, but it was/is very lame.

[LMaxwell]

25 minutes ago, bkrickles1 said:

THEY ARE NOT ENDING BREAKFAST AT 9:30AM!!!! 

 

LMFAO 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 

Isnt that what the daily says 

[LMaxwell]

23 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

No, it isn't. And there we have it in miniature: you say it's too early, I say it's not. NCL agrees with me. I win! 😂😂😂

 

What a strange way to interact with others.  I thought when both people get what they want, it's a win. Your way is a bit more miserable. I don't want anything taken from your enjoyment, but you dance on gravestones of others. Not worth debating with that sort. 

[BirdTravels]

37 minutes ago, LMaxwell said:

930 is too early to end breakfast on vacation

So,,, on our last cruise, we had 5 port days and the vast majority of passengers were off the ship by 9:30 am. I do not plan my shore time around eating breakfast at 10:30 and then going ashore. 

 

On the 2 sea days, those who wanted breakfast were in the buffet line by 9:30 and hogging chairs around the pool after. And those who slept in late, were more than happy to eat at 11:30. When our kids were teens and young adults, they were hardly ever up for breakfast on a sea day.

 

Yes, some people used to eat between 9:30 and 11:30, but they all adapted and were fine with the more efficient schedule. 

Edited July 10, 2023 by BirdTravels

[DCGuy64]

1 minute ago, LMaxwell said:

 

What a strange way to interact with others.  I thought when both people get what they want, it's a win. Your way is a bit more miserable. I don't want anything taken from your enjoyment, but you dance on gravestones of others. Not worth debating with that sort. 

My response was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, which apparently escaped you. Just like yours ("dancing on the gravestones of others" over a 9:30 BREAKFAST BUFFET?). Now THAT'S some hyperbole there.

[ChiefMateJRK]

8 minutes ago, LMaxwell said:

you dance on gravestones of others.

????? 🤔

[BirdTravels]

16 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

I think the OP had a valid point that sometimes, especially late at night, you want a grab and go option. You don't want to have to wait for a table and then wait a long time for your food to be delivered, because the place is totally slammed since it's the only place that is open.

 

Waiting for table service would likely be even less popular with kids and teens.

 

1000% agree that having a grab-n-go option is ideal.

 

But at what cost? The late night buffet costs a lot to keep open and services a very small percentage of the passengers.

 

The same thing happened to the midnight chocolate buffet. People would come a gawk, and leave. When NCL ended the midnight chocolate buffet, 10's of thousands of pounds of chocolate were being ground into fish food every week... with a much smaller number of ships in the NCL fleet. Not to mention the labor hours expended by the pastry cooks making the desserts and making the displays. 

 

So,,, yes,,, 1000% agree that a few people would like a grab-n-go option,,, but in a time of sky rocketing inflation, maybe it is o.k. if we don't have that extra slice of pizza just before going to bed. 

[bkrickles1]

14 minutes ago, LMaxwell said:

Isnt that what the daily says 

I have looked at dailies for the Joy and Escape for multiple weeks and the buffet has not closed before 10:30 or 11am for breakfast.

As someone else mentioned, if the buffet closed earlier on another ship, it was probably because of an early port call. 

[MacGuffin3]

5 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

But at what cost? The late night buffet costs a lot to keep open and services a very small percentage of the passengers.

On a huge boat keeping a limited late-night buffet open is costly? More costly than "The Local?"    A "small percentage" of 4000 people is still substantial, and is it really a small percentage? That's not indicated in this thread anyway. Build it and they will come.

Edited July 10, 2023 by MacGuffin3

[JamieLogical]

13 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

1000% agree that having a grab-n-go option is ideal.

 

But at what cost? The late night buffet costs a lot to keep open and services a very small percentage of the passengers.

 

The same thing happened to the midnight chocolate buffet. People would come a gawk, and leave. When NCL ended the midnight chocolate buffet, 10's of thousands of pounds of chocolate were being ground into fish food every week... with a much smaller number of ships in the NCL fleet. Not to mention the labor hours expended by the pastry cooks making the desserts and making the displays. 

 

So,,, yes,,, 1000% agree that a few people would like a grab-n-go option,,, but in a time of sky rocketing inflation, maybe it is o.k. if we don't have that extra slice of pizza just before going to bed. 

 

I have got to believe it costs NCL a lot in staffing to keep O'sheehan's/The Local fully staffed for heavy traffic late at night due to the buffet closure. A buffet has got to be cheaper to maintain than a full service restaurant, I would think.

 

Fortunately, I don't have to give up my pre-bedtime slice of pizza now that I am sailing MSC. 😁

[Snate]

3 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

I have got to believe it costs NCL a lot in staffing to keep O'sheehan's/The Local fully staffed for heavy traffic late at night due to the buffet closure. A buffet has got to be cheaper to maintain than a full service restaurant, I would think.

 

Fortunately, I don't have to give up my pre-bedtime slice of pizza now that I am sailing MSC. 😁

Long post incoming.  They don’t need to staff an entire buffet for late hours.  Do like some other cruise lines do where you have some of the desserts out in one area and 2 people making pizzas.  That is not an exorbitant cost to a cruise line.  Also, I am still on the Prima and I am pretty sure they aren’t staffing The Local correctly.  We have gone a few times and I have had to grab a waiter after waiting for 15 min for someone to just bring us a menu each time.  The Local staff are nice but not trained well in my opinion.  I asked the waiter yesterday what the soup of the day was and he stared at me like I asked him to solve world peace and then he had to go ask the manager.  It may sound like I am bitching but actually I am enjoying the cruise and the ship.  My room doesn’t make weird noises, the food has generally been good, indulge food hall is pretty good and the food hall breakfast is good but the hours suck.  It is only open from 8-10am where you would think for grab and go they would open earlier for people wanting to get off the boat early.  The ship doesn’t seem strange to me or chopped up.  It’s actually a really pretty ship.  The shows have been pretty good (Donna Summer was really good) so no issues there.  The negatives that have been hashed over repeatedly are the buffet is a zoo and there really isn’t enough seating.  Part of the issue is the cold weather where we are at so nobody uses the outside decks that much.  Another big negative is for the teens on the ship one of which is mine.  They are all hanging out but seem bored since they don’t really have a teen club (they get a few hours a night and the rest of the time goes to younger kids).  They were basically an afterthought.  The mini golf, go karts, etc… are not getting used since its so cold outside so the teens don’t have a ton of places to hang out.  This comes into play with having a pizza station open to say midnight like on other ships.  Then you would have the teenagers grabbing pizza and hanging out in the buffet area late at night.   It seems like a few small changes here and there would really make everything a much better experience.  

 

Now, a big gripe I do have with NCL is they cancelled our stop at Geiranger, Norway for tomorrow. Notified us a day ago and said it was going to be too crowded so we will stop at Flam instead. There is not much to do in Flam so kind of ticked about the reason for the changed port. Had to cancel my excursion I already had set up and there is not much excursion wise in Flam since we are a day out.  We already had the missed port in Isafjordur which we knew was going to happen.

[JamieLogical]

46 minutes ago, Snate said:

Long post incoming.  They don’t need to staff an entire buffet for late hours.  Do like some other cruise lines do where you have some of the desserts out in one area and 2 people making pizzas.  That is not an exorbitant cost to a cruise line

 

Right, that's exactly what NCL used to have for late night snack. Just one little section of the buffet open with pizza, fries, tortilla chips, hot dogs, cookies, and desserts. It was just one station, not the whole buffet. So if you could have just a couple of people restocking the station, I have got to think that wouldn't be nearly as costly as offer table service with waitstaff for each table and food made to order....

[UKstages]

1 hour ago, Snate said:

the food has generally been good, indulge food hall is pretty good and the food hall breakfast is good but the hours suck

when i was on the prima in may and june, i was shocked that the indulge food hall wasn’t open until 8 am, even when we called at a port at 6 am. and that has some bearing on this discussion because many people seem to believe that NCL adjusts buffet hours (especially for breakfast) to accommodate port arrivals. i haven’t seen that… in the buffet or indulge.

 

as for what many people believe to be a very high operating cost to keeping the buffet open for snack service late at night… um, no. just… no. staff are in there anyway, cleaning and…sometimes, cooking. as for all this talk about “staff” and how they couldn’t possibly staff the buffet late at night…. um, it’s not like they’re going to add staff in the middle of a cruise to hold down the fort in the buffet. What 5hey can and will do is redeploy and make smart use of the staff they already have. that’s why your server from la cucina last night is working at the buffet tomorrow morning. and why the guy who made your table side guacamole at los lobos is serving your chicken parm three days later at lunch in the MDR.

 

1 hour ago, Snate said:

Now, a big gripe I do have with NCL is they cancelled our stop at Geiranger, Norway for tomorrow.

that is disappointing. of all the ports on the prima’s icelandic/nordic itinerary, that is one of the most spectacular.

[MacGuffin3]

Hmm, if that'

39 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

late night snack open with pizza, fries, tortilla chips, hot dogs, cookies, and desserts.

If that's all they had, then I wouldn't have visited it anyway.  There are no late-night paleo options? Does the late night Local at least do burgers?

[FastShip24]

On 7/6/2023 at 8:04 AM, UKstages said:

what’s interesting about the change to breakfast buffet hours is that they could just as easily have adjusted the opening time. instead of opening at 5:30 AM, they could decide to open at 6 AM instead and keep the buffet operating till 10 AM. it seems like the somewhat late risers are taking one for the team, whereas the very early risers are not.
 

if seven people onboard really need eggs that badly at 5:30 am, they can go to the local or o’sheehan’s. that’s my story and i’m stickin’ to it.  i would think that the buffet would be much busier from 9:30 am to 10 am than it would be from 5:30 am to 6 am.

 

heck, you could probably make the same change to the dinner hours, especially since some other venues are open at 5 pm. open the buffet at 5:30 pm, but close at 10 pm. 
 

#MakeItHappenNCL 

Unless you are running their logistics, it's hard to know

[insidecabin]

On the Dawn now the reality is they have been unable to  close buffet b'fast at the schedule time as the place is still rammed with people and more arriving.

 

In practice the b'fast has run into lunch most days with the phased shutdown/changeover.

 

There shave been challenges with the itinerary schedule resulting in change of behaviour.

 

 

 

[smillerholmes]

13 hours ago, Snate said:

 The Local staff are nice but not trained well in my opinion.  I asked the waiter yesterday what the soup of the day was and he stared at me like I asked him to solve world peace and then he had to go ask the manager.  

Taking a stab at world peace is just awesome!  Bravo!

[bkrickles1]

I was just reminded in another thread that on  ships that have American Diner, like Joy, which I sailed last year and I'm sailing again in 12 days, there is complimentary breakfast available from around 8am until 11 or 11:30am. It's limited but I remember it being pretty good on Escape and it had an omelet station too. 

So, at least on Joy and similar ships, you have the buffet until 10:30 or 11am, American Diner until 11 or 11:30am, the Local, Observation Lounge and mdr's. 

I would think breakfast is covered for everyone. 

Perhaps it's the smaller ships that are more limited. 

Late night snacks are a different story, but that affects way fewer people. 

[JamieLogical]

13 hours ago, MacGuffin3 said:

Hmm, if that'

If that's all they had, then I wouldn't have visited it anyway.  There are no late-night paleo options? Does the late night Local at least do burgers?

 

I think they had burgers too... hard to remember for sure. Last NCL sailing I was on when late night snack was a thing was October 2022. I have been on three or four cruises with other lines since then and my usual late night go-to has always been pizza.

 

I wasn't recommending that NCL offer late night snack in the buffet instead of keeping The Local/O'sheehan's open. I was saying that closing the buffet puts more pressure on the staff in the local to serve the late night crowd, many of whom might be disgruntled about having to wait for table service rather than a grab-and-go option.

[Cruising Lynne]

4 hours ago, bkrickles1 said:

I was just reminded in another thread that on  ships that have American Diner, like Joy, which I sailed last year and I'm sailing again in 12 days, there is complimentary breakfast available from around 8am until 11 or 11:30am. It's limited but I remember it being pretty good on Escape and it had an omelet station too. 

So, at least on Joy and similar ships, you have the buffet until 10:30 or 11am, American Diner until 11 or 11:30am, the Local, Observation Lounge and mdr's. 

I would think breakfast is covered for everyone. 

Perhaps it's the smaller ships that are more limited. 

Late night snacks are a different story, but that affects way fewer people. 

Thanks, I forgot about American Diner. I will have to try it on Joy in 2 months. Really looking forward to checking out this ship.

[bkrickles1]

3 minutes ago, Cruising Lynne said:

Thanks, I forgot about American Diner. I will have to try it on Joy in 2 months. Really looking forward to checking out this ship.

I didn't try it on Joy last summer, but I definitely will when I go again in 12 days!

If it's like Escape, it's a great alternative and is never crowded.

We really enjoyed Joy, which is why we're sailing her again, but there are some oddities that can only be explained by the fact that the ship was built for Asia.

Crew was outstanding and my cabin was very clean!

Enjoy your sailing!!

[MacGuffin3]

4 hours ago, bkrickles1 said:

American Diner has complimentary breakfast available from around 8am until 11 or 11:30am and it had an omelet station too. 

Fantastic.  I remember seeing this place listed on Encore and thought it seemed like a less-than-special choice to use my "specialty certificate" on, but for the mornings it now sound like it will be very special.