Rare perfect match Posted September 13, 2023 #526 Share Posted September 13, 2023 On 9/12/2023 at 12:38 AM, JamesEM said: Nice to see the "Hurt Box" is back, speaking of hiding some food items, when you get enough Crown & Anchor points you can order food items that are not on the MDR dinner menu. I’m back now after our venture out into the land of Cirque du Soleil at Disney Springs over the weekend. We really enjoyed the show as I knew we would, but I’m here to read about cruising! Our most recent cruise was on Odyssey. We loved the ship! Be sure you sign up for the free versions iFly and North Star ASAP before those slots are gone! Also reserve the show The Book in 270. That was the only show that took reservations. We also loved The Effectors and Showgirls so plan th fit them into your schedule. I expect that the other entertainment, headliners, comedians and such will be different from the ones we saw last October, but the ones we saw were very good. I’ve heard of people getting off menu items in the MDE, but never because they had a certain number of C & A points. They just asked if something they wanted might be available. We got to our Diamond status thanks to the double points offer that was available when cruising reopened after the shut down. 😎 We only sail once, occasionally twice a year and do cruise on different cruise lines although RCCL seems to be our cruise line of choice lately. I enjoyed seeing the CA sea lions at the pier. Not enough to get me to fly 😱 from FL to CA to see them, but it was pretty cool to see them there at the pier and, yes, I’d probably be like Patti breaking through the barrier to take pictures! 😂 The water slides on Navigator look like fun! I haven’t been doing the water slides on any of our cruises lately because 1) I’m not as young as I used to be 2) my old legs have been surgically repaired and don’t like stairs much on a good day and 3) with all of the walking I make my surgically repaired legs do on our walks to and fro our aft cabin, my old, surgically repaired legs really protest about doing extra stairs just so I can pretend I’m a kid again and go on water slides! That said, I may have to consider a water slide or two when we’re on Allure in April. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryfat1 Posted September 13, 2023 Author #527 Share Posted September 13, 2023 2 hours ago, sanchoucsb said: Thanks for writing this awesome review. I’m a dad sailing with my family on Navigator in December. We will also be in two interior promenade connecting cabins so this review is perfect for me. It’s great how much detail you give! You are welcome. Glad the info is helpful. Our demographics (the family guy) are under-represented in many of the trip reports so that was why I started posting to give a different perspective on cruises. As for being detailed - that's just the byproduct of my profession. One must be detail-oriented to be a bean counter. I can't tell you how many Finance job openings out there list "detail-oriented" as one of the requirements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryfat1 Posted September 13, 2023 Author #528 Share Posted September 13, 2023 11 minutes ago, perfect match said: I’m back now after our venture out into the land of Cirque du Soleil at Disney Springs over the weekend. We really enjoyed the show as I knew we would, but I’m here to read about cruising! Our most recent cruise was on Odyssey. We loved the ship! Be sure you sign up for the free versions iFly and North Star ASAP before those slots are gone! Also reserve the show The Book in 270. That was the only show that took reservations. We also loved The Effectors and Showgirls so plan th fit them into your schedule. I expect that the other entertainment, headliners, comedians and such will be different from the ones we saw last October, but the ones we saw were very good. I’ve heard of people getting off menu items in the MDE, but never because they had a certain number of C & A points. They just asked if something they wanted might be available. We got to our Diamond status thanks to the double points offer that was available when cruising reopened after the shut down. 😎 We only sail once, occasionally twice a year and do cruise on different cruise lines although RCCL seems to be our cruise line of choice lately. I enjoyed seeing the CA sea lions at the pier. Not enough to get me to fly 😱 from FL to CA to see them, but it was pretty cool to see them there at the pier and, yes, I’d probably be like Patti breaking through the barrier to take pictures! 😂 The water slides on Navigator look like fun! I haven’t been doing the water slides on any of our cruises lately because 1) I’m not as young as I used to be 2) my old legs have been surgically repaired and don’t like stairs much on a good day and 3) with all of the walking I make my surgically repaired legs do on our walks to and fro our aft cabin, my old, surgically repaired legs really protest about doing extra stairs just so I can pretend I’m a kid again and go on water slides! That said, I may have to consider a water slide or two when we’re on Allure in April. As I understand it, iFly and Northstar are free during port days. Are reservations done once on the ship? If so, where? The actual area of iFly and Northstar loading area? As for the show at 270, is that available for booking online or is that done on day 1 as well? Seems like day 1 will be a very hectic experience. Oh, if you like sea lions, come to San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf. We saw them there many years ago. As far as I know, they are still there: These water slides are fun but also bumpy. My bottom has less cushions now that I am older and I felt some bumps on the way down... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryfat1 Posted September 13, 2023 Author #529 Share Posted September 13, 2023 OK. Day 2 of the cruise is typically the “Formal Night” as it was once called. Nowadays cruise lines no longer use this term. Only the old cruisers like us here on CC still use the term “formal night”. RCI calls it “Dress to Impress”. Whatever that means. For the old-school people, we still try to look better on Day 2. Although I must admit that for the FIRST time on any cruise, I did not wear my suit as we were trying to pack lighter since we had 6 people and 6 suitcases in the van, some of us had to use smaller suitcases to fit everything so the suit was the first thing to go along with the dress shoes as to make space. But I didn’t look like a big slob such that the CC fashion police would form a lynch mob to come after me. I still had a dress shirt/tie/slacks/dark (tennis) shoes to be passable at first glance. Will go back to the full-blown whole nine yards dress up for the Christmas cruise on the Odyssey as the Holiday cruises have more formal getups. Here are the people at 6:15 waiting for the My Time Dining to open at 6:30 down at Deck 3. Seems like there was a line for MTD nightly. Is that a “norm” for other sailings as well? I’m just not a fan of MTD as I don’t see the advantage of it given what we like to do in watching the main entertainment venues Since we had time, we went to visit the crazy aunt in the basement to make sure she was well-fed (aka formal picture sessions with shipboard photographers) 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryfat1 Posted September 13, 2023 Author #530 Share Posted September 13, 2023 Here are a couple pictures of decks 3 and 4 as we made our way to various stations and when it was not my turn to be in the family pictures, I was bored and took some pictures of the surrounding area: 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryfat1 Posted September 13, 2023 Author #531 Share Posted September 13, 2023 Starbucks and RCI were supposed to team up and issue various cruise ship-named mugs with the Starbucks logo on them. We went to inquire at the Starbucks kiosk but they said they don’t have them yet in stock and don’t know when they will get them. It was disappointing as we were looking to buy a couple of them home as souvenirs. Will see if the Odyssey will have them. They only had the generic Miami and Florida cups there. Given we were in CA, not sure how many people would want an FL souvenir cup from the cruise... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FionaMG Posted September 13, 2023 #532 Share Posted September 13, 2023 7 hours ago, harryfat1 said: After showering, I went downstairs to Café Promenade to get some hot tea. They have a bigger selection of tea there than upstairs at the Windjammer so if you see some flavors down here you like, grab them and bring them to Windjammer and drink them there instead. On a couple of nights, I was tempted to bring my own tea bags to the MDR as they have a limited selection up there as well. Instead of making the assistant waiter hunt for some odd stuff like ginger or peach flavors that they may not have at the MDR, just take the bag from here and bring it to dinner with me ask for hot water, and steep my own tea. I've noticed that the selections can even vary from station to station in the WJ so I always grab a few of my favourites the first time I see them in case they never show up again. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare h20skibum Posted September 13, 2023 #533 Share Posted September 13, 2023 4 hours ago, harryfat1 said: Oh, if you like sea lions, come to San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf. We saw them there many years ago. As far as I know, they are still there: You can also find them at Old Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey. I will not say we saw them many years ago, because us old guys have a different frame of reference as to what "many years" mean than you young guys do. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FionaMG Posted September 13, 2023 #534 Share Posted September 13, 2023 4 hours ago, harryfat1 said: As I understand it, iFly and Northstar are free during port days. Are reservations done once on the ship? If so, where? The actual area of iFly and Northstar loading area? As for the show at 270, is that available for booking online or is that done on day 1 as well? Seems like day 1 will be a very hectic experience. Reservations for the free iFly and Northstar sessions are done in the app. If you fancy doing them straight away on day 1, the slots should already be in the app when you board. This can be one of the easiest days to get them as they are snapped up pretty much as soon as they are released on other days. For the other port days, the slots are usually released sometime between 5 pm and 7 pm the evening before. You can go to the check-in area (it's on the starboard side just below the flowrider) and ask the staff what time they usually release them. Then you need to remember to keep checking the app around that time. When I sailed on Odyssey, the only two shows that needed pre-booking were the one in 270 and Showgirls. Now, my sailing was early in the restart and at that time, you couldn't book before boarding; bookings were done on board in the app. However, I would think that you can now book these ahead of time in the Cruise Planner. That is certainly the case on Anthem, which is the same class of ship. The approximate time frame for these to open up in the Cruise Planner is the first few days of the month prior to the month of your sailing, but if I were you I would just keep checking back daily from now on, in part because you can't trust Royal to be consisent (Really? Who said that?) and in part because demand is going to be high over a holiday sailing and you'll not want to miss out because you happened not to check on the particular day they posted them. Day 1 needn't be hectic. I recommend doing your muster as soon as you board to get it out of the way and then stop by GS to ask for a paper compass. With that done, head to 270 which is a great place to sit with a drink and/or a snack while you plan your first day on board and make any necessary bookings in the app. I'm guessing you won't be booking a dining package but on the offchance you are and you need to make reservations, Giovanni's is on the way to 270 so you can stop there and do them, away from the scrum of people in the Esplanade (which is what they call the Promenade on this class of ship). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare h20skibum Posted September 13, 2023 #535 Share Posted September 13, 2023 @harryfat1, enjoy your December sailing on Odyssey. I think you will enjoy that ship. That was our favorite after the Oasis class ships. Of course, we sailed it at the restart of sailing, and it was great at half capacity. If you want to add to your research, I did a live review of our October, 2021 sailing on Odyssey, and there is a link in my signature. I will be looking forward to reading your trip report on that one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare bobmacliberty Posted September 13, 2023 #536 Share Posted September 13, 2023 (edited) 18 hours ago, harryfat1 said: Bob, Many thanks for reading along and catching up even though you were away. In reading the next post, sounded like you had a family member that got married. Congratulations! Yeah, due to the space-time continuum thing, we all get caught in a time loop once we get into this thread and real-world time is different. As I meet more friends here on RCI via Dani’s monster thread of 2.9M view thread and conversations with other old friends, it’s been a lot of fun writing this trip report. The worst part of writing these monster reports is boredom/loneliness if there’s a lack of feedback. That’s when you start to wonder if anyone is going to read all this gibberish as I type and upload pictures daily. With this active crowd, that’s not an issue and I thank everyone for contributing to the discussion. As for looking for the old spreadsheet. No need. I just clicked on my signature for the 2017 trip report. I saw you posted on #1533. So that is more or less the end of that trip report. There was other stuff on the back end but that was to talking the Disneyworld pictures. Although the 2017 report was for a 9-night cruise in comparison you are correct, we are going on a much slower pace. I do need to “MOVE IT MOVE IT” on this report as I need to start planning for my December cruise sooner rather than later… Thanks. My daughter got married this past weekend. It was a fantastic wedding. She's honeymooning in Switzerland and Lake Como for a couple of weeks. I think I'll send her a link to this review and tell her that she has to write something similar about her trip. Since you guided me to your 2017 review, I decided to actually look for my old post tracking spreadsheet. Can't find it anywhere. It must have not made the cut in a past hard drive cleaning. I did however find my most recent chart from the spreadsheet on Shutterfly (I forgot that I even have an account 😁). Here it is, from partway through your Indy cruise: For this current review, you're at 535 posts and not even done with day 2. I think you'll be setting a new record for posts/cruise day. Edited September 13, 2023 by bobmacliberty 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryfat1 Posted September 13, 2023 Author #537 Share Posted September 13, 2023 10 hours ago, h20skibum said: You can also find them at Old Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey. I will not say we saw them many years ago, because us old guys have a different frame of reference as to what "many years" mean than you young guys do. 8 hours ago, h20skibum said: @harryfat1, enjoy your December sailing on Odyssey. I think you will enjoy that ship. That was our favorite after the Oasis class ships. Of course, we sailed it at the restart of sailing, and it was great at half capacity. If you want to add to your research, I did a live review of our October, 2021 sailing on Odyssey, and there is a link in my signature. I will be looking forward to reading your trip report on that one. Mark, Thanks for the heads-up on your cruise live report. I will be sure to check that out soon. Yeah, most likely our Holiday cruise will be 110%+ capacity as RCI has been sailing at those numbers in the past for these busy seasonal cruises. Many of the cabins for our sailing have been sold out the past few months so I expect a super full ship in December. Thanks for the Monterey Sea Lion picture. I guess they must live up and down the California coast all the way down to Baja Mexico. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryfat1 Posted September 13, 2023 Author #538 Share Posted September 13, 2023 (edited) 9 hours ago, FionaMG said: Reservations for the free iFly and Northstar sessions are done in the app. If you fancy doing them straight away on day 1, the slots should already be in the app when you board. This can be one of the easiest days to get them as they are snapped up pretty much as soon as they are released on other days. For the other port days, the slots are usually released sometime between 5 pm and 7 pm the evening before. You can go to the check-in area (it's on the starboard side just below the flowrider) and ask the staff what time they usually release them. Then you need to remember to keep checking the app around that time. When I sailed on Odyssey, the only two shows that needed pre-booking were the one in 270 and Showgirls. Now, my sailing was early in the restart and at that time, you couldn't book before boarding; bookings were done on board in the app. However, I would think that you can now book these ahead of time in the Cruise Planner. That is certainly the case on Anthem, which is the same class of ship. The approximate time frame for these to open up in the Cruise Planner is the first few days of the month prior to the month of your sailing, but if I were you I would just keep checking back daily from now on, in part because you can't trust Royal to be consisent (Really? Who said that?) and in part because demand is going to be high over a holiday sailing and you'll not want to miss out because you happened not to check on the particular day they posted them. Day 1 needn't be hectic. I recommend doing your muster as soon as you board to get it out of the way and then stop by GS to ask for a paper compass. With that done, head to 270 which is a great place to sit with a drink and/or a snack while you plan your first day on board and make any necessary bookings in the app. I'm guessing you won't be booking a dining package but on the offchance you are and you need to make reservations, Giovanni's is on the way to 270 so you can stop there and do them, away from the scrum of people in the Esplanade (which is what they call the Promenade on this class of ship). Oh, this is great info. Let me summarize some of the info making sure I understand it correctly: · NorthStar – We need to reserve on the handy dandy App. Day 1 is the easiest to get the open slot. For the rest of the cruise, the time slots are normally released the night before for the next day. Best to check with the staff on board. So Day 1 time slots are open as soon as we board? · Two shows at 270 – Effectors and The Book can be reserved on the handy dandy App from home or once on board (where on board do you reserve them? · Showgirls? Is that the show in the main theater? We saw Showgirls on the Navigator. Is that the same one? Do they actually have a Day 1 paper compass at GS? I went to check the slots where they used to have them and there was a message that said to ask the cabin steward. By the time we saw her, it was late in the afternoon, and she only gave us the day 2 compass My Day 1 is typically nonstop action as we run around everywhere taking pictures of places/scenery of the port area. I will have a better idea of what we need to do that day after the show reservations are already booked or not. Thanks again for the information. It provides a big picture overall of what needs to be done. Forgot to add a couple of Showgirl photos from our cruise on the Navigator - this will be part of the day 4 report. This is the same one as the Odyssey? Edited September 13, 2023 by harryfat1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryfat1 Posted September 13, 2023 Author #539 Share Posted September 13, 2023 4 hours ago, bobmacliberty said: Thanks. My daughter got married this past weekend. It was a fantastic wedding. She's honeymooning in Switzerland and Lake Como for a couple of weeks. I think I'll send her a link to this review and tell her that she has to write something similar about her trip. Since you guided me to your 2017 review, I decided to actually look for my old post tracking spreadsheet. Can't find it anywhere. It must have not made the cut in a past hard drive cleaning. I did however find my most recent chart from the spreadsheet on Shutterfly (I forgot that I even have an account 😁). Here it is, from partway through your Indy cruise: For this current review, you're at 535 posts and not even done with day 2. I think you'll be setting a new record for posts/cruise day. Oh, sure, Bob, I’m sure your daughter will write about her honeymoon in detail for the whole world to know what they did on their honeymoon. What happened in Switzerland stays in Switzerland... Very nice. Lake Como. That’s where they filmed the wedding scene at the end of the Star Wars 2 movie where Anakin and Padme got married. Maybe your daughter can take two pictures of that area for you… Thanks for digging through the archives for the chart. Surprised I had over 1,500 posts of the Freedom as it was only a 6-day cruise and that was close to what I ended on Indy for a 9-day cruise (not counting the projected amount). Maybe the Indy was just right after the Freedom in the following year and I started having the “been there, done that” feeling and didn’t pound the Royal Promenade to death. Day 2 of this trip report is near the end. Just need to talk about the magic show with more complaints about the MDR food and a couple of quick notes on the Quest game to close it out. I’m not a Sea Day person so I have disproportionately fewer things to say/take pictures of on these days. Day 1 is always the longest for me as it’s part of prep work and arrival to ship takes time to walk through to help out Newbies. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryfat1 Posted September 13, 2023 Author #540 Share Posted September 13, 2023 Onward and forward with Day 2 of the trip report to see if we can close it out today ++++++++++++++ Officially we were supposed to have the Production show tonight per the Daily Compass, but they made the announcement earlier in the day that they are swapping the Production show to later in the cruise and instead, we will get the magic act tonight. If you check your handy dandy phone App prior to the cruise, they populate the names of the guest entertainers in the App. So we knew the names of both the magician and the comedian prior to leaving home. Here is the screenshot of the App: The magician was pretty good and entertaining. Catch him if he’s on your next cruise. Looking at his website for bookings, looks like he mainly performs on cruise ships although he might be done with RCI for a while as he is booked elsewhere after October: The cruise director, as always comes out at the end of every show, to make a quick spiel about the next day, which involves the tender process for tomorrow morning. Will discuss that on Day 3 of the report. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryfat1 Posted September 13, 2023 Author #541 Share Posted September 13, 2023 One major advantage of set dining is dinner time coincides with show time. They always made sure the various shows ended around 7:50 to leave you enough time to use the restrooms afterward and head off to dinner. Walked all the way across deck 4 and the smokey casinos to get to the MDR area. While waiting for everyone to finish washing hands prior to dinner, here are a couple of pictures of the Pacific Ocean. A tad too late for a sunset picture as in August the sun starting to set earlier down south. However, I noticed that Southern CA has an earlier sunset time compared to the SF Bay Area by around 20 minutes as they are more south. If we were still back in the Bay area, we would have caught Sunset before 8 PM that night. Heck, if we were back on the Alaska cruise like last year in Anchorage, it was still bright at 10 PM in August... View of MDR on the left behind the glass window where we will be in just a few minutes I like the well-lid outside Promenade deck with the soon-to-be dark skies background. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare h20skibum Posted September 13, 2023 #542 Share Posted September 13, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, harryfat1 said: Oh, this is great info. Let me summarize some of the info making sure I understand it correctly: · NorthStar – We need to reserve on the handy dandy App. Day 1 is the easiest to get the open slot. For the rest of the cruise, the time slots are normally released the night before for the next day. Best to check with the staff on board. So Day 1 time slots are open as soon as we board? · Two shows at 270 – Effectors and The Book can be reserved on the handy dandy App from home or once on board (where on board do you reserve them? · Showgirls? Is that the show in the main theater? We saw Showgirls on the Navigator. Is that the same one? Do they actually have a Day 1 paper compass at GS? I went to check the slots where they used to have them and there was a message that said to ask the cabin steward. By the time we saw her, it was late in the afternoon, and she only gave us the day 2 compass My Day 1 is typically nonstop action as we run around everywhere taking pictures of places/scenery of the port area. I will have a better idea of what we need to do that day after the show reservations are already booked or not. Thanks again for the information. It provides a big picture overall of what needs to be done. Forgot to add a couple of Showgirl photos from our cruise on the Navigator - this will be part of the day 4 report. This is the same one as the Odyssey? Harry, these were some of the photos from Showgirls on Odyssey Oh, when we sailed, you could book iFly or North Star for any day of the week on the first day. Check when you board. Edited September 13, 2023 by h20skibum 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryfat1 Posted September 13, 2023 Author #543 Share Posted September 13, 2023 18 minutes ago, h20skibum said: Harry, these were some of the photos from Showgirls on Odyssey Oh, when we sailed, you could book iFly for any day of the week. Check when you board. Thanks for the pictures. The costumes looked very colorful compared to our show. We had the weird space cadet-looking thing in silver metallic. Guess we will check out the version of the Odyssey and report back. We only have 3 port days on our sailing and 4 sea days (not counting Day 1) so we need to figure out which of the port days we will do the 2 events that are only free on port days 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryfat1 Posted September 13, 2023 Author #544 Share Posted September 13, 2023 Alrighty. Day 2 Dinner menu. As I mentioned previously, I’m not a menu photographer as you can find a nice-looking menu online easily. Here’s a copy of the menu from the same website I referenced on Day 1. Tonight’s theme is Mexican night. While I assume the concept of a “theme night” adds something different to the feel of a nightly dinner in reality, there’s nothing special about it. The menu items just do not mesh well. Yes, you have the Mexican theme food here and there on the menu, but you also have escargot next to it. How Mexican is that? Maybe they need to name it as La Escargot and add some salsa/guacamole to the side to make it look/sound more Hispanic? Then there’s the Spaghetti and Indian Butter Chicken as well. It then becomes a big blend of different ethnic food like in the buffet. This isn’t a bad thing but no need to call it a Mexican theme night unless you plan to go more in on the Mexican food like offering Chicken Mole or Chile Relleno or Chimichangas. Especially for the Mexican cruise departing from LA where the locals KNOW their Mexican food. Southern California may not know their Pizzas like the East Coast folks or Philly Cheese steaks but they know Mexican food very well and this menu doesn't hit all the notes. If RCI really wants to do the theme nights, go more ethnic but also bring back the old “Daily Standards” so that way if the ethnic good is too exotic for picky eaters, they can always have the basic daily menu of shrimp cocktail/salmon/chicken nightly. Have the left side of the menu to be all theme nights related and the right side of the menu to be the classic American food that is offered daily like the old days. As currently constructed, it’s just an odd mix 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryfat1 Posted September 13, 2023 Author #545 Share Posted September 13, 2023 Enough complaining, here are the food pics. Oh, I lied. One more old man complaint - this is served as a "formal night dinner"? I got dressed up to eat...enchilada/burrito? Tortilla Soup Shrimp Cocktail Carne Asada They called this enchilada but not enough sauce to make it feel that way. It's more like a slightly wet burrito Butter Chicken - via the special Mexican-Indian connection as I ordered my usual extra main dish in the middle for people to share 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryfat1 Posted September 13, 2023 Author #546 Share Posted September 13, 2023 Dessert Time - I think we almost got every dessert listed on the menu minus the basic ice cream... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fun Researcher Posted September 13, 2023 #547 Share Posted September 13, 2023 They are serving Mexican night as the formal night? That seems very weird. IMO that's the worst culinary menu of the entire bunch! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryfat1 Posted September 13, 2023 Author #548 Share Posted September 13, 2023 Done with dinner. I was waiting for various family members to wash up as I stepped outside of the same Promenade deck area pre-dinner as it's just right outside of the restroom. Very convenient to take a quick snapshot as now it's totally dark outside of the ship. The time stamp for the picture was 9:42 PM so dinner took less than 90 minutes from when we sat down to when we walked out. T his was RCI’s main “advertised” goal of saving time for the main reason for the switch in the new 2023 menu. Cynics will say the main goal was to cut costs but saving time sounds better as a marketing ploy… 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryfat1 Posted September 13, 2023 Author #549 Share Posted September 13, 2023 13 minutes ago, The Fun Researcher said: They are serving Mexican night as the formal night? That seems very weird. IMO that's the worst culinary menu of the entire bunch! What is the "typical" theme night for day 2? French night? So are you saying the typical formal night menu on other sailings is not Mexican night? Here are our 4-night theme dinners: Day 1 - Welcome Night Day 2 - Mexican Night Day 3 - Caribbean Night Day 4 - Italian Night I would feel better if they swapped Day 1 and Day 2 menus as at least I got prime rib (a double portion of meat for some folks) for formal night. It made me feel like I got dressed up for something special. Eating enchilada just felt like I went to a local taqueria and I wondered to myself why I dragged my dress shirt/tie 400 miles for this? If I had a Mexican menu on the first night, with people not fully unpacked and in their casual clothes, the dinner theme corresponds to the attire. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare broberts Posted September 14, 2023 #550 Share Posted September 14, 2023 46 minutes ago, harryfat1 said: Cynics will say the main goal was to cut costs but saving time sounds better as a marketing ploy… In my book a real pleasure of cruising is long, leisurely diners with interesting tablemates. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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