Gunbae on multiple nights?

[trippingpara]

We have Gunbae booked on our first full evening onboard the Resilient Lady and again a little over a week later.  From what I've been seeing on various YouTube reviews, it appears that they just bring everything out to you to eat amongst the table.  So that has me wondering if it is worth doing it more than once if you are going to be eating the same meal again.  Or does the food change up?

[Tralfaz1138]

My opinion of the Gunbae experience is that the appetizers are nice and there is some variety you can try there in two different meals, but the "main course" is more in the "fine" category and, as you said, there won't be much variety there.

 

That said, Gunbae is 50% a social experience, so if you want to eat dinner with two other couples on the ship at a 2nd dinner, it's good for that.  We met some great people our first time there, and met a different group of great people our 2nd.  But we were also on a 15 night cruise, so 2 times at each restaurant was a bit of a no-brainer.  We have a 13 night coming up so there's a decent chance I book Gunbae twice on that, but if I were booking just based on food or the cruise was only a week I'd likely go for an extra visit to one of the other restaurants.

[1025cruise]

Go the first time. If you enjoy, go again. If not, cancel and go somewhere else.

[jon81uk]

Technically you can order from the menu at Gunbae, but many servers have worked out it’s easier just to serve to share as some appetisers have enough portions for more than one person. So if you have a dish you really like then ask for it. I know I like the seafood pancake (but need to share it with the table as it comes out as six portions!), crispy chicken, bibimbap, marinated beef and pork belly so I ask for more of all the things I want. Or of course take a look at the menu and ask to try something you weren’t offered.

[kaysha2004]

It's not a set menu, so you can order different items at each visit.

[cantgetin]

Our first time at Gunbae, we went with the servers suggestion to "just bring all the favorites,"  From that, we learned what we like, and the menu has not changed from our first cruise.  What has changed is that now we order those items that we know we like.  They will bring you as much of any item as you want, but I also feel better about not wasting so much food by trying a bite and not liking something.  I'm still up for trying a new thing occasionally....but not for getting something that I know I don't like.

As above, it is not a set menu--you can order whatever you wish.  Much as above, we like the seafood pancake, the crispy chicken with sauce on the side, the marinated beef, shrimp, and port belly.  Don't waste your money on the fancy beef upcharge (we did that once).  The regular marinated beef is much better.

[CruisingWalter]

Gunbae is my recommended venue for the first night of a VV cruise because it is a social night. You get to meet some of your fellow sailors on board. Usually it's one night for us. Razzle Dazzle and Pink Agave are two that we would do more than one time on a cruise. 

[jon81uk]

2 hours ago, CruisingWalter said:

Gunbae is my recommended venue for the first night of a VV cruise because it is a social night. You get to meet some of your fellow sailors on board. Usually it's one night for us. Razzle Dazzle and Pink Agave are two that we would do more than one time on a cruise. 

whereas I prefer Pink Agave first night as it tends to only take and hour compared to 90 minutes to two hours for Gunbae which feels like a lot of the first night taken up on what’s already been a busy day.

[cantgetin]

I have Pink Agave as the first night on our next cruise....because it was one of only 2 reservations I could get before app crash and because it is my cruise partner's favorite.

[FFMilesJunkie]

32 minutes ago, cantgetin said:

I have Pink Agave as the first night on our next cruise....because it was one of only 2 reservations I could get before app crash and because it is my cruise partner's favorite.

Dining reservations are a mess this morning.  Even supervisors at VV can't get it to work without crashing. 

[cantgetin]

5 minutes ago, FFMilesJunkie said:

Dining reservations are a mess this morning.  Even supervisors at VV can't get it to work without crashing. 

Joy

[c-boy]

30 minutes ago, FFMilesJunkie said:

Dining reservations are a mess this morning.  Even supervisors at VV can't get it to work without crashing. 

are you currently onboard ?

[FFMilesJunkie]

2 minutes ago, c-boy said:

are you currently onboard ?

no, just trying to get reservations for the April Transatlantic that opened up this morning.

 

[cantgetin]

6 hours ago, FFMilesJunkie said:

no, just trying to get reservations for the April Transatlantic that opened up this morning.

 

I gave up.  Got 3 ressies last night, managed to add 4 more today.  Also, they knocked my cabin mate off the app so all of our ressies are for 1 person.  I'm so over it.

[CruisingWalter]

14 hours ago, cantgetin said:

I gave up.  Got 3 ressies last night, managed to add 4 more today.  Also, they knocked my cabin mate off the app so all of our ressies are for 1 person.  I'm so over it.

 

And from the TAs I talk to, the booking engine is only slightly better than the app. I'm pretty done with everything IT from Virgin Voyages. For basically the same onboard inclusions but with even better food, Oceania has been my go-to of late.  

[cantgetin]

52 minutes ago, CruisingWalter said:

 

And from the TAs I talk to, the booking engine is only slightly better than the app. I'm pretty done with everything IT from Virgin Voyages. For basically the same onboard inclusions but with even better food, Oceania has been my go-to of late.  

Wow!  I thought I was the only one having a "I'm over it" with VV in more ways than one.  Trying to keep an open mind till we are on board again, but we'll see.  It is really sad to see newbies that I referred to VV saying things like, "Well, if nothing else, we can eat pizza every night." I know that isn't realistic, but she was serious!

[trippingpara]

43 minutes ago, cantgetin said:

Wow!  I thought I was the only one having a "I'm over it" with VV in more ways than one.  Trying to keep an open mind till we are on board again, but we'll see.  It is really sad to see newbies that I referred to VV saying things like, "Well, if nothing else, we can eat pizza every night." I know that isn't realistic, but she was serious!

I used the chat function online and got VV to book all of my restaurants for me.  No sense banging my head against the wall.  Got all my restaurants booked at the times I wanted in about ten minutes.  Easy peasy.

[cantgetin]

16 minutes ago, trippingpara said:

I used the chat function online and got VV to book all of my restaurants for me.  No sense banging my head against the wall.  Got all my restaurants booked at the times I wanted in about ten minutes.  Easy peasy.

I'm glad it worked for you.  My cabin mate disappeared from the app after one or two reservations, so after that all my reservations are 1 person only. I'm not happy with many of our times, but know I can change them. After about 16 hours, we have one reservation for each night. My point is no longer that I could find a work around--I've done that on the  previous cruises.  My problem is that they have a system that should work.  They have a team of travel agents who have a different system that also should work.  If their system isn't going to work (which it doesn't on a regular basis) then stop telling us to stay awake till midnight to have a tech snafu.
My cruise partner needs wheel assist embarkation and disembarkation.  This system has also failed on each of our VV cruises.  Interestingly, we have completed more than 50 cruises on multiple lines and never had this issue on any other line.  In fact, most of the time it has worked better than I anticipated.  In Miami at terminal V, it has been unbelievably bad each time.  I'm beyond frustration with them.

I was on the first passenger sailing of the Disney Magic and it was a disaster.  But we took them up on an offer to "try again," and by our second sailing, almost 18 months later, all the problems had been fixed.  Maybe I was wearing rose colored glasses on my first VV sailing because I thought it was  overall great, but I haven't seen  improvement or resolution of problems on VV.

[Back to school]

27 minutes ago, trippingpara said:

I used the chat function online and got VV to book all of my restaurants for me.  No sense banging my head against the wall.  Got all my restaurants booked at the times I wanted in about ten minutes.  Easy peasy.

🤫 Don’t you telling!  😀