"Dinner with Officers" Loyalty Benefit

[biker@sea]

D.W. and I  have been signing up for this perk at guest service's since we were Bronze.

 

Anybody can be chosen. We dined with a few captains . The French G.M. Alan hosted in LeBistro. The head of house keeping MaMa Tek was to much fun.

.

[luv2kroooz]

4 hours ago, tomk3212 said:

whoever from the crew is selected sees this as an 'obligation' and not much more than that.

Your experience has been wildly different than ours. Too bad. Maybe next time you'll get a better draw. There are multiple dinners every week as more cruisers attain status. So, the odds of getting the captain or hotel manager are slim.

Edited Tuesday at 05:58 PM by luv2kroooz

[davencl]

I would have liked to dine with officers but you must sign up as soon as you get on the ship.  No slots left when I when to book at cruise next desk.  Was really disappointed as we had just attained saphire status.  This was on the Prima. So for us no benefit at all.

Edited Tuesday at 07:08 PM by davencl

[Barb Nahoumi]

22 hours ago, davencl said:

I would have liked to dine with officers but you must sign up as soon as you get on the ship.  No slots left when I when to book at cruise next desk.  Was really disappointed as we had just attained saphire status.  This was on the Prima. So for us no benefit at all.

We did.  

 

 

 

 

[The Traveling Man]

On 9/24/2024 at 1:11 PM, biker@sea said:

D.W. and I  have been signing up for this perk at guest service's since we were Bronze.

 

Anybody can be chosen. We dined with a few captains . The French G.M. Alan hosted in LeBistro. The head of house keeping MaMa Tek was to much fun.

.

Alain Magnier doesn’t so much host a dinner as “he holds court.”  He’s a delight to get to know, so professional, so fastidious, and so personable.  We have been very fortunate to dine with several senior officers who see this as an opportunity to get to know and interact with frequent passengers.  Alain ranks at the top of that list.  He really seems to enjoy and appreciate the opportunity to mix and mingle with loyal guests.  He always prefers to host in Le Bistro and it always has been a memorable experience.

[sanger727]

On 9/24/2024 at 9:36 AM, tomk3212 said:

As others have pointed out whoever from the crew is selected sees this as an 'obligation' and not much more than that.  In all fairness, however, if the Sapphire pax simply turn this dinner into an 'NCL B&M" session ('moan' is the 'M'...lol) then I wouldn't look forward to it either as a crewmember. 

 

Exactly.  If these are enjoyable dinners for the crew, I imagine they would get people who wanted to be there.  But there are certainly passengers that look for any opportunity to complain.  The last NCL cruise I went on, there was a session where a couple officers talked about the ship. It was a kind of behind the scenes tour but with photos.  When they got to the question and answer section there were a couple people who kept asking questions that had nothing to do with the presentation or were of no interest to anyone else.  I felt like the crew there was being berated.  One of the topics I remember a guy bringing up multiple times was the salt substitute they should offer in the dining room. 

Edited Wednesday at 06:08 PM by sanger727

[The Traveling Man]

On 9/24/2024 at 1:54 PM, luv2kroooz said:

Your experience has been wildly different than ours. Too bad. Maybe next time you'll get a better draw. There are multiple dinners every week as more cruisers attain status. So, the odds of getting the captain or hotel manager are slim.

We have dined with some three dozen NCL officers.  More than half have been senior officers (three stripes or above), including two Captains, three Chief Engineers, and six General Managers.  About a third of our dinners were in a specialty restaurant, about a third were in the MDR, and the rest were in one of the smaller complimentary restaurants.  Only twice have we been paired with an officer who spoke little English or who seemed to view the dinner as a drudgery to endure.  In one of those cases we were able to get the officer to come out of his shell and share what turned out to be a very interesting life story.  In addition to getting to know the officer, we look at it as a chance to meet other frequent cruisers.  You get as much benefit from the experience as you put into it.

 

Recently most of our dinners have been in Le Bistro with just four persons at the table - two senior officers, my wife, and myself.  Those are especially enjoyable.  Not only do we get an extra meal in a specialty restaurant at no extra charge, we also have the conversation with two senior officers all to ourselves.

[YVRteacher]

On 9/23/2024 at 7:25 PM, MagnoliaBlossom said:

We had a delightful dinner on the Prima with one ambassador and the rest two diamond couples and the remainder were sapphires.  The Captain so very personable and was off on vacation after the next cruise.  After dinner he opasked if we would like a tour of the bridge the following day and of course everyone said yes.   As we were chatting I joked that I hoped when I became Diamond they would let me blow the horn, but it didn’t happen.  We all laughed.  The next day during the tour he searched me out and said”let’s go blow the horn”.  And we did!   He had a great laugh at how such a simple thing could make me so happy, so after the first time, he did Do it again.   So I did and he laughed and said, “ now my crew is wondering what on earth is going on.   Great time.

This is the best!!