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How to speed up Dining Time


SteelersNationVA

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If RC wants to speed up the time it takes to dine, give those an option of pre-ordering their dinner.  Once they sit down the appetizer comes out, when the appetizer is served, the entrée is finished, same with the desert.  In and out.

We all have learned to order our dinner on apps and pick it up.  If that is what folks want at home, give them that option on vacation, but don't limit the experience for others.

Those that want a traditional dining experience, can have a traditional hour, hour and half to 2 hours to leisurely dine and talk.   

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The other consideration is that fixed or traditional dining is premised on everyone at a table or set of tables serviced by the same wait staff are supposed to progress through dinner at the same pace.  That's the only way one set of wait staff can handle that many guests.  Your proposal would wreck traditional dining as different guests would be at different stages of the meal.

For My Time Dining all you need to do is tell the wait staff you would like expedited service.  As soon as you are seated and the wait saff first come over inform them you don't need to see the menu and you are ready to order.   This works 100% of the time for me.  Sometimes I skip the appetizer and go straight to the mains.  No problem.  Often I skip dessert.  No problem.  

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28 minutes ago, twangster said:

I think you are giving Royal way too much credit for their ability to implement technology and app functionality. 

If every fast food restaurant can get it, I am sure the developers on RCL can do it or they can buy the software and configure to fit the RCL app. 

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20 minutes ago, SteelersNationVA said:

If every fast food restaurant can get it, I am sure the developers on RCL can do it or they can buy the software and configure to fit the RCL app. 

Let me change my response.  

You are giving Royal too much credit for their ability to implement app functionality.  

So far they have proven themselves incapable of making basic functionality work such as a calendar with all of your reservations properly documented. 

Ordering a hot meal in an app and having it promptly served to you by wait staff when you sit down at a table isn't available at fast food restaurants.  

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14 minutes ago, twangster said:

Ordering a hot meal in an app and having it promptly served to you by wait staff when you sit down at a table isn't available at fast food restaurants.  

I can order from Panera, drive from my office (10 minutes), and the hot items are hot.  It can work.  This was being done pre-pandemic.  

If the RCL app doesn't work and that inhibits the customer experience, they need to hire folks to fix it. Or is time not the issue, that the only issue is food cost.  Do not BS the customer.

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12 minutes ago, SteelersNationVA said:

I can order from Panera, drive from my office (10 minutes), and the hot items are hot.  It can work.  This was being done pre-pandemic.  

If the RCL app doesn't work and that inhibits the customer experience, they need to hire folks to fix it. Or is time not the issue, that the only issue is food cost.  Do not BS the customer.

My apologies.  I didn't know that Panera is a full service sit down restaurant with a full wait staff serving a 3 course meal.

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The point is to have a nice dining experience. Rushing dinner isn't pleasant, neither is waiting too long between courses.  I have generally found traditional dining to be a pleasant experience.  MTD has been uneven for me, sometimes like traditional dining, sometimes like a bad restaurant.  I believe what we are all looking for is execution rather than technology.  Just a thought....

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If you are in a rush to eat….eat at WindJammer. People who want to eat at the MDR are there to relax and enjoy their vacation. Asking RC to change their whole operation to appease a small minority of diners who are in a rush, just isn’t going to happen. You choose where you eat and if the MDR isn’t for you….don’t eat there. It’s pretty simple. Nobody wants a Panera dining experience at the MDR. If they do, then eat at Panera! 

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6 hours ago, twangster said:

My apologies.  I didn't know that Panera is a full service sit down restaurant with a full wait staff serving a 3 course meal.

And in addition to this ^^, Panera is not in the business of serving 1,000 meals all at once at 5:45 PM, and another 1,000 meals all at once at 8:00 PM, while serving a thousand more in between those times, and dealing with potentially 100's of no-show reservations.  The MDR is feeding an ill-organized army at a sit-down meal.

It's best to set expectations before going to dinner, and to make compatible plans at the right venue.  The MDR is meant to be a slow-paced dinner that takes about 1 hour if expedited, and 2 hours (or more) normally.  The Windjammer and the Cafes are best for sub 60-minute meals, or grab-and-go options.  The choices are available.

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4 hours ago, Ryan79 said:

If you are in a rush to eat….eat at WindJammer. People who want to eat at the MDR are there to relax and enjoy their vacation. Asking RC to change their whole operation to appease a small minority of diners who are in a rush, just isn’t going to happen. You choose where you eat and if the MDR isn’t for you….don’t eat there. It’s pretty simple. 

This. There are still quite a lot of us who prefer a more old fashioned dining experience rather than ordering via an app and then picking it up at the window because we're all in too much of a hurry to take a moment and enjoy what is. And as been pointed out there are other options for those fast food types that want it now. There's also the functionality of said app that for some reason some companies just can't seem to make it work well enough to make said streamline process, and more than likely your preordered food will be sitting there for too long before you actually arrive or it could be missed leading to a delay, thus you're right back at square one with ordering after being seated. 

In truth the only way to shorten wait times is to severely cut the menu down to one or two main dish items, each one over that just adds to the wait time multiplied by how many guests per night. I believe they also want to cut back on seconds and thirds? Possibly because that just means people stay longer than you would normally if only eating one serving, which will also cut down on wait times I'd imagine. It still doesn't account for those long winded talkers which I'm guessing there's an actual window in your reservation, or at some point are asked to leave if there too long?  

This change is obviously due to a shortage of workers that they haven't been able to get back to pre pandemic numbers, thus that lack of wait staff and cooks are impacting this process and seems the best way to address the issue since you can't hire help that isn't applying. So at some point it has to affect the guest side of things. The MDM must be really popular if it's consistently that busy even with all the other restaurants on board, and doesn't the ship general have 2-3 of them on each one? 

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We’ve on,ynever done two dinners at a specialty restaurant, so we’ve nearly always eaten in the MDR. We’ve done early seating, late seating, and my t8me and have never had a 2 hour dining experience.  Sure, we’re a party of two,  it we’ve never asked for faster service.  
 

From our recent experience on Harmony with the early seating, I think it boils down to people not showing up on time and not knowing what the want to eat.  For our cruise, early dining was at 5:15 (though they announced onboard it was moved to 5:00 and didn’t change the signs ).  The table next to us consistently showed up near 5:30 and then inspected the menu like they had never seen a menu before.  Then to top it off, they ordered items from the classic section most nights. This table had cruised with Royal before and were Diamond/Diamond+ (they referenced their vouchers repeatedly).

 

meanwhile we would show up by 5:15 with an idea of what we wanted, maybe ask a question or two and order items from the regular menu, the vegetarian menu, and the “secret curries” each night.   Never were we there longer than 6:15 and one night was even done by 6:00.  We never asked for expedited anything and never felt rushed.  Actually, our server brought me extra things each night because he saw how much I enjoyed the Indian food.  
 

i wonder if people who feel the time is too long are also making a lot of customizations to their items and maybe those are being handled differently and takes extra time.  I remember once I asked for poached eggs at breakfast in the MDR and they let me know it may take extra time. It was weird since the Benedict has poached eggs and didn’t take extra time, but they let me know it may.  
 

 

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In the past, we've often been asked by the waiter what our plans are for the evening. If we are on a tighter timeline on a given evening (but still have time to actually eat in the MDR), and we tell them we have an 8:00pm/8:30pm show, they have been very accommodating and have generally moved the meal along to the best of their ability.

Just don't go to the MDR with unrealistic expectations... it's a multiple course "fine" dining experience (not a chain restaurant experience like Applebee's, Friday's, etc.)... that's what the Windjammer and the other quick service options are for. Naturally, as the expression goes... YMMV!

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On 11/25/2022 at 2:26 PM, Ryan79 said:

If you are in a rush to eat….eat at WindJammer. People who want to eat at the MDR are there to relax and enjoy their vacation. Asking RC to change their whole operation to appease a small minority of diners who are in a rush, just isn’t going to happen. You choose where you eat and if the MDR isn’t for you….don’t eat there. It’s pretty simple. Nobody wants a Panera dining experience at the MDR. If they do, then eat at Panera! 

I personally don't find the longer serving times relaxing.  Last cruise, there was only 1 other couple that showed up each night (so 2 empty chairs at our 6 top table). Trying to make conversation and exchange pleasantries for near 2 hours was exhausting. I didn't want to be rushed, but 20 plus minutes between courses was too long. Again, I think some of the issues were Covid hangover and newly hired, inexperienced servers.

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On 11/25/2022 at 8:30 AM, twangster said:

I think you are giving Royal way too much credit for their ability to implement technology and app functionality. 

I just sailed NCL.  Royal's app, website, and IT Department stands head and shoulders above NCL's.  We couldn't even link two reservations on NCL - my wife and I had to log on at the same time to make restaurant reservations for us and the kids.

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