FOR THOSE WHO HAVE DONE BOGO

[GaCardinal]

I have been on 5 RC cruises, but never eaten in a specialty restaurant.  We are die-hard main dining room diners, but I think we're going to give bogo a go on our next cruise.  But I'm wondering if all the specialty restaurants were available to choose for our BOGO.  Even Wonderland, 150 Central Park and Chops?  I've always wondered if they have trouble filling their restaurants on the first couple nights and if this is one of their strategies to solve that.  My nightmare is that they book us into the Solarium Bistro, my absolute last choice even beyond the Windjammer, and tell us there's no room to move to another restaurant.  I appreciate your shared experiences.

[WAAAYTOOO]

Yes, they will book your first night reservation for you but if you would prefer a different restaurant than the one they booked you in, you can change it to the restaurant of your choice once you are on board.  You should be able to get whichever restaurant you choose.

[BrianAlt]

10 hours ago, GaCardinal said:

I've always wondered if they have trouble filling their restaurants on the first couple nights and if this is one of their strategies to solve that.  

This is my understanding.

[FManke]

12 hours ago, GaCardinal said:

I have been on 5 RC cruises, but never eaten in a specialty restaurant.  We are die-hard main dining room diners, but I think we're going to give bogo a go on our next cruise.  But I'm wondering if all the specialty restaurants were available to choose for our BOGO.  Even Wonderland, 150 Central Park and Chops?  I've always wondered if they have trouble filling their restaurants on the first couple nights and if this is one of their strategies to solve that.  My nightmare is that they book us into the Solarium Bistro, my absolute last choice even beyond the Windjammer, and tell us there's no room to move to another restaurant.  I appreciate your shared experiences.

Like @WAAAYTOOOstated above. If you go the first day, you should have no problems changing your restaurant choice.

[Guest toodle68]

13 hours ago, GaCardinal said:

I have been on 5 RC cruises, but never eaten in a specialty restaurant.  We are die-hard main dining room diners, but I think we're going to give bogo a go on our next cruise.  

As a die-hard main dining room diner myself, maybe just trying 1 place on a cruise. You can always book others if you enjoy it.  I know some people here love the specialty places, but we did not.  We did not find the steak or sides at Chops to be anything worth $35 and we were in and out within 40 minutes.  We both enjoy the MDR for the length of time, the relaxed approach and the time between courses.  Of course, we also picked our normal dining time of 6pm at chops and the place was empty so we had immediate attention from the wait staff.

[Lovetocruise2002]

14 hours ago, GaCardinal said:

I have been on 5 RC cruises, but never eaten in a specialty restaurant.  We are die-hard main dining room diners, but I think we're going to give bogo a go on our next cruise.  But I'm wondering if all the specialty restaurants were available to choose for our BOGO.  Even Wonderland, 150 Central Park and Chops?  I've always wondered if they have trouble filling their restaurants on the first couple nights and if this is one of their strategies to solve that.  My nightmare is that they book us into the Solarium Bistro, my absolute last choice even beyond the Windjammer, and tell us there's no room to move to another restaurant.  I appreciate your shared experiences.

I might be wrong but I don't think they will book you into Solarium Bistro since that is a no charge restaurant.  That would not make sense.  We use to be die hard MDR diners as well.  Acutally, we did not try a specialty restaurant until this past summer on Harmony and that was our 9th cruise.  It was all MDR before that.  Loved it, never had a problem with it.  We never really felt the need to spend more money when the food was already pretty decent in the MDR.  

I have since changed my thinking though and here's why....on the Allure last summer (2016) we did MDR all cruise and noticed a few things. First thing was that the MDR menu choice was not that appealing in the sense that the food choices were very "typical".  Secondly, the portion size seemed to have gone down a bit.  We are not big eaters but it left us just slightly unsatisfied in the sense that you feel like you're paying just as much but getting less.  Not sure if that makes sense.  And lastly, and probably the biggest issue was that I felt like the quality of the food had gone down.  Flavours not as rich, poor quality cuts of meat, sometimes things arrived slightly cool, etc.  This was still not a total turn off as we are not super picky eaters but it was just something I noted and for the first time in 8 cruises (at the time) I was not 100% happy the with MDR food. 

So Harmony this past summer (2017) was an eye opener because there were actually 2 restaurants I really wanted to try.  Wonderland, because of how unique it was, and Jamie's, because I cannot say no to fresh pasta.  So grudgingly, my husband agreed to pay extra for specialty dining.  We did not do the BOGO (although that definitely is the better deal) because we did not want to dine nights 1&2.  But after dining at both, I can see why people like to spend the extra for specialty restaurants.  The real game changer for us was the opportunity to dine in Coastal Kitchen.  I found their quality to be excellent, and we dined there almost every night.  The menu was varied, food was always fresh and excellent quality, service was excellent.  It reminded me of MDR meals from the past.  For research purposes, we did make it a point to check out the MDR as well and we looked at the menu each day even if we did not eat there to compare.  But sadly we found the same experience as we did on Allure.  Not terrible, but not great.  Nothing really stood out on the menu.  So not sure if it is because these are their biggest ships and they can't keep up or if it is a trend with them to push more people into specialty dining.

Going forward, we recently booked a cruise for this coming March on Anthem.  My husband was the one who suggested that we book the 5 night dining package or book a suite to dine at Coastal Kitchen.  And this says a lot because he is not one to spend extra.  I had to really do some convincing for him to dine at Wonderland and Jamie's.  In the end, we are in a suite so no dining package for us.  But I will still check out the MDR to compare. 

Sorry this was long, you may have gotten more thoughts than you asked for...

[JLMoran]

54 minutes ago, Sabrinaklai said:

The real game changer for us was the opportunity to dine in Coastal Kitchen.  I found their quality to be excellent, and we dined there almost every night.  The menu was varied, food was always fresh and excellent quality, service was excellent.  It reminded me of MDR meals from the past.  For research purposes, we did make it a point to check out the MDR as well and we looked at the menu each day even if we did not eat there to compare.  But sadly we found the same experience as we did on Allure.  Not terrible, but not great.  Nothing really stood out on the menu.  So not sure if it is because these are their biggest ships and they can't keep up or if it is a trend with them to push more people into specialty dining.

And now you've pretty much convinced me to only eat in Coastal Kitchen for dinner during our cruise on Anthem next year. I already have the JS booked and get that perk, and if you found the difference that noticeable then I think I'd be foolish not to take advantage. I may still do like you did and try the MDR one night just to compare, but if I'm paying the junior suite price I might as well make maximal use of those minimal JS perks!

And I do think that the fact ships are so much larger now is probably contributing to any perceived decline in food quality in the MDR. They only have so many chefs and cooking stations, and trying to feed that many more people in the MDR at once is going to lead to some slips in quality so that things still move in the required time. What would be interesting would be to hear from someone who recently was on an Oasis / Quantum / Freedom class ship and a smaller ship like Enchantment or a Radiance class.

Hey @mpoole3, seems to me that you might fit this bill pretty nicely (although I recall from your live blogs that you were pretty much always in a specialty dining venue every night of your two most recent trips). Any chance you could contribute here?

[Lovetocruise2002]

1 hour ago, JLMoran said:

And now you've pretty much convinced me to only eat in Coastal Kitchen for dinner during our cruise on Anthem next year. I already have the JS booked and get that perk, and if you found the difference that noticeable then I think I'd be foolish not to take advantage. I may still do like you did and try the MDR one night just to compare, but if I'm paying the junior suite price I might as well make maximal use of those minimal JS perks!

And I do think that the fact ships are so much larger now is probably contributing to any perceived decline in food quality in the MDR. They only have so many chefs and cooking stations, and trying to feed that many more people in the MDR at once is going to lead to some slips in quality so that things still move in the required time. What would be interesting would be to hear from someone who recently was on an Oasis / Quantum / Freedom class ship and a smaller ship like Enchantment or a Radiance class.

Hey @mpoole3, seems to me that you might fit this bill pretty nicely (although I recall from your live blogs that you were pretty much always in a specialty dining venue every night of your two most recent trips). Any chance you could contribute here?

I may or may not be in the minority here but we totally fell in love with Coastal Kitchen.  Hopefully, Anthem's CK is the same.  For our 8 night coming up we plan to try MDR maybe one night (to compare) and spend the rest in CK.  There was a noticeable difference in quality and service.  In my opinion, CK is the same caliber as specialty dining.  One of the waiters told me that our first night there and I was skeptical but by the end I was a believer.  I had a filet mignon there one night and it was probably the best one I had eaten on a cruise and they told me it was the same as you would get at Chops.  So I agree, you paid for it, might as well take advantage.

I would be interested to know too from someone who as recently gone on an Oasis class and smaller class recently as to how the MDR compared...I realize my opinion might be skewed because my last 3 RC cruises were Oasis, Allure, and Harmony.  Maybe @twangster could chime in too because he was on Grandeur and Harmony recently.  Would be interesting to know his opinion too...

[twangster]

I love CK!   Sadly I'll miss it on Anthem in December as I'm not living the suite life on that cruise.  

I have tried CK on Oasis, Allure and Harmony.  Service was excellent (not that MDR service isn't very good as well) and food is better than MDR (not that food isn't very good in the MDR). CK has its own kitchen right there.  On the All Access Tour on Harmony the chef in Silk mentioned that the CK kitchen is independent.  My son has a nut allergy.  Our CK waiter asked if we were eating dinner again there which we were and the CK kitchen cooked a special Apple pie for him and another guest with a nut allergy on that night.  

We had a very good duck entree in CK on Harmony.  Incredible flavors.  Perfect sized portions.  Great views.  They do lobster as well on the 2nd formal night like MDR.  

Specialty dining is unique, love Izumi Hibachi for example.  

I'm doing the BOGO on Freedom soon because for $30 for two specialty? Why not!  But I'd have no issue eating MDR all the time.  I'm trying to turn my Anthem into a B2B for 19 nights and I'll mostly do MDR.  

 

[Lovetocruise2002]

24 minutes ago, twangster said:

I'm doing the BOGO on Freedom soon because for $30 for two specialty? Why not!  But I'd have no issue eating MDR all the time.  I'm trying to turn my Anthem into a B2B for 19 nights and I'll mostly do MDR.  

 

@twangster I envy you...freedom too now? Looking forward to more beautiful pictures afterwards ☺️

[katjoe]

I've looked into the BOGO deal, which sounds like a good one - however,  we're going to be on the Grandeur, which is a small ship and I think only has the Chops, Italian and Japanese specialty restaurants. We're not interested in Japanese, and we're not huge fans of Italian food outside of Italy (it almost inevitably disappoints), so not sure it'd be worth it for us, especially since it specifies that this would be for the first two nights, so no way of choosing which nights!

Think we'll probably stick with MDR...they usually have a steak offering every night, so how much different would Chops be? 

[Lovetocruise2002]

1 hour ago, katjoe said:

I've looked into the BOGO deal, which sounds like a good one - however,  we're going to be on the Grandeur, which is a small ship and I think only has the Chops, Italian and Japanese specialty restaurants. We're not interested in Japanese, and we're not huge fans of Italian food outside of Italy (it almost inevitably disappoints), so not sure it'd be worth it for us, especially since it specifies that this would be for the first two nights, so no way of choosing which nights!

Think we'll probably stick with MDR...they usually have a steak offering every night, so how much different would Chops be? 

The steak we had the last two cruises in the MDR has not been the greatest.  Poor cuts of meat, not much flavour.  I have never dined at Chops but it is my understanding that, quality wise, it is slightly above MDR.  They offer (for and extra cost) steaks from Chops in the MDR....

[DocLC]

5 hours ago, katjoe said:

I've looked into the BOGO deal, which sounds like a good one - however,  we're going to be on the Grandeur, which is a small ship and I think only has the Chops, Italian and Japanese specialty restaurants. We're not interested in Japanese, and we're not huge fans of Italian food outside of Italy (it almost inevitably disappoints), so not sure it'd be worth it for us, especially since it specifies that this would be for the first two nights, so no way of choosing which nights!

Think we'll probably stick with MDR...they usually have a steak offering every night, so how much different would Chops be? 

Izumi offers a hot rock with the choice of beef, chicken, or seafood that's quite good and not really Japanese. Giovanni's also traditional offers a very good steak option, and I think their appetizers are quite good. Authentic, perhaps not, but still quite good. 

[mom2mybugs]

On 10/19/2017 at 10:49 AM, Sabrinaklai said:

The steak we had the last two cruises in the MDR has not been the greatest.  Poor cuts of meat, not much flavour.  I have never dined at Chops but it is my understanding that, quality wise, it is slightly above MDR.  They offer (for and extra cost) steaks from Chops in the MDR....

The steak in both chops and giovannis was way better than the steak in the mdr.  There was no comparison.   That is not to say my son and i couldn't eat the mdr steak...it was fine,  but not what you would get in a better restaurant.   My son did order the steak for an extra fee one night in mdr and it was a better cut off meat.   Jane

[twangster]

On 10/19/2017 at 8:05 AM, katjoe said:

Think we'll probably stick with MDR...they usually have a steak offering every night, so how much different would Chops be? 

I did a 9 night Grandeur in August, menus below.  There is a steak option in the "Classics" section which is available every night unless a better cut is offered that night.  IMO this isn't the best cut of meat, but it is steak.  I've been fortunate to eat at some really good steak houses with a company paying as we entertain clients and with bills ending up in the thousands.  Chops isn't that, but it is very good.  I enjoy it and will do Chops again.  I just did Chops on Harmony a few weeks ago.  Yum.   So yeah, Chops is much better than the MDR "classics" steak.

I didn't do any specialty on Grandeur and I was very happy in the MDR.  Great service, good food.  I enjoyed seeing the staff each night.  I'm contemplating more Grandeur in the spring and have no hesitation eating in MDR on her more. 

Grandeur MDR Menus.pdf

[katjoe]

Hm yum, you make my mouth water!! I do love a good steak, but I think I'm not as discerning as I never go to expensive steak houses (I have no company paying for me and I'm too stingy for that kind of thing - I have hubby cooking them on the grill :-) 

So I have to admit I don't fully understand how this dining in the specialty restaurants works; for example, if I got the BOGO dining deal, we'd eat in restaurants other than the MDR for the first two nights, if I understand correctly? Would that extra charge (which would be $30 per person for the BOGO deal) cover the entire meal, or only part of it? And are the wine prices the same as in the MDR (they are already so overpriced there, I certainly wouldn't want to pay any more!!). And would we be able to eat at Chops both nights? I read that they assign restaurants for you but you can change that??

[Lovetocruise2002]

15 hours ago, katjoe said:

Hm yum, you make my mouth water!! I do love a good steak, but I think I'm not as discerning as I never go to expensive steak houses (I have no company paying for me and I'm too stingy for that kind of thing - I have hubby cooking them on the grill :-) 

So I have to admit I don't fully understand how this dining in the specialty restaurants works; for example, if I got the BOGO dining deal, we'd eat in restaurants other than the MDR for the first two nights, if I understand correctly? Would that extra charge (which would be $30 per person for the BOGO deal) cover the entire meal, or only part of it? And are the wine prices the same as in the MDR (they are already so overpriced there, I certainly wouldn't want to pay any more!!). And would we be able to eat at Chops both nights? I read that they assign restaurants for you but you can change that??

Yes, BOGO you are restricted to the first two nights.  The $30 covers your appetizers, entree, and dessert but not beverages.  I don't pay attention much to the alcohol prices so maybe someone else can chime in here.  I usually get the drink package and it has always covered me so far.  I know the specialty cocktails can be a bit more. 

They pre-book the restaurants for you with BOGO but if you don't like it you can change it once on board.  Just go to any specialty restaurant or they are usually set up in the MDR to make changes.  And yes, I am pretty sure you can pick Chops both nights if there is availability but you have to wait until you get on board.

[mom2mybugs]

17 hours ago, katjoe said:

 And are the wine prices the same as in the MDR (they are already so overpriced there, I certainly wouldn't want to pay any more!!).

Drink prices other than signature specialty drinks have seemed to me the same.   A glass of certain wine at vintages will cost you the same at mdr or another bar.  Some of the offerings might be different,  but generally there is always a less expensive red and white available.   And yes,  the price covers appetizers, 1 entree (at some restaurants more,  but at chops 1), sides and desserts.   Jane

[DocLC]

On 10/21/2017 at 6:23 PM, katjoe said:

Hm yum, you make my mouth water!! I do love a good steak, but I think I'm not as discerning as I never go to expensive steak houses (I have no company paying for me and I'm too stingy for that kind of thing - I have hubby cooking them on the grill :-) 

So I have to admit I don't fully understand how this dining in the specialty restaurants works; for example, if I got the BOGO dining deal, we'd eat in restaurants other than the MDR for the first two nights, if I understand correctly? Would that extra charge (which would be $30 per person for the BOGO deal) cover the entire meal, or only part of it? And are the wine prices the same as in the MDR (they are already so overpriced there, I certainly wouldn't want to pay any more!!). And would we be able to eat at Chops both nights? I read that they assign restaurants for you but you can change that??

It covers the entire meal in restaurants with a cover charge. There may be one or two upcharge items at Chops, but I've never felt the need to indulge. You will be limited to one entree, but may order as much as you like from the other parts of the menu. 

If you fine at an a la carte restaurant, then you'll be given an amount of money ($30-$50 per person) to spend there. 

[FManke]

1 hour ago, DocLC said:

 You will be limited to one entree, but may order as much as you like from the other parts of the menu. 

As @DocLCmentioned, you can choose as apps, salads, sides and desserts as you would like. We each chose a side item and was encouraged by our waiter to choose a third. 

[FManke]

21 hours ago, mom2mybugs said:

Drink prices other than signature specialty drinks have seemed to me the same.   A glass of certain wine at vintages will cost you the same at mdr or another bar.  Some of the offerings might be different,  but generally there is always a less expensive red and white available.  

My wife ordered, I think it was the least expensive glass of white at Chops for $14