Please welcome guest blogger Don & Heidi! DB and the Princess are a husband and wife duo with 10+ years of cruising history. Their blog, EatSleepCruise.com, provides valuable cruise planning tips and strategies. With reviews on cruise ships and shore excursions, along with a complete photo gallery, they help you “sea the world," one port at a time.

Dynamic Dining was a new program first introduced by Royal Caribbean on Quantum of the Seas that completely changed everything you know about traditional dining. Since the first incarnation of the program, Royal Caribbean has provided more options to cruisers, creating Dynamic Dining Choice and Dynamic Dining Classic.

Dynamic Dining Choice functions much like My Time Dining, where cruisers are free to eat at any of the complimentary restaurants at different times, with different table arrangements. This more freestyle approach is essentially the original version of the Dynamic Dining concept that was debuted. Given cruiser feedback, Royal Caribbean has implemented the Dynamic Dining Classic option, a new hybrid offering that includes elements of the original Dynamic Dining and the traditional dining that many Royal Caribbean fans are familiar with on other ships.

Having just returned from a cruise on Anthem of the Seas, we were able to test out Dynamic Dining Classic and compare it to our experiences with Dynamic Dining Choice a year earlier on Quantum of the Seas. We have put together this list of common questions about the program to help cruisers decide if Dynamic Dining Classic is right for them.

Which ships have Dynamic Dining Classic?

Currently, Anthem of the Seas, sailing from the Cape Liberty Cruise Port in Bayonne, and Ovation of the Seas, sailing from Australia, offer Dynamic Dining Classic. The program is no longer offered on Quantum of the Seas, sailing year round from China.

When do I eat with Dynamic Dining Classic?

Unlike Dynamic Dining Choice, where your meal times can change each night, with Dynamic Dining Classic, you have a set dinner time every night. Similar to traditional dining, there is an early dinner seating and a late dinner seating. On our Anthem of the Seas cruise, the early seating was from 5:30pm to 6:00pm, and the late seating was from 8:30pm to 9:00pm. Before your cruise, you will select which dining time slot you prefer.

What happens if I miss my time slot?

You are given a thirty-minute window to arrive at the restaurant for your assigned early or late dinner seating. If you do not arrive by the assigned time, then your table is given away to those scheduled with the Dynamic Dining Choice option.

During our cruise, we noticed that the staff did make rounds near 6pm to see which tables were vacant, and within about 15 minutes, those tables were filled. Of course, if you completely miss your dining time, you have several other options onboard the ship.

Do I have to wait in line with Dynamic Dining Classic?

No, there are no lines or waiting with Dynamic Dining Classic.

When you arrive for dinner, skip the lines and head into the restaurant. Your table assignment number will be the same in each of the four complimentary dining venues.  

After a couple of days, you will probably have your bearings and be able to find the table yourself (The table is in the same location, but some restaurants are mirror images of others.). If not, just ask someone to point you to the table, and they will be happy to assist.

Where do I eat with Dynamic Dining Classic?

What makes the Quantum class ships unique is that they offer not one complimentary dining room, but four complimentary restaurants. Each restaurant has its own theme, with distinct menus and atmosphere.

There is the pan-Asian inspired Silk, the comfort food of the American Icon Grill, the modern French cuisine of Chic, and the elegant Grande. 

During your cruise, you will have the opportunity to dine at all of these restaurants with Dynamic Dining Classic.  

How do I know which restaurant to go to each night?

On the first day of your cruise, you will find your Dynamic Dining Classic rotation in your stateroom. The letter will also indicate your table assignment, which is the same at all restaurants. Our rotation for a five-night sailing on Anthem of the Seas was:

Day 1- Chic

Day 2 – Grande

Day 3 – Silk

Day 4 – American Icon Grill

Day 5- Chic

If the cruise were eight days for example, we would have rotated through Grande, Silk, and American Icon Grill in that order for Days 6-8. Everyone’s schedule will be different, but it will be a systematic rotation through each restaurant during your cruise.

Do the menus change at the restaurants?

Yes, even though each restaurant has a distinct menu, there are different sets of menus for each restaurant. Each restaurant has the same “Classics Menu”, offering staple dishes for the duration of the cruise. On our cruise, there were two sets of menus- “Menu A” and “Menu B”. Menu B made an appearance only on Day 5, after everyone had dined once at each complimentary restaurant. On longer cruises, the menus are switched out at different intervals, so you do not have to worry about eating the same meals even though you might be dining in the same venue multiple times.

Is the food different with Dynamic Dining Classic and Dynamic Dining Choice?

No, the menus and offerings are identical for each program. The major differences are the time you eat, where you sit, and which restaurant you dine at each night. Those are set with Dynamic Dining Classic and variable with Dynamic Dining Choice. The food selections, drinks, and atmosphere in each restaurant are the same regardless of which dining option you choose for your cruise.

Who I will be dining with each night?

Similar to traditional dining, each night you will have a set table assignment. You will be given a table number that will be the same at each restaurant during the trip. Your tablemates will also be the same.

Of course, you can request a private table for just you and your family, and RCI will do the best to accommodate your request. We had a table for two every night of our cruise.

What about the wait staff?

Another benefit of Dynamic Dining Classic is that your wait staff move with you through the dining rotation. Our waiter, Manilow, accompanied us through our four restaurant rotation. We did not have an assigned assistant waiter or bar server, but we saw many of the same individuals each night.

The Dynamic Dining Classic option gives you the more personal level of service many loyal to Royal cruisers are used to on other ships with traditional dining.  

What if I don’t want to eat in a restaurant?

If you choose to forgo one of the restaurants in your rotation, you have other options. You could go standby at one of the other complimentary restaurants. There is always the Windjammer Café which is open for dinner. You could also make a reservation for the complimentary Solarium Bistro. Or, there are several specialty restaurants on the ship that you can make reservations at as well.

Keep in mind, there is a surcharge for these restaurants, and the popular ones fill up quickly. On our cruise, we made a reservation at Jamie’s Italian on the last night of our cruise, figuring we had eaten once at all of the complimentary restaurants.

Our Take on Dynamic Dining Classic

We preferred the Dynamic Dining Classic offering more than the Dynamic Dining Choice.

We thought the service was better, and we liked the predictability of having a set dinner schedule and table every night. We did not have to worry about making reservations or be concerned with wait times.

We tend to be rather structured and more “traditional” cruisers, so this option worked out better for us. It combined the best of both worlds, taking the elements of a traditional MDR and combining them with four unique restaurants offering different styles of cuisine.

If you prefer My Time Dining on other RCI ships, then Dynamic Dining Choice might be the better option.

Royal Caribbean's next sales promotion offers guests 50% off second guest and 25% off third and fourth guests.

This BOGO offer is valid between July 18 and August 3, 2016 on all sailings departing on or after August 7, 2016. Offer excludes China departures.

The promotion gives guests

• Buy One Guest, Get Second Guest 50% off
• 25% savings for third and fourth guests booked in the same stateroom as the first two qualifying guests
• 50% reduced deposit

BOGO is combinable with 25% Savings for 3rd and 4th guests, Holiday OBC, Crown & Anchor discounts and NextCruise offers.

BOGO and 3rd and 4th Guest Savings are not combinable with restricted rates (for example, Seniors, Residents, Military). All offers are not combinable with any other offer or promotion, including, but not limited to, Standard Group, Interline, Travel Agent, Travel Agent Friends and Family, weekly Sales Events, Net Rates, Shareholder Benefits. 

Offer available to residents of United States and Canada. 

Royal Caribbean released a statement indicating a scheduled stop for one of its cruise ships in Nice did not occur due to the recent terrorist attack.

Cruise Critic posted a statement released by Royal Caribbean that stated Navigator of the Seas skipped a stop in Nice, France.

"After reviewing all of the available information and along with discussions with our Global Security team in Miami, we have decided to cancel our next two calls to Nice. Navigator of the Seas was scheduled to visit Nice on Friday, July 15. Instead, the ship will spend the day at sea."

No other itinerary changes have been announced for Royal Caribbean ships.

Every Friday we showcase Royal Caribbean photos that our readers sent in, and we have a great batch of photos to share with you again this week!

What happens when you order nothing for dessert?  Mike Dinsmore sent us this photo proof of what nothing looks like!

Jeff Covello shared with us this photo Explorer of the Seas in Alaska.  Great contrast between the ship and the mountains!

Here is another photo from Alaska, and this one is from John that was taken from his Junior Suite balcony. I cannot get enough sunset photos and this one is beautiful.

Dan Stewart sent us this photo from Oasis of the Seas right before a storm rolled in near Jamaica. Check out the colors in the sky and on the ship!

Dave shared this photo of Jewel of the Seas.  I am not sure which port this was taken in, but it is hard to deny the beauty of the lines of a Radiance class ship.

Matthias & Klaus combined their love for cruising with their love for baking.  This is such a fun idea!

Our last photo is from Tom & Diane Trudnowski and it is of sunset in Tampa, as seen on Vision of the Seas.  Gorgeous!

Thank you to everyone that shared these great photos.  Do you want your photo included in our weekly photo showcase?  Use this form to send us your favorite Royal Caribbean photos and we will be sure to show it off to the world!

Royal Caribbean cruises that stop in the island paradise of St. Maarten/St. Martin will often find guests heading over to the French side of the island to enjoy the many terrific activities, and certainly French cuisine has to be at the top of that list.

Those that want to enjoy an authentic French cafe experience, will absolutely love a stop at La Sucrière in the French capital of Marigot for the fresh foods, cafe atmosphere and little taste of France in the Caribbean.

Atmosphere

Across the street from the ocean are a great many restaurants, including the La Sucrière bakery.

Before you even set foot in this boulangerie, you will have a great view of the harbor in Marigot, with its many yachts and sail boats anchored just off shore.

La Sucrière is set up like an open-air cafe, with plenty of seating underneath a roof that has no walls.  Like many French cafes, dining at La Sucrière is as much about enjoying the ambiance and weather around you, as the food itself.

Inside the bakery is a semi-circle shaped large room with plenty of freshly baked good to consider.  The area is lined with fresh breads, pastries, sandwiches and beverages.

The staff speak French and English, and nearly everything available was made fresh earlier in the day.  In fact, the smells alone as you walk in are worth the visit.

Eats

You will find a fairly wide selection of baked good to purchase at La Sucrière.  The French bakery advertises itself as a boulangerie and patisserie, which means it is a bakery and pastry shop.

Frankly, there is a lot of great choices and we quickly found ourselves in danger of over-ordering because everything looked so good.  You should definitely skip eating on your cruise ship prior to visiting this bakery.

La Sucrière features freshly baked breads, French open-faced sandwiches (known as tartines), quiches, cakes, fruits and more.  

If there is one thing missing, it would be cheeses.  Some of the sandwiches have cheese with them, but if you want to enjoy bread with your favorite kind of cheese, you should consider stopping elsewhere prior to eating here so you can combine it.  

The food can be enjoyed at the cafe or wrapped up for a meal later.  Certainly if you are planning on spending time elsewhere on the island, taking some of the amazing food with you is not a bad option.

In terms of the food, it certainly is fresh and sweet.  French breads, like baguettes and croissants, are always good choices and the fact they are baked on the premises really makes it taste better.

Overall

La Sucrière was a highlight of our stop to Marigot, because of the quality of the food offered here.  Part of the appeal of visiting ports of call on a Royal Caribbean cruise is the opportunity to sample the local cuisine, and La Sucrière is a fantastic example of French baking.

The combination of atmosphere, freshly baked goods (the smells!) and views from the cafe seating area made this a great meal.  There is some great shopping just steps away, so there are some nice activities to do before or after your meal here.

If you are going to visit the French side of St. Martin/St. Maarten, you ought to stop in at La Sucrière for a bite to eat.

Location: Front de Mer, Marigot 97150, St. Maarten-St. Martin

There are many Royal Caribbean cruises that stop in Port Canaveral and offer shore excursions to Walt Disney World. Often, guests wonder if it is worth it to take these trips and how much they can really do in the time they have.  The super-talented Laurel Stewart from TouringPlans.com wrote this guest post about visiting Walt Disney World for those on a Royal Caribbean cruise.

If you’re cruising between a US East Coast port like New York City or Baltimore and the Caribbean, you may have noticed that Port Canaveral is a stop on your journey. Two of the many port excursions offered here are PC11 - Disney World Express Service (Disney World Express Service - PC11) and PC50 - A Day at Walt Disney World (A Day at Disney World - PC50). We’ll take a look at the differences between PC11 and PC50 and try to help you decide if they are worth your time and money.

Photo by Richard Macko

First the basics. Walt Disney World is not in Port Canaveral. The trip from your ship to the Walt Disney World resort is around an hour (more with traffic) along FL-528. At least two hours of your port excursion will be spent on a bus traveling to and from Walt Disney World.

Walt Disney World is four theme parks, two water parks, and the Disney Springs shopping area. There is no admission cost to visit Disney Springs. Guests who choose the Royal Caribbean Walt Disney World port excursions will be dropped off at Disney’s Ticket and Transportation Center (TTC). The TTC is a monorail or ferry ride to the Magic Kingdom, a monorail trip to EPCOT, and the bus transportation hub to all other resort areas. If you plan to visit a park other than Magic Kingdom, you’ll need to factor transportation time (and money, if you choose to take a cab or Uber instead of a Disney bus) into your plans.

Admission prices vary at the parks from day to day, and single day admission to Magic Kingdom is higher than to the other three theme parks. Water park admission costs less than theme park admission. If your excursion does not include park admission, check out https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/tickets/ for pricing.

If you’re interested in visiting Walt Disney World during your cruise, you might wonder how much you and your family can see and do in one day. TouringPlans.com offers tools for planning trips from a one day visit to any length of vacation to help you make the most of your time. A tool that is particularly useful to guests on an excursion is a customized touring plan. As part of the TouringPlans app, Lines, and online at TouringPlans.com, subscribers can enter the dates and times of their visits, schedule time for meals, breaks, and shows, and add the attractions they want to see, and TouringPlans will arrange them in the best order to save the most time in line. Doing this ahead of time, before booking a Walt Disney World excursion, will let you see how much you’ll be able to do during your day in the park.

Let’s look at the differences between the two excursions:

So what can you do in 6 hours at Magic Kingdom? Check out a sample day at http://touringplans.com/plans/print?id=2020916. This plan was optimized for a particular day at Magic Kingdom, with moderate walking speed, and no FastPass+ reservations. This includes the three “Disney Mountains,” three more attractions, and a break for lunch.

Recommendations

Photo by Richard Macko

If this is your only chance to visit Walt Disney World for awhile, these opportunities are a decent way to get a taste of the vast resort. But be aware, 6-7 hours is not much time to spend in the park. The cost of transportation is reasonable given the distance traveled, but paying for entire day’s admission (and single day admission is the most expensive admission on a per day basis) is somewhat expensive, not to mention that you’ll need to budget for meals during the day.

If you do decide to visit, we recommend PC11 and purchasing your park admission before your cruise. Why? Because you’ll be able to make FastPass+ reservations ahead of time, which will definitely save you time in line during your short trip. You should also create a MyDisneyExperience account, download Disney’s app, and link your park admission to your accounts before your cruise.

Other options

Book PC11 and visit a water park instead. This is less expensive. Allow one additional hour for transportation between the TTC and water parks, and pack a dry change of clothes.

Book PC11 and visit Disney Springs instead. Disney Springs offers dining and shopping in a themed environment without an admission cost. Again, allow time for transportation.

Visit Kennedy Space Center instead. KSC is much closer to Port Canaveral and can easily be experienced in a day.

For all Port Canaveral/Orlando Shore Excursions, check out these Royal Caribbean options.

TouringPlans loves RoyalCaribbeanBlog! Click this link for a special RoyalCaribbeanBlog readers discount. Discount code is automatically applied and is good for new subscriptions only.

Our newest podcast episode is out to help give you a quick "audio escape" to a Royal Caribbean cruise!

Episode 154 is available for downloading where I will be reading more of your questions this week all about Royal Caribbean.

Matt is diving into the email bag this week to answer your emails all about taking a Royal Caribbean cruise, including where to be romantic on a cruise, where the best steak is, Cozumel excursion ideas, how to book a cruise that is not available yet and a whole lot more.

Here’s the podcast page for Episode 154. And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast via RSS, Stitcher or on iTunes!

Take a listen and as always, let us know what you think! Please rate and review the podcast on iTunes and leave your comments below!

Royal Caribbean’s latest ice skating show, 1887, takes guests on a magical journey inspired by Jules Verne, legendary author of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. This exhilarating, time-traveling journey blends fantasy with reality with an incredible combination of projection, lighting, video and theatrics in Harmony of the Seas’ high-tech entertainment venue, Studio B.

Royal Caribbean has released new sailings for Empress of the Seas that extends the booking window through September 2016.

The new sailings are for destinations in the Caribbean and Bahamas.

• 5-night Key West and Cozumel
  • Ports of Call: Miami, Florida; Cruising; Key West, Florida; Cruising; Cozumel, Mexico; Cruising; Miami, Florida
  • September 3, 12, 17, 26, 2016
• 4-night Key West and Nassau
  • Ports of Call: Miami, Florida; Key West, Florida; Cruising; Nassau, Bahamas; Miami, Florida

The new sailings are available for booking immediately.