Tag: cruise travel

The cruise ship dining experience: The mains and the specialties

The view from our table in the man dining room of the Celebrity Millennium.

There was a time in cruise ship history when the only dining option aboard was the main dining room.  We were mulling this over while on our most recent cruise as we were again puzzled by the inner workings of booking reservations in alternative (specialty) dining rooms; and it’s been a puzzle on almost every ship we’ve ever traveled on.  But before we get to that…let’s take a bit of a trip through the regular dining choices on cruise ships these days – and in the past.

The ‘main dining’ experience

Patty’s very first cruise experience was a down-market ship (from a cruise line that can now not be remembered), that picked her up in Halifax, of all places to board, and deposited her and a girlfriend in New York City – many years ago.  The single most vivid dining memory of that cruise was her introduction to the parade of the Baked Alaska and all the napkin waving that induced.  And what about those low ceilings? (Although to be fair, some of the dining rooms on the smaller, luxury cruise ships are quite low these days — but much more elaborate!)

The low-ceilinged dining room in the old Mercator One which was the Regina Maris when this photo was taken.

And low ceilings were the hallmark of the main dining room on the Mercator One, Art’s first cruise experience in the late 1970’s – and one on which he was actually one of the ship’s officers: he was the doctor on board.  Although he, too, had the Baked Alaska experience which is still a highlight (for lack of a better word) of cruise dining these days, oh how dining rooms themselves have changed since then!

Many cruise lines these days still adhere to the ‘traditional’ fixed-seating dining.  That means that if you request and are assigned the late seating (which is our personal preference) you’ll dine every evening at 8 pm or 8:30 pm depending on the line.  And you have to request the size of table you prefer.  We prefer to eat at a table for two and have no problem with this kind of fixed dining time – then we can get to know our serving staff and they can get to know us.  And we can bow out to an alternative dining space whenever we choose to do so (see below).

These days, however, there are more permutations and combinations of this kind of dining than we can even keep  up with as cruise lines try desperately to please everyone (an impossible feat).  Some lines have some kind of “freestyle” experience which sound to us like a bit of a free-for-all, to be avoided at all costs.

The exquisite Queen’s Grill dining room on the Queen Mary 2 as we did the trans-Atlantic voyage last summer.

Several of the six-star luxury lines have a variation on that, allowing you to dine at any time you like within the dining room hours. We had this experience on both Regent and Silversea, although Cunard does it best.  When traveling in a Queen’s Grill suite, you dine in the exclusive Queen’s Grill dining room where you have your reserved table awaiting you at any time you choose to appear for each meal.    It is your table for the duration of the cruise – no one else will sit there at all.  Bliss!

But, of course, you can dine in other places…

The ‘specialty dining experience’

Just as cruises offer more and more diversions to keep everyone happy, they have moved to offer more and more alternatives for dining.  Bearing an additional charge that varies from the nominal to the pricey ($25 to $75 per person for dinner), these specialty experiences can certainly add to your enjoyment of a cruise.  But we’ve always wondered: Since reservations are necessary (and often hard to get), why is it that there are so many empty tables at these venues.  Our case in point…

In February we boarded the Celebrity Summit in Puerto Rico and were immediately asked if we’d like to dine in one of the alternative dining venues that evening (see our post on the suite experiment).

After much wrangling about times and locations, we finally had our reservation and arrived at the beautiful Qsine restaurant at 7 pm. We had been told initially that there were reservations available only at 6 pm and 9 pm.  When we arrived the place was half empty and stayed that way for the duration of our evening.  This is not the first time we noticed that specialty dining spaces are usually half empty, and yet at the same time there are no tables available when you call.The first time we noticed this was aboard a Holland America ship in their Pinnacle Grill some years ago.  We could not get a reservation at all one evening, yet when we walked by, the place was more than half empty.  So annoyed, we finally had to find out what the problem was.

The exquisite Qsine on the Celebrity Summit where we dined in April, 2012.

We thought that they must keep empty tables for their highest-paying guests.  Well, that couldn’t be right since we are now among that group.  So, what was it?

We took our questions to the Summit’s Hotel Manager, Ugo Vaccalluzzo and his Guest Relations Manager, Simona Stumberger, both of whom graciously welcomed us into their inner sanctum..

We asked them simply what were the protocols for assigning reservations, and why were there always empty seats in these venues despite the unavailability of reservations on any given evening? They were both mystified that this should be the situation.  They did, however, promise to look into why this occurred.  And they did.

Several days later we sat down with the delightfully guest-oriented Simona who, along with Ugo, had approached the maître d’ of one of the specialty restaurants to find out what was happening.  It seems that there is a deep-seated desire to ensure that the wait staff and kitchen on any given evening in these restaurants are able to more than fully satisfy the guests, so much so that they will not run the risk of being over-crowded.  We asked the maître d’ in the Normandie restaurant ourselves and he indicated that they plan to serve only 20-30 guests despite the fact that there are two or three times that number of seats in the dining room.

All of this is understandable, but the optics are off-putting.  Perhaps it’s time that the mainstream cruise lines do what lines like Silversea do: have only four tables in that specialty dining room!

By the way, the food and service at these restaurants are by and large divine – some of the best dining experiences around.  The very inventive Qsine aboard the Celebrity Summit was a very special experience – we’ll tell you about it in detail later.

Photo credit:

Mercator One dining room (as the Regina Maris) http://www.cruiseshipodyssey.com/Regina%20Maris%20ship.htm

The ‘suite experiment’: Celebrity cruises ‘royal suite’ fails the test

The Celebrity ‘royal suite” living room & dining room.

It all started as the grand experiment: the discerning travelers would return to the scene of their first cruise ship suite experience, and travel in a Royal Suite on a Celebrity cruise ship.  We’re just back from that cruise and the verdict is in: the Royal Suite was not royal, and either we’ve changed, or Celebrity cruises has faced the recession by short-changing their highest paying per-person-per-day cruisers (we say that because the only suites larger are the two penthouses which seem to mostly be occupied by multiples whose cost-per-day can be kept down by sleeping on pull-out couches and sharing a bathroom!).

The experiment needs a bit of background: after our first suite experience, we were convinced that this was the only way to travel, thus took another Celebrity cruise in the same category suite as well as two Regent cruises and one on Silversea.  Both of these last two are billed as “six-star” luxury cruise lines and are all-suite accommodation (although the term suite covers a lot of ground).  We also sailed aboard the Cunard Queen Mary 2 in a Queen’s Grill suite last year, a singular experience if ever there was one.

We first need to say that we had a wonderful time on our vacation, the staff on the ship (especially in the dining room) adding considerably to that favorable experience.  However, as the “suite experience” goes, it failed the test of discerning travel.  When is a suite not a suite?  When it lacks the suite experience.

This was our third Celebrity Royal Suite experience.  At just under 540 square feet with a living room, dining room, bathroom with double sink, Jacuzzi tub and stand-up shower, as well as a 195 square foot verandah, as cruise ship accommodations go, these should be luxurious.  Well, that depends on how much you pay – and we paid a lot.

Art – need we say more?

All of the suite experiences we had on luxury lines (Silversea and Regent, as well as the Queens Grill suite on Cunard) were terrific – but as anyone who knows anything about cruising recognizes, they are very expensive in relative terms.  For example, aboard a Silversea ship for a comparable cruise in a comparable suite we paid almost double the cost of the Celebrity.  Silversea is however, all inclusive, but does that justify the price?  How much can you possibly drink in a week or two?   At this stage, we think the Silversea price is justified.  But you need the rest of the story.

We boarded the Celebrity Summit in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  Unlike on the more exclusive lines, there are inevitable line-ups.  Although there is a dedicated line for suite guests, there is a wait nonetheless.  Last year when we boarded the Silversea Silver Spirit in Barbados, we were warmly greeted by staff and directed immediately to the ship where the check-in procedures took place.  At Celebrity we were perfunctorily directed by a pointing finger wagged by a young man who looked to be fourteen years old.  He directed us to stand behind an older woman who had decided to take the opportunity to have every single question about the cruise answered.  Hmm…

Then we were directed to get our keys from the maître d’ next door who informed us that as suite guests we could dine “for free” that evening in the specialty restaurant of our choice.  We chose our restaurant and our time and were promptly told we could not be thus accommodated.  So, we opted out. (Later, our butler was able to procure a reservation at one of them – and not our first choice –  after considerable haggling as he told it). But specialty dining is another story.

We boarded to find ourselves greeted by a tray of drinks and little else.  (Oh, for the Cunard, Silversea or Regent greeting where they take your hand luggage and show you to you suite with a smile!).  We found the staircase and made it to our suite on our own.  When our butler found us, we were delighted to find that he was the same one we had had on the Celebrity Century almost five years ago in our first suite experience – so we expected to have exactly the same service.  Well, things seem to have changed.

First, there was the water.  We asked to have the expected carafe of ice water alongside the ice bucket on the suite bar only to be told that Celebrity had discontinued that service.  There was now a large bottle of water (for purchase) in the suite refrigerator.  When asked why this had been done (other than the obvious money grab), he told us that it had been done for health reasons.  What nonsense!  What’s the difference between the stainless steel carafe of water and the stainless steel bucket of ice beside it?  Or for that matter, the communal jug from which ice water is continually poured during dinner?  And what about their “save the waves” environmental program?  Bottled water?  Which reminds us: there is no recycling bin in the suite.

The cruise line web site indicates a number of impressive amenities in the suites.  Frette linens, Bulgari bath products etc.  However, a significant number of the expected (and listed amenities) failed to materialize:  second hair dryer, slippers, “pillow menu”, reserved theater seating, tote bag (come on people, a flimsy grocery bag is not a tote), and our personal bug-bear – there was no luggage valet service (presumably on offer for everyone aboard).  When we asked, we were told that it was in selected ports only – and we were further told that there was such an indication on the web site.  With respect, we beg to differ, as this screen capture from their web site indicates.  In any case, they did send us up a bottle of wine to compensate.  Nice, but not what was on offer.

The snip from the Celebrity web site – snipped after our return. No mention of “only in selected ports” here. Check it out at http://www.celebritycruises.com/onboard/singleColLanding.do?pagename=onboard_outstanding_service

We then went out to our verandah where we intended to spend a lot of time.  But the cushions were missing from the lounge chairs.  When asked, the butler informed us that the cruise line had removed them during the refit in January since they were considered (by someone) to be a fire hazard.  So, for two days we sat on loungers that were designed to be topped with comfy cushions until we could stand it no longer.  Guest relations promptly sent up the cabin attendant with cushions that are evidently now provided only on request.  If we had not been in the same suite previously, we would not have known that they were missing: we would only have known that Celebrity had the most uncomfortable lounge chairs known to man.   Evidently were not the first guests to complain either.

The chaises in the foreground. No cushions? What were they thinking?

There were two burned out light bulbs in the suite and one of the sinks in the bathroom lacked a stopper. Since these were not major inconveniences, we decided to see if anyone noticed during the eight days.  No one did.  It was often difficult to get service in a bar, and the debarkation process was chaos.  Part of what sets the six-star cruise lines apart from others whose bread and butter is not their highest-paying customers is the attention to detail – details that you expect not to be overlooked.

There were other parts of the cruise that now lead us to believe that the recession has taken a toll on service and amenities – but that’s a story for another post.

The bottom line is this for us:  when seeking a six-star suite experience, cruise on a six-star ship.  Suites on the other lines appear to be simply larger staterooms.  Pity.

Dressing for dinner: An eye on cruise line dress codes

The Discerning Travelers strike a pose on board a Celebrity cruise ship on a designated formal night.

Some people like a kind of laid-back beach holiday that finds them schlepping around in a T-shirt and shorts with a cold brew always at hand.  Others have to sky-dive or parasail or bungee jump every day.  We are travelers of a different stripe.  We like to drink great wine, walk for miles and miles exploring new and now-familiar cities, have new experiences, sample a new cocktail or two – and dress for dinner.

There’s something just a bit sad about how people “dine out” these days.  Just recently, we read a blog where the writer suggested that dinner is really only about the food.  Well, we respectfully disagree.  Dinner is about dining, and dining refers to a whole lot more than eating.  You can eat anywhere, including your couch.  Discerning travelers are also discerning diners.  We are interested in the whole experience.  Where we eat and the surroundings are as important as the food, and part of those surroundings focus on what you wear when you eat.  Cruises are a prime example of what, where and how one can eat.

The very first time we cruised, we were bemused by the vast number of people who chose to remain on deck in their bathing suits all day and most of the evening, leaving their deck chairs only long enough to load up their plates at the nearby buffet, returning to sit on the edge of the chair, face in their plates, chowing down through the pile of food.  (Presumably they then leave to use the facilities – but we are only guessing here).  Food for us is much more than eating, and dressing for dinner is one of the pleasures of both land and sea-based vacations.

This past weekend, we took some time to make a few decisions about what to pack for the upcoming vacation that will put us on land in Puerto Rico for a few days and then at sea  through the Caribbean, up to Bermuda and then farther up to New York.  Packing for a cruise has its special considerations as we peruse the various ‘dress codes’ that cruise lines use.

Cruise lines seem often to have a language of their own.  Every cruise line has in its FAQ’s a question that goes something like this:  What is the dress code on board?  The answer depends on the line, its brand and its target market.  Let’s look at a few.

Formal night on the Regent Seven Seas Navigator.

Some cruise lines have begun to distance themselves from the more formal evenings, which is a shame in a way, but we do recognize that there are people who don’t find it fun to get dressed up.  If, however, there is a dress code in the dining room, you’d do well to follow it, or risk the stink-eye from fellow cruisers, or worse, ejection from dinner to a more casual corner of the ship.  Some cruise lines actually refuse you entry to the dining room if you are not properly attired (God love Cunard) while others seem to turn a blind eye (although, rest assured, other passengers don’t and you’re being disrespectful of their experience).  So, if you don’t like to get dressed up, pick a different line!

Regent Seven Seas cruises that has played host to us on two vacations over the past three years is a six-star line that has gone to what they call “elegant casual” for every evening with “formal optional” nights on longer cruises.  On this kind of a cruise line, people do follow the dress code, and many cruisers who prefer the more laid-back approach of say NCL, might find the dress formal even on elegant casual nights.  Their dress code says, “Attire ranges from Casual to Formal Optional. Casual wear is appropriate for daytime onboard or ashore, and consists of resort-style outfits. Casual wear, including shorts and jeans, is not appropriate after 6:00 pm, with the exception of the final evening of the cruise.”[1]  The cruisers on Regent do take appropriateness seriously.

Patty and son, Ian, descend the central staircase on Cunard's Queen Mary 2.

Silversea, a line we have traveled on only once last winter, another six-star line, has this dress code: “Evening attire falls into three categories: casual, informal and formal. On casual evenings, open-neck shirts, slacks and sports outfits are appropriate. On informal evenings, women usually wear dresses or trouser suits; gentlemen wear jackets (tie optional). Appropriate formal evening wear for women is an evening gown or cocktail dress; men wear tuxedos, dinner jackets or dark suits. On formal nights, guests dining in La Terrazza may opt to wear casually elegant attire (dresses or trouser suits for women; jacket, tie optional for men).”[2]  Again, they take this seriously.

On Cunard last summer, formal meant formal.  Full-length formal gowns and tuxedos far outnumbered the cocktail dresses and dark suits on the Queen Mary 2, and anyone skulking around in shorts quickly departed (and were not welcome in the dining room in any case).

Next week we’ll be aboard the Celebrity Summit, our third trip on this line.  Our documents indicate that there are two formal nights on this eight night cruise and the rest are “smart casual & above” a category of dress that often baffles and leaves it open to serious interpretation.  In general, however, this means no T-shirts, jeans, shorts or flip-flops.  It means a summer dress or pants and fabulous top for women, and open-collared shirt with slacks and cool shoes for men.  A really cool, above-smart-casual man will wear a jacket as well.

Formal nights for us mean evening gown and tux.  Art always frowns when he has to pack his tux (he frowns only at the packing of it, not the wearing ), but this time he’s in luck. Celebrity has a formal-wear rental program and his tux with all the accoutrements (and he even ordered formal shoes) will be hanging in our suite when we open the closet door on Saturday afternoon.  And it will fit perfectly: we know this from past experience.  All it requires is for you to measure carefully and input the correct measurements when you pre-order online.  Patty, on the other hand, will schlep formal gowns (or in this case one formal gown with two different optional jackets for ease of packing).  A tip for formal gowns for cruises: when you’re shopping for one, always gauge its heft before you try it on.  If it’s heavy, don’t even take it into the dressing room.  Then if it passes the weight test, take a bunch in your hand and ball it up.  When you let it go, if it still has creases, leave it on the rack.  Remember, you’re not permitted an iron in your stateroom on a cruise ship.  The best you’ll be able to do is go to a communal laundry room to wait in line for an iron.  If it doesn’t pack well, don’t buy it.  Then find several different kinds of wraps – better yet jackets these days.  Wraps are cumbersome and usually look overly stuffy.

There's nothing better than the sight of a man in a tuxedo - unless it's two men in well-fitting tuxedos. Art & Ian onboard the Queen Mary 2.

The experience of dining in a wonderfully appointed dining room surrounded by people who have taken the time to look their very best for the evening is a vacation experience that everyone should have once in a while.

There's a little bit of "Gloria" in all of us!

Choosing a cruise: A discerning guide to getting it right!

The "fun ships" were on the agenda in the early days. Art & Ian going ashore in the Caribbean from the Carnival Triumph (back in the day).

We’re about to embark on cruise number eleven.  Eleven! In the winter of 1999 when we made a decision that our family vacation would be on a cruise ship, little did we know that we’d be hooked.  And little did we know that we’d become (if you’ll pardon the expression) cruise whores.  You see, over the years we have not been happily loyal; rather we’ve been happily jumping from one cruise line to another, every once in a while returning to an earlier favorite – but moving ever up the cruise food chain so to speak.

But, what exactly motivates a discerning traveler in making a decision about which cruise to choose?  There are lots of different reasons to choose one cruise over another, and the truth is that the priority you place on one over the other can and will change as you become more discerning in your travel planning.  The most important factors are the following:

  • Amenities
  • Itinerary
  • Price
  • Overall experience

…come along with us as we share a few stories of how these factors played into our decisions over the years.

Let’s start with amenities.  Back in 1999 we were traveling with a 10-year old.  We began our search for the perfect cruise by chatting with our travel agent.  Rule number one for cruising: Always, always, always use a travel agent.  We’ve extolled the virtue of our travel agent before, but it’s so important when you’re planning a cruise.  They have access to information that you don’t have and can be your go-between through the planning process.  They can also hold a booking for you while you decide on flights, hotels etc.  Back to the plan for the first cruise.

A young Ian poses in the (little) verandah stateroom aboard the Carnival Triumph.

“Well,” Alan our travel agent said to us at the time,” I’m going to recommend Carnival.  Now, if it were just the two of you, I would never recommend them to you.  But with a kid…”  So, Carnival it was.  A week-long Caribbean voyage on a sparkly, new ship with a recommended children’s program seemed like a good way to get our feet wet (!).  Sparkly it certainly was!  The glitz, glitter and all that neon were a bit jarring, but fun.  Ian loved the children’s program and we immensely enjoyed our verandah stateroom with the third berth.  It was tight, but we didn’t know that it could be any bigger.  Oh, how times change.

Alan was right – as he always was.  It was not a cruise that we would have gone on just the two of us.  Drunken spring breakers spent the full week on the deck, never once making it to the dining room.  Oh well, it meant that dining was a relaxing event with lots of staff to cater to our every whim.  But, would we ever go back on a Carnival cruise?  You couldn’t pay us!  All that neon, glitz and partiers are not our style.  So, amenities in the form of a great children’s program led us to begin our cruising life, but amenities as a priority decision-factor has changed over the years.

So, then there’s itinerary.  Where is the ship going?  Probably the time that this issue was most important to us was when we decided to spend our 20th wedding anniversary on a Mediterranean cruise.  So, we began by searching for a great Mediterranean itinerary.

Art & Ian celebrate our sail-away in our Queen's Grill suite aboard the Queen Mary 2.

We’d been on Holland America in the intervening years, but Celebrity was offering really interesting cruises starting in Barcelona.  So, in the end, the itinerary that would take us from Barcelona to Marseille, Monte Carlo, several stops in Italy, Corsica and Northern Africa entranced us sufficiently that we booked our celebration aboard the Celebrity Century. And we decided to treat ourselves to a Royal Suite.   As we’ve mentioned before – once you go up to a suite, there’s no going back! And so to the discussion of price…

Discerning travelers are always looking for value.  That means that we’re judicious about how we spend our money.  This means that price is not the guiding principle for us in choosing a cruise.  And perhaps you might consider putting it a bit further down your priority list as well.  Hear us out.

Your enjoyment of a cruise will never be based on its price.  Obviously, we all have to stay within our budgets, but we assure you that you’re playing Russian roulette with your holiday money if all you go on is price (that is of course unless you plan to eat and drink yourself into a stupor  so that you don’t notice anything else– in which case you could do that on your own couch in our view).  We’ve been listening and observing through the years, and we have concluded that it is safe to say that not every cruise line is for everyone.

Recently, a colleague of Art’s returned from a family cruise aboard a line that we have always avoided.  Knowing ourselves the way we do, it seems that we were right to do so.  The colleague complained that it was so laid back and casual that people even dined (in the main dining room) wearing T-shirts and ball caps.  If that’s your style, go for it – but we would not enjoy that, and neither did she.  So, you really do need to do some research – and travel agents are the best place to start.

And this brings us to the all-encompassing decision-making factor: the overall experience.  Lately, this has been our guiding principle.  What kind of ‘experience’ do we want?  We clearly chose last summer’s trans-Atlantic crossing on Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 because we wanted to experience the traditional voyage on a ship purpose-built for these kinds of crossings – we didn’t want to be on a re-positioning cruise.  Several years earlier, we chose a Holland America holiday cruise when we wanted to spend Christmas at sea en famille.  At that time, the overall experience we were seeking was Christmas at sea some place warm.  They did not disappoint!

Clearly, we do enjoy a bit of dress-up. We pose on the Queen Mary 2.

It’s hard to categorize the kinds of experiences that you want, but here are a few questions you might ask yourself before you spend your hard-earned money on the cruise of a lifetime:

  • Do you like to get dressed up once in a while, or do you prefer to wear your baseball cap to dinner?
  • Is the ship the destination for you, or are the ports more important?
  • Do you like to be surrounded by (other people’s) children, or  do you prefer the company of adults?
  • Do you need to have a place to retreat to (like your own verandah), or do you always prefer to be around other people?
  • Do you like quiet evening entertainment, or must you have a full-on, Broadway-type show?
  • Do you like glitzy extravagance, or does your personal style run more to the elegant?

Once you have answered these questions for yourself, you can take your answers to your travel agent and you’ve begun a discerning journey to a memorable (in a good way, we hope) cruise vacation.

Our own answers to these questions led us to our upcoming Puerto Rico to New York via Bermuda cruise with a revisit to a Royal suite.  We’ll let you know how that goes!