Anthem of the Seas not so Dynamic?

Ever since Royal Caribbean announced the Dynamic Dining aspect it has been received in different ways by all us that cruise, with the more experienced cruises wanting the more traditional old style of dining and the younger newer market embracing the change.

 With Anthem of the Seas set to launch in April 2015, majority of the sailings are fully booked and people have been in and booked there dining experience and restaurants as Royal Caribbean advised people to do on there website in under ‘Manage my Booking’.

However whilst a group of travel agents travelled on Freedom of the Seas Royal Caribbean CEO Michael Bayley announced that Anthem of the Seas will no longer feature the Dynamic concept, instead she will follow in Disney’s footsteps with rotational dining.

How this works is, you have for example 7 restaurants, if you are doing a 7 night cruise you would eat in each restaurant for one night of the cruise, the people you are dining with and the waiters will follow you to each restaurant – I don’t know how difficult it would be to change tables with this concept although I am sure time will tell. Could prove problematic if you are don’t like the company on your table.

This new dining method will be rolled out on only Anthem of the Seas at this moment in time, Quantum of the Seas will remain the Dynamic dining for the time being so it would appear that Royal Caribbean may do the Rotational dining whilst out of Southampton but when based in other areas of the World they can revert back to Dynamic, it would be very straight forward to do so and with the ship almost finished would be costly and time delaying to add in  the larger one or two main restaurants.

Dynamic Dining has only come about in March last year when Royal Caribbean announced that the new Quantum Class would feature the dynamic dining concept, so instead of one large open plan restaurant they have lots of little ones, some included in the cost, others at a supplementary charge.

Oasis and Allure of the Seas, where set to follow with Oasis having the Dynamic dining concept added in her refit back in October this followed with her making her first port of call to the UK with a visit to Southampton. This saw the main dining room split in to 3 different restaurants and other dining venues added. However she has remained offering the Traditional dining and was set to change to the Dynamic Concept in the Spring this year.

 When Quantum of the Seas was launched in November last year, many of the guests on board found that the service received was unacceptable and poor. A fair few guests were unable to book restaurants and ended up dining in the buffet for many nights of their cruise, and this lead Royal Caribbean to postponing the Dynamic Dining on board the Allure and Oasis, Allure of the Seas is due for a refit in May 2015 when she would have the changes made.

The problem that Royal Caribbean faced was that they have 2 brand new Quantum class ships but without taking the Quantum out of service and changing the interior of both the Quantum Class they would not have a big enough restaurant to offer the traditional dining, so they have introduced the rotational dining to give something which is similar to the Traditional dining.

Here is a video taken by Gina Smythe from the Freedom of the Seas with the announcements.