Better Bring an Unlimited Appetite for this Dining Package

We were intrigued. Royal Caribbean’s new Unlimited Dining Package certainly brought savings over dining in specialty restaurants at their regular price.

And at the specialty restaurants, the food is better, the service is better. And there’s lots of choice.

 

Intimate and gracious 150 Central Park

What’s not to like?

So we sprung for it. Should you? Consider this:

The broader your food taste, the better. You’re going to be in these restaurants every night of your trip. It helps if you want to eat in many of them. Or if you only like a few, that there’s enough variety on the menu for you.

You need to make reservations. But. Sometimes, we couldn’t get the time we wanted. So we chanced it, and showed up at the restaurant without a reservation, and almost each time, we got in.

Lunch may be wishful thinking. The Unlimited Dining Package allows you to eat lunch in the specialty restaurants on sea days for no extra cost. But after the big meal the night before, and a big meal on the evening ahead, somehow, we didn’t feel much like doing a specialty lunch. And never did.

Good for the adventurous. Since you can order multiple dishes, you can afford to experiment. I tried something at Giovanni’s that I would never have tried otherwise—Tonno Crudo, or raw Ahi tuna with garlic chips and a sweet-ish citrusy flavor. I fell so deeply in love that I did the unthinkable (for me)—I had two.

 

Ahhhhh...i Tuna Crudo, a Giovanni's appetizer

Better bring an appetite. But the biggest challenge? It was a lot of food. The specialty meals are big. And you’re going to be doing it every night. After a few days, I started cutting down on the courses. And I never thought I’d say this: I got tired of filet mignon.

 

Filet mignon at Chops Grille

If you’re a big eater, and really enjoy the specialty restaurant food and service, the Unlimited Dining Package may be perfect to you.

For my part, I wish doggie bags were an option. I could sure use some of that filet mignon now…

Musing’s Top Tip: The price for the Unlimited Dining Package went down by $20 a few weeks before our trip. Watch the promotional emails from Royal Caribbean as your cruise gets closer.

One Class, Two Ships. Are They the Same?

Say you’ve been on a cruise and liked it. Now you’re thinking about another one—on a different ship but the same class. You wonder, will the two ships be the same?

Sister ships, as they call them, are indeed, like siblings. They may look kind of like each other. But they can be very different. Or very similar.

Take the Caribbean Princess and Emerald Princess. Pretty similar ships. Then take Oasis of the Seas and Harmony of the Seas. Very different ships.

Here are some of the ways sea-going siblings can differ:

Spacing out. Ships can use their space differently. The first in class Royal Princess debuted without an aft pool and after a fair amount of cruiser griping, her younger sister, Regal Princess, was built with one.

Another example is Celebrity’s Solstice; where the ship had space devoted to glass-making demos, the later ones gave it up to cooking lessons. Harmony has its bionic bartenders where folks sip champagne on sister Allure of the Seas.

Adding activity. Sometimes, a later ship gets more fun stuff. The Harmony added the Ultimate Abyss, as well as two water slides. You won’t find these on its older sibs.

Taunts on Harmony for the Ultimate Abyss

How to chow. Specialty restaurants can vary from ship to ship, even within the same class. For example, Oasis and Allure have the terrific Giovanni’s, but the Harmony went for Jamie’s Italian and added a new one, Wonderland.

Types of chow. The main dining room lunch buffet with the Tutti salad bar is on all the Oasis ships. But the Harmony took the sweets up a notch, with a grand dessert buffet, complete with chocolate fountain.

 

Chocolate, cake and much more to sweeten your lunch in the Harmony's MDR

From one stage to another. Each ship has its own shows, featured artists and sidebar entertainers.

Room for change. Harmony’s room configuration is not the same as that on Oasis and Allure—the two closets are far away from each other (which, by the way, is a good thing).

Art work. What graces the walls, sits in public spaces and hangs from the ceilings are all unique and can give the ship a feel of its own. I’m thinking about the big head in the Harmony’s Promenade, which, well, hits you in the face.

Techie talk. The Harmony is much more plugged in and booted up than its sisters—from its free-standing tablets to its modernized elevator buttons.

We’ve talked about the differences, but what’s the same? Nearly everything else.

So, really, you get the best of both worlds when you jump ship within a class. The ship is familiar. You (more or less) know your way around. Yet, it’s different enough to make it feel like a new experience. How neat is that for your vacation?

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