hey everybody its Bruce here with traveling with Bruce today's video is
about Royal Caribbean's new announcement talking about the unlimited dining
package that they're offering in effect it's a new one to replace their existing
one they're making a few adjustments to pricing availability and that kind of
thing but let's go back a little bit to under try to understand what's happening
here when you go on a cruise you got to understand folks it really is all about
the food yes the ship will take you to places if you leave let's say Florida on
a seven-day cruise to the Caribbean you'll go to a couple of islands and
you'll have a good time hopefully but really what is it all about three times
a day we kind of like to eat and food can make or break a cruise no matter
what it is whether you're doing the main dining room Lori doing the buffet like
this shot here it doesn't matter it has to be of a good quality it has to have a
good selection the service has to be there the variety and the taste and
that's what makes or breaks a cruise now in the case of Royal Caribbean and other
cruise lines it used to be that you'd go on a cruise and you would just go to the
main dining room and you'd have an assigned seating
you have to be there at say 8:00 the morning for breakfast or 30 for
breakfast or you have to be in the one for lunch five for dinner nowadays
with specialty dining options available on these cruise ships you can come and
go as you please but the trick of it is cruise ships don't just have 1,500 to
2,000 passengers anymore they now have up as many as six thousand
passengers so the cruise line cannot handle all those passengers in one
dining room anymore and so specialty dining has come into
place with in some cases upwards of 15 to 20 different places to eat per day
that's a lot of choice so you as a cruiser have to decide practically
before you get on the ship what restaurant do you want to eat at on what
day of the cruise and you have to look at your itinerary whether you're on a
ship excursion or not are you even on the ship today what time are you on the
ship when do you think you're gonna be hungry it's getting trickier but the
good news is there's a lot of variety here and you're under no pressure to
take a meal at any one restaurant but if you want a bit of a deal and it's a
question of whether you can make the work or not you can take the unlimited
dining package deal and here's an example if you take a seven-day cruise
on an oasis class ship which is the big ones you're looking at $29 a day per
person for a specialty dining package now that I'll run you 58 bucks a day and
406 dollars for the week as an additional cost to your fare that's not
a bad deal if you can utilize the specialty restaurants enough now under
this package deal you can use it for lunch
and/or dinner and you can even use it twice in one day in other words if you
want to have a say a five o'clock in bite to eat at the steakhouse and then
have another bite to eat at the steakhouse at 10:00 maybe just a dessert
or two you can go back and eat yet again whether it's an appetizer and a dessert
or whatever you want full meal up to you Cruise Line is rather flexible
but if you're gonna start using the buffet and the main dining room you're
actually shortchanging yourself you're almost taking yourself out of the the
free buffets and the free food to go just specialty dining you're gonna have
to decide for yourself if that works for you any event that's just a taste of
what's going on here with Royal Caribbean of course the Cruise Line is
betting that you won't eat more than you would normally eat and that they're
gonna make money off you because that's why they're in business
we'll see how this all plays out it's been a popular option the food of course
is what it's all about and we'll see how it go is join me Monday to Friday five
o'clock Eastern Saturdays of two we talk cruise ships six days a week
we love cruising food is a big reason we go and we'll talk to you later everybody
take care bye for now