Changes and cuts at Royal Caribbean: Does it matter?

there have been changes and even some cutbacks with Royal Caribbean in the last couple of months and today we're going to talk about what these changes are and it doesn't matter here we go [Music] hey everyone it's Matt from realgreenblog.com like everybody I don't like getting less than I used to before and the Curious industry is definitely changing one Trend we've noticed certainly since the start of 2023 even going back maybe before the start of the new year is that the cruise industry including Royal Caribbean have had to cut back alter or otherwise change up some of the approaches to the cruise experience now there's a lot of reasons for this there's economics of the world there's economics of the cruise industry there is the quarterly profits and losses and the fact that cruise industry is facing billions with a B dollars in debt as a result of the shutdown that lasts from 2020 into 2021. I've gotten a lot of feedback from you our viewers about these changes and talking about what it all means because there's a lot of discussion about these changes and what sort of material impact does it have on your cruise experience it might be very clear about what we're talking about today there are in a lot of cases actual cutbacks I'm not here to make it seem like there aren't any cutbacks there are there are changes things are happening in the world of Royal Caribbean so I'm not here to deny that the issue is do these changes actually matter meaning do these things actually impact your cruise experience or are they changes in the sense that yes something has changed but overall the experience the cruise vacation doesn't really change all that much let's talk about all these changes starting up with number one a big one once a day housekeeping change that we've talked about in previous videos here but it's also something that's in the process meaning not every single Royal Caribbean cruise ship has done this yet but real creeping is slowly changing over its ships one at a time to once per day for non-sweet cabin housekeeping meaning instead of your state room attendant coming to your cabin twice a day in the morning and in the evening it will now only come once a day if you're staying in a balcony or lower type of category passengers have the choice if they prefer to have their state room attendant service the cabinet in the morning or the evening and as you might imagine this change has gotten a lot of people Fired Up In fact when I first heard about it I was upset about it because we've had twice a day for years and years and years but the reality of it a lot of people pointing this out is that twice a day servicing of your cabin is a little bit much not just in the grand scheme of the travel industry but in general because I don't know many places and we should get twice a day service right certainly if you look at the hotel sector my goodness if you get once a day that's pretty lucky once a week that's kind of even above the norm at this point so certainly the travel industry as a whole has changed and Royal Caribbean is adjusting to that but of course let's be realistic about this why are they making this change to save money because you have to remember the travel industry especially the cruise industry has lost so much money and essentially what I think we're seeing right now is the cruise industry trying to rectify that right the ship so to speak and do what they can in order to save as much money as they can so they can be profitable and continue to go forward and you know obviously not go into bankruptcy or anything among those lines they want to pay off these loans and you got to cut costs somewhere and I think that's where Royal Caribbean sees this opportunity because you've got to save money where you can every little bit helps so does it matter in the grand scheme of your cruise experience now to be fair I have not actually experienced this yet myself in terms of staying in a cabin that this applies to so I'm only talking about now hypotheticals in the sense of what I would experience but as others have pointed out the reality is twice a day was a lot and there are benefits to having only once a day as an example if you choose evening service if you want to sleep in now you don't have to worry about getting out of your room oftentimes we've had conversations with my kids like hey we gotta get going because we need to make sure we're out of the room so our state room attendant can come in and change the room over but the reality is the biggest thing people need on a daily basis maybe are new towels at the very least and those are changed once a day with the once a day service and you can always request more towels if you need them and yes if you have a sofa or a Pullman bed that needs to be put up or put together or undone they can come in and do that in addition to the once a day service Royal Caribbean has said that so yes it's a change and it's a cutback I'm not here to deny that but I'm also saying that I don't think in the grand scheme of things it really materially impacts negatively your cruise experience it seems like a lot of people certainly get that and I was actually surprised how many Cruisers seem to be in favor of this change because of the fact that they just didn't like always having to go around the stereo incident twice a day it kind of frees up their day in the sense that they only have to have it once a day it's a little bit easier to play around especially in the evening hours in which you're automatically probably out of the cabin for dinner or evening activities now this leads me into the next change for Royal Caribbean and that is that they recently increased gratuities which a lot of people pointed out to okay so they're cutting back the housekeeping and they're also increasing gratuities for crew members the automatic gratuity has gone up and this actually occurred a little later last year this happened in September but essentially a standard cabin for Junior Suites and below the daily automatic gratuity rate went from 1450 to 16 per day per person and the sweet gratuity rate went from 1750 to 1850 per day per person now for sweets the twice a day housekeeping remains so we're not going to talk about that but of course the amount that you're charging for the standard cabin for you know basically inside Ocean View balcony and Junior Suites went up from 1450 to 16 so a lot of people pointing out well you're paying more for gratuities and you're getting less service now I would point out first and foremost this was the first gratuity raise for the crew members since 2018 so they went from 2018 to 2022 with obviously a big gap in the Middle with the cruise industry shutdown with no raises I don't know about you I like having a raise at least once every couple of years not once every four years at the very least so yes it is more but in the grand scheme of things of economic factors and whatnot a once every four year raise really isn't that bad in fact before the shutdown rail could be another cruise lines were basically raising gratuities right around once every year or so so I don't have a big problem with this one because again it was something that was occurring regularly and it's been a huge gap is this the last one so I'm okay with it yes you're paying more in the sense of gratuities you're getting less service I get that but again you have to look at the bigger picture here they hadn't had a brace since 2018 that's a long time next up is a change that a lot of our readers actually told me about at royalcarimblog.com and I almost didn't believe them until exercise with my own eyes and that is if you're on the fixed price menu at Izumi Sushi they've actually cut the amount of sushi rolls that you get so interestingly Royal Caribbean has made a change for the fixed price option at Sushi when she paid 34.99 per person before the 18 gratuity it included one small plate two large plates which can be a combination of sushi rolls assorted Sashimi or rice and noodle bowls and a single dessert basically if you went for this particular option whether you had a dining package or you were just paying cash essentially you were getting half the size of the sushi rolls when we tested this out on Symphony of the season this is absolutely true truly weird thing about this is it only applies to the fixed price so if you go to Izumi Sushi and you don't do the fixed price and you order you know a tuna roll you're gonna get the full size portion which is strange because again with fixed price you get four pieces per roll if you order it individually you get eight pieces per roll and if you're on a dining package by the way which is very common especially at a zoomy you don't have to do the fixed price option you can simply say I don't want it if Express I want to order as I go now certainly there are some advantages to the fixed price especially if you're not doing sushi I would argue like if you want to get you know a udon noodle bowl and some other entree there's an advantage there so looking at it yes 100 cutback I'm not sure why they had to cut it in half there but what's odd about it is only applies the fixed price so my advice to anybody going to uzumi Sushi is if you want to do sushi especially don't order the fixed price go with the a la carte option instead you're gonna get full sized rolls and you'll probably come out around the same amount of money especially when you consider the fact that maybe you don't want dessert and Azumi you get dessert somewhere else that's a couple dollars saved in addition to that you can also be a little more creative with some of your ordering and sushi in and of itself is very conducive to sharing so you might actually find a better value ordering that full-size role and sharing some of the pieces with your table mates there speaking of dining another change rules are being made in 2022 was a change the limited Dining Plan in which if you go to a la carte restaurants you can only go to an a la carte restaurant once per day so for restaurants like Playmakers or Portside barbecue with a 20 food credit you get you can only be used once a day there before this change you go to Playmakers as an example use this one as our primary example here and you could go there you know for lunch you go there for dinner go for statues as many times as you wanted but Royal equipment basically said it's once a day per person at these restaurants and that isn't to say you can't go to more than one as an example you go to Playmakers for lunch and then go to Portside barbecue for dinner and that would be totally fine the reason why Royal Caribbean is making this change is to cut down on people who are essentially camping out at Playmakers and spending a lot of time there especially in special sporting events like the NCAA tournament or the World Cup or maybe even NFL playoffs in which they would spend a lot of time many many hours and order a ton of food and they were sitting there and they would start off with the snack here and another order here and basically they were consuming a lot of resources over which Royal Creek anticipated what the Dining Plan was all about now is it a cutback yes because the dining package is called the unlimited dining package but it's not truly unlimited you're still able to go to Playmakers and enjoy a meal here once a day with a dining package the difference is you can't overload the dining package and really go here and again order a ton of food more so than I think with the intention of the dining package was is it A Change Is it a cutback yes and yes in the sense of unlimited dining package no longer unlimited but for me at least once a day a Playmakers is totally fine and as somebody who's been to Playmakers many times and tries to go there in which people are basically camped out enjoying all the games and spending all afternoon there it's great for them but it's also hard to maybe get in and grab a spot if you want to come in for simply a meal so if that changes that I'm not even sure I think this is more of just a cost thing more than anything nonetheless I understand why they're doing it and as long as I get my once a day there that's usually enough for me certainly I'd love to go there for maybe lunch and then maybe have a late night nacho dish I'm not above that by any means but at the same time I there's plenty of other options there and of course dining package has not changed in the sense of other cover charge restaurants in which yes you could go to multiple cover charge restaurants in the same day no problem at all and lastly we have some new changes to the crowd and anchor society that have been coming out in fact there's been Crown and Anchor changes for a little while here but the most recent one was a new design for the crystal block and changed to other freebies so beginning March 10th which just recently happened Royal Oak man announced some new Crystal block designs for its top tier members that they could receive in addition to that they were also changing the welcome stacks and beverages for Emerald members and hire you no longer have the option to pre-select your welcome Beverages and you'll all receive complimentary water in the cabin for Diamond Plus and Pinnacle members the wash and fold benefit is altered slightly in the sense you can only do it on the wash and fold laundry promotion day instead of every day of the cruise and of course the new Crystal block design now when it comes to all these things here's what I think about this number one this obviously only impacts the top tier members emerald and higher number two for the change the welcome stocks and beverages this is probably the most material impact for people that are out there because there were people that really enjoyed having complimentary beer or wine when they got on board the ship in their cabin that was a nice benefit now me personally I always opted for water because I usually had a drink packaged and I would get my drinks elsewhere so water especially having conveniently located in my cabin was more important but I totally get this is a negative change for people that wanted to have that in terms of the laundry benefit the wash and fold special you know this will be interesting to see if they actually enforce this rule or not but on principle once per sailing and this would be a five night sailing or longer you could only have it on I guess it requires more forethought but it's a change I can live with not the end of the world and more often than not I actually forgot to ever take advantage of this benefit and then the crystal blocks one which which I don't love I think the old Crystal block the ones that were etched in with lasers look really cool no doubt this is a cost savings things there that being said I was never a real crystal block collector I know there's many people out there that love their Crystal blocks and have huge collections I understand that there's no doubt this one is definitely cheaper to produce because instead of having it be laser etched it appears to be just a generic Block in which they can slide in and out different pictures into the crystal Block it's a change I get it I'm not trying to sound like a Royal Caribbean Defender here but I don't think anybody ever cruise for the crystal block specifically but I understand if you're disappointed because you're not getting the same design especially if the new design doesn't exactly look as good as the old design totally get that and then of course we have the main dining room menu who could forget about that right because this has been one of the most noticeable changes for Cruisers in 2023 and essentially there's been a new menu there's new theme menus and I would say there's two major components to the new menu change besides the new menu in and of itself number one there are themes to every night more so than there were before so there's french night in Caribbean night so there's kind of a semi-cohesive theme I say semi because I'm like Caribbean night they're still french onion soup or escargo but I digress and number two there's no longer a Classics option meaning there's no longer a standby menu you can always fall back on in addition to the changing daily items and there's one more change which of course I'll be remiss if I didn't talk about which is lobster there's still Lobster available complimentary on the second formal night if your cruise is long enough for one the difference is it's no longer unlimited after the first Lobster there's another additional charge to order additional ones beyond that and for some people that's a bigger issue there so let's talk about the menu changes and the material impacts to the cruise experience now I've tried out the new menus on two sailing so far and I absolutely love the new changes let me tell you why I actually like this number one most importantly the speed the swiftness of service every single time we've been there we've been in and out somewhere between I would say 70 and 90 minutes total from when we handed our menus until desserts are served I've been impressed because prior to this menu change the main dining room was kind of a Russian Roulette when it came to how long will we be there for sometimes it was an hour sometimes it was two hours and even longer but there's no doubt Royal commence did a home run with a swiftness of service I get it it's not the Windjammer you don't want to be in and out in 30 minutes it's not that you're still there four right around an hour and a half which is pretty much what I expect from any sit-down restaurant whether it's on a cruise ship or at home so I actually like this change overall most importantly the new menu changes by the way like 70 I'd estimate of the menu items across all the menus are pretty much holdovers from the old menu so while we're using the term new menus reality is mostly items on the new menus are actually holdovers from the old menu now as it pertains to Lobster listen if you compare it to what it used to be you're absolutely right there's less Lobster complementary than you used to be able to get now Royal Caribbean has said this on the record that it was never intended to be an all-you-can-eat Lobster experience it was rather just the reality of it but things have changed and I think probably for mostly costs there are some other issues in terms of supply chain and whatnot but at the end of the day you're only getting one Lobster per person at your table admittedly as somebody who does not eat lobster it's hard for me to understand the material impact doesn't impact me personally but you know if they were saying hey Matt you only have one spaghetti bolognese a day I would certainly maybe be more upset about that but I find other options that are there I get it if you're a big lobster fan and if you're used to getting maybe two or three lobster tails on Lobster night I get that it's a change and it's a cutback it's a negative there but I think you're still gonna be able to get your lobster tail and it's still going to have that opportunity if you want to pay extra you could do that you're on vacation Splurge a little bit or it is what it is and it's the change that real quick is made with the new menu changes I really think the swiftness of service has greatly benefited the main dining room experience and I actually like some of the new changes some of the new items that Royal carpet has added to the many so overall I'm pretty happy with the changes there but overall what I really look at is certainly there are some declines here and there are some changes over here but the travel industry and more specifically the cruise industry is still struggling to get around some of the major Financial issues that they encountered with a shutdown of 2020 and 2021. again I think the change today is very different than a change we would have seen in 2019 and you can sit here and argue what would have happened had there not been a shutdown every day but that's a whole different discussion for a different day right on the one hand there are changes and cutbacks on the other hand if you look at the travel industry in general cruising is still very much a much better experience overall many hotels don't offer maid service during your stay unless it's so many days into your stay you need more towels you have to actually go to the front desk for that and the travel industry has lost billions of dollars that includes other areas of the travel sector and the crew segment is not immune to those symptoms it's definitely not what it used to be when you lose billions of dollars there is going to be an effect on it you have to realize that we're not in the same situation today as we were in 2019 that doesn't mean you have to like the changes I'm not here to say everybody should be rah-rah Kumbaya everything's fine just because real Caribbean has restarted operations they did not recover the billions of dollars of lost revenue and the billions of dollars of debt they accumulated to stay in business it's gonna take a decade or more to recover from that and in the meantime they've got to do their best to stay afloat financially and be able to pay off those loans and that's why we are seeing these changes and there very well could be more cutbacks changes alterations whatever you want to call it going forward now all that being said I still enjoy cruising and I've booked more cruises to go on and I look forward to going on more cruises I don't like the changes but I understand why it has changed and you have to be realistic about the realities of our world today so that's my look at the recent changes there I am sure that some people completely disagree with me and if you think I'm being a Royal Caribbean Fanboy well I am a Royal Caribbean Fanboy number one but number two 2 this is the reality of the world we live in things change things that evolve we don't get chocolates on our pillows anymore we don't do the things we did in the 1970s 1980s heck even the 1990s on cruise ships it's always an evolution sometimes it's for the good times maybe not so much but it's part of the ride that we experience as part of cruising but most importantly to me the core experience the major part of what draws me to cruising is still very much there there's still very much value there in terms of what I get for my dollar and what I get for the overall experience and certainly I look forward to all that and I don't think these changes in cutbacks have necessarily negatively impact that core experience but now I want to hear from you in the comments below what do you think about these changes and these cutbacks and these alterations to the cruise experience and which of these changes will have a material impact on your cruise meaning which of these will definitely 100 one-to-one impact your cruise experience going forward let me know in the comments below please keep it civil down there and if you like this video or at least you enjoyed the discussion maybe you don't like the topic but you can at least enjoy the conversation we're having here hit the like button subscribe to our Channel and turn on notifications that way YouTube lets you know with a brand new video to share this has been from royalcaribbeanblog.com and we'll talk again real soon

Channel: Royal Caribbean Blog

Views: 165,715

Keywords: royal caribbean, cruise cuts, the cost of cruising

Id: MPq-Hn8OxMQ

Length: 19min 50sec (1190 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 28 2023