Royal Caribbean Dining Package Pros & Cons

is it worth it to get a specialty restaurant dining package on your roller coin cruise i'm breaking down the pros and cons up next [Music] hey everyone it's matt from royal caribbean blog.com and today i'm breaking down why you would want to or not want to get an unlimited dining package on a roller coaster cruise dining packages are really popular because they give you a fixed rate to enjoy a number of specialty restaurants on board and a lot of people end up going with the unlimited dining package because it offers well unlimited specialty dining so is it worth it or not and a special shout out to snowmobile one of our viewers here on youtube who asked me to do a pros and cons video similar to what we did for the pros and cons of royal caribbean's unlimited drink package and you know what i think it's a great idea because dining packages just like the drink packages offer a value proposition but ultimately it kind of depends on how much you're going to indulge in it or not so today i wanted to break down the pros and cons of getting a dining package by the way if you want to buy a dining package you can do so before your cruise buy it via the royal caribbean's cruise planner website and i do advise buying it before the cruise not just because it may save you a couple bucks but they're not always offered once on board so book it before your cruise take advantage of it alright let's start with the pros of why you'd want to get a royal caribbean dining package chief among them number one it will save you money without a shadow of a doubt a dining package will save you money compared to if you try to eat at the same amount of restaurants by paying a covered charge when you go to any specialty restaurant you're either going to have a cover charge or you're going to be paying a a la carte pricing basically every item you order you get charged for it right so if you go to a restaurant like chop squirrel you might be paying 40 50 per person for the cover charge and obviously if you were to go to multiple nights well that starts to add up with a dining package you pay one fixed price and that includes all the dining for the allocated time the dining package has there are three night packages there are unlimited dining package so whichever one you're talking about it will save you money compared to if you try to go to the same amount of restaurants and pay the coverage charge or pay as you go if you're wondering why the heck roller coaster would offer these dining packages in the first place if they're losing money on them or they're not making as much money on them i guess this is really the right way to look at it and that's simply because dining packages help fill in the gaps of their schedule we'll talk a little bit more about that later in this video but it helps fill up the restaurants that otherwise before dining packages existed would have been a little more empty so it's win-win for both parties royal quick gets more people in the restaurant and of course you get a deal on your restaurant number two lots of restaurant choices open up by having specialty dining as part of your now options to choose from you're gonna have a lot more places on board your cruise ship to dine at certainly there are a lot of complimentary restaurants on board but by having specialty restaurants in addition to that well now you have more variety more choices more options on where you can have meals for lunch or dinner variety is always a nice thing to have i always like having choice and options and well having a dining package just gives you more of those choices and another pro along the same lines is these dining packages are really useful if you're on one of the newer bigger ships that already have a lot of restaurants on board if you're on an oasis or quantum class ship there are a ton of specialty restaurants that roll korean has there back in the day some of the older ships like voyager class ships or freedom questions might have only had you know one or two special restaurants but with the oasis and quantum class ships there are plenty more especially restaurants which give you more value to the dining packages more choices more variety so you're not repeating as much unless of course you just want to have a lot of sushi on board which is nothing wrong with that but it gives you the opportunity to design it many more options which makes the dining package i think a little more valuable another good reason to get a dining package is if you don't love the main dining room there's absolutely nothing wrong with the food served in the complimentary restaurants on royal caribbean including the main dining room however it tends to be a very polarizing topic for some people some cruisers simply don't like the regimented times or set up the main dining room others may not care for the majority of the food served in the dining room menu regardless of what the reason is if you have a strong opinion of going to the main dining room for dinner on most or all nights of your cruise well a dining package may be the perfect alternative and the last good reason to get a dining package is if you're brand new to royal caribbean and you want to try a number of special restaurants out a dining package is the way to do it you know if you watch these videos here on our youtube channel or check out real quickblog.com more often than not you're going to see us talking about places like izumi chops giovanna's italian kitchen mason jar and others and you might think yourself man these places look great i'm going on my first cruise and i want to try all these places out as well there's no doubt a dining package is the way to do that for that particular scenario all right now those are the reasons why a dining package makes a lot of sense now let's talk about why it's not a great idea and these are the cons for a dining package number one there's a large upfront cost you know just like the drink package when you buy a dining package you're gonna be spending probably a hundred two hundred dollars per person for the cost of a dining package this means you're paying for it all up front now in my opinion you'll get that money back in the value that you're gonna be getting by going to all those restaurants once on board the ship but for some people a large upfront cost is hard to swallow and maybe even too much for their vacation budget to handle so that's something to think about number two and i think this is probably the number one reason i think twice about getting a dining package is it's a lot of food so when you're only dining especially restaurants especially if you have the unlimited dining package that means you feel compelled to go to a special restaurant every night of the cruise after all you're paid for the package you want to get your value out of it right well when you're going to specially restaurants it's a full meal appetizers entrees desserts and sides so as the cruise goes on you're having all these big meals and it starts to add up and on a longer cruise especially seven night cruises i think after like day three or four you start feeling like i'm really not even that hungry anymore but i'm going here because i have a dining package obviously everybody has a different reaction altogether but i've gone on enough cruises and done enough unlimited dining packages that there are a couple of nights in which you know we're getting back from a shore excursion we had a lot of fun up on the pool deck and i might think to myself deep down i really don't need to go to a special restaurant tonight i just want to have maybe some tacos from the windjammer or a sandwich or something like that and just call it even on that but when you have the dining package you almost feel compelled that you've got to quote unquote go to specialty restaurants in addition i'd be remiss if i didn't talk about the fact that there is really good complementary food on board when we talk about dining packages all too often i think we kind of focus more on especially restaurants and how awesome and amazing they are and really lose sight of the fact that this complementary dining is still really good whether it's the food in the windjammer main dining room or some of the grab-and-go places around the ship there's lots of good choices that are out there and it's not to say that if you go to these places you're being served slop or anything that's really substandard i really enjoy going to these places in fact i love the main dining room for having the same weight staff every night and getting to know the waiters there and of course the changing menu every night also really appeals to me and then of course you've got some great places like el loco fresh sorrento's pizza and park cafe that have really good food that i really could eat for seven nights in a row so don't assume that getting a dining package or eating exclusively especially dining is definitely worth it another good reason not to get a dining package is if you're staying in a suite on a oasis or quantum class ship a lot of people who stay in sweden's grand speeds or above get access to coastal kitchen for breakfast lunch and dinner this is a complimentary restaurant for sweet guests and the food here is really good a lot of folks who stay in sweets a lot will tell me all the time they skip the dining packages because coastal kitchen is that darn good and it's included with the cruise spread that's already paying higher for as part of the sweet experience similarly if you're diamond plus or higher you can also get bogo deals as part of specially dining which can again take away from the value of getting a dining package but i think this next reason is a big reason why you don't want to get a dining package and that is you have to wait to make reservations till you get on board to ship when you buy any dining package you cannot make reservations until you can actually get on board the ship somebody is paying the cover charge individually can go on the roku increase planner website reserve the time and day that they want because they're paying full price for it but the trade-off with getting your dining packages you must wait to get on board your cruise ship to make a reservation now in the reality of things it's it's not that big of a deal if you're proactive enough every single time i've ever gotten a dining package and gone on the first day of the cruise to make all my reservations i've never had any issues maybe i had to adjust like one reservation by 30 minutes or so but i've never had any problems getting the restaurants and times and days that i wanted while on a dining package just had to make sure that you get there on the first day to do so if you're the kind of see where it goes wing it type of person yeah that can really backfire especially if you wait to literally the last minute reservations go quickly especially once people get on board the ship so if you have a dining package you must book it as soon as you get on board but keeping in mind you can't make reservations beforehand this can sometimes wreak havoc with families and bigger groups where people are buying individual reservations and other people have a dining package and the last reason you don't want to get a dining package potentially is because certain restaurants are excluded not every single restaurant is included there's only a handful that aren't we're talking about chef's table mystery dinner theater wine pairing dinners and of course room service now i'm gonna take all almost all of them out except for chef's table because i think the other three are just kind of outliers that i don't even think most people even think about as part of a dining package but chef sable's a big one because chef's table is a curated in-depth dining experience a lot of people like but it's not included with the dining package obviously if one of these restaurants is really important to you if you really want to get a lot of room service well this is not part of what's going to be included with you likewise if you really have your heart set on the chef's table the dining package does not include that so keep that in mind so there you have it a look at the pros and cons of getting a dining package on your real carbine cruise there's good reason there's bad i think if you're on the fence about if you really don't know what to do i oftentimes advocate the three-night dining package because it's a low cost to get in you're going to get a few restaurants it's going to save you money you're just not doing the full unlimited dining package thing so give that a try go to some complimentary restaurants and work that into the mix and then decide for your next cruise which way you want to go let me know in the comments below are you pro or against dining packages what has your experience been does it save you money let me know in the comments below also make sure you hit that like button below our video it really does help our channel out by hitting that like button also subscribe to our channel and turn on your notifications that's that little bell icon next to the subscribe button that lets youtube know that you want to know when we have a brand new video to share this has been matt from royalcaribbeanblog.com and we'll talk again real soon

Channel: Royal Caribbean Blog

Views: 183,596

Keywords: Royal Caribbean, RCCL, dining package, restaurants, specialty, cruise, cruise ship, cruise advice

Id: HSpwxIlXDo8

Length: 10min 39sec (639 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 15 2022