{"id":3781,"date":"2010-10-07T01:11:15","date_gmt":"2010-10-07T08:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/?p=3781"},"modified":"2010-10-07T01:11:15","modified_gmt":"2010-10-07T08:11:15","slug":"carnival-charge-steak-main-dining-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/?p=3781","title":{"rendered":"$-$-$-$teak Hot in Main Dining Rooms"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>When cruise lines start charging for specialty food items in the main dining room, the knee-jerk reaction is to think they’re getting just like the airlines, charging for everything but crackers, cramped seats and authenticating your ticket.<\/p>\n

The knee-jerk reaction is that customers shouldn’t have to pay for anything in the main dining room. Some traditions \u2014 like unlimited free food on a cruise ship \u2014 should always remain.<\/p>\n

On ships, it’s mainly because of the meat.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, Royal Caribbean<\/a> introduced steak-for-a-price in main dining rooms, and cruisers apparently complained in loud voices if not big numbers. Now Carnival<\/a> is trying it (as a trial) and the response will almost certainly be the same.<\/p>\n

Whether it’s the start of something designed to go deeper into the pockets of the people or not, the Carnival experiment deserves at least an objective examination.<\/p>\n

First of all, it’s being done on three ships that don’t offer the quality of beef (and oh yes, lobster) that’s accessible at the steakhouses where diners pay a $25 or $30 surcharge. The three ships \u2014 Inspiration, Paradise, Triumph \u2014 don’t have the upscale restaurants. So Carnival is really trying to offer a service that’s otherwise available on most of its ships.<\/p>\n

Secondly, prime rib and lobster tails are served at least once per voyage.<\/p>\n

And thirdly, it is a three-month trial. By the first day of 2011, Carnival will know if it makes sense to continue. Whether it makes sense will be a dollars-and-sense decision, not how many people complain. If the number of steaks and lobsters sold justifies whatever additional investment there is, it will continue. With Royal Caribbean, it did continue.<\/p>\n

In a specialty restaurant on one of our recent cruises, there were more maitre d’s, sommeliers, waiters and busboys than there were customers. Maybe it was just a slow night. If that were always the case, it wouldn’t make enough “cents.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When cruise lines start charging for specialty food items in the main dining room, the knee-jerk reaction is to think they’re getting just like the airlines, charging for everything but crackers, cramped seats and authenticating your ticket. The knee-jerk reaction is that customers shouldn’t have to pay for anything in the main dining room. Some… Continue reading $-$-$-$teak Hot in Main Dining Rooms<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,36,19,15],"tags":[154,86,35,360,33,302,361],"class_list":["post-3781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruise-industry-news","category-reviews","category-ships","category-stories","tag-carnival","tag-cruise-ships","tag-cruises","tag-main-dining-room","tag-royal-caribbean","tag-specialty-dining","tag-steak-and-lobster-dinner","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}