Royal Caribbean is known for its variety when it comes to specialty dining, especially on its newer and larger ships. Some of the ships in their fleet have more than a dozen dining venues in addition to included options like the main dining room and Windjammer. Guests who want to enjoy premium dining experiences throughout the cruise can purchase a dining package in advance.
Royal Caribbean's unlimited dining package, as the name suggests, allows passengers to enjoy as many specialty restaurants as they want during their cruise and pay a set price to do so. This is not an exhaustive list, but the ultimate meal package includes:
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- · Dinner at a specialty restaurant every night of the cruise.
- Lunch in specialty restaurants on sea days.
- Dining credits to use at certain a la carte locations, such as Playmakers Sports Bar.
- Discounts on bottles of wine, up to 40% off.
To be clear, the package is not really unlimited in the sense that there are some restaurants that are not included without surcharge. For example, my family and I booked a 7-night cruise on Wonder of the Seas in December and will have to pay a $15 surcharge to enjoy the Izumi Teppanyaki restaurant, as well as a $25 surcharge to dine at Wonderland. . However, premium dining spots like Chops Grill, 150 Central Park, and several others are included.
Image source: Dan Kline/ComeCruiseWith.com
Royal Caribbean solves a major problem
Since the inception of the unlimited dining package, there has been a major problem for cruise passengers. Although I had the ability to book the package well in advance and often saved a significant amount of money in the process, I couldn't make any dinner reservations until boarding the ship. As the description on the Royal Caribbean website says,
“A complimentary reservation will be made for day 1 or 2 of your sailing. All additional reservations or changes to your complimentary reservation must be made once on board at any specialty restaurant.”
This led to a scramble to make the desired dinner reservations once you got on board.
Lines usually form everywhere you can make them. As a result, crowds also form on the boardwalk at a time when crowds actually add to an already congested area of the ship while boarding is taking place.
Forcing people to spend the first part of their vacation standing in line is also something Royal Caribbean has been working to eliminate.
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Royal Caribbean allows you to book in advance
Royal Caribbean shared plans in late 2023 to allow passengers to make dining reservations in advance if they purchase a dining package. A few months ago, this feature was rolled out to UDP bookings on Allure of the Seas as a test.
Now, the ability to reserve restaurants in advance with the Ultimate Dining package has been implemented on all ships. according to the Royal Caribbean Blog.
Without a doubt, the system is not perfect. At least not yet. The way it works is to log into the Royal Caribbean website and choose the ultimate dining package for your sailing. When you select the people you want to purchase the package for and add it to your cart, you will be able to select times for each restaurant.
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- Royal Caribbean says yes to a popular passenger request
A big caveat is that you can't (yet) book restaurants in advance if you already already bought the ultimate meal package. In this case, the only way to do it would be to cancel it and rebook at the current prices. On my Wonder of the Seas sailing, the current package price is about $80 per person more than what I initially paid, so unless I can get a deal, I may still be using the old reservation system after boarding .
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.That said, this is definitely a big step in the right direction. Royal Caribbean leadership has focused on eliminating time-consuming pain points on boarding day, and this certainly helps achieve that goal.
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