Royal Caribbean (RCL) did away with a lot of fan-favorite activities and events to help make cruising safe during the Covid pandemic.
It got rid of balloon drops in the Royal Promenade, The Quest adult scavenger hunt, laser tag, and all sorts of parties. Basically, if you couldn't socially distance yourself while doing something, the cruise line had to do away with it.
Many of those changes seemed likely to be temporary. One change, however, looked as if it was likely to become, if not permanent, at least pretty long-term -- having crew members serve the food in the Windjammer Buffet.
It turns out that Royal Caribbean may not even keep this one around until the pandemic ends (or at least turns into an endemic).
Image source: Daniel Kline/TheStreet.
Buffets Have Been a Big Part of the Cruise Line Experience
During the pandemic, America decided that buffets. at least self-serve ones, were fairly gross. At a time when everyone was wearing masks and trying to stay six feet away from others, the idea of using communal tongs in a shared hot tray of food seemed like a bad idea.
On land, a lot of buffets closed or pivoted to other service models. The Walt Disney (DIS) theme parks and hotels, for example, made many of their buffets family-style restaurants where big platters were brought out for the tables.
The major cruise lines, Royal Caribbean, Carnival (CCL), and Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCLH), chose not to do that as they have very extensive menus. Instead, they opted to have cruise-line personnel serve passengers.
That solved the problem but it made for a fairly awkward buffet experience (although it might have shamed some people into taking less food).
And while having to staff the buffet with servers seemed inefficient, the optics of people acting like people normally do at a buffet made the three companies seem unlikely to end that practice until the pandemic truly ended, or perhaps never.
Royal Caribbean, however. has at least started to bring back the self-serve buffet, according to Jenna DeLaurentis of the Royal Caribbean Blog.
Royal Caribbean Brings Back Self-Service at the Windjammer Buffet (Briefly)
Royal Caribbean had been inching back toward a self-serve model by slowly relaxing rules. Drinks, for example, had been poured and handed to cruisers during the strictest level of pandemic protocols. On recent cruises, a crew member still filled the glasses (so customers did not have to touch the machine) but the filled cups were then taken from a table by the passengers.
That's a small change, but one of many, as some items and condiments went back to being self-serve. And now some passengers have reported the Windjammer has returned to pre-pandemic normal operations.
"In a Facebook group for Pinnacle members in the Crown & Anchor Society, several cruisers posted about the return to a self-service buffet. Passengers onboard Oasis of the Seas, Allure of the Seas, and Freedom of the Seas mentioned their sailing has returned to self-service, with crew members no longer serving guests at buffets," DeLaurentis reported.
That change, however, proved short-lived. Royal Caribbean made clear to Royal Caribbean Blog, which is not affiliated with the cruise line, that while the change had happened, it was not permanent.
"Royal Caribbean crew members continue to serve guests at Windjammer across the fleet. While there was self-service on some ships today, crew will be serving guests tomorrow again in Windjammer," according to the cruise line.
The cruise line did not say when it might revisit this issue again or why it went to a self-service model for a single day.
