Royal Caribbean is well known for its specialty restaurants, especially on its newer or larger ships. Some of its ships have six, seven, or more upscale dining experiences cruisers can choose from, ranging from classic favorites like the Chops Grill steakhouse and Giovanni’s Table Italian restaurant to newer offerings like Hooked Seafood.
The pricing for Royal Caribbean’s specialty restaurants can vary, depending on the ship, the dining venue’s standard price, and whether you choose to pre-book your meal before you sail. But for foodies who love to try every dining venue on their vacation, Royal Caribbean offers the Unlimited Dining Package.
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Now, the Unlimited Dining Package is nothing new. It includes dinner every night at a specialty restaurant, lunch at a specialty restaurant on sea days, and food credits for a-la-carte venues like the Playmakers Sports Bar. And it has been offered on Royal Caribbean cruises for years.
However, one of the ongoing pain points is that cruisers who booked the Unlimited Dining Package haven’t been able to make reservations in advance. They had to rush to the nearest specialty restaurant or dining host after boarding the ship and make all of their reservations in person.
Not only was this a massive inconvenience at a time when customers should be starting to enjoy their vacation, but it often led to cruisers missing out on popular dining times that filled up ahead of time.
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Image source: Royal Caribbean
Unlimited dining package reservations went live this month
It has been a big priority for Royal Caribbean’s leadership to give cruisers the first day of their vacation back. In other words, spending hours on dining reservations, beverage packages, and entertainment plans when first boarding the ship can start a vacation off on a stressful note, not an enjoyable one.
The cruise line has made subtle improvements to its process. This has included a slightly revised login for its Voom WiFi that should cause fewer people to need to stop by the internet desk on day one.
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It has also been working to make the dining reservation process better for people who buy the UDP.
One way the cruise line is doing this is finally making Unlimited Dining Package reservations available ahead of time. After testing the new feature earlier this year, Royal Caribbean officially rolled it out at the beginning of November.
Royal takes it a step further
Royal Caribbean has fixed the UDP reservation process in steps,
At first, the ability to add reservations to the Unlimited Dining Plan was only available at the time of purchase. In other words, if you were on a 5-night cruise and booked the Unlimited Dining Plan, you made your five dinner reservations at the time you bought the plan.
You were unable to make any changes unless you canceled the entire plan and re-booked it.
Obviously, this was less than ideal. But it was still a big improvement compared with not being able to make reservations at all.
Now, Royal Caribbean seems to have taken the convenience a step further. The cruise line has rolled out a new update that allows passengers to modify reservations after booking them, according to Royal Caribbean Blog,
I’m booked on an upcoming 7-night sailing on Wonder of the Seas, and purchased the Unlimited Dining Package for my family. Being able to pre-book reservations was a big value-add to the UDP, especially since under the previous version I’d be scrambling to make reservations with two small children in tow right after boarding.
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However, the ability to modify plans and make new reservations as we make entertainment reservations, spa plans, and our cruise itinerary comes together is huge. Not only was I able to book the UDP for a 7-night trip for roughly the regular price of four specialty dinners, but the recent change made me feel like I wasn’t sacrificing convenience for the value.
Dan's note: This may seem like a small change, but as someone who buys the UDP on most trips, it's a pretty massive fix, The onboard process for making reservations was slow and if there were a couple of people in line ahead of you, the process could take an hour or more — and that's a painful hour when you're hoping to get a drink, something to eat, or check out the ship.
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