Seems I'm not the only person who dislikes fixed dining. A Cruise Critic poll has found the thought of sharing a table with other passengers was the Brits' least favourite thing about cruising.
I don't know what reason others have, but mine are simple. Too often I've been stuck on a table for seven nights, trying to make conversation with people with whom I have nothing in common and who are, frankly, boring. One night is fine - you can do all the usual who-are-you stuff. Then it's time to move on and do the same with another bunch.
Give me a dine-when-you-like option anytime when you can either sit with different people each night or just with your partner.
Even the Captain is seen as an undesirable when it comes to dining companions. More than a fifth said their first thought on receiving an invitation to the Captain's table was "how do I get out of this?" How times have changed. An invitation to the Captain's Table used to signify the pinnacle of your cruising career.
The poll also found the Brits cruise on their stomachs. Some 60% said a cruiseline's reputation for quality cuisine would affect their choice of cruise, while 63% said the best thing about dining on board is the quality of the food. Hmmm. Not so sure about that one.
It's true that some cruiselines so serve good food, but mostly it's fairly run-of-the-mill stuff with a posh name to appeal to the most unadventurous palate; invariably it's served lukewarm (for all the pomp and ceremony in the main dining rooms, it is still mass catering with food cooked well in advance).
When dining companions go into raptures over what is essentially meat and two veg by another name I have wonder what these people eat at home.
Interestingly, 53% said they pay extra to go in the speciality restaurant at least once or twice when they cruise. James Martin, who works with Ocean Village, was the favourite celebrity chef, followed by Marco Pierre White and Gary Rhodes, who have restaurants on P&O Cruises' ships.
I do like James Martin but guess who my favourite is?
Jane Archer
Comments (1)
IS RCCL Manipulating CruiseCritic.com (owned by Trip Advisor)?
http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/3/16/12635/4598/travel/Royal+Caribbean+Cruises+Has+Web+2.0+Viral+Infection
No surprise here: Royal Caribbean Cruise Line has a viral infection. For once, however, it's not the Norovirus but that new-fangled byproduct of Web 2.0, the viral marketing infiltration. According to Consumerist, a group of fifty "Royal Champions" was outed by their own creator, the Customer Insight Group, as being a successful project whereby frequent positive cruise commenting on sites such as CruiseCritic was rewarded with free cruises and other perks.
So what's the big deal? Well, it seems that the "Royal Champions" weren't always up front about their status as compensated reviewers, effectively misleading readers of CruiseCritic forums with their positive comments. Add to this the fact that CruiseCritic admins assisted Royal Caribbean in choosing the fifty, with one of the stipulations being quantity of posts, "with many having over 10,000 message board posts on various Royal Caribbean topics." From here, the hole just gets deeper.
Now that many RC fans feel slighted at not having made the ranks and most everyone else is disgusted at the covert trade of cruising for happy juicing, the trustworthiness of such forums is under fire.
Due to CruiseCritic's ownership by TripAdvisor, which is in turn under the Expedia blanket of travel sites, a viral marketing stunt gone awry could possibly continue to negatively ripple. Does news like this affect your ability to trust good reviews on travel sites, or do you already consider yourself an excellent shill-spotter enough to weed out the solicited from the unsolicited? While this whole ordeal is mired in serious muckety-muck, let's hope it serves as a lesson for future viral marketers and as an argument for transparency.
Posted by Stuart Falk | March 17, 2009 10:19 PM
Posted on March 17, 2009 22:19