At home, we usually have dinner at 7. Aboard a cruise ship, though, dinner at 8 or even 8:30 is common, upending our customary routine. But we’re not alone. Many passengers vacationing on the larger vessels operated by mainstream cruise lines bristle at having to adjust their stomachs to shipboard mealtime seatings–you draw either the early-bird seating at 5:30 or the night-owl’s at 8:30.
Aside from the time, though, there’s also formality. And on more than one occasion, we’ve elected to dine in our cabin on the night of the captain’s formal gala rather than truss ourselves up in gala garb.
Apparently enough people agree that the bane of cruising is the lack of freedom to do pretty much as you please aboard ship, as you would on a vacation at a land-based resort.
One line has listened and is about to turn the cruise industry on its aft. “Resorts don’t tell people what to wear, when and with whom to eat, and where to go after dinner,” said Colin Veitch, the new president and chief executive officer of Norwegian Cruise Line.
And now neither does Norwegian Cruise Line.
As a result, NCL is undertaking a bold move for a major mainstream cruise line. Over the next two years, the line plans to graft luxury-style cruising elements more common to smaller upscale lines onto to its upcoming big-ship fleet in what NCL calls “freestyle” cruising.
The goal said Veitch is “to give cruisers the unstructured romance and style of resorts.
“We looked at all the good things other cruise lines have been doing but we want to take them considerably further,” noted Veitch. “If we truly want to challenge land-based resort vacations…we have to identify what today’s younger, better-traveled, more-demanding consumer expects when he or she goes on vacation alone or with family. We also have to match resorts in their ability to offer an unstructured, casual, attentive atmosphere in which to decompress from everyday life.”
Since last May, Norwegian Cruise Line has been experimenting with freestyle cruising aboard its mid-sized, 2,002-passenger Norwegian Sky.
Passengers aboard the Sky now can dine open-seating style in any of the ship’s three main dining rooms (Four Seasons, 564 seats; Seven Seas, 604; and Horizon, 84), and at any time between 5:30 p.m. and midnight. “Traditional” menus are still served, including the Presidential Menu, which is offered one night.
Created by former White House executive chef Henry Haller, it’s a multi-course meal featuring favorite dishes of past presidents. Table configurations in the main dining rooms now offer more tables for two, four and six people.
The alternative restaurants–Le Bistro (French-Mediterranean, 90 seats) and Ciao Chow (Italian-Oriental; 80 seats)–accept reservations, but walk-ins are also welcome. Last November, the Horizon restaurant joined these as an alternative restaurant serving “gourmet” Italian cuisine and also accepting reservations.
Passengers no longer will be assigned a table, which means they can choose to dine alone at tables for two or with other guests at tables of any size from four to 10.
Essentially, NCL is adding open-seating dining to the big-ship experience. Industrywide, open-seating dining is usually considered the true hallmark of luxury cruising. In addition, freestyle cruising dictates that meals be cooked to order and not prepared banquet style. So everything that arrives at the table is fresh, not precooked.
In one stroke, NCL raises the stakes for all mainstream cruise lines. Not only does it offer an upscale dining option, but it also offers passengers a variety of dining venues impossible to match on smaller, more intimate ships.
For Myrna de los Santos of Long Beach, “The best part [of freestyle cruising] was not having to look at our watches constantly to be on time for dinner.”
Veteran cruisers such as Reini Jenken, who has taken more than 40 voyages, applaud the new dining option. “One thing,” said Jenken, “[the dining room] is not crowded. It seems like there’s no one there. With two seatings it’s always pretty crowded.”
The downside for some was the loss of familiarity both with fellow dining companions and with the wait staff. Though one couple aboard the Sky took freestyle cruising to the max and followed their waiter wherever he served.
NCL also revamps formal nights with the freestyle philosophy. Passengers who prefer casual cruises now can forget the tux and evening gown–if they wish. The captain’s gala and formal night still take place once a week, but now in only one of the two main dining rooms, one alternative restaurant and a lounge.
These three venues are reserved exclusively for those wishing to wear formal attire. The remainder of the ship is open to casual resort wear.
However, tampering with the finer touches of cruising did rankle the 65-year-old Jenken, who felt that more casual diners “walked around looking like bums.”
On the other hand, de los Santos said she “enjoyed the relaxed dress code and not worrying about feeling awkward if we didn’t dress up on the formal night.”
Tipping also has come under scrutiny at NCL. Many guests resent having to scurry on the last evening stuffing envelopes with gratuities usually in amounts recommended by the cruise line. Instead, NCL adds $9.75 per night per passenger to the passenger’s onboard account right up front. Passengers, however, can choose to reduce or increase gratuities at cruise end by notifying the purser’s office.
Of course, the new tipping policy draws both applause and howls from passengers. Jenken and her 76-year-old husband, Tom, believe the new policy gets around the deadbeats who under-tip or don’t tip at all. But they’re also concerned that the policy might not adequately compensate waiters who go the extra distance for passengers.
While the simplified tipping policy is “so much nicer,” said Linda Barnes, a travel agent at The Vacation Store in Virginia, she noted some people objected to the upfront gratuities.
Lastly, to ensure the highest level of service with freestyle cruising, NCL plans to increase the number of crew attending passengers so that the ratio of one crewmember per cabin pretty much matches the ratio of staff to guests at top-end land-based resorts.
The line is betting that freestyle cruising will appeal not only to veteran cruisers like the Jenkens but primarily “to those who have been holding back because they feared cruising would be too regimented and restrictive for their liking,” noted NCL.
By all accounts, according to Veitch, freestyle cruising is a success. About 90 percent of Sky passengers polled find freestyle cruising to their liking. The remainder, about 10 percent, voice complaints.
In fact, the concept proved so popular that NCL accelerated its plans and converted both its 1,790-passenger Norwegian Majesty and 1,518-passenger Norwegian Sea to freestyle cruising last year–bringing the fleet’s total current conversions to three vessels.
By coincidence, the Majesty, built in 1992, underwent stretch-limo treatment in 1999, when the cruise line refurbished and lengthened it by 112 feet. This allowed the ship to, among other things, accommodate 60 more crew members to beef up the service required by freestyle cruising. With its improvements, the ship became an ideal candidate for freestyle cruising.
As word of the success of freestyle cruising gets around, other lines are jumping on the bandwagon. Carnival Cruise Line, for example, is rolling out its own version of freestyle dining fleetwide by year-end.
For some time, said Carnival spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz, Carnival has recognized there’s been an issue with two seatings. Most families with children want early seating, she said, but the main preference is for the late seating. It’s difficult to accommodate everyone. “Some folks are always disappointed,” she said.
To rectify this, Carnival last July increased the number of assigned seatings from two to four on its 2,044-passenger Imagination. In the new dining program, mealtimes are staggered between the Imagination’s two dining rooms. The first seating begins at 6 p.m. in one dining room and the next is at 6:45 in the other, and so on. The last service starts at 8:45 p.m., which appeals particularly to Carnival’s South American and international passengers.
In January, Princess Cruises, the “Love Boat” line, introduced a mix-and-match dining option on its megaship, the Grand Princess. Dubbed Personal Choice Dining, the option introduces open-seating dining in two of the ship’s three dining rooms, between 5:30 p.m. and midnight. The third dining room offers traditional pre-assigned first and second seatings.
In this way, Princess feels it’s offering its passengers the best of both worlds, while leaving out none. By the end of this year, this new option should be available fleetwide.
Royal Caribbean International and sister line Celebrity Cruises also are eyeing NCL’s experiment. According to the travel agent newsletter Cruise Week, RCI executive Mike Applebaum said of freestyle cruising: “In concept, I think it’s a great idea…kudos to NCL.”
In Applebaum’s mind, “This boils down to that first-time cruiser–the one who goes to the resorts, the one that has no disciplined structure in terms of when they have to eat….In time, if it’s successful, I think you’ll see this melded into other [cruise line] brands.”
As for RCI, the line itself has no plans to add freestyle cruising, but it does plan to add more dining options on its future ships.
“Anything that gives passengers more choices is good for the industry,” says RCI’s spokesperson Michelle Smith.
But according to NCL’s Veitch, freestyle cruising may not be so easy for other lines to adopt. In essence, it’s a hardware problem as well as a software problem. To provide passengers with this level of open-seating dining requires lots of space–for many different restaurants and dining rooms. Not all ships can devote so much precious maritime space to dining venues–or for additional crew to reach that magical one-crewmember-per-cabin ratio.
In fact, NCL considerably revised the design of its 2,000-passenger Norwegian Sun, slated for the open seas in September 2001. According to Veitch, accommodating the freestyle concept compelled NCL to add restaurants to the ship, expand the spa and gym areas, and add more cabins for crewmembers.
In total, the Sun will feature nine restaurants, including 10 distinctive menus each evening. An NCL press release states, “On a seven-day cruise, this will give passengers the option of never eating dinner at the same restaurant more than once.”
Choices include two main dining rooms; a formal Italian restaurant; Le Bistro, featuring gourmet French fare; a tapas bar with a full selection of tapas items and authentic Spanish entertainment; a round-the-clock cafe; a “Healthy Living” restaurant featuring spa menus and dishes from Cooking Light magazine; as well as a Pacific Rim restaurant complex with a sushi bar, teppanyaki room and a fusion restaurant combining the tastes and styles of Hawaii, California and Asia.
Whew!
But all these choices do come at a price–not necessarily in higher cruise fares, though. Veitch expects the line to remain price competitive, although NCL hopes to boost its revenue by getting a greater number of passengers to pay the discount brochure rate for early bookings rather than wait for last-minute bargains.
Additional revenue also will come in the form of cover charges for specialty dining and a la carte per-item pricing in the gourmet restaurants planned for the Sun and the line’s next ship–a 2,300-passenger vessel due in 2002. The unnamed ship is specifically designed to accommodate freestyle cruising.
A rising chorus of passengers and industry observers object to some cruise lines essentially sneaking in fare increases by charging extra for everything from ice cream to espresso. And admitting he was playing with fire with the a la carte concept, Veitch said passengers couldn’t expect foie gras and caviar or risotto and truffles in all the restaurants for no additional charge.
“We’re not looking to nickel and dime our passengers,” Veitch explained.
And for those who want outstanding dining options comparable to fine shoreside restaurants, he feels the a la carte pricing for menu items will be acceptable.
According to Veitch, about half the number of dining venues aboard new NCL vessels will require cover charges or a la carte pricing. Everywhere else, dining will be covered “in the ticket price,” he said.
Maybe that’s one aspect of freestyle cruising that other lines won’t hurry to imitate.
SEATING IS A MATTER OF SEMANTICS
Long the exclusive hallmark of luxury ships, open-seating dining lets passengers enjoy the freedom to feast on often-stellar gourmet meals whenever and with whomever they wish. Now open seating may also be the yardstick by which many mainstream lines are measured.
Don’t confuse open seating with single seating, though.
Take, for instance, the ultra-luxury 100-passenger ships of Seabourn on one end of the spectrum, and those of small-ship adventure lines like Clipper Cruise Line and its brethren on the other. Seabourn’s passengers can mosey into the open-seating dining room any time and get meals served a-la-minute, while on Clipper, passengers are expected to show up together in the single-seating dining room, where service is family-style.
Sometimes, the flip side can also be the case, as with Crystal. Despite this line’s uncontested ultra-luxury status, its two 940-passenger ships each have two assigned seatings, since the main dining room doesn’t accommodate all passengers at once.
Even Cunard’s venerable QE2 offers something akin to partial open seating. Now what, for heaven’s sake, is that? All dining rooms aboard the luxury vessel offer open seating, except the Mauretania, a restaurant assigned to the ship’s lowest-cabin category passengers.
In total, only a few cruise lines offer the luxury-lover the ideal combo of single open seating for meals. These include Windstar, Seabourn, Radisson Seven Seas, Silversea, Star Clipper and Renaissance.
In addition, stand-alone alternative restaurants (also found on many luxury ships) further allow passengers to dine wherever they like. Not only can passengers experience fine dining in these venues, but also outstanding ethnic cuisine such as the Asian and Italian restaurants on Crystal’s ships.
— Arline and Sam Bleecker
