Personal Choices Get More Complex

With Diamond Princess entering service two weeks ago, Princess took a giant step by putting a lot more "choice" into Personal Choice with the expansion of the Anytime Dining to four distinctly-themed dining rooms, serving different menus versus the traditional fixed-seating dining. Those are in addition to the options of the casual Horizon Court buffet and the premium Sabatini's.

Lots of nay-sayers whined that the concept wasn't going to work because too many people were going to be cheating on it by having reservations too many places the same evening, or there wouldn't be enough space creating long waiting lines, or there were going to be one or two popular choices where reservations would be impossible.

I saw it operate for a week. They were wrong.

The system is working even better than expected on Diamond Princess, and is ready to be implemented with no material changes on Sapphire Princess when it enters service in June. The benefits are not only the passengers' but employees at all levels - in both front of house and back of house - are telling CND it is working perfectly for them.

The way the system works for passengers is that all passengers choosing traditional dining are seated in one larger restaurant. Those choosing Anytime Dining, choose nightly between any of four themed restaurants. Each of those has its own menu as well as the nightly changing traditional menu. Those in the traditional restaurant have the traditional menu as well as the specialty menu of one of the themed restaurants from which they can choose each evening.

Passengers with Anytime Dining may make reservations by calling the Princess Concierge desk on the ship, or they may show up without reservations. When calling, they may make a single reservation or reserve a time and place for each evening of the cruise.

If the trademark Princess service is the soul of the system, the heart of it is Princess' new onboard computer system. It was designed from the ground up by the line to handle just the onboard needs of this type of dining as well as the other types of onboard reservations that will be implemented in the not-too-distant future. (The future will come next week when it will be handling reservations for Princess' in-house spa on Caribbean Princess, not the Steiner-operated ones. Then further down the road, it will be expanded to also make reservations for the Scholarship@Sea courses, special dining programs, and shore excursions.)

The Princess Concierge system - which really needs one of those cute acronymic names - not only takes the reservations, but also makes sure no one has more than one reservation, and lets staff know where they have available seats at any given time.

This capability benefits not only the call center staff for people making reservations, but also the maitre d's staff at the front door of each restaurant, and that keeps any waiting time to a minimum for passengers just showing up without calling ahead.

Diamond's maitre d', Beniamino Acler tells CND that 60-70% of the passengers are making reservations. He also holds back 10-20% (at the lower end of the scale if there are lots of groups aboard who will tend to dine together and make reservations) of the capacity of each dining room specifically for walk-ups.

When the passenger arrives (either with a reservation or without) at the door of any restaurant, they are asked for their cruise card (which can be swiped) to check them in. These guys are pros. If they mention their name or cabin number, they don't need the cruise card, the person working at the door picks up on it and has the information entered into the computer faster than the person can fumble around for his cruise card, and literally that fast he's checked in. If he has a reservation in another restaurant, it's canceled, or if he walked in instead of going to his regular place in the traditional dining room, it's noted that he won't be there.

This is key, because the system is keeping track instantly of where there are available seats in each restaurant, including the traditional dining room. (Likewise, as soon as you leave, the waiter clears your table telling everyone with a terminal that you ate in less than the allotted hour and forty minutes for your reservation, and your table is now available.) If you walk into the Pacific Moon Dining Room without a reservation, you may find that it will be a few minutes before they will have a table available, but the person at the door will be able to see that there is a table available right then in the Vivaldi Dining Room. If the object for the passenger is just being seated ASAP, he can reserve that table, so no one else walks in the Vivaldi between the time you leave the Paper Moon and walk down one deck and across the ship. Cool, huh?

But what if you really had your heart set on the Five Spice Mandarin Duckling from the Paper Moon's specialty menu? Vivaldi's Italian menu just may not do it for you. Not a problem. Go ahead and take that seat in the Vivaldi Dining Room. Although they don't advertise it, any item from any menu is available in any dining room. Acler says it may not be quite as convenient for the staff, but the other galley is really only a few feet away, and if it makes the guest happy, why not offer it. This also works well when the rest of your group wants Asian, and Asian just isn't your thing. You can enjoy the homemade Ravioli Tricolore (from Vivaldi) while everyone oo's and ah's over their California Style Sushi. (It really works that way. The staff doesn't miss a beat when you ask for something off a different menu.)

If a diner is more than 15 to 20 minutes late for his reservation, the computer returns the table to availability and lets everyone with a terminal know that a table is available for immediate seating.

Food and Beverage Supervisor Antoine Batiste often works the front door in the Sterling Dining Room. "It's the perfect assistant," he told CND. It's totally replaced the pen and paper system for him and gives him much more information instantly at hand, meaning he can satisfy passengers much more quickly.

The people in the traditional dining room benefit too. A complaint often heard since Personal Choice got rolling is that people book the traditional dining room then keep going elsewhere to eat, leaving the people who really want the traditional experience and go the traditional dining room every night sitting at large tables by themselves many nights. If the specialty restaurants are getting really busy with walk-ups right around the time first or second seating starts, they can tell where there are available seats in the traditional dining room and slot willing people in there. This gives them immediate seating, and it gives the traditional seating passenger someone to talk with while his "regular" tablemates dine elsewhere.

Acler says the system also satisfies passengers when there are more wanting traditional dining than there are seats in the traditional dining room. He can make them a standing reservation in one of the Anytime dining rooms for the same table and servers each night at the same time, even sharing with the same people (who also overflowed), and it is essentially the same experience. Each night they are offered the traditional menu as well as the rotating specialty menus from the other dining rooms. Acler says he's noted that among these people who really wanted the traditional dining, often after a few nights, some of them will change their reservations and sample some of the other restaurants, and really become converted to Anytime Dining.

"The system is working perfectly," Acler told CND, and he is "100% satisfied."

Just in case calamity strikes, however, they are prepared. The call center aboard ship regularly backs up the reservation data, and each evening before opening, each restaurant does get a paper printout of all their reservations for the evening. The computer hasn't gone down yet (possibly owing to the fact that the system is local on the ship and doesn't depend on a satellite link to some mainframe in another part of the world), but if it does, they are prepared, although things obviously won't operate as well without the computer as they do with it.

The system is also providing benefits in the back of the house too. Princess' Director of Culinary Operations, Jonathan Wilson, told CND that the cruise line's goal, from a cost standpoint, is no overproduction. The constant flow of passengers through the restaurants allows for the cooking of smaller numbers of portions at one time, combined with historical data, Wilson says the galley staff is able to match the amount of food prepared with the demand almost perfectly, often having only a portion or two left over. Of course when in doubt, the staff errs on the side of caution and cooks a little more, because, Wilson said, "Running out of anything on the menu, just is not acceptable."

The passengers also benefit here too, because cooking smaller numbers of portions at one time (but multiple times over the course of the evening) means everything will be fresher when it is served, often being cooked only moments before being served.

As well as it is operating (and I saw it operate with no hitches in my week aboard), there will be occasional waits at the door, but so far Acler says those have been very limited - and very short. The longest waiting time they have experience since the ship went into service is about 15 minutes, and that has only occurred in a couple instances. Basically, he says, most passengers without reservations have experienced no waits at all.

Sometimes, however things aren't what they seem. Batiste said that sometimes, passengers arrive seeing a little crowd around the podium at the door and are expecting a wait for a table, but often that "crowd" is a bunch of passengers who arrived at the same time just lined up to be checked in and seated, or sometimes a large party of eight or ten is just checking in. He loves surprising them by telling those dubious diners that he can seat them immediately.

Taking some of the pressure off the dining rooms is the recent change of selections offered in the casual Horizon Court buffet. For more than a year, the Horizon Court menu has mirrored the dining room's menu with selections which used the same basic ingredients but were different to facilitate buffet serving. Recently, all the ships have been adding the premium menu selections from the dining room, just as they are served in the dining room, for those who prefer the more casual style of that restaurant. So now you can have your broiled lobster tail on formal night and not have to dress up if you don't want to.

Yes, Sabatini's is still popular and doing almost capacity business. The premium restaurant is doing its share to draw some passengers away from the other restaurants at least once during the cruise.

The new expanded Anytime dining with the four themed- restaurants are only available on Diamond Princess and later this summer on Sapphire Princess. Wilson said there are no immediate plans in the works for earlier ships being remodeled to accommodate the themed restaurants any time in the foreseeable future.

Even though the new Caribbean Princess will not have the themed-restaurants when it debuts next week, it will have the new computer system because the system will be keeping track of reservations in the Princess-operated spa, as well as keeping the Anytime Dining Rooms running as smoothly as they are on Diamond Princess. Even though the new Anytime dining arrangements may not be available on the existing ships, the new computer system and Princess Concierge call center will eventually show up on all the ships.

We do have one bit of advice for Diamond and Sapphire passengers. Even though walking up to the Anytime restaurants works well, don't be afraid to use the phone. If you know you usually eat about 7:30, go ahead and make reservations the first day for a sampling of each of the restaurants for every night. You can always change a night or two if you find a different time becomes more convenient. If you are the type who likes to leave things even more flexible, still use the phone. Before just showing up at the restaurant, call them (yes, even from a lounge where you may be having cocktails before dinner) and ask for a reservation for even just five minutes away. They can put your name on a table, or tell you if the wait is fifteen minutes (you can walk more slowly), or tell you where there is immediate availability.

Also remember that formal night seems to be the busiest in all the restaurants, and Acler says that right now, the Sterling and Pacific Moon seem to be leading the popularity.

Anytime Dining has taken a major step in the evolution process on Diamond and Sapphire Princess. Based on initial response, the evolution will probably continue on Princess newbuilds.

In the past Princess has tried to keep their ships all offering very much the same types of facilities so there would be less emphasis on choosing among ships and give passengers more choice of itinerary. With the new themed restaurants on two ships, this has pretty much changed, and now there is a clear reason to select Diamond Princess or Sapphire Princess over other ships, assuming they are sailing where you want to go. Princess has a winner with this concept.

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