Declining Service in MDR?

[CruellaD]

We just returned from our 10th cruise and have to say I was a little disappointed in our service team. We're not high maintenance by any means, but it was disappointing. The service team seemed rushed and unhappy. That along with the countless speeches on the survey made for a rather awkward and uncomfortable dining experience. We have friends going with us next year, and after raving about our previous DCL experiences, I hope they're not disappointed.

 

[celina14]

What cruise did you just get off of? We were just on the 2/14 sailing on the Wonder and while I thought the service was great I felt the food was a bit underwhelming. This was my first Disney Cruise so I don't have another experience to compare it to but we really liked our server. I do agree though about the multiple mentions about the survey.

 

[party-of-five]

We were just on the Magic (5th cruise with DCL). It was our first cruise where we didn’t hear about the survey every evening. However, we did hear all about how DCL servers have a cut-throat attitude among one another. And how DCL compared to working on Carnival. It got old quick. The food was ok, nothing to get excited about. And pretty much the same menus we’ve had over the last 7 years.

 

[CruellaD]

What cruise did you just get off of? We were just on the 2/14 sailing on the Wonder and while I thought the service was great I felt the food was a bit underwhelming. This was my first Disney Cruise so I don't have another experience to compare it to but we really liked our server. I do agree though about the multiple mentions about the survey.

We were on the 2/15 sailing of the Fantasy. I didn't have any expectations regarding the food because it's been the same menu and quality over the years. However, I did expect the quality of service to be better. It just seemed like all the servers, not just ours, were more rushed then ever. It was almost like they have cute down the staffing in the MDR. The typical do more with less.

 

[SusannaBanana]

We were just on the Magic (5th cruise with DCL). It was our first cruise where we didn’t hear about the survey every evening. However, we did hear all about how DCL servers have a cut-throat attitude among one another. And how DCL compared to working on Carnival. It got old quick. The food was ok, nothing to get excited about. And pretty much the same menus we’ve had over the last 7 years.

Wait, you heard this from the servers themselves?

 

[mom2brooke76]

We were just on the Magic (5th cruise with DCL). It was our first cruise where we didn’t hear about the survey every evening. However, we did hear all about how DCL servers have a cut-throat attitude among one another. And how DCL compared to working on Carnival. It got old quick. The food was ok, nothing to get excited about. And pretty much the same menus we’ve had over the last 7 years.

Funny, because after 13 Disney cruises (which I have noticed a decline in MDR service on as of late) we went on Carnival for the first time and our dining team was FANTASTIC. It seems that overall the staff is happier on Carnival than Disney in my opinion. And overall food was better too.

 

[party-of-five]

Wait, you heard this from the servers themselves?

yes! Our head server, once upon a time, was an assistant to a head server on Carnival. After their contracts ended, they began seeing one another and then married. With Carnival, they couldn’t be guaranteed to work together on same ship, however DCL could guarantee this and so she and her husband were both head servers in the same MDR rotation. (We met him, even. Sweet couple). But the entire cruise, we heard about the differences between Carnival and DCL - both pros and cons. Please don’t get me wrong, we had great service and enjoyed getting to know our servers. Just found it interesting to hear the comparisons.

Funny, because after 13 Disney cruises (which I have noticed a decline in MDR service on as of late) we went on Carnival for the first time and our dining team was FANTASTIC. It seems that overall the staff is happier on Carnival than Disney in my opinion. And overall food was better too.

just curious what carnival ship you were on. We’re thinking of trying something new.

 

[Dug720]

yes! Our head server, once upon a time, was an assistant to a head server on Carnival. After their contracts ended, they began seeing one another and then married. With Carnival, they couldn’t be guaranteed to work together on same ship, however DCL could guarantee this and so she and her husband were both head servers in the same MDR rotation. (We met him, even. Sweet couple). But the entire cruise, we heard about the differences between Carnival and DCL - both pros and cons. Please don’t get me wrong, we had great service and enjoyed getting to know our servers. Just found it interesting to hear the comparisons

Normally I would have said that is when I would have spoken to my head server, but given that she was you’d head server, that is when I would have been at Guest Services so quickly asked asking for the Hotel Director. That is beyond unprofessional.

 

[SusannaBanana]

yes! Our head server, once upon a time, was an assistant to a head server on Carnival. After their contracts ended, they began seeing one another and then married. With Carnival, they couldn’t be guaranteed to work together on same ship, however DCL could guarantee this and so she and her husband were both head servers in the same MDR rotation. (We met him, even. Sweet couple). But the entire cruise, we heard about the differences between Carnival and DCL - both pros and cons. Please don’t get me wrong, we had great service and enjoyed getting to know our servers. Just found it interesting to hear the comparisons.

Wow. I mean, I love it when barriers break down and you get to cross the 4th wall with people. But in every service job I've had this would be a major no-no and management would have been all over that. But, maybe that's a sign in itself. Lax management = lax servers = declining service.

 

[party-of-five]

Normally I would have said that is when I would have spoken to my head server, but given that she was you’d head server, that is when I would have been at Guest Services so quickly asked asking for the Hotel Director. That is beyond unprofessional.

ugh... I may have confused titles. not assistant server, and not “head server” (the one who comes around once a night to say hello”) but the lead server... the main server. I may have misspoke on that title. But regardless, I agree it was inappropriate discussion as it made us feel uncomfortable at times. Our servers were otherwise attentive and otherwise great.

 

[mom2brooke76]

yes! Our head server, once upon a time, was an assistant to a head server on Carnival. After their contracts ended, they began seeing one another and then married. With Carnival, they couldn’t be guaranteed to work together on same ship, however DCL could guarantee this and so she and her husband were both head servers in the same MDR rotation. (We met him, even. Sweet couple). But the entire cruise, we heard about the differences between Carnival and DCL - both pros and cons. Please don’t get me wrong, we had great service and enjoyed getting to know our servers. Just found it interesting to hear the comparisons.



just curious what carnival ship you were on. We’re thinking of trying something new.

We were on the Liberty out of Port Canaveral just to try it out and loved it! If you don’t go in expecting Disney, I think you’ll be surprised overall. I was. For three us it was $800 vs around $3k for a comparable DCL cruise. Clearly nobody does kids like Disney or maintains their ships like DCL, but nobody does adults like Carnival We’re supposed to go on another Carnival out of Tampa next month. I’ll have to see if it’s the same experience.

 

[Dug720]

ugh... I may have confused titles. not assistant server, and not “head server” (the one who comes around once a night to say hello”) but the lead server... the main server. I may have misspoke on that title. But regardless, I agree it was inappropriate discussion as it made us feel uncomfortable at times. Our servers were otherwise attentive and otherwise great.

Gotcha. I think that position is just called “server”. In that case I would have started with the Head Server (over a set of tables and serving teams) and then gone up to the Hotel Director if nothing changed.

 

[Trera]

We were on the 2/15 sailing of the Fantasy. I didn't have any expectations regarding the food because it's been the same menu and quality over the years. However, I did expect the quality of service to be better. It just seemed like all the servers, not just ours, were more rushed then ever. It was almost like they have cute down the staffing in the MDR. The typical do more with less.

We were on the 2/8 fantasy and we felt the same about our service team. Maybe the worst we have had in 22 cruises

 

[Weedy]

Easy solution to the asking for good surveys. I tell them if they continue to ask they will get low marks

 

[NC State]

Our 6th DCL was April 2019 on the Magic and we felt the same way. The service and food wasn't up to standards we have received on the past 5 cruises. Next month we are giving Celebrity a try.

 

[mocodis]

on our last cruise -Wonder last November for Panama, we had Mladen from Serbia as our server. He has been on the Wonder many years, and he is awesome. We had a great service team.

 

[LeiaOfAlderaan]

For someone like me who didn’t start sailing with DCL until 2017 and has only been on 3 cruises (on 3 different ships) it is hard to make direct comparisons. Our least favorite was on the Magic in 2018/19 (NYE cruise) but they certainly weren’t bad enough to negatively affect our cruise experience. Our best by far was on the Dream in April ‘19. I’ll be back on the Wonder in a few weeks for the first time since 2017 so it will be interesting to compare our experience (wasn’t particularly thrilled with our team in 2017 but they were fine).

 

[Ralph&Pam]

Easy solution to the asking for good surveys. I tell them if they continue to ask they will get low marks

My approach as well. The first time it comes up, I indicate that after (now) 19 cruises on DCL, we understand the system, and one measure of excellent service is not having to listen to the reminders about the survey that we will complete at the end of the cruise. Also, I will let them know if anything is not to our satisfaction, so they don’t have to ask again if everything is okay. This approach seems to be working for us.

 

[Adelle Dazeem]

We were on last week's Fantasy sailing and, as much as I hate to say it, we had probably the lowest level of MDR service we have had in 10 cruises. It was just simple things like drinks not getting refilled, cocktails not being delivered after ordered, never got bread one night until I asked about it after everything was ordered. It sounds so picky, I know, and I consider myself to be pretty low maintenance, but it just seemed that every night, something seemed to be missing. It's the first time I marked "very good" instead of "excellent" rating on the comment card.

 

[CruellaD]

Our experience also. Not big things, but definitely not up to the quality we've experienced on our previous DCL cruises.