PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. — When Royal Caribbean’s Utopia of the Seas departs a Florida dock east of Orlando for its first scheduled sailing with revenue passengers today (Friday, July 19), one of the 18-deck cruise ship’s attractions will simulate meals in a railroad dining car, with video of passing countryside visible through the windows.
The travel and hospitality company bills the “Royal Railway Utopia Station” as “the most immersive dining experience at sea” offering “a cross-country trek through the American Frontier without even leaving the ship.”
What a concept!
The three-day weekend and four-day weekday Bahamas cruises on the brand-new Utopia — which can carry up to 5,668 passengers with a crew of 2,290 — charge an additional $119.99 for a five-course meal ($59.99 for children) of “American favorites with an upscale twist as the sights, sounds and flavors of the Wild West unfold all around you.”
Royal Caribbean’s website says the initial historical western theme depicts a “digital landscape” of what train travel might have been like in the late 1800s, rather than what a camera can capture from a current train like the California Zephyr. The video theme will change periodically.
“Subwoofers in the seats simulate vibrations from the non-existent tracks,” according to a tech website, although it is doubtful the system can (or would want to) effectively recreate sloshing coffee experienced on rough BNSF Railway track east of Denver.
The restaurant seats 48, the capacity of many now-retired streamlined heritage diners built in the 1940s and 1950s. A Royal Caribbean blogger says the experience “feels like you are on a classic train,” a nod to the fact that a majority of the ship’s patrons may not realize they could experience the real thing today on Amtrak.
Knowing passengers have little to look at outside of the ship’s windows, Royal Caribbean has latched on to one of train travel’s unique selling points. In fact, rather than going to the trouble to digitally conceptualize the next Royal Railway diorama, maybe the company could simply point a camera out the window of the Lake Shore Limited as it tools up the Hudson. Of course, cruisers who want to relive the experience on a real train will likely be disappointed in the food Amtrak currently offers — or, with a ticket in coach on some routes, to find that access to a dining car is possible on a ship, but not on a train.
Southern Railway would place the Crescent diner in WAS early enough you could have a proper Southern Railway Dinner and be off the train before it left.
We didn’t want to go to Washington but did want a Dining Car meal, so 6.18 PM saw us at North Phila heading for Harrisburg. Either the Chef or the Steward had gotten some corn muffin mix and they were perfect. Beef at its Best was true to its name and dessert topped things off in fine style. We tipped accordingly and the waiter was upset we were off at Harrisburg and not thru to Chicago.
MU cars took us back to Suburban.
They can keep it!!For $120 per person adult and $60 per person for a child, a family of four would pay $360 plus a tip (20%) of $72 for dinner! And that is on top of the cruise fare itself. For $432 (+ drinks?) I’d opt for flexible dining any day.
Waving the magic wand of accounting, how much of a sleeper fare do you think Amtrak allocates to meal service? Could it be as much as $120 on a one night out train? Suppose RC raised the individual fare by $120, but allowed a $120 credit if the passenger chose to go with some “economy dining.” It’s all in how you sell it. The price doesn’t change.
An unusual, if dare I say, a novel idea.
As the article notes, sadly, as Amtrak’s “Dining experience” deteriorates to (eventual?) non-existence, perhaps a “dining-car” experience can only be had on a Royal Caribbean International cruise ship …
Can we sublet Amtrak dining cars (and sleepers while we’re at it) to Royal Caribbean? (It’s not a new idea.)
The photo of the Lakeshore dining car meal got me remembering my trips in the 1970’s. I wonder if these ship designers could come to my house. Turn my bedroom into a simulation of riding an Amtrak sleeper across New York State in winter. Waking up at each station because the vibration stops, the window ice-cold because it’s ten below zero outside, the Mohawk Valley buried in snow, the train running six hours late, the footsteps and loud talk in the aisle with people boarding or deboarding. I’d love it!!!!!! I’d feel half a century younger!!!!!!