$3.95 cover for dine in or take out. If you take out you are only aloud to take out the equivilent of one meal. If you dine in, you take whatever you want. There is still a charge for milkshakes. They do have coke products but they charge $1.95, it's a large though. They do honor the ships coke card.
If you didn't buy the coke card, J.R. is where I'd buy my soft drinks. With the size drink they give you and the price, it's the best deal. Before I bought the coke card, on my last cruise, I ate at J.R.'s and got a Coke and they also will give you 1 refill at no charge. All this was as of Oct 04.
Alwaysonvacation: Thanks for the information. That is helpful. That is actually what I had in mind in the event we had Coke cravings. We dont' think we'll order enough sodas to warrant the beverage card this time. We bought 3 of them last time with the family! That's a lot of sodaa to drink! So am I understanding correctly, with the cover charge, you can get a hamburger and fries without being charged for the food separately? My son went last summer with a friend, and he said he was charged cover fee and for the food. Thanks again.
I recently read an article about the completion of a 6-month test by Royal Caribbean in which they concluded that they should impose a service charge for passengers eating at their Johnny Rockets restaurants. We've noticed some incensed passengers on bulletin boards snorting that they'll show Royal Caribbean; they just won't eat there and give the line their $3.95! They obviously didn't read our article, because that's the idea. The line doesn't see much profit potential in the $3.95 fee (they even give away one free meal in JR's to past passengers, so a relatively small number of passengers actually pay); what they really wanted to do was stem the demand for the restaurant. If passengers just want a burger and fries, they have that for free elsewhere on the ship. The problem was that the specialty restaurant had become so focused on just serving the food to accommodate the ever-present line and that the "Johnny Rocket experience" had been lost; there was no time for the music and dancing or the catsup smiley faces.
It brings to mind a conversation I had earlier this year with an executive of a European-based line. Much to the dismay of the small number of American passengers, the line didn't serve coffee after dinner in the main dining rooms. If you could talk the waiter into it, it came from the coffee bar, and there was a charge, but most of the time, it was just politely suggested that coffee was served in the coffee bar. Was it a clever move to maximize revenue? No, he explained, they just aren't equipped to serve coffee (or more popular in Europe, specialty coffees such as cappuccino or espresso) in the dining room, especially on a mass scale. Most Europeans don't have coffee after dinner, and if they do, they prefer to go elsewhere for it, such as the coffee bar. Another problem with serving it in the dining room is that in Europe, people linger for hours over a cup of coffee, and the culture dictates that it would be very impolite for the waiter to rush them along. Those lingering over coffee from first seating, may well linger right through second seating. Here, the charge clearly wasn't for the revenue, but just to move people along to another place where they would pay the same charge.
Something else I had never seen before is that there was a small charge for room service (except for breakfast). When I asked about that, I found it was only imposed on cruises within certain areas, and again, it was to discourage usage. It seems that in some cultures, people come into the cabin and immediately pick up the phone and order a bunch of sandwiches "in case somebody wants them." The ship can't begin to keep up with the volume of orders, and they find that nearly all of the food goes uneaten. So the charge, even though minimal, is simply to discourage indiscriminate orders when the ship is sailing in an area where the local passengers are used to automatically ordering lots of extra food, yet isn't high enough (curiously about $4, just like the Johnny Rockets charge on Royal Caribbean) to deter someone who really wants a sandwich.
In each of the three cases, the charge isn't viewed as a money-maker, but rather just to stem demand, and if it works the way the cruise line wants, they will make as little as possible from it. Besides, they say, if they really wanted to make money from it, they would expand the capacity to make as much as they could.
David, that makes perfect sense. Johnny Rockets is a small but entirely unique dining experience that has been plauged by long lines of people who were complaining about not being able to get into the restaurant. I also suspect that the amount of the charge car easily affect the length of the line, hence $3.95 is probably the right amount.
I am not too sure of the publication right off. I get so many postings from cruise companies, etc., I usually read then and delete. I will see if I can locate that article.
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