Dining Room Servers

[ryanmcin]

We are crusting on the magic next month. This will be our first time on the magic after 7 times on the Wonder and once on the Fantasy. The last 3 times on the Wonder we had Phapakorn as an assistant server (2 twice with Svetlana and once with Dan). We had a great experience with those teams (much less so with the team on the fantasy).

Is DCL getting a lot of the same servers back (after covid) or have they been hiring new staff? I'm just curious what to expect and if the crews have been as good as they used to be?

 

[Avasmama]

My favorite server, Matthew is on the Magic right now! He is amazing.

 

[Kwami]

The servers that we had on the Dream back in September weren't new at all. It seems like Disney was able to bring a lot of old staff back.

 

[dcassetta]

Our server on the Magic last week was experienced with previous cruises. The assistant server was at the end of her first contract. Our favorite server from India who had been on the Magic for years was not onboard. We met another server from India, who said he was on the Fantasy. This summer many of the Indian crew could not get the UK for the sailings due to Covid restrictions.

 

[Colo17]

I asked the servers both on Celebrity and Disney about this. Celebrity was hiring Indian staff because they could get longer visas and giving them longer contracts. As of Christmas, Disney was giving their staff shorter contracts and rotating in as much of the old staff as they could. Our Fantasy staff were mostly from Phillipines. Both were US sailings.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Branel on the Magic was fantastic in December. I think he has something like 20 years with DCL.

 

[Stitch1027]

Our main server on the Fantasy this month was Yanupa from the Philippines who had been with DCL for over 10 years!!

 

[daedelus]

We talked to our dining team about that on Fantasy in Jan. The head server was also a dining room manager and was very open about it. He said that a lot of the old staff pre-Plague had come back and they had been distributed among the fleet to be the experienced team that trained / mentored / worked with the newer team.

He also mentioned that a lot of the senior team members will be sent to Wish (at least for the opening cruises) to ensure that the ship get set up correctly and they have experienced folks there as well. A lot of the staff is mixed in their feelings about that - the regular crew is OK with it, but the dining and stateroom teams not as much, as they will do numerous "shakedown" cruises with no passengers, thus no tips.

That said, we saw several crew on Fantasy that we knew from both Wonder and Magic, so they're all over the place!

 

[Ariadne_]

A lot of servers have come back, some have only recently been called back since the start of the year. Because of the phasing of return and visa restrictions (many couldn’t renew their visas due to embassy’s not processing them for almost 2 years) crew have been moved around on ships - quite a few from the magic are on the dream at the moment.
Before the pandemic a lot of crew decided to leave and quite a few now work for Virgin Cruise Line.

 

[tidefan]

Our favorite server, Mirka, is now on the Wonder and has moved up to Palo.

 

[lovingeire]

Has anyone seen Dejan, might be from Bosnia?, (who was on the Fantasy) or Omar from Jamaica and Jesus(from India), both of whom were on the Magic, since sailing resumed?

 

[Ralph&Pam]

Has anyone seen Dejan, might be from Bosnia?, (who was on the Fantasy) or Omar from Jamaica and Jesus(from India), both of whom were on the Magic, since sailing resumed?

Omar from Jamaica is the best. Last time we saw him was on the Magic in January, 2020, pre-pandemic.

 

[mommy2allyandaveri]

We are crusting on the magic next month. This will be our first time on the magic after 7 times on the Wonder and once on the Fantasy. The last 3 times on the Wonder we had Phapakorn as an assistant server (2 twice with Svetlana and once with Dan). We had a great experience with those teams (much less so with the team on the fantasy).

Is DCL getting a lot of the same servers back (after covid) or have they been hiring new staff? I'm just curious what to expect and if the crews have been as good as they used to be?

We had Phapakorn 3 times. He is the absolute best! He left DCL before COVID. We are FB friends now, it's so nice to see him doing well at home.