What a disappointment to find out that RC has replaced their signature Viking Crown Lounge with a private dining room for Suite guest members called the Coastal Kitchen. That was by far my wife's and I favorite place to sit and relax both during the day and at night. Just had friends come back from a cruise on the Oasis and they said the Coastal Kitchen had maybe 6 people in it. Although the food was free and good, they were disappointed to loose a public lounge at the expense of such a small group of people. What was RC thinking?? If they wanted a private dining room to reward their suite guest, why not put it where the Diamond Club is and move the Diamond Club up to one of the little used rooms beside the Viking Crown lounge? There are far more Diamond members than there are suite guests. Anyones else have comments?
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Viking Crown Lounge replaced with Coastal Kitchen on Oasis Class Ships
6 Answers
I've booked with Harmony of the seas in a week and I can't tell you how disappointed I am we won't be able to get a glass of wine and enjoy the view in the crown lounge. Even when everyone could use it, it was never full. Not even by half!! This will be my fourteenth cruise and my husband and I are probably not going to book another one for a long time if this is how the cruise line industry is going to treat it's passengers. My husband and I purposely get lower priced staterooms because we want to spend that money either on the ship or on excursions. I'm not paying for a suite we are never going to be in! Disappointing for people getting junior suites expecting to use it as well. Never had a suite, probably never will. We have now booked two all inclusive resorts for the next year. I wonder if the cruise line industry actually read these posts. My parents are 100+ lost count cruisers. They were the ones who got us liking them (not any more) and even they are now leaning to take their money elsewhere. They are diamond and diamond plus on almost every cruise line. Take note exec's!
Welcome to Steerage. We may not get all the nice stuff like first class, but we are a lot more fun to hang out with, not all stuffy like first class 
Remember in the movie Titanic, First class was all stuffy smoking cigars in coats and neck tie bragging over who they are and what they do. Steerage had the music playing and every one relaxed and dancing having fun...... So Steerage is way more fun until you get locked below decks as the ship sinks.
Update - Just got off the Allure of the Seas 7 day cruise. I had a Jr. Suite and was told we could use the Suite Lounge and Coastal Kitchen by the sales agent. Not true. The first night we went up to the Suite Lounge and was turned away even though we had a Jr. Suite. Not good enough, you need to have a GOLD Suite Card, Jr. Suits don't count. We were allowed to eat in the Coastal Kitchen. They said reservations were required. We ate there 3 nights in a row and there was never more than 6 people at a time in the restaurant. What a waste of space. Don't see this lasting long. The menu was very limited. The food was good and there was no charge. Really no difference in the food other than we had better views. Also, your daily gratuities charge is not shared by the Coastal Kitchen employees so you might want to give them something for their service. We cancelled our cruise on the Harmony in November and will book with Princes. Doubt we will cruise on another Oasis class ship because they have all been changed to Suite Lounges and Coastal Kitchens. Thanks RC for making us feel like we were in Steerage.
For me, one of the large draws is the large lounge with huge views. By making it a suite only area, it removes a huge reason for me to consider cruising on RCI.
Looks like the old days with First, Second and Third Class passengers is coming back. NCL has The Haven" MSC has the "Yacht Club" Some cruise lines have special reserved seats at shows for suite guest......
I'm just a poor boy in steerage sometimes with just an inside cabin, heck I have even done a 1A cabin on Carnival before. Guess I'm just happy to be on a ship.
It has been almost a year since we cruised RC and we avoid the mega-ships. That said, it sounds to me as if RC took a page from the Celebrity playbook here. Celebrity has a suite-only dining room called Luminae. It is located adjacent to one of the main dining rooms. . . and it makes sense that it be there when considering the need to be close to the kitchen. My guess is that all the cruise lines want suite guests to feel special and have some degree of exclusivity so this is one way to accomplish that.
Do I agree with it? If I were a suite guest, heck yeah. Cruising suite-level costs a lot of $$. I'm not often a suite guest though. If it means that there are fewer public spaces available to a majority of passengers as opposed to having a space for a relative few, I'd be a bit miffed too.
My guess is that if this results in a hit to revenue generation or passenger satisfaction takes a big hit, it won't last too long.