Open seating?

We will be on the Mediterranea in March. Was wondering if anyone had experience with open seating at dinner? Short or long waits for seating?

We have been on NeoRomantica last year and there was ONLY open seating.

As we normally eat early, we went to the Dining room at 7pm (when it opened) and never had to wait.

When we left the Dining room around 8:30 pm there was a Long queue.

So I guess it really depends what time you're going.

Diadema has one restaurant still fixed, the other has been swithed to open seating (Corona Blu was always open seating), it looks like Costa may be moving towards open seating, hard to say what the situation will be by March. The program says Europeans dine late and suggests going early, but I don't know if I'd take that as always true.

We are on the Mediterranea in Feb next year it is still showing as fixed dinning times 5.30, 6.00 & 9.15pm.

Also our time has been confirmed by Customer services, but things could change before we sail.

It's my first time with Costa, I figured the cruise line had a standard--but it looks like that's not the case!

My dinner options are fixed times of 7 or 9, or open seating. I generally like the open seating concept so we don't have to plan our evening around the dinner schedule, but if the waits are bad I may regret that choice...

On Costa, late evening (8.30 pm onwards) seem to be the preferred times for most Italian guests this is okay with fixed dining, but the ships that have any time have a long wait for tables after that time.

As we eat early 6.30 we normally are coming out around 8.15 both times on any time ships there have been queues waiting for tables, this is not the case were there is still fixed dining in two dining room, plus anytime in another.

Thanks for the tips!

Happy cruising

On our recent trip I was surprised that we were assigned open seating, i had expected an assigned slot. It worked very well and we found 7.45-8.15 had virtually no queues and service was faster because you were between the main set times.

Worst times were 7pm and 9pm but even then we never had more than 8 in front of us, much less than on RCL and NCL cruises with "freestyle" dining.

They tried to seat us with other English speakers but in practice they were so scarce it only happened once!

Thanks. I hope the open seating works as well for us!

 

They tried to seat us with other English speakers but in practice they were so scarce it only happened once!

Trying to decide if thats an advantage or disadvantage ;)

I am also wondering whether to opt for the open seating or to take the fixed time option so would be very grateful for any further posts regarding other cruisers' experiences and thoughts.

We'll be on the Diadema in May and the idea of flexibility over dining time sounds lovely in theory but don't fancy having to wait in a long queue.

Also, is it more like the restaurant lunch system where they just seat you at the next available space so there is no choice of having, say, a table for 2 if that is what you would like some evenings?

By the way, we have now had several great cruises with Costa and as English speakers (we do also have reasonable Spanish and French between us and we are trying to learn Italian!) we also know it is quite difficult to be seated with other English speakers as they are a bit thin on the ground normally.

Thanks in advance to you all for your help.

Yes, we've completed our cruise on the Mediterranea now and can give you our update.

For dinner, we always got a table for two, fairly close to a window, no waiting, but we always chose to eat early. When we walked out, after 8, there would always be a line of people waiting for tables. Given the size of the dining room, I would imagine the line moves along quickly, but I don't have first hand experience there. We never ate lunch in the MDR, and for breakfast it was never a problem to get a table for 2 without a wait. Buffet was available for all three meals as well.

Hello

Hope you had a great cruise on the Mediterranea (looks like a lovely ship, we saw it in passing in December when we were on the Fascinosa and 'passed' each other in Tenerife and decided we'd love to cruise on her) and thank you so much for posting your thoughts so quickly.

It is greatly appreciated and so reassuring to know that the open seating option worked well for you.

Look forward to your review on Mediterranea (if you haven't already submitted one and I am just about to have a look now!).

Thanks so much again.

I did post "Mediterranea impressions" on these boards, please have a look. I also submitted a review for the review section, that was Tuesday. They seem to be backed up with reviews to approve....

I am also wondering whether to opt for the open seating or to take the fixed time option so would be very grateful for any further posts regarding other cruisers' experiences and thoughts.

 

We'll be on the Diadema in May and the idea of flexibility over dining time sounds lovely in theory but don't fancy having to wait in a long queue.

 

Also, is it more like the restaurant lunch system where they just seat you at the next available space so there is no choice of having, say, a table for 2 if that is what you would like some evenings?

 

By the way, we have now had several great cruises with Costa and as English speakers (we do also have reasonable Spanish and French between us and we are trying to learn Italian!) we also know it is quite difficult to be seated with other English speakers as they are a bit thin on the ground normally.

 

Thanks in advance to you all for your help.

*** Hello -

Would be happy to hear how was the open seating arrangement on the Diadema;

We are cruising with the Diadema in October, and contemplating whether to opt for the open seating or not; how was the food? were you also given the option to go the a fixed seating in any given evening?

Thanks!

In the end we opted for the earlier first sitting fixed table option in the Otto e Mezzo dining room as we decided after reading another cruiser's review that it would probably work best for us.

We were very happy with our table for two and having the same waiter was good as he knew about our wine/water preferences and we were very satisfied with the service given.

Although it was a bit of a rush some evenings to get to the dining room on time (I think it was actually very early at 6.30pm) the advantage was that we had beautiful views of the sea (and some sail aways) and enjoyed beautiful light filled dining.

The food for the most part was good with some notably excellent dishes and a few mediocre. As mentioned already, the service was very good and pleasant and the food was always hot and really we never had to wait long for any courses.

There is never enough time in the day for us when we are cruising and we would very often love to be in two places at once! Thus there is a trade off over choosing early or late dining time, each with advantages and disadvantages.

Sorry I can't give much information about the open seating in the Adularia as we didn't really see how it worked but at 6.30pm everybody seem to move very quickly towards the restaurant. Also we did notice one evening, later on about 9ish, a very small queue up at the Corona Blu and the door was kept closed so we couldn't see inside at all.

Have a great cruise.

Thank you for the comprehensive response; happy to hear you enjoyed it!