MDR Reservations for "open seating" passengers

[Modern_Viking]

I received a HAL "Mariner Society Cruise News" e-mail today. In it, there was an interesting tidbit for open seating passengers who want to make an advanced reservation for the main dining room (MDR). I would be interested in knowing more details about this, if anyone has any.

 

"Our popular As You Wish™ dining program now allows you to make dinner reservations any time of day or night. You may choose from eight different reservation seatings in our elegant main Dining Room, or opt for walk-in availability."

 

Thanks!

[lovendag]

What are the eight different dining times?

[3rdGenCunarder]

I'm bumping this because I'm curious. I just read the mariner email. They say eight times, but they dn't tell what they are.

 

There always were a few early and a few late times, weren't there? If nobody knows the new time choices, can someone list the old time options?

[Kween Karen]

I am just back from the Amsterdam...and tried the open seating. Whenever I tried to make a reservation I was told only 2 times....they were 5:15 and 5:30 or 7:30 to 8:00. Often this did not work for me......so I just walked in when I wanted to. I never had to wait for a table as a "walk in"......however I DID have to wait for a large table to fill up.

[3rdGenCunarder]

Thanks, Karen. So what do you think, are the "eight times" really spread across the whole open period, or have they gone to something like 5:00, 5:15, 5:30, 5:45 then 7:15, 7:30, 7:45, 8:15. That's eight options, and it still leaves the middle time open, which is what they (HAL) seem to want to do for the sake of walkins.

[Kween Karen]

Those could be the times......all I know is when we tried to make a reservation for 6 or 6:30 we couldn't do it. BUT like I said....walking in was never a problem. We didn't ask for a specific size table though.....just took what was open. A couple of times we were seated at a table for 6 or 8 and had to wait for the remaining "walk ins" to fill the table. It wasn't TOO long....but did lengthen the dining time. Once I asked how long we would have to wait and the waited told me that if the table wasn't filled in 15 minutes he would start our order.

[Modern_Viking]

Thanks for the info!

 

I guess the exact options may be a mystery for a while (or may not have been rolled out to many ships yet).