Anytime and Traditional Dining Combo

[caribill]

Hi,

See below for the Island Princess Patter for May 24, 2010 in "your dining options.".

 

 

Thanks for posting this

[chloe kitty]

On Princess (we are Elite and cruise with this line quite often) it seems to depend on the ship. We do know that you, like on HA, you can request to be switched to the anytime option but not back and forth. Sometimes on Princess you can just walk into one of the Anytime Dining restaurants and nobody seems to care. But we have also been on some Princess cruises where they will ask for your cabin number at the restaurant door and do a computer check. You just cannot be sure. We seldom wait for a table with Anytime because we always request to share a large table. But, if you get stressed-out waiting then traditional dining is for you. We have also noticed an interesting phenomenom on Princess cruises (Grand Class ships) where we have seen passengers queued-up at least 20 minutes early for their traditional seating dinner. Its hard to understand why anyone would choose to stand in a line when they already have a reserved table and the waiter is not going to serve anyone until the entire table is seated. Guess some folks just like to stand in lines! If people chose to change whenever they wanted to particularly on a late port night....what a mess! That would be very unfair to those who were assigned ATD.

 

Hank

I am also Elite and cruise with Princess most of the time. We also ask for anytime dining. We have only had to wait twice and for less than 10 minutes each time.

The management on each ship seems to differ in the way they handle anytime dining and the dress code. We have always had to give our cabin number which is entered in the computer to check if we are really ATD. We were on the Sapphire last year and on formal night people were allowed in the ATD Savoy with torn jeans and t-shirts. I thought that was awful. As mentioned, you usually can change to ATD if you notify them the night before.

[Colo Cruiser]

Hi,

See below for the Island Princess Patter for May 24, 2010 in "your dining options.".

 

 

Thanks for posting.

 

I am sorry to see this, it will make the addition of the 3rd traditional time and the whole system a bigger nightmare then it already is. :(

 

I feel for the MD and the wait staff.

[cruiseron36]

I hope that Capt.ommarco was severely reprimended for allowing his staff to post a statement like that in the patter. Can you imagine what a nightmare that could cause the dining staff. An empty TD dining room with long witing lines at anytime?? A better solution is to eliminate TD altogether and have all three MDR's classified as Anytime!!!

[FLACRUISER99]

All ships (not just Princess) seem to do what they want even if it's not company policy.

[u2cruiser]

It sounds like a recipe for disaster!

I think lots of cruisers think this is how it works anyway, and do exactly that, leaving TD tables empty.

 

I know lots of people prefer TD and it remains very popular. I've never been in TD so I'm not sure what is different, other than assigned tables and table mates, keeping the same waitstaff etc. If this could be retained by reserving a whole group table, ie, the one you were assigned to on night 1, every evening at the same time in AD, would that be OK for traditional diners, or is it more about the whole dining room being served at the same time with other special benefits too?

[BillNY]

On our recent cruise on the Golden Princess, we knew we were going to skip our last night at the 8:15 PM traditional seating, since we were docking at our last port of call (Victoria) at 7:00 PM. So, we made sure we said our goodbyes to our seatmates and our waiter and assistant waiter, and gave them a little extra tip since they had provided excellent service throughout our cruise. We expected to grab something to eat at the buffet before leaving the ship, but our waiter suggested to us (well, actually insisted) that we go to the anytime dining room at 5:30 PM that last evening. We assumed it was suggested because of the late arrival at the last port.

[HomelessBear]

I am very disappointed to read this statement. We always have AD on our cruises and we expect to have to wait a certain length of time for a table for 2. However on the last cruise on the Crown, one of the AD dining rooms was taken over by the 5.30 trad seating and we were told that the wait in this restaurant was about at least an hour and were advised to go to the other AD room. There was a large queue for this dining room though when we got there. Although the wait for a table was generally about 10 - 15 minutes, we waited an hour on one evening and 45 minutes on another. I appreciate that we were waiting for a table for 2 and that is our choice, but others were also turned away with pagers who were happy to sit with others.

 

I think that this is just going to make the wait for anytime diners even longer and is not fair on those of us who opt for AD by choice. Its not fair on the wait staff in any of the restaurants nor on the passengers whose waits are made longer by those who want the best of both worlds. Pick traditional or AD and stick to it. IMHO.

[emmtee]

My favorite dining system is the one they had on the Norwegian Jewel (in 2008.) No traditional dining at all. You could eat at any of the ship's restaurants. (Reservations were encouraged at the specialty restaurants.) The best thing: They had several TV screens around the ship (also available on tv in your cabin) that showed which restaurants were open and the current (if any) wait times.

 

My next cruise will be with a large family group (around 20 of us) and we chose traditional dining. We all did a RCCL cruise last year, and the traditional dining worked well for the group. We had three tables in the back of the dining room. Not everyone ate together every night, but it was a good way to get together after a day of running our separate ways. I don't think anytime dining would work for a large group. It would be impossible to get tables together.

[CrusinAgain]

We have always been Anytime Diners on Princess and never had a problem getting a table. Now that I have read this it seems common for waitors to encourage people to go to anytime dining when they can't make it at their reserved spot. We will be going on the Crown next month and if this becomes a problem and we find that its true that traditional can go to anytime dining anytime they want then why should we choose anytime dining?

 

Thanks also for posting that patter as it is unbelievable that they would say or offer this.

[suzyed]

I hope that Capt.ommarco was severely reprimended for allowing his staff to post a statement like that in the patter. Can you imagine what a nightmare that could cause the dining staff. An empty TD dining room with long witing lines at anytime?? A better solution is to eliminate TD altogether and have all three MDR's classified as Anytime!!!

NCL has only ATD....and it works fine. They also have many specialty restaurants(which you make reservations for), so I guess that helps to keep the numbers of people in the MDR under control. On our last NCL cruise we never ate in the MDR, only the specialties.

[Globaliser]

A better solution is to eliminate TD altogether and have all three MDR's classified as Anytime!!!

My favorite dining system is the one they had on the Norwegian Jewel (in 2008.) No traditional dining at all. ...

 

I don't think anytime dining would work for a large group. It would be impossible to get tables together.

Once a year, I cruise on NCL with a large group which includes a number of friends who we really only see this one week a year.

 

Making dining reservations is the worst chore of those cruises. First of all, trying to find out who wants to eat where at what time is just like herding cats. Then you have to see which slots are still available for a group of that size. And once you've made the reservation, you then have to communicate that to the group. I don't go on a cruise to spend hours on the phone organising dinners.

 

NCL is good if you like the concept of anytime dining, but the fact that traditional dining is frequently over-subscribed, to the extent that a third traditional dining time has been introduced, suggests that there's a lot of Princess passengers who wouldn't welcome it.

[jagoffee]

NCL has only ATD....and it works fine. They also have many specialty restaurants(which you make reservations for), so I guess that helps to keep the numbers of people in the MDR under control. On our last NCL cruise we never ate in the MDR, only the specialties.

 

Once a year, I cruise on NCL with a large group which includes a number of friends who we really only see this one week a year.

 

 

NCL is good if you like the concept of anytime dining, but the fact that traditional dining is frequently over-subscribed, to the extent that a third traditional dining time has been introduced, suggests that there's a lot of Princess passengers who wouldn't welcome it.

 

I also believe that anytime type dining works best when it is 100%. But it is obvious that many people really prefer the more traditional dining. It becomes more difficult when you try to do both. I would think that the worst possible scenario would be when you have people reserved on traditional dining, but sometimes use anytime dining. I could see why this might be attractive to people, but what a potential nightmare for anyone without a traditional dining reservation. It is sort of like - "You cannot have my traditional dining spot, but I will use your anytime dining spot whenever I want (or at least share it)."

[donna5]

:confused:I know last year on the Golden the Patter would have the wrong time for the dinningroom to open for lunch (11:30 instead of Noon) etc. and the dinningroom wouldn't budge,people went and complained to the pursers and they blamed it on the D.R. and the D.R. blamed it on the pursers. So you never know. Maybe by customize they meant you could change but as usual you would have to give up the Trad. :confused: