What's Happened to Anytime Dining

[thunderbird56]

Don't know if its just the Emerald or more widespread, but Anytime Dining no longer seems to function on Princess. We have cruised Princess many times and one of our prime reasons has always been the Anytime Dining choice which was introduced by Princess but is now widespread on most lines. We are now on the Emerald in the Baltic and Anytime Dining has been replaced by a buzzer paging system. If you don't line up and get seating at 5:30 when the room opens you will be greeted at the door and given a pager and told to cool your heels somewhere until we call. We tried that the first night and ended up eating from 8 to 10, which is way too late for us and the main reason we choose Anytime. The next two nights we showed up at 6:30 and again pagers. We resorted to the buffet (which was not very good). We have rarely had these problems before either on Princess or other lines, but it has been almost two years since our last Princess cruise and I am wondering if this has become widespread in the Princess system. There are many very annoyed passengers on this ship and the staff member at the door is taking a lot of verbal abuse each night. No senior staff seem to be around to defuse the situation or provide assistance. Anytime dining has become a two seating system like traditional. Eat at 5:30 or at 7:30. For those of us that fall into the 6:15 to 7:00 crowd - we may be out of luck.

[1 HappyCruiser]

Eat at 5:30 or at 7:30. For those of us that fall into the 6:15 to 7:00 crowd - we may be out of luck.

 

Did you try to adjust your eating schedule to around 6 PM to avoid getting one of the beepers? It really isn't that much different than showing up around 6:30.

[sunsetbeachgal]

Wow...If you are still on I would visit the dining room during off hour perhaps during the day and ask to speak with the maitre d'.

[paul929207]

Are they mismanaging the dining system or are there just too many people wanting to eat early?

[as19111]

One of the AT dining rooms is now "shared" with an early traditional dining and that's when it all fell apart. We've experienced it on the Crown big time, and to a lesser degree on the Coral.

[nycruise]

We just got off the Sapphire and never had a problem with Anytime Dining. We showed up around 7PM each night, at different dining rooms, and were promptly seated each evening at a table for 2. We saw the pagers but they were never used. The ship was sold out so it wasn't a matter of less passengers.

 

Can't you call and make a reservation each morning for that evening's dinner.

[capriccio]

We just got off the Sapphire and never had a problem with Anytime Dining. We showed up around 7PM each night, at different dining rooms, and were promptly seated each evening at a table for 2. We saw the pagers but they were never used. The ship was sold out so it wasn't a matter of less passengers.

 

 

We too were on the Sapphire a week ago and had no problems with Anytime Dining between 7 and 7:45. We did notice that the head waiter asked for and checked room numbers in the computer each night. I didn't ask what they were checking - would it have been if we had signed up for Anytime or were supposed to be in Traditional?

[swedish weave]

We were on the Coral, and when the dining room filled up, we had a short wait, or were escorted to the assigned dining room when space was available there. I am certain that some people who couldn't get assigned to early dining were opting to go to the anytime dining room at the time they wanted instead of eating late. Maybe that is why they were checking cabin numbers.

[JimmyVWine]

We just got off the Sapphire and never had a problem with Anytime Dining. We showed up around 7PM each night, at different dining rooms, and were promptly seated each evening at a table for 2. We saw the pagers but they were never used. The ship was sold out so it wasn't a matter of less passengers.

 

Can't you call and make a reservation each morning for that evening's dinner.

 

We had the same experience on Crown. Full ship, and showing up in the "shared" dining room at 7:10-7:30 got us right in. The shared room is supposed to open up for AT at 7:30 but by 7:10, there were enough vacated TD tables that they were seating people without a wait.

 

OP: Your observation about AT being very much like two "set" seatings is valid, and logistically, it cannot be any other way. If the dining room fills up between 5:30 and 6:00, there is no place to put people until they flip the tables which will occur in about 75 to 100 minutes depending on how many courses people order and the pace of the meal. So you have to commit to joining the crowds at 5:30-6:00 or come back at 7:15 or later. Like it or not, 6:15-7:00 is going to be a dead zone. It cannot be helped and is not unique to AT dining. Any restaurant that does not take reservations and which fills all its tables before 6:00 will have the same issue. Bottom line....AT works great for people who don't mind queuing up at 5:15 and for people who like to be seated at 7:30. People who want to be seated at 6:15 have little hope.

[WendyG]

I have never had a problem on Princess with anytime, but on the Oasis? OMG, awful. Of course I figured it was due to the amount of people and their total lack of organization on that ship, but on Princess I have never an issue. We show up anywhere between 5:30 and 8 and never waited more than five minutes. Ti sincludes formal nights too! We always share a table. Perhaps if you waited for a table for two??? That may be why...

 

Next cruise is on the Diamond in three weeks, so hopefully we won't have that issue. :D

[1 HappyCruiser]

On the Crown just recently in one of the TD/AT dining rooms they had standing reservations for probably over 60 or so people from one organization grouped in one section of the DR who arrived at 6:15 each night (we had a standing table for 2 right in the middle of them). Normally they don't take reservations for any time after 6 but tying up that many seats for 45 minutes must have had an effect on the overall time waiting to be seated for people. I know that when they arrived the overall serving came to a grinding halt as menus, drinks & explanations, etc were being given so we switched DR's after the second night just to avoid the large group.

[sp2]

We experienced the same on the Ruby in January. We had previously cruised on the Ruby in Nov 2009 and the Anytime Dining was great. Never had any line-ups to speak of; we were even able to be seated most nights at the same table for two. This past January, it was not the same at all. Every night, the line-up started to form around 5 pm, and was wound around the atrium by the time the doors opened at 5:30. If you wanted a table for two the wait was usually at least an hour (using the beepers). We also tried making reservations for dinner, but could only do this for the shared dining room, so the earliest we could make it for was 7:30. This was okay, but we prefer eating earlier if possible. We did end up going to Sabatini's twice because there was no line-up or waiting there (and it was wonderful!) and to the HC or Caribe Cafe a couple of nights. The selections there on our cruise were quite good, but we would have preferred to be served in the dining room. I think the earlier poster was right; it seems to have deteriorated since they are now sharing a dining room with traditional.

 

I would expect it varies by cruise depending on the demographic, but it certainly seemed like a lot of folks wish to dine earlier than 7:30 on our cruise.

[Daisyloo]

We sailed on The Emerald Princess on the 10 day Southern Caribbean April 16 and never had a problem with anytime dining. We would just show up at the dining room, usually Davinci but sometimes Michaelangelo and within a minute or two we would be seated. They would always ask if we were willing to share and we always said yes. We arrived anywhere from 6pm to 745pm. We did see the pagers being used but it seemed it was mostly for people who wanted a table to themselves.

[IECalCruiser]

AT first had about 2/3 of tables available all evening and it worked well. I believe making a second DR as Traditional from 5:30 to 7:30 created the problems. Now only 1/3 of tables are available for AT from 5:30 to 7:30. Sapphire and Diamond don't appear to have as much of a problem because only one of the smaller AT dining rooms is used for additional Traditional from 5:30 to 7:30 and 1/2 of the tables are available for early AT.

 

 

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[granny49]

Are you looking for a table for two? We have always used AT Dining. We have been on the Grand, Crown, Diamond and Caribbean Princess. We were always willing to share. We had many very interesting conversations and made new friends. We never had to wait for a table.

[awhcruiser]

Did you try both dining rooms for ATD?

 

 

Don't know if its just the Emerald or more widespread, but Anytime Dining no longer seems to function on Princess. We have cruised Princess many times and one of our prime reasons has always been the Anytime Dining choice which was introduced by Princess but is now widespread on most lines. We are now on the Emerald in the Baltic and Anytime Dining has been replaced by a buzzer paging system. If you don't line up and get seating at 5:30 when the room opens you will be greeted at the door and given a pager and told to cool your heels somewhere until we call. We tried that the first night and ended up eating from 8 to 10, which is way too late for us and the main reason we choose Anytime. The next two nights we showed up at 6:30 and again pagers. We resorted to the buffet (which was not very good). We have rarely had these problems before either on Princess or other lines, but it has been almost two years since our last Princess cruise and I am wondering if this has become widespread in the Princess system. There are many very annoyed passengers on this ship and the staff member at the door is taking a lot of verbal abuse each night. No senior staff seem to be around to defuse the situation or provide assistance. Anytime dining has become a two seating system like traditional. Eat at 5:30 or at 7:30. For those of us that fall into the 6:15 to 7:00 crowd - we may be out of luck.

[caribill]

We just got off the Sapphire and never had a problem with Anytime Dining...The ship was sold out so it wasn't a matter of less passengers.

 

 

The OP was on the Emerald which has about 500 more passengers, so that can make a difference.

[MCC retired]

Princess's current policy of overflowing the Early Seating Traditional diners into one of the Anytime dining rooms has created the problem.:(

Go back to limiting Traditional to 1 dining room and the Anytime Dining problem will be solved.;)

[caribill]

Let's assume a ship like the Emerald which can have 3080 lower berth passengers, more when some upper berths are occupied.

 

Assume that about 800 of these passengers are in the Traditional dining room's two seatings.

 

This leaves 2280 passengers who will be in anytime, buffet, specialty restaurants.

 

With about 400 seats in each of the two anytime dining rooms, only 800 of these 2280 passengers can be seated in anytime at the same time. If more than 800 show up at the same time for the two anytime dining rooms, up to 1480 people will have to wait.

 

Just like a restaurant on land, if more people show up than can be accomdated at the same time, there will be a wait

 

Anytime means you can go to a restaurant when you want, but there is no guarantee of seating availability when you get there.

 

On some cruises, the passengers' timing for eating can be spread out throughout the evening. On other cruises, more than 800 want to eat at the same time.

 

On the ships which have added a 2nd early traditional dining time in one of the anytime dining rooms, many see that as a cause for the wait times. What has to be realized is that those people wanted to dine around 6 PM. If there was not the second early seating, they would have been assigned to anytime and be lined up at 6 PM for anytime then. The wait times would be the same.

[JimmyVWine]

The "they would have shown up at 6:00 anyway so there is no difference" argument is somewhat true, but hard to pinpoint. There is no guarantee that the overflow Traditional diners are people who like to eat early and would flood the AT MDRs at 6:00. They might be people who really enjoy the TD atmosphere (same waiters, same table, same tablemates). However, they might be in the overflow TD begrudgingly. Without that third TD seating, had they been shut out of TD, maybe they would dine at 7:45. Really no way to calculate this.

[caribill]

However, they might be in the overflow TD begrudgingly. Without that third TD seating, had they been shut out of TD, maybe they would dine at 7:45. Really no way to calculate this.

 

True, hard to calculate but instead of dining at 7:45 in anytime, they would have signed up for the 8 PM traditional if space was available there.

 

People who want late traditional but cannot have it will not accept 5:30 PM dining just to get the traditional atmosphere.

[Astro Flyer]

Are they mismanaging the dining system or are there just too many people wanting to eat early?

Too many who want to eat early is the reason for the problem.

 

I've never understood why AT is selected & then passengers basically want early traditional. it's the demand for early dining that has caused Princess to adjust the MDR schedules to make the first seating in an anytime dining room instead an early traditional seating. This means less AT dining availability but with so many who prefer to eat early having additional early assigned dining has for the most part worked out best.

 

When so many anytime diners decide to all show up early there just isn't enough seats for everyone which is the bottom-line. If none of them are willing to adjust to eat later then you continue to have long delays to be seated. On our 2 recent cruises we tried anytime dining for the first time & by arriving after 7 o'clock never needed a pager to get a seat & only had to wait with a pager for about 20 minutes when arriving before 7 o'clock.

 

There'll always be lengthy delays if the overwhelming majority of anytime diners decide to all show up for early seating. There are no ships able to handle the demand of the overwhelming majority of passengers who desire to eat at the same time. :rolleyes:

[JimmyVWine]

People who want late traditional but cannot have it will not accept 5:30 PM dining just to get the traditional atmosphere.

That last sentence is exactly what is impossible to calculate. I think the premise is largely true. But there are definitely some who hate AT dining so much that they will take any TD seating offered. In the end, there have to be some people who have 5:30 or 6:00 TD who, given a full range of choices, would prefer to eat at 7:00 or later but got shut out of the late TD.

[paul929207]

I can only speak for my wife and I, we always request late traditional. If unavailable we would take AD not early seating

[JimmyVWine]

Too many who want to eat early is the reason for the problem.

 

I've never understood why AT is selected & then passengers basically want early traditional. it's the demand for early dining that has caused Princess to adjust the MDR schedules to make the first seating in an anytime dining room instead an early traditional seating. This means less AT dining availability but with so many who prefer to eat early having additional early assigned dining has for the most part worked out best.

 

When so many anytime diners decide to all show up early there just isn't enough seats for everyone which is the bottom-line. If none of them are willing to adjust to eat later then you continue to have long delays to be seated. On our 2 recent cruises we tried anytime dining for the first time & by arriving after 7 o'clock never needed a pager to get a seat & only had to wait with a pager for about 20 minutes when arriving before 7 o'clock.

 

There'll always be lengthy delays if the overwhelming majority of anytime diners decide to all show up for early seating. There are no ships able to handle the demand of the overwhelming majority of passengers who desire to eat at the same time. :rolleyes:

Maybe Princess needs to implement Staggered Dining by deck!:eek::D