Splendour - Dinner Seating Time - What's Best?

[Debbierpof]

My DH and I will be traveling on the Splendour this summer. Knowing how port intensive the cruise will be, is it best to have the early seating or late seating? Which are available? How much time does it usually take to board at the ports? I see that some of those shore excursions don't come back until almost 6 pm. Do you have to be at your table on time or can you be 15 minutes late?

 

I'll be making changes to our seating if that's necessary. Thanks! :)

[critterchick]

I would recommend the late seating. We had early, which was 6:30, and we missed dinner several times because we didn't get back in time. Other times, we got back but felt rushed & exhausted. Late seating was REALLY late by US standards - 9:00 - but I think I would have preferred that. We would have had time for a nap after our excursions and then would have had the necessary stamina for a 5-course meal.

 

After the first night that we missed dinner, our waiter told us we could arrive any time up until 8:00 and they would be able to feed us. Now, this was in 2003, and the ship was only sailing 1/2 full, so the usual issues of being able to get the food out on a timely basis for multiple full tables didn't exist. Our waiter & assistant only had our table (set for 10, only 6 of us) and one other 4-top, so they just weren't busy, nor were most of the other waitstaff teams in our line of sight. If the ship is even close to capacity, you would have to show up on time or you'll throw off the whole flow of things. My experience has been that it takes 10-15 minutes for everybody to be seated, so if you show up on time and are at the end of the line, you may as well be 10 minutes late getting there. No more than that, though.

 

Also, I would recommend that you sign up for late seating. If you don't like it, on that itinerary (lots of Spaniards, who typically eat dinner at 10:00 I believe), it would be easier to switch to early than the other way around. We were the maitre d's best friend when we went from late to early. Even on a half-empty ship, there was a waitlist for late.

[navel1ring]

Go for the late, we always had time for a shower and a nap after returning from excursions. We finished dinner at about 10:45, walked around the ship & back to the cabin by 11:30 and still got about 7 hours sleep. Very much needed sleep as this is a very port intensive cruise.

 

Wendy

[heywood]

We sail on Splendour on Saturday and have a 9.15 seating. I believe that there are two late seatings and this is the latest. We might try to get the 8.45pm if that is the other one. However - no matter- we dined at 9.00 on Galaxy in the Med and it was great. We were able to stay by the pool until around 7 - that was really peaceful - and still have plenty of time to rest and shower.

[ldholmes]

Just back in the states from the May 21 sailing of the Splendor... there are 4 seating times... 6:30, 7, 8:45 and 9:15... we had the 6:30 seating and made it to dinner everynight but the day in Rome... we also took excursions 4 of 5 days... pm 1/2 days in Villefrance and Liverno and a 10 1/2 hr in Rome and a 8 1/2 in Florence... so we were worried about not making dinner but never had a problem... we could have made dinner in rome but were soooooo exhaused that the Windjammer was quick and easy.... We realized that if we had a later seating we would have missed being able to do all the shows, kerioke, games.... and we like doing that but if you don't then a later dinner would be fine....