traditional or anytime dining on victory?

[sne26]

Hello all!

I plan on booking a trip tomorrow to sail on the Victory in April. There will be three of us on the trip. Myself and 2 friends- it's a girlfriends getaway to celebrate all of us turning 40 this year.

I am the only one who has been on a cruise before, so they do not really know what to expect. I'm trying to decide if we should do traditional or anytime dining. I've only done traditional dining before.

Is there a long wait when you do anytime dining? And do you eat in the same dining room as the people doing traditional dining? If we did traditional, do you think we would get sat with a family, or other adults? Nothing against families, but since we won't have our own kids with us, I think it would be kinda nice not to have other people's kids sitting at our table (small children)

I think that anytime dining would be nice, so we don't have to be there at the exact same time every night, or having to wait around til it was time to eat, ect... but then again... I think it is neat to have the same waiter and tablemates. Also, one of us is very laidback (not me) and I'm kinda afraid that if we didn't have a set time to eat.. we'd never get there! And I like eating in the main dining room and am sure my friends would as well.

 

Please let me know your advice! Thanks!

Stacey

[k2excursion]

Based on my experience of 14 cruises, I would say that there is almost no chance of you getting seated with families with small children. The youngest person I have ever had at any of my tables, not with my group, was 21. Last cruise, there was a 27 year old with her parents. All others have been older than me. I'm just a little bit younger than you. Whether I'm cruising with my parents or with friends, we're always seated with mostly people around my parents age or older. Never had a teenager or kid at our table, except when we had 2 18-year olds with us, and we had our own table then. It seems that groups or families with teens & kids are either put together or get their own table. Although I don't know how, you can email the maitre d and request a table to yourselves or whatever you desire. You can check on your table setup at about 1:00 on embarkation day. 3 times, we have requested to change tables either then or after our first night dining, and it was honored every time.

 

Many people love anytime dining, and they are in one of the main dining rooms. On ships I've been on lately, they have had the bottom level of the midship dining room. The upper level, plus both levels of the aft dining room, was traditional dining.

 

On my last cruise, I noticed that many people are getting in line for anytime dining at about 5:15. Anytime dining can get overrun with people wanting to eat early, so if the place fills up before you get in, you've got a wait of well over an hour. I'm sure that's not on every ship & every sailing, but it is on some of them, including my last one. People who did anytime were regretting it, because almost everyone doing anytime wanted to eat at 5:45, so it was instantly full. You had to get in line early to make sure you got in on that first round. Whatever most of the anytimers are doing on your ship, you would want to work around that if you wanted to avoid waits.

Edited March 12, 2014 by k2excursion

[cdamion]

Chances are pretty slim they would seat you with a family. As the other poster said, stop by to see the Maitre D after you board. They have always taken care of me with requests.

 

Another way to limit the chances of kids in the MDR is to do late dining. I have also found that the waiters during late dining seem to be a bit less stressed since they don't have another table as soon as you leave.

 

It isn't 4/10 Victory is it? I'll be on that sailing.

[hftmrock]

Hello all!

I plan on booking a trip tomorrow to sail on the Victory in April. There will be three of us on the trip. Myself and 2 friends- it's a girlfriends getaway to celebrate all of us turning 40 this year.

I am the only one who has been on a cruise before, so they do not really know what to expect. I'm trying to decide if we should do traditional or anytime dining. I've only done traditional dining before.

Is there a long wait when you do anytime dining? And do you eat in the same dining room as the people doing traditional dining? If we did traditional, do you think we would get sat with a family, or other adults? Nothing against families, but since we won't have our own kids with us, I think it would be kinda nice not to have other people's kids sitting at our table (small children)

I think that anytime dining would be nice, so we don't have to be there at the exact same time every night, or having to wait around til it was time to eat, ect... but then again... I think it is neat to have the same waiter and tablemates. Also, one of us is very laidback (not me) and I'm kinda afraid that if we didn't have a set time to eat.. we'd never get there! And I like eating in the main dining room and am sure my friends would as well.

 

Please let me know your advice! Thanks!

Stacey

 

you can request the same waitstaff. Also, you can get a table all to yourself with anytime dining if that interests you. Its harder to do that with traditional

[Isa65]

We just got off the Victory and you get seated in the same dining room as folks with traditional dining if you choose ATD (Atlantic Dining room).

 

If you go early, the line goes really fast, but after 6.30 / 7.00, there is a wait. We even skipped Elegant Night in the MDR because the wait was over 20 minutes and they were handing out those restaurant waiting devices.

 

There was only 2 of us and after requesting a table for 2 on the first night, we were always seated by ourselves. The Maitre 'D is a nice lady from South Africa, very accommodating.

[more cruises]

Is Anytime dining available? I've been on 3 Carnival cruises (2 of them on Victory) and Anytime dining was always wait listed. We ended up with early dining. First group of table mates was awful and we asked the maître 'd to move us. Second cruise we had a table for 2. I kinda missed having company for dinner. Third time was a charm. Met some lovely interesting people.

 

Problem with early dining is that we missed all the sunsets.

[apkpcruisers]

Thanks for the discussion. I just switched my dining time on Victory to late dining based on your great info. I enjoy having table mates, I spend my whole day with hubby, nice to have a change. We have had some good and bad table mates in the past. Our favorite cruise dining experience was on NCL with the multiple dining venues available to everyone.

[CruisinCrow]

We were on Victory in January and did Your Time Dining. My answers are below.

 

Is there a long wait when you do anytime dining?

There was only a wait once on our cruise. They gave us a beeper but by the time we walked over to the lobby bar and ordered a drink, the beeper went off.

 

And do you eat in the same dining room as the people doing traditional dining?

On Victory, Your Time Dining was on the bottom floor of the Atlantic Dining Room. The upstairs had traditional seating.

 

If we did traditional, do you think we would get sat with a family, or other adults?

Carnival usually tries to seat similar people together. I doubt you would be seating with children, but you never know.

 

If you really like your waiter, you can request to be seated in his or her section. But if those tables are full, there might be a wait.

 

Have fun on Victory!

[hftmrock]

Thanks for the discussion. I just switched my dining time on Victory to late dining based on your great info. I enjoy having table mates, I spend my whole day with hubby, nice to have a change. We have had some good and bad table mates in the past. Our favorite cruise dining experience was on NCL with the multiple dining venues available to everyone.

 

just so you know, you can sit with others when you have YTD as well.

[agc291]

We just got off the Victory and you get seated in the same dining room as folks with traditional dining if you choose ATD (Atlantic Dining room).

 

If you go early, the line goes really fast, but after 6.30 / 7.00, there is a wait. We even skipped Elegant Night in the MDR because the wait was over 20 minutes and they were handing out those restaurant waiting devices.

 

There was only 2 of us and after requesting a table for 2 on the first night, we were always seated by ourselves. The Maitre 'D is a nice lady from South Africa, very accommodating.

 

She was great!!! We really enjoyed her.

 

We had ATD a month ago on the Victory and it was SLOW every night no matter what time we tried. 1.5-2 hrs each night. We have had ATD all 4 cruises and would do it again but this was definitely the slowest service we have ever had.