Carnival Dream - Christmas - 10 People.... Anytime Dining??

[ColoradoWine]

Hi All. My family and our friends will be on the Carnival Dream for the Christmas cruise this year. There are 10 of us... our 6 kids range from 12-19. We currently are set for Anytime Dining but the more I read on it the less sure I am about it.

 

If we were a group of 10 adults and didn't always feel the need to dine together I think it would work fine. But with our kids, I think we'll likely want to dine together. What kind of wait would we be likely to experience if we stayed with Anytime if we all wanted to sit at the same table? It looks like they could split us up???

 

Thanks in advance!!!!

[sewut]

We had 8 in our group last December-4 adults and 4 children aged 2-10. We had ATD and never had to wait, always had the same table and waitstaff. We didn't always go at the same time either. How did they do that?

[Canadian_J]

10 people for ATD is probably a poor choice. I've heard of a lot of long waits for groups above 4 people. But of course it all depends on the night and what time you go.

 

So you do run the risk of having to wait if you do ATD with that many people. But an assigned time (if you can all agree on one) guarantees you no waits. Depends on if you want to take the chance and how well everyone is with waiting, when needed.

 

We have a group of 9 for my next cruise and have an assigned time, exactly for this reason. My PVP suggested this for us and I think it's the best way to go for us because when we're hungry, we're hungry!

[Paumavista]

A set dining time was suggested to us....by our Travel Agent......not so much because it would be so terribly difficult to seat us together or that the wait would be soo long but that we would have to coordinate EVERY day about what time we were meeting for dinner (and invariably someone would be late) & you'd have to keep track of a new dinner time each evening!

 

We were told that any time you have large groups of people who say they want to meet regularly for dinner (our group plans to use dinner as our rendezvous) it is easiest to pick a set time every evening and stick with it.....those who want to eat at the buffet at another time can opt out but for the majority it is a set reminder that ONE TIME A DAY the group is getting together.......the rest of the cruise, shore excursions, activities, etc you are on your own to hook up or join others at your leisure......but that one time each day we will come together - share with each other (and particularly the grandparents) our fun activities & plans, make arrangements to possibly meet again but basically allow everyone to reconnect once a day.

[Sailor_Sally]

I would opt for a set dining time especially around the holidays when the ship will be very crowded .My time dining works best for smaller groups .We always get a table for two and on formal night we had a 40 minute wait .

[ColoradoWine]

Thanks everyone! I'm going to suggest a set time.... so many good points shared by all of you!!:)

[cb at sea]

I agree...that way, you KNOW your table will be waiting, and everyone will know exactly when to show up...unlike having different dining times nightly.

 

For larger groups, set dining is the bomb!

[familycruzr]

I agree with set dining time. We've only done anytime once and we were cruising in a group of 12. We had to wait every night for dinner and that was to split into 2 tables. For the first night, the tables were next to each other, but the other nights were not. We sometimes had to wait 20 - 30 minutes.