Problem with dining assignment on Royal Caribbean

[vacation_junkie]

I don't worry about dinner tonight let alone six months from now. :confused:

 

Good Grief.

 

When you have kids who want to participate in late afternoon and after dinner activities then you need to give a bit more thought into squeezing dinner in at a certain time.

 

If we wing it and arrive in the MDR and there is a half an hour wait for a table of 3 then that puts a rush on dinner & no one sits and actually enjoys it because they are worried about getting to the desired evening activity.

Edited September 25, 2014 by vacation_junkie

[Thetrail]

My husband and I are booked on a back to back cruise on the Oasis of the Seas in February. My brother will be on board with us for the 1st week. Both of us requested the 6 pm traditional dining.

 

When we made the reservation, we were all put on My Time dining and my husband & I were wait-listed for the 6pm dining. My brother was not wait listed. I called and they referenced his reservation with ours and said if we got the early dining time, he would also. So, my husband and I got the early dining time last week and I checked with my brother and he didn't.

 

My brother called on this and spoke with both Dining and with the Corporate office. He spent last Monday morning on the phone and got nowhere. They basically told him he has to eat alone. I called on this and was told we could request a table for 4 and he could eat with us. I pointed out that since the dining room does not know about my brother, they could put someone in the same chair at our table. I said he needed to be assigned to this time. He told me the early dining was closed and nothing could be done.

 

My husband and I will be switching to My Time dining so we can all eat together, and this will most likely work out. My brother is unhappier about My Time than my husband and I are. We booked in July for a February cruise and early dining was full then. We were on the Oasis last May and booked 9 months out and RCI had no trouble putting my husband & I, our daughter, her husband and baby, and my brother in early dining from the time we made the reservation. They told my brother that they had 685 people on a wait list for early dining for our Feb. cruise. Did they close a level of the dining room?! They are doing something wrong in terms of what people want and what they are offering for dining.

 

We will probably just end up in My Time and be happy with it. Or we might cancel the cruise and go on a smaller ship for the same dates. I find what they did to my brother to be offensive in that our reservations were linked for dinner and referenced and it meant nothing. They have put him a position of having to eat alone, if my husband and I would tolerate this, and we won't. If you come on a cruise alone, your expectations are different than if you are a single person coming with two other people who happen to also be family.

 

We are also booked on a Carnival cruise with my brother in October. We had absolutely no problem being given early dining and we have no status on Carnival. We have diamond status on RCI and he has platinum. It should not take diamond status to get to eat in the dining room for early seating. RCI has to be managing dining poorly for our cruise.

Your very confused, and what you say is a problem, isn't a problem at all. You have plenty of time to eat together and worst case scenario is see the Maitre'd in the dining room when your onboard. And as far as RCL "basically telling your brother to eat alone" hard to believe...:rolleyes:

[Folk Singer]

Wow! 585 people on the waitlist. Doesn't that tell Royal something? On last year's Freedom cruise, we booked 1 year out with 8 people. Waitlisted for early pm. Unable to get 6 pm for MTD. We wanted to make sure we could see the shows. Therefore, we took late seating. If they are breaking up the dining room into individual venues, won't they lose overall seating with walls and serving areas? Doesn't the 585 people on the waiting list tell Royal something? I, too, would be very curious regarding the marketing research of their dining changes.

 

 

You and me both.:confused::confused:

[Folk Singer]

We are also cruising on Oasis in February. We are traveling with a group and booked the cruise later than most of them. The rest of the group selected 8:30 dining and we were told it was full and were added to MTD. I didn't really care but my husband wanted to eat with the group (his family) so it took three different calls to get us added to the 8:30 seating. (I didn't call just for that reason, but every time I called for a price drop or something else I asked and each time was told sorry, everything but MTD was full). Finally, on the third call, one very kind RCI rep called the dining group and got us in. I pleaded my case with him that I would have an annoyed mother-in-law who could not eat with her son. Maybe they took pity on me. ;)

We were told by other reps that if you call right after the final payment date slots can open up, but with a long wait list it seems unlikely. Perhaps they are pushing people towards MTD to prepare them for Dynamic Dining in the future?

 

Possible.