My time dining with large group(15people)

[Dancer9933]

We are going to try to book two reservations around the same time since the max is 10 per reservation. Does anyone have experience doing this? I am curious if it is a problem to switch up the groups from the reservation ie keep the numbers the same but flip a few of my aunts for my parents. Do they scan sea passes for everyone or just the person that made the reservation? Thanks in advance!

[orville99]

They generally just ask for a cabin number when you are at the hostess station. The bigger issue is that there aren't any tables that seat more than 10, so you'd need two tables in close proximity. If you check with the dining room host as soon as you board, they can show you what options are available to keep your party more-or-less together.

[Dancer9933]

We are ok eating in two groups but I am glad to hear they just ask for the cabin not exactly who is with us. We plan to split 9/6 and switch up who sits with who. We have a mix of family and friends so I think only a few of us will be flipping back and forth. Would it be a problem if one night we only had 7 people for a reservation for 9? In case someone wants to do a specialty restaurant ?

[Dancer9933]

Does anyone know how many tables for 8-10 are in the anytime section on Radiance?

[Havingfun2010]

We are going to try to book two reservations around the same time since the max is 10 per reservation. Does anyone have experience doing this? I am curious if it is a problem to switch up the groups from the reservation ie keep the numbers the same but flip a few of my aunts for my parents. Do they scan sea passes for everyone or just the person that made the reservation? Thanks in advance!

 

Is there a particular reason why you want to go through this hassle, when you can easily be accommodated with traditional dining, hassle free? Besides trying to get everyone to remember the correct time, you will have issues sitting next to each other, and you will have to spend extra time to "wait" for you table arrangements. Traditional dining solves all this.

[fireofficer5]

I agree with Fun.

Traditional is best.

Edited June 16, 2015 by fireofficer5

[orville99]

Is there a particular reason why you want to go through this hassle, when you can easily be accommodated with traditional dining, hassle free? Besides trying to get everyone to remember the correct time, you will have issues sitting next to each other, and you will have to spend extra time to "wait" for you table arrangements. Traditional dining solves all this.

 

 

Perhaps, just maybe they like to eat when they like to eat;)

[Dancer9933]

Traditional dining was not available when we booked. I would have preferred traditional as that is what we have done the last 3 cruises. I am trying to make the best of my time given that we are a large group and don't want to have to wait every night

[claowens]

We like my time dinning best because early dinning is so early and the late is late. We've had an large group before and when we booked we told them what time 6:30 and everyone just walked in and we had the same table every night. Worked out perfect

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Dancer9933]

Anyone have experience with MTD on Radiance in Alaska?

[cb at sea]

With a group that large, reservations ARE recommended...it's hard to seat a crowd! So...make your 1st night dining reservations however you can, and then, on night one, make standing reservations for you group for the remainder of the cruise You do NOT need to do all nights in advance.

[biomedbob]

For me.......that would be a cruising nightmare. Being joined at the hip with that many people. Good luck!

[cruising twosome]

We did 16 on the Radiance last year for Alaska. They sat us at 2 tables: 10 and 6 right next to each other. They did say they liked us to keep the earlier time of 6:30, which worked out great for us.

[Desert Cruizers]

Dancer, I can't tell you how many tables of different sizes there are. I believe the 2nd level is used for MTD. Majority of tables are seatings of 6 to 10, some 4's and a few 2's.

[cindivan]

We usually travel in large groups and I am typically the organizer so I feel your pain. I book everyone the same time or close to it. Sometimes I have to be 15 minutes apart because a time fills up.

 

Then when I get on board I go to the MTD guy/concierge the first day and tell him our cabin numbers and times and that we would like to be together. It's relatively painless and then you are set for the week. If you are lucky enough to be in a suite the concierge there can do this as well.

 

The last cruise we had 13 and we wanted to sit together, so they let us pull our two round tables together. We were a bit crowded but it was more fun because we were all together. We only did the MTD twice on the last cruise, but I thought later I should have told the organizer guy earlier we wanted to pull the tables together and maybe they would have given us bigger tables so we weren't so crowded.

 

Anyway, options for you.

[cindivan]

Oh, and to answer your other question, they will just ask for one room number or name once you get it all set up.

[Dancer9933]

With a group that large, reservations ARE recommended...it's hard to seat a crowd! So...make your 1st night dining reservations however you can, and then, on night one, make standing reservations for you group for the remainder of the cruise You do NOT need to do all nights in advance.

 

 

Thanks! I had planned to book two groups for every night. We don't plan to do many activities together so dinner is going to be the time we are most likely to see everyone. Our group ranges from 24-85 so we have a wide variety of interests.

[groveml]

Is there a particular reason why you want to go through this hassle, when you can easily be accommodated with traditional dining, hassle free? Besides trying to get everyone to remember the correct time, you will have issues sitting next to each other, and you will have to spend extra time to "wait" for you table arrangements. Traditional dining solves all this.

RC is definitely in the process of phasing out traditional dining...we also only had the option of My Time dining on our October cruise and at some point in the next year all ships will be on Dynamic Dining. I loved My Time when it was just my husband and myself (we never made a reservation...we just wandered in when we wanted and got seated), but it's quickly proving itself to be a giant pain with our large group of 13 this year and trying to reserve online ahead of time.

[Clarea]

RC is definitely in the process of phasing out traditional dining...we also only had the option of My Time dining on our October cruise and at some point in the next year all ships will be on Dynamic Dining. I loved My Time when it was just my husband and myself (we never made a reservation...we just wandered in when we wanted and got seated), but it's quickly proving itself to be a giant pain with our large group of 13 this year and trying to reserve online ahead of time.

Royal has abandoned the plan of moving other ships to Dynamic Dining. Not to say it will never be spread to other ships, but for right now there are no plans to extend DD to other than Quantum class.

[Doug S]

We had a group of 10 on Jewel in early July. We did MTD and got a table for 10, but they offered only an early or late time so they could turn the table with 2 seatings. Not able to just show up at any time and expect your table for 10 to be there, so you lose a bit of the anytime dining experience. No way they are just gonna hold the big table all night in case you show up. Due to the set time and tablemates, it might as well have been traditional, except those seated around us changed. We all did the Mystery dinner theater one evening so I assume they sat other dinners together at that table, or it just remained empty.

[Dan-P]

We had 12 with MTD on our last Vision cruise. We made a standing reservation on boarding day and they had no trouble getting us all at one big table.

 

On nights where some of the group were doing specialty dining, etc..., we just gave them a heads up we were not going to be there and/or be a smaller group, so they could free up some table space.

 

Worked like a charm and we had the same table/waitstaff every night.

 

Dan.

[tserface]

This doesn't answer your question, but it's a funny story.

 

We were doing My Time dining on one cruise and there was a bit of a line since it was early (the line goes pretty quickly usually). We were about 2/3 up from the rear of the line. My wife noticed a couple of older ladies with walkers milling about looking for the end and she said, "Why don't you just go in front of us... no one will care." I mean, they were older and using walkers and we're on a cruise and no one is in that big of a hurry.

 

So, we got closer to the front and they turned around and waved at someone and 23 other people showed up for their "group" to get in line with them.

 

Maybe you can use this trick?

 

It was a little annoying at the time, but during dinner and since, in retrospect, it has made for a few chuckles. We don't know that they did this on purpose. Probably not, but it was still a good trick.

 

Tom

[Dancer9933]

So MTD ended up workign out well for our large group. As suggested we made two reservations for the first night and then talked to the hostess. We were able to make a standing 745pm reservation for 15 and most nights they were able to push two tables together for us. One night we split into two groups at different times and another night we all at at 545. It was a little tricky and we couldn't just pick anytime but they were able to seat us early a few times. I would personally prefer traditional with a large group in the future but it worked well in our case.

[Baron Barracuda]

Dancer - so glad it worked out for you. For others planning for large groups though would recommend fighting to get into traditional dining.

 

We had a group of 26 on our June Liberty sailing and despite booking early were forced into mtd. Our TA made advance 8pm reservations for length of cruise, and we were assigned the same three adjoining tables and wait staff each night. Unfortunately there were different groups eating ahead of us at those tables each night, and their reservation times varied. Because of this we were forced to wait outside the dining room until all three tables had been vacated and reset. This was sometimes as late as 8:30. As a consequence we were usually among the last to finish dinner with the house lights shining brightly as they served our coffee. The wait staff did their best, but 10:30 is too late to finish dinner. Never want to do that again.