Why is Night 1 in MDR Always a Disaster?

[Thetrail]

I keep hearing how the first night in the main dining room is awful, with long waits and very unorganized. They have a "first night" every single week so why all the chaos? How much longer should we plan to wait? First night we have a reservation via My Time at 6:15pm and a show at 9pm so am hoping this timing is ok.

Never have an issue the first night in the MDR. Long waits...no, unorganized....no. A bit longer the first night, maybe but never enough for me to even notice or write home about....K.O.:)

[George C]

Never have an issue the first night in the MDR. Long waits...no, unorganized....no. A bit longer the first night, maybe but never enough for me to even notice or write home about....K.O.:)

 

I agree, we always eat dinner 1st night in MDR 2nd seating, normally table for 2. Then we kind of switch between MDR and specialty restaurants for rest of the cruise.

[island lady]

Also never had a problem on first night. We are MTD, and the "two top" is in our profile. We prefer to do our socializing in the lounge before dinner, thus it gives us time for "just us" conversation over dinner. And I love the horseradish crusted salmon on first night. Second night, (usually formal) is for BOGO at Chops. Then we mix it up from there.

[cheezwiz]

I just don't agree that the first night is always a disaster. We find that's it's almost always fine, allowing for a little extra effort for the staff to get to know you.

 

The only time we had difficulty on the first night, the difficulty continued throughout the week. Our wait staff was struggling and just never did get themselves together. This was the result of a diner at a neighboring table who strenuously (and loudly) objected to our waiter assisting him with placing his napkin in his lap. He made enough of a stink about this that our waiter was switched out with another waiter. The new waiter & the assistant (whose English was ok but not proficient) struggled through the rest of the week. We filed this under "ship happens" and added it to our list of cruising stories. No big deal to us - we love to have a round of "Hey, remember the time that....?"