Pro's and Cons of My Time Dining?

[Jimmy Geegitz]

We prefer YTD. But we have found that service is slower.

[twokids0204]

If you are on a set dining time, and you miss it... If you just show up at the YTD desk and ask for a table?

Will they honor it?

[bar1068]

If you are on a set dining time, and you miss it... If you just show up at the YTD desk and ask for a table?

Will they honor it?

 

Nope

[mlrm]

We have been doing YTD since they first offered it. Will never go back to assigned dining. It doesn't matter to us if we have the same servers. We also don't plan our days activities out in advance, we just do what we want at any given time. This makes YTD perfect for us. We have missed many assigned dining times in the past because we were caught up in something else on the ship or in port.

[JaniceB]

Like the flexibility of MTD. We used it once with a group. We would decide that day or the night before what time we wanted to meet for dinner. It worked very well. Do not remember waiting but could be because we all had suites.

[musikfans]

I booked a cruise for August, and the early dining is watilisted.

 

From experience, has anyone who's been waitlisted, actually gotten their choice?

Other option is My Time. I did NCL last year and they are all my time, and didn't find it an issue. But I kinda enjoy carnival's waitstaff entertainment, etc... For those who have done My Time Dining, what are your impressions of it?

 

To answer this question, yes.

They have set numbers of dining requests for each set time (early,late) that they release initially. They then release more as they see the amount of YTD that are requested. The more cruisers that take YTD, the more they can give fixed dining times.

Once they go to the waitlist they will grant priority requests first (Platinum, Diamond, etc.). Based on how far away your cruise date is I would guess you get your waitlist request.

Edited April 13, 2016 by musikfans

[gtalum]

Pros: eat when you want

 

Cons: None for us

[jocko4279]

Pro's for YTD: you can sit with whomever and whenever you what. you won't be assigned to a table where one of your table mates verbally threatens you in the breakfast buffet line the next morning for no apparent reason

 

Cons: none

[Davey Wavey]

Pro's for YTD: you can sit with whomever and whenever you what. you won't be assigned to a table where one of your table mates verbally threatens you in the breakfast buffet line the next morning for no apparent reason

 

Okay, I'll bite. What happened? :D

[jocko4279]

This was on the Miracle 7 years ago, the last time I will ever do assigned dining. The guy was the loud boisterous type @ dinner (although friendly) one moment , and then the next moment he clams up and doesn't say a word. One morning @ breakfast late in the cruise someone is bumping me with there arm / shoulder in the buffet line continuously. Now I didn't look up, and here's why.....a few days earlier my wife mentions to me that there is a crazy old guy just cutting ahead of people in line and physically bumping them. In my mind I think it's "this guy". Dude keeps bumping me, so finally I look up to say something, and it's the tablemate. my first reaction is to smile at him and say "hey what's up?!?!" ( i thought he was joking around with me). he just says "Be careful with me!" with a look that could kill. still thinking he's joking I say " you okay?!?!?" he was dead serious and says "just be careful with me!" so I just said "okkkkkkkkkkkkkkk" and walked away. skipped the last two nights at dinner to avoid confrontation with him, and walked around the ship for the last two days , expecting to get jumped and formulating my strategy. he was a rather large muscular dude. to this day I can't figure what set him off, as I'm a fun, but on the reserved side type of guy. I will say I did see him very early on in the cruise, running around the interior of the ship / atrium area, with his sweats / hoodie up. when I was talking to him at this time he said he was almost choking from some type of large supplement pill he ingested......

[twentyknots]

We've cruised about 20 times and the last 5 have been anytime dining. We have enjoyed those last 5 as much or more than the others. Our assigned dinners were always early and we asked for a large table of 8-10. Most of the time we enjoyed the fixed company but occasionally felt as though we might have liked another table better. Anytime dining has allowed us to meet new people each night and we've enjoyed that. We've only had to wait once on Celebrity Reflection when we were assigned a table with small children and I asked to be reassigned. Don't know if the maitre d was angry with us or it was just a busy night.

[sweetsixteencruisers]

YTD: Hated it! When seated, felt like we were forgotten about. Staff seemed overwhelmed. We went back to early seating and rather have the traditional seating.

[bunchesofun]

We have had YTD on our last 3 trips. For us the biggest pro is the flexibility. Some nights we eat early and others we eat late depending on our days activities. The con's for us is never really getting to know your waitstaff.

 

It's quite simple to tell them when you check in that you want to be in the same section every night. We did and got to know the waitstaff.

[Quilcruisers]

We always book late seating. We usually travel with 6 in our party and enjoy sitting down together every evening to eat and socialize through the night. We have never had a bad wait staff, although some connected better than others. It takes planning sometimes but it is important to us to have that one meal together when we travel.

[Wndrwomn]

YTD: Hated it! When seated, felt like we were forgotten about. Staff seemed overwhelmed. We went back to early seating and rather have the traditional seating.

 

Sorry to hear you felt like that :(

 

We did not have that experience. On the Splendor, one section of the restaurant (the third floor of the Black Pearl Restaurant) is devoted to YTD cruisers, the fourth floor was for set dining times, as well as the Gold Pearl Restaurant)

I don't know how it is on the other ships.

 

Most nights we had the same server. Only 2 nights did we have a different set of servers.

[Harrier1961]

Out of 11 cruised, we've had mostly early seating with a couple late.

All of the time we sat with strangers, we've had a blast - including one where we were not originally assigned to the table we ended up at.

There were 4 older couples and they were hilarious (none of them knew each other - the tabled just jelled).

One guys was a retired Judge/Lawyer, one lady was a county clerk, one owned their own business. Basically, everyone was well off except for my wife and I. However, they were all down to earth, very friendly people and we had loads of laughs the whole cruise.

 

However, on our cruise in 2014, we did not like the dinning experience and only went twice to the MDR. So, on last years cruise, we tried YTD and would never go back.

It was just my wife and I and never had to wait longer than 5 minutes.

Going YTD in our cruise in two weeks.

I think we might miss meeting people, but over all, I would rather do YTD. Another pro - don't feel guilty if we decide not to go to the MDR to eat.

 

Just my 2 cents.

Andy

[Yvonne]

Pros: We can go to dinner when WE want to, not when we're TOLD to. We aren't forced to sit at a table and eat with strangers and have to make small talk with them. If timed right we can avoid the silly dancing/singing that the waiters are forced to do. And, we rarely have to wait for a table. Most times they seat us right away, occasionally have to wait 5 minutes, and the longest we've ever waited was at the popular dining time on elegant night (20 minutes). We've had longer wait times than that at local restaurants at home.

 

Cons: Nothing that I can think of.

[ctkathchick]

I too also love YTD would never go back. My only downside to YTD is generally the ships we sail have the YTD in the middle dining room as opposed to the upper and lower dining rooms in the rear. So at least on sea days we go to lunch or brunch so that we can usually get an outside window or even better the back so that I can watch the wake. LOL

[ImaginationCruiseBride]

I absolutely hate Anytime Dining. When I'm ready to eat, I'm ready to eat, and we always pretty much eat on a schedule at home, so I'm conditioned to being hungry at that time. Anytime dining we often had to wait for well over an hour to be seated and then it took more than 2 hours from the time we were seated to be finished eating. It is ridiculous to have to carve out 3 hours every single night just to eat. We always choose early seating, but were waitlisted and then assigned Anytime Dining when we got there. Next time I will talk to the maître D and make sure I get assigned seating.

 

As someone mentioned above, I was also on the Imagination in January and yes, they are correct, Diamond and Platinum get seated first. The rest of us peons were relegated to steerage class.

[Warm Breezes]

I absolutely hate Anytime Dining. When I'm ready to eat, I'm ready to eat, and we always pretty much eat on a schedule at home, so I'm conditioned to being hungry at that time. Anytime dining we often had to wait for well over an hour to be seated and then it took more than 2 hours from the time we were seated to be finished eating. It is ridiculous to have to carve out 3 hours every single night just to eat. We always choose early seating, but were waitlisted and then assigned Anytime Dining when we got there. Next time I will talk to the maître D and make sure I get assigned seating.

 

As someone mentioned above, I was also on the Imagination in January and yes, they are correct, Diamond and Platinum get seated first. The rest of us peons were relegated to steerage class.

 

Can I ask if you had a large group you were trying to seat? We have done anytime on Carnival with 2, 4, and 5 people. I have never had to wait an hour to get a seat and most meals are around 1 1/2 hours give or take 10-15 minutes. Plus we have never been felt like were peons regulated to steerage class because we were not Diamond or Platinum. I guess I am just struggling with what you are saying because it is so different from our own experiences with Anytime.

Edited April 14, 2016 by Warm Breezes

[gtalum]

I agree, we've never waited any longer than the ~5 minutes that it sometimes takes at peak dining time to get to the front of the line. We're also always in and out in 90 minutes or less.

Edited April 14, 2016 by gtalum

[ImaginationCruiseBride]

Can I ask if you had a large group you were trying to seat? We have done anytime on Carnival with 2, 4, and 5 people. I have never had to wait an hour to get a seat and most meals are around 1 1/2 hours give or take 10-15 minutes. Plus we have never been felt like were peons regulated to steerage class because we were not Diamond or Platinum. I guess I am just struggling with what you are saying because it is so different from our own experiences with Anytime.

 

 

It was just my husband and me. We were on the Imagination in January. We tried to eat between 6 and 6:30, but were never seated before 7:30ish. Once seated it took at least 20 minutes before we even saw a waiter. After we were given a beeper to wait it really did annoy me that after waiting 30-45 minutes somebody with a platinum or diamond card who just walked up was seated immediately as we still stood there and waiting with all of the other lowly blues and golds, so yes we did feel relegated to the steerage class. I paid the same for the cruise as the people with diamond and platinum and felt insulted. This happened 3 nights in a row, then we gave up and ate Lido for dinner the fourth night. I will seriously cancel a cruise before doing Anytime dining again. It was definitely a mar on our cruise.

[loxley]

Can I ask if you had a large group you were trying to seat? We have done anytime on Carnival with 2, 4, and 5 people. I :'( have never had to wait an hour to get a seat and most meals are around 1 1/2 hours give or take 10-15 minutes. Plus we have never been felt like were peons regulated to steerage class because we were not Diamond or Platinum. I guess I am just struggling with what you are saying because it is so different from our own experiences with Anytime.

 

I don't believe their story. I will only do atd and I have never even had a five minute wait. We go at ask different times. One time we were told it would be a small wait to please step to the side, so I turned to look at the ship in the glass box and did not even get to read the name of the ship before I was trapped in the shoulder and told to come on. 15 secs at most wait ever.

 

An hour every night, no way.

[nc2sc]

Can I ask if you had a large group you were trying to seat? We have done anytime on Carnival with 2, 4, and 5 people. I have never had to wait an hour to get a seat and most meals are around 1 1/2 hours give or take 10-15 minutes.

 

I cant answer for the previous poster, but my group of 10 (6 kids) almost consistently took 2+ hours to eat. Never a wait to be seated, however. Slow service times was my major complaint of the YTD experience. I dont understand why a table of 10 should take longer than 2 tables of 5 in the same section.

 

One thing we talked about while waiting several minutes between courses or drink refills (with kids and 10 tops, the carafes go pretty quickly) was that they should separate the 2 dining rooms into two groups of diners. In one, enforce a dress code and spend 2 hours with a leisurely white cloth dinner. In the other, go with the resort casual and speed it up. We like the food and setting, but could have cut out the 45+ minutes of dead time each dinner.

Edited April 14, 2016 by nc2sc

[ImaginationCruiseBride]

I don't believe their story. I will only do atd and I have never even had a five minute wait. We go at ask different times. One time we were told it would be a small wait to please step to the side, so I turned to look at the ship in the glass box and did not even get to read the name of the ship before I was trapped in the shoulder and told to come on. 15 secs at most wait ever.

 

An hour every night, no way.

 

I don't know you so I don't particularly care if you believe me or not. I don't suppose you were in the Imagination in January, so you really don't know what happened on that cruise. If you look up thread a bit you can definitely see that the platinum/diamond cruising was patting himself on the back for getting seated before everybody who had been waiting for a while.