Where's my Club Class dining?

[suplada]

Hello all,

We will be on the Ruby to Alaska in Sept. We took advantage of the upsell from mini-suite to full suite. Before the upsell, we had 6pm confirmed Traditional dining. When I checked my personalizer, I didn't see an option for Club Class dining. It just says Anytime or Traditional. I called Princess, explained my situation that we should have Club Class dining and she said she'll take care of it. After she made the change, my personalizer says we now have Anytime dining. I was expecting her to change us to Club Class.

Should I not worry? When we board the Ruby, since we are in a full suite (cat S4), does Anytime mean Club Class dining?

Thanks in advance.

[34TigerLily]

Club Class dining is a section of one of the anytime dining rooms. You will find letter in your suite telling you which one. Just go to the designated club class entrance and tell them you are in a suite. They will ask for your cabin number and check you off on their list. It doesn't appear on your personalizer.

[skynight]

Club Class Dining is a special anytime dining option. Don't worry. If you are in a full suite just go to the Club Class DR entrance anytime the DR is open and you will be seated. Don't forget, even though Club Class dining is available for breakfast the better option is the special full suite mimosa breakfast which I believe is held in the Crown Grill on the Ruby. There should be information in your cabin regarding both.

[Ellipooh]

It confused me too, when i switched from Trad to CC for my next suite voyage. When i first chose my dining option, it was a choice between CC or Trad, and I chose Trad -- not realizing that would exclude me from CC. When i switched to over CC, I expected my Cruise Personalizer to reflect CC instead of Anytime. But from Princess' perspective, the choice is Anytime or Traditional, with some Minis and all Suites being designated on their list (not yours) as CC.

 

Just think of your suite-assigned Anytime as CC. Go to the special CC area and they will have you on their Suite Guest list, and will welcome you right in. CC includes all the flexibility of Anytime with none of the frustration. You'll be seated in the CC area with all of the benefits.

 

And in my case, I released a Trad table for someone else. If i want to eat at 6pm every night, I still can do that on my own volition, but by selecting CC/Anytime i have flexibility of 8pm if i so choose.

[suplada]

Thanks everyone!!! I will not worry then...

[CATGUY7]

And the Club Class dining room is listed in the dining guide on the back page of the patter showing the times the dining room is open.

[compozer]

Don't worry. We have sailed two times in suites and used the Club class. There was nothing on our personalizer.

It just said anytime dining.

[peety3]

In a sense, it comes down to a simple equation: should you be assigned a table for traditional dining? If you want Club Class dining, that'd be a 'no', so the simple answer is 'choose Anytime'. Then head to the MDR on deck 6 mid-ship on the starboard side. The hostess/host will ask to see your key card (probably only once) and will ask your cabin number. She'll mark her clipboard, and have someone show you to a table.

 

Remember that Club Class is offered any time that the MDR is operating, so you can enjoy breakfast, lunch, and dinner in CC, which includes disembarkation morning. However, do remember that as a suite passenger, you also get the suite breakfast in Crown Grill, which beats CC hands-down. Menu? Who needs a stinkin' menu? You ask for it, odds are you'll get it. Heck, before you ask for it, you'll have every beverage on your table: coffee, juice, tea, mimosa, you name it.

[NavyVeteran]

My last cruise (in a suite on the Grand Princess last May) had Traditional and Anytime listed as the only choices - and our Booking Confirmation said we were in Anytime Dining.

 

When we arrived at the Club Class dining room the first time, they checked our cabin number against there list. After that, they just welcomed us by name without checking. We ate in Club Class for lunch every sea day and for dinner nearly every night (except for the first night in Sabatini's). We only ate breakfast there on the last morning, because we ate the other breakfasts in the Crown Grill.

 

Note that the last morning the Club Class breakfast was in its normal location in the midship dining room although the normal MDR breakfast had moved to the aft dining room (to leave the midship dining room available for disembarkation groups to meet). In fact, we kept hearing the disembarkation announcements from the other side of the dining room as we were eating our breakfast.

 

If you book Traditional, they expect you to eat at your assigned seating in Traditional every evening - not in Club Class. However, you can still eat in Club Class for lunch. If you are booked in Anytime, you can choose to eat in the regular Anytime dining room if you prefer (possibly to join some friends who are not in Club Class) or you can eat in Club Class.

[Corfe Mixture]

This is actually a slight retrograde step for suite passengers.

 

I'm not saying that is was right but, although it was never published, our experience over quite a number of cruises, is that, for suite passengers in anytime dining, the same table was reserved for them every evening and was always available and even if you elected to dine in, say a group of six, with friends in anything other than a suite, the table was always held for you.

 

Indeed, on our last cruise with CC friends, when we were a group of five, with the others being in a mini-suite and a single occupancy OV, we were assigned a wonderful table in a corner of Anytime Dining and the situation was so obvious that the evening we all decided to dine together in a Select Dining venue, we made a point of telling the maitre d' the evening before that we were going to a Select Dining venue and that we would not be using our table and he thanked us for telling him.

 

This is not something we sought or asked for, it just happened, so please don't flame me for telling you.

 

Not sure where this change now leaves us. I don't think our friends are cruising this Christmas but, if they are cruising and we are not all entitled to Club Dining, then we will use the normal Anytime Dining, though I rather suspect that we will no longer have the same table reserved for our little group - which to be fair is only correct.

 

So, in our case, it means that Club Class is probably a retrograde step for us and for other suite passengers who, like us, have made many friends over the years.

 

I emphasise that we are not complaining, merely observing that, as with all changes, there are winners and losers and in this case we would appear to be losers, though I stress that this is ot a big issue for us as dining with our friends will always take priority of dining in Club Class (which is why we avoid cruising on Cunard with their class based dining arrangements).

 

Whatever, on our next cruise we are fortunate to have a large aft balcony, which means that if we have friends on board and we are not all entitled to Club Class dining, our balcony is more than capable of seating six for dinner every evening.

[spyro1952]

Don't worry. We have sailed two times in suites and used the Club class. There was nothing on our personalizer.

It just said anytime dining.

 

to tell someone not to worry is a bit dismissive IMHO. We were in a full suite on the CB in April and were never told that we were eligible for club class dining. On the 2nd or 3rd night of frustration in the MDR, the MD mumbled something - the only words we understood were Club Class. For 2 weeks I pursued whether full suite passengers were entitled to CC and NEVER got a straight answer from anybody - customer service,

MD, Captain's Circle host - no one. AND we never received a letter in our suite telling us about this benefit.

Make sure the MDR section captain has your name on his CC list the first day. One thing is always certain about Princess is the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

[peety3]

I'm not saying that is was right but, although it was never published, our experience over quite a number of cruises, is that, for suite passengers in anytime dining, the same table was reserved for them every evening and was always available and even if you elected to dine in, say a group of six, with friends in anything other than a suite, the table was always held for you.

 

Indeed, on our last cruise with CC friends, when we were a group of five, with the others being in a mini-suite and a single occupancy OV, we were assigned a wonderful table in a corner of Anytime Dining and the situation was so obvious that the evening we all decided to dine together in a Select Dining venue, we made a point of telling the maitre d' the evening before that we were going to a Select Dining venue and that we would not be using our table and he thanked us for telling him.

Although not completely the same, you could certainly book Traditional Dining (the wrinkle being you lose the broad flexibility of dining times). As a Suite passenger, you're guaranteed your choice of dining (if you pick TD, you're getting TD, even if they have to push some confirmed folks out onto the waiting list), and the others can request TD and link their booking to yours so they get to be at "your" table. We did this in February (us in a suite, my parents in a mini), and we were automatically assigned to a four-top table in one of the best spots in the dining room.

 

As I see it, there are perhaps three "classes" of dining:

Suite passengers can choose TD or AT, and it's guaranteed. With TD, they can link with other bookings and get seated together. With AT, they can elect to dine in Club Class with any other CC-eligible diners. They also get the Suite-only breakfast, which is fantastic IMHO.

 

 

Club Class passengers can choose TD or AT. With TD, they can link with other bookings and get seated together; no idea how guaranteed their selection would be. With AT, they can elect to dine in Club Class with any other CC-eligible diners.

 

"Everyone else" can choose TD or AT. :)

[NavyVeteran]

Don't worry. We have sailed two times in suites and used the Club class. There was nothing on our personalizer.

It just said anytime dining.

 

to tell someone not to worry is a bit dismissive IMHO. We were in a full suite on the CB in April and were never told that we were eligible for club class dining. On the 2nd or 3rd night of frustration in the MDR, the MD mumbled something - the only words we understood were Club Class. For 2 weeks I pursued whether full suite passengers were entitled to CC and NEVER got a straight answer from anybody - customer service,

MD, Captain's Circle host - no one. AND we never received a letter in our suite telling us about this benefit.

Make sure the MDR section captain has your name on his CC list the first day. One thing is always certain about Princess is the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

Compozer was correct to tell OP not to worry. He was speaking from his own personal experience that suite passengers had Club Class dining with no issues. There may be many things to worry about on a cruise, but whether you as a suite passenger can eat in Club Class is not one of them.

 

Princess is extremely clear on their website and in their Full Suite Benefits PDF that full suite passengers have "Exclusive Club Class Dining in the Main Dining Room for breakfast and dinner daily as well as lunch on sea days."

[spyro1952]

Compozer was correct to tell OP not to worry. He was speaking from his own personal experience that suite passengers had Club Class dining with no issues. There may be many things to worry about on a cruise, but whether you as a suite passenger can eat in Club Class is not one of them.

 

Princess is extremely clear on their website and in their Full Suite Benefits PDF that full suite passengers have "Exclusive Club Class Dining in the Main Dining Room for breakfast and dinner daily as well as lunch on sea days."[/quote

 

 

REALLY DUDE?? I GUESS THE STAFF ON THE CB NEVER GOT THAT MEMO!!:mad::mad::mad::mad: