My Time Dining Question

[HollyfromSC]

Hi...so we just booked a cruise on the Brilliance of the Seas March 31st-April 5th. The early dining is all booked up and we have small children so we don't want to wait until 8:30pm to eat. My in laws are also joining us and like the shows....so we figured the early dinner would be better for all of us. That being said....has anyone done the My Time Dining and can give us some suggestions on how to do it? Can we make the reservations for 7pm and actually get taken on time or do you just wait around a long time? We are all very excited about the cruise just wanting to figure out the dinner part now!

 

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

Holly

[davekathy]

Hi...so we just booked a cruise on the Brilliance of the Seas March 31st-April 5th. The early dining is all booked up and we have small children so we don't want to wait until 8:30pm to eat. My in laws are also joining us and like the shows....so we figured the early dinner would be better for all of us. That being said....has anyone done the My Time Dining and can give us some suggestions on how to do it? Can we make the reservations for 7pm and actually get taken on time or do you just wait around a long time? We are all very excited about the cruise just wanting to figure out the dinner part now!

 

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

Holly

 

Go into your Cruise Planner and see if the time you want is available. If so make reservations. We make reservations for MTD through the Cruise Planner for 5:30 or 6:00. Never had to wait to be seated. Table for two. Our experience on the ships we've sailed is there are two lines for MTD. One for line for those with reservations and one line for those that do not have reservations.

[corky4man]

Just get your in laws booking number and you can make reservations for all of you at the same time

 

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[melski]

We always do MTD. You should make reservations however I doubt you'll be able to make 7 pm reservations. Lately I've seen that you aren't able to make a reservation between 6:15-7:30 at least for my Harmony cruise and I've heard other ships have done the same. I think RC finally figured out that the dining room gets full by 6:15 and there could be a long wait before tables clear. We like the 6:15 time as it isn't too early but still allows us to get to any shows.

[karena1]

We have done MTD since it first started - WE LOVE IT!! We go eat when we feel like it, rarely make reservations. You can make reservations if you want to, but for us the beauty of MTD is going to eat when we are ready or around the shows.

 

Rarely do we wait. We look at the compass in the morning and see what time the shows are and work with it

 

I will say, if you have a group or want to eat at a certain time, then make reservations on the Cruise Planner prior to your cruise.

[LeeW]

All of these suggestions depends on whether you actually have MyTime Dining. If you have early or late set in your reservation you need to call and have it switched to MTD (or your TA has to do it if you booked through them).

 

The reason you generally can't make MTD reservations for 7:00 is that dining room opens at 5:30 or 6:00 and they allow 2 hours for dinner when scheduling. Thus the dining room is full at 7:00 and if you show up then you might have to wait for a table. We generally eat when the dining room opens and it rarely takes more than an hour, unless you have a large table.

[karena1]

All of these suggestions depends on whether you actually have MyTime Dining. If you have early or late set in your reservation you need to call and have it switched to MTD (or your TA has to do it if you booked through them).

 

The reason you generally can't make MTD reservations for 7:00 is that dining room opens at 5:30 or 6:00 and they allow 2 hours for dinner when scheduling. Thus the dining room is full at 7:00 and if you show up then you might have to wait for a table. We generally eat when the dining room opens and it rarely takes more than an hour, unless you have a large table.

 

you can do MTD anytime between 5:30 and when the dining room closes. MTD is in a totally separate area from set dining as a rule. When we were on Allure 2 weeks ago, MTD was slammed, so they did take us to the Main Dining Room, but that is the first time it has ever happened. Normally MTD is in one area of the dining room and regular dining is in another.

 

We eat anytime between 7 and 8:30 and rarely wait more than 5 minutes

[RoLoHa]

Because my husband has meds that require him to eat on schedule if we can’t get early sitting when we book we choose MTD and then wait-list the early seating. We then make reservations for 6 pm MTD in our cruise planner ...but most times the waitlist turns in to a reservation before we embark and those reservations cancel automatically. When we did use MTD (because the ship had early dining at 5:30 which is a bit too early) we were seated very promptly at the same table or in the same section with same staff. It was pretty seamless.

 

 

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[lenquixote66]

We always do MTD. You should make reservations however I doubt you'll be able to make 7 pm reservations. Lately I've seen that you aren't able to make a reservation between 6:15-7:30 at least for my Harmony cruise and I've heard other ships have done the same. I think RC finally figured out that the dining room gets full by 6:15 and there could be a long wait before tables clear. We like the 6:15 time as it isn't too early but still allows us to get to any shows.

We have 7PM for every night of our upcoming RCI cruise.

[HollyfromSC]

Thanks so much for all the feedback. So we do have a pretty big group---but we are open to split up if needed. Right now we picked the 8:30 seating and were put on the wait list for the 6pm seating, but after reading this I am going to have the travel agent switch us to MTD and then still put us on the wait list for the early seating. Thanks again for all the advice!