Change in Traditional Dining Times?

[bemis12]

On 12/11/2018 at 3:46 PM, beeza said:

I think the new MDR meal times suck, by the number of comments on this subject I think we should all contact Princess and express our dislikes as well as informing our TA, either that or we all stage a mutiny, worked for the guys on the "Bounty"

 

 

Six of them were court martialed and sentenced to death by hanging.  Three were actually hanged.  So "worked" may not actually be all the accurate.

 

I'm not sure Princess has the authority to hang us.  Would have to read the travel contract more closely.

[Mediaspot]

28 minutes ago, Shmoo here said:

I would take issue with this statement.  I'm "elderly" and grew up eating early dinners (my mother had to squeeze them in between working full time and attending college classes at night, while raising 3 kids after my father died) and 5:00 is too early on a cruise for early dining.

I have been cruising for more than three decades, from being a young single guy - then with a variety of women - then with my wife - and, since I lost my wife, as a single traveler. (Note: No, she didn't die... We were in my car on the freeway... She asked to stop at a Rest Stop... She got out of the car... As soon as she went inside I drove away as fast as I could and never looked back!) [Rimshot] I have always tried for Early T/D... The two or three times I didn't book early enough and was "wait listed" for Early, and ended up in Late, I decided that dining at 8PM wasn't for me... I like to go to the Platinum/Elite Cocktail Party at 5PM and dinner at six. I think Princess should have given nine months to a years notice of the change... They didn't... I heard about it on social media past the time I could have cancelled without penalties... Princess sent the official notice of the change AFTER I would have paid a 100% penalty. I told Customer Relations that I thought this to be very "UnPrincessLy"... Yes, I had to invent a word to describe how I felt. Tomorrow I board the Grand out of S.F. for a ten day cruise to Mexico. I will report back to this thread on how the change affected my cruise and whether or not I will cruise with Princess in the future.

[oskidunker]

The problem is most cruise lines do not do fixed dining anymore. Where would you go?

[Shmoo here]

23 minutes ago, oskidunker said:

The problem is most cruise lines do not do fixed dining anymore. Where would you go?

"Most"?

[OCruisers]

29 minutes ago, oskidunker said:

The problem is most cruise lines do not do fixed dining anymore. Where would you go?

 

Gosh, think ALL major  mass market cruise lines still have fixed dining as an option.  

[Shmoo here]

31 minutes ago, OCruisers said:

 

Gosh, think ALL major  mass market cruise lines still have fixed dining as an option.  

Well, not ALL.  Norwegian comes to mind.

 

Silversea, Regent Seven Seas (yeah, not mass market, but well-known) also have dine when you want.

[Mediaspot]

6 minutes ago, Shmoo here said:

Well, not ALL.  Norwegian comes to mind.

 

Silversea, Regent Seven Seas (yeah, not mass market, but well-known) also have dine when you want.

When Princess, Carnival, Holland America, RCL and NCL give up on T/Dining is when it will become a dead issue.

[Shmoo here]

14 hours ago, Mediaspot said:

When Princess, Carnival, Holland America, RCL and NCL give up on T/Dining is when it will become a dead issue.

Hopefully, that won't be anytime soon.

[marylizcat]

P&O (UK) who have always been a very traditional cruise line and are considered the ‘sister’ line of Princess, have announced that their newest mega-ship Iona will be entirely  anytime dining when she launches in 2020. No traditional sittings at all. 

[wahwah1]

 

On 11/19/2018 at 4:19 AM, JWUC said:

We are on the April 11, 2018 cruise. According to the cruise personalizer (and confirmed by TA), dining times on the Diamond Princess are 5 PM and 7:15 PM. No ATD.

 

I will be on the Diamond Princess in June 2019 and I've received an email that my early dining has changed from 5:30 PM to 5 PM.  However, when I logged on to Princess.com, I saw my dining time is still 5:30 from the cruise personalizer.  Do you know if the dining time has changed?

[theloo]

Sorry if this is not the right place to ask, but I am on the waitlist for 5:00 seating (the other option 7:15 is too late).  If I arrive late, say 5:15 or 5:30, will my table be reassigned?  

[Shmoo here]

4 minutes ago, theloo said:

Sorry if this is not the right place to ask, but I am on the waitlist for 5:00 seating (the other option 7:15 is too late).  If I arrive late, say 5:15 or 5:30, will my table be reassigned?  

I'm not sure whether they close the doors to being seated at a specific time, but arriving late will delay service (not just for you, but everyone at your table).

 

 

[theloo]

1 minute ago, Shmoo here said:

I'm not sure whether they close the doors to being seated at a specific time, but arriving late will delay service (not just for you, but everyone at your table).

 

Yes, I am asking if they close the doors.  I have requested a table for 4, just for my family, so it would not delay any other guests.

[RDC1]

28 minutes ago, theloo said:

 

Yes, I am asking if they close the doors.  I have requested a table for 4, just for my family, so it would not delay any other guests.

Yes, they usually do close the doors 15 minutes after the dining time.  Keep in mind that they need to have everyone out and the room turned for late traditional.  On my last cruise they did allow people to come in late the first night (some people were unaware of the time changes).  After that did not see them allow anyone in after the 15 minute period.

[oskidunker]

Normally you can be 15 minutes late. I would not push it much beyond that. 

[theloo]

Thank you for the replies!  

[franktown]

There is a live thread from the royal that has the current patters and even though the cruise personalizer said 5 and 7:15 the actual time on board are 5:15 5:30 and 7:45

[theloo]

Thanks 

17 minutes ago, franktown said:

There is a live thread from the royal that has the current patters and even though the cruise personalizer said 5 and 7:15 the actual time on board are 5:15 5:30 and 7:45

 

Thanks for this tip.  I looked at a recent Patters for the Ruby and it shows dining at 5:00 and 5:15 (in different dining rooms) and the doors close 30 minutes after that time.

[Cindy]

I wish Princess would get this right. By right I mean that the times in the Personalizer should match the times on the ship. I think people thinking they’re getting one thing then boarding to find something different causes more problems.

Edited December 17, 2018 by Cindy

[marylizcat]

2 hours ago, Cindy said:

I wish Princess would get this right. By right I mean that the times in the Personalizer should match the times on the ship. I think people thinking they’re getting one thing then boarding to find something different causes more problems.

Yes, it isn’t difficult. Other cruise lines manage it. You book with P&O or Fred Olsen, they tell you the dining times when you book and that is the time on the ship. So why do Princess find it so hard?

[skoeper]

5 hours ago, Cindy said:

I wish Princess would get this right. By right I mean that the times in the Personalizer should match the times on the ship. I think people thinking they’re getting one thing then boarding to find something different causes more problems.

We signed up for 6:00 dining.    Then saw HERE that the dining times were changed.    Our personalizer still said 6:00.   We had our TA (for our group of 10) double check this and he found that our dining time had changed to 5:00.  We were not happy.  That meant coming back early from ports 3 days just to make the 5:00 dining.     He changed us to late seating (8:30), against our every grain of being but we thought we'd be able to get a snack at the buffet before our dining time.   Pretty bummed, but we accepted it.  The entire time it showed in our personalizer that we still had 6:00 dining.  Sigh.....

 

Welllll, we all board the ship and compare our dining times on the seapass cards and 6 of them said 5:30, the others said 7:15.  This was crazy.   For our first time sailing with Princess, we were pretty discouraged.    First time on any ship that this happened.    

[Lucky TGO]

2 hours ago, marylizcat said:

Yes, it isn’t difficult. Other cruise lines manage it. You book with P&O or Fred Olsen, they tell you the dining times when you book and that is the time on the ship. So why do Princess find it so hard?

 

To me the Right hand doesn’t  know what the Left hand is doing at Princess Cruises anymore.

Who is making all the Ridiculous Decisions?? 

 Could it be Jan or the Captain?? 🤔

Tony

 

[Ombud]

On 12/9/2018 at 10:55 PM, caribill said:

 

Some of the ships do indeed have oit at 7:15 now, but others have posted that some ships which show 7:15 in the Personalizer actually have it at 7:45. Hope you will still be very happy if your ship is one of those that did not actually move it to 7:15.

Sapphire (11/28-12/8/18) showed it as 7:15 but it was still 8. So I guess ships are changing more slowly than corporate 

 

Doors never closed, all ships are apparently a little different 

 

Edited December 18, 2018 by Ombud

[Mediaspot]

I am writing this as we leave P.V. for Manzanillo on the Grand, a 10 dayer out of S.F. to Mexico... I bet that a lot of you are Platinum or Elite... Let me state my feelings in no uncertain terms, EARLY TRADITIONAL DINING AT 5:00 PM SUCKS!!! Do you like to go to the Elite/Platinum Cocktail Party before dinner??? If you answered YES you are out of luck... You can... A. Wolf down a drink and scarf a nosh from 4:30-5:00 and be on time for dinner... or... B. Arrive late for dinner, inconveniencing your tablemates and hurrying through dinner (they have another group after you for Late T/D)... or... C. Stand in line for Anytime Dining or hit the buffet... This is not the Princess Cruises Dining Experience I enjoyed on my first 28 cruises with Princess but it may very well be my memory of my LAST cruise with Princess. Again, I hope P/Cruises monitors social media and acts accordingly.  Thom.

[caribill]

6 hours ago, Cindy said:

I wish Princess would get this right. By right I mean that the times in the Personalizer should match the times on the ship. I think people thinking they’re getting one thing then boarding to find something different causes more problems.

 

Actual dining times are really not cast in concrete until relatively close to the cruise. Bookings for cruises (and dining times) starts up to two years before embarkation and there is no way to know that far in advance what the actual dining times will be.

 

 

4 hours ago, marylizcat said:

Yes, it isn’t difficult. Other cruise lines manage it. You book with P&O or Fred Olsen, they tell you the dining times when you book and that is the time on the ship. So why do Princess find it so hard?

 

Not all other lines manage it. I forget whether it was RCI or Celebrity, but pre-cruise late seating was listed as being 8:30 (very unacceptable), but turned out to be around 7:30.