Trad dining on late port departure days

[lorri111]

Hi, what happens on evenings when ship does not leave a port till late in evening? Do they throw dining rooms open for free dining? How does this work, does this mean if you are sat at a table with others that you progress through meal together as in regular trad dining or is it more like the buffet, where you might need to share a table but do your own thing?

[trbarton]

17 minutes ago, lorri111 said:

Hi, what happens on evenings when ship does not leave a port till late in evening? Do they throw dining rooms open for free dining? How does this work, does this mean if you are sat at a table with others that you progress through meal together as in regular trad dining or is it more like the buffet, where you might need to share a table but do your own thing?

 

From my experience I could go my MDR on a late port day & eat at the same table. The other diners may or may not be there. 

 

Tom😎

[lorri111]

9 minutes ago, trbarton said:

 

From my experience I could go my MDR on a late port day & eat at the same table. The other diners may or may not be there. 

 

Tom😎

But what if you are early dining and you chose to eat later?

[ckb104]

23 minutes ago, lorri111 said:

But what if you are early dining and you chose to eat later?

 

If you miss your regular dining time, you can eat in the anytime dining room or Horizon Court or another dining venue.  You don't get in trouble for not showing up to your regular time.  I think on late port days, it's not uncommon.  

[lorri111]

8 minutes ago, ckb104 said:

 

If you miss your regular dining time, you can eat in the anytime dining room or Horizon Court or another dining venue.  You don't get in trouble for not showing up to your regular time.  I think on late port days, it's not uncommon.  

 

That's good to know, I didn't know that if you were trad dining you could use the anytime dining room on this occasion.

[Thrak]

When we can't make an "assigned" dining time we just eat elsewhere. It's not as if there were no other options.

[satxdiver]

On days when there is a late port departure time, they switch all MDR to anytime dining.  You can still go to your TD MDR and if your table is open they will seat you there or try to seat you at a table served by the same wait staff.  

[paul929207]

We were on the Royal in October and we overnighted in Quebec City. All MDRs were open seating that evening.

[famski740]

On our last cruise on the Regal Princess when we were set to leave port late, all dining rooms were treated as anytime dining.  We talked with our wait staff and our table arrived at our usual time and we all ate together.  At this time we did have early traditional seating and so I guess that helped.

[MCC retired]

Our  experience has been that  Anytime Dining replaced Traditional Dining for that night .

 

[-Lew-]

9 hours ago, ckb104 said:

 

If you miss your regular dining time, you can eat in the anytime dining room or Horizon Court or another dining venue.

 

9 hours ago, lorri111 said:

 

That's good to know, I didn't know that if you were trad dining you could use the anytime dining room on this occasion.

 

Those who have traditional dining should dine in the traditional dining room, Horizon Court, International Cafe, Alfredos, or a specialty restaurant.  There are plenty of options without creating congestion in one of the anytime dining rooms.

[sunsetbeachgal]

Just got off the Royal and had a 9:30 PM port departure.  on that night all dining rooms were open seating, including the traditional dining room. Our regular table in the traditional DR was occupied when we arrived so we were seated elsewhere 

Edited January 27, 2019 by sunsetbeachgal

[happy cruzer]

If you have traditional early seating and need to go late -say 8pm or later you should be able to go to the anytime dining room.  They are very empty then and will accomodate you.  This has been our experience and did not impact any other diners.

[FritzG]

10 hours ago, famski740 said:

On our last cruise on the Regal Princess when we were set to leave port late, all dining rooms were treated as anytime dining.  We talked with our wait staff and our table arrived at our usual time and we all ate together.  At this time we did have early traditional seating and so I guess that helped.

Usually our td waiter will hold our table for us if we let him know that we will be at dinner at our regular time.  

[PSCSkipper]

Our experience with traditional dining has been that our waiter or the head waiter would come by our table the evening before a late port night and tell us what the deal will be the next night.  If we not getting off the ship or coming back early we would let them know and they would hold our regular table for us.

[OzKiwiJJ]

We had this twice on one cruise last year. We had late traditional dining. The first night was a complete debacle as all the early diners were occupying most of the tables at the time we normally dined. We were seated at a large table where the others were almost finished their meal and had to put up with a very dirty table for our meal. We managed to get our regular table reserved for the second night, which was actually the last night of the cruise so all those on our table wanted to dine together that night.

[rdsqrl]

We had a late (11pm) sailing from Honolulu.  Botticelli, the all-traditional-dining room was closed that evening; the other two dining rooms were open for anytime dining only.  It was fine.  Your waitstaff the evening before will make sure to inform you of where to go and what is closed. 

[Colo Cruiser]

1 hour ago, PSCSkipper said:

Our experience with traditional dining has been that our waiter or the head waiter would come by our table the evening before a late port night and tell us what the deal will be the next night.  If we not getting off the ship or coming back early we would let them know and they would hold our regular table for us.

Same for us.

[Shmoo here]

19 hours ago, satxdiver said:

On days when there is a late port departure time, they switch all MDR to anytime dining.  You can still go to your TD MDR and if your table is open they will seat you there or try to seat you at a table served by the same wait staff.  

That's how it was handled on our past cruises.  All dining rooms became anytime and you could eat in any of them, whenever you wished.

 

Our last Princess cruise (with the changed dining times), the traditional dining times stood.  If you were late back onboard (due to excursion, or just didn't get back onboard early enough) you had to use alternative dining.  We opted for burgers on deck that evening.  

[geoherb]

On our British Isles cruise, they had several nights where the traditional dining room was turned into anytime dining. We arranged to eat with our tablemates twice, meeting ahead of time so that we could show up together. Once they had given our table to another group, so we ended up with different waiters. Another night, we ate with a couple we had met on a previous cruise. It was nice to have a meal with them.

 

I'm not sure why Princess decided to make some nights anytime for all and others not. We had one departure that was later than another one that they turned into anytime dining.