Your Time Dining Waitlisted

[Organized Chaos]

We recently booked a 5-day in early December of this year. Normally we book a good year in advance, so this was kind of a "last minute" thing, for us anyway. We always choose Your Time Dining an since we've booked so far in advance in the past, have always gotten it. But this time we've been waitlisted for YTD. Something we haven't experienced before. I've read a few older threads about it, but am still left with some questions.

 

First, I must say that I was surprised to see it when we booked. With about a 4-hour dining window, I didn't think YTD could fill up like that. I can see where it could happen for Early or Late, but both of those times are open for this particular cruise.

 

I guess my first question is, for those of you who've been waitlisted before, what are the odds we get YTD assigned to us? It says we'll find out during check-in on embarkation day, but is there ever a time when they notify people in advance? There's a chance that, if we had to do Early or Late, we wouldn't eat in the MDR every night. In that case, we wouldn't need to pack for it every night, so it'd be nice to know prior to the cruise.

 

Having never done Early/Late, we know nothing about it. If we had to pick, I think we'll do Early. There will be three of us. Do you have to be seated with others or can we get our own table with Early/Late? I know, I know...some people have fun meeting and dining with their tablemates, but I don't know if that's for us, so no lectures please. I do know we'd have the same wait staff every night. I think I read that you go straight to your table, you don't have to check in at all, is that right?

 

We don't have FTTF, it's sold out of course, but I will keep looking and try to catch one. I've read that FTTF folks get prioritized when they work their way through the wait list. Thanks for the help.

[Banditswife]

We have been waitlisted before.  I think there is a way to email maitre' d prior to sail date.  Hopefully someone will come on here & give you instructions on that.  If all else fails, you can go to main dining room on embarkation day & talk to them there.  Guest services will let you know when they are available.  We did this & were able to get our dining time changed.  If you end up at a set time dining, you can usually get a table for your own group.  

[Stallion]

If you're Platinum or above you might get a pretty quick confirmation-happened to me within about 24 hours-but I was waitlisted for late seating. You suggested you've cruised often before

[bury me at sea]

Unless your cruise is filled with p and d cruisers, I would say your chances of clearing the wait list prior to embarkation. are fair.  If you are moved, I have a good track record of being assigned a table for two or four by e-mailing the maitre d' the week prior to cruising.

 

If you don't get reassigned prior to sailing, and meet with the maitre d' on embarkation day, your chances are very good, though the change might not be effective until the second night.

 

Though you didn't ask, after choosing YTD our first 3-4 cruises I decided to try Early Dining.  We have never looked back, and I wouldn't willingly do YTD again.

 

Hope you have a fantastic cruise.

[cruisinqt]

We want to have our two cabins seated together in the dining room. But I don’t have the email for the maitre d on our cruise on the magic. Does anyone know the email address?

[Organized Chaos]

1 hour ago, Banditswife said:

We have been waitlisted before.  I think there is a way to email maitre' d prior to sail date.  Hopefully someone will come on here & give you instructions on that.  If all else fails, you can go to main dining room on embarkation day & talk to them there.  Guest services will let you know when they are available.  We did this & were able to get our dining time changed.  If you end up at a set time dining, you can usually get a table for your own group.  

 

I've seen advice to email the maitre' d. Seems like most have said to try that pretty close to sail date, within a few days to a week. And I've read that they won't always respond, even if they get your email and grant the request. Again, that kinda stinks because we sure would like to know ahead of time. But it is what it is, we'll make it work. Early dining is right around the time we normally have supper, so we'd probably do that if it came down to it.

 

If they did allow us to get our own table, is that something we have to request ahead of time? On embarkation day? Or can it be done the first night when we get to the MDR? I'm guessing by embarkation day, they already have seating arrangements made out.

 

10 minutes ago, cruisinqt said:

We want to have our two cabins seated together in the dining room. But I don’t have the email for the maitre d on our cruise on the magic. Does anyone know the email address?

 

That's information that I did manage to find. They all have almost identical email addresses, except for two letters signifying which ship they're on. It's XXmaitred@carnival.com, but replace the two X's with the ship's code. Check out this post for your ship's code: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2509236-matrd-d-email-address/?tab=comments#comment-54060741

[Organized Chaos]

1 hour ago, Stallion said:

If you're Platinum or above you might get a pretty quick confirmation-happened to me within about 24 hours-but I was waitlisted for late seating. You suggested you've cruised often before

 

No, not Platinum, but hoping we can grab a FTTF if one becomes available. I've read that FTTF get prioritized up the wait list, but I don't know if that's true. Someone said they get pushed up the list behind P/D.

 

1 hour ago, bury me at sea said:

Unless your cruise is filled with p and d cruisers, I would say your chances of clearing the wait list prior to embarkation. are fair.  If you are moved, I have a good track record of being assigned a table for two or four by e-mailing the maitre d' the week prior to cruising.

 

If you don't get reassigned prior to sailing, and meet with the maitre d' on embarkation day, your chances are very good, though the change might not be effective until the second night.

 

Though you didn't ask, after choosing YTD our first 3-4 cruises I decided to try Early Dining.  We have never looked back, and I wouldn't willingly do YTD again.

 

Hope you have a fantastic cruise.

 

We've chosen Early for now until we find out if we get moved to YTD. We'll probably give it a try, but I don't think we'd ever switch to it permanently. We love YTD. We're not always hungry at the same time each evening. Maybe we had a late lunch or snacked and want to wait longer. We also like to see what's going on that night and schedule our meals accordingly. We're not sure if we'll try to get our own table or not. We'll talk about it some more and email the maitre' d if we decide to request our own. If we don't get any of our preferences met, it ain't the end of the world. We wouldn't let it impact the rest of the cruise.

[xtraquispe]

We booked in a June for a cruise end of August and were waitlisted YTD. I kept checking our online booking and order details tab and it showed we got assigned YTD on there after about 2 or 3 weeks!  

[coevan]

50 minutes ago, cruisinqt said:

We want to have our two cabins seated together in the dining room. But I don’t have the email for the maitre d on our cruise on the magic. Does anyone know the email address?

 

 

since this post is about YTD, you just show up when you want with your friends from the other cabin. 

[pianoplayerla]

We have been wait listed more times than not, actually. Usually, we get an email from Carnival within a few weeks of sailing confirming we have been assigned YTD. We never contact anyone in advance. I can only remember a couple of times we didn't hear from them and we just talked to the maitre'd after we got aboard and he took care of it. And, we always request a "private" table for 2. Still may be close enough to hear everyone's conversation, but you're not at the same table. 

Enjoy your cruise!!

[PhillyFan33579]

2 hours ago, cruisinqt said:

We want to have our two cabins seated together in the dining room. But I don’t have the email for the maitre d on our cruise on the magic. Does anyone know the email address?

 

This isn’t an issue if you have YTD. If you have early or late dining, you just need to call Carnival and have your bookings linked. This will get you seated at the same table in the MDR. 

[Wheels87]

I have emailed the Maitre'd for 25 of my 28 cruises and have always gotten what I asked for. I wait until the second day of the cruise right before mine...that way they have time to clear up any issues and can focus on my request. 

 

Works every time. I have only gotten a response about 20% of the time. 

[CruisingViper]

I've never done YTD so I can't say on the waitlist, but if you end up having to choose a set time, we usually do early. It's easier if you have kids. We did late one time and our son would fall asleep by the end of dinner and you miss the early family drive in movie. It's easier to do late if you don't have kids, but you might need to eat somewhat quickly if you want to catch one of the comedy or stage shows.

[chrislo]

I have been waitlisted for YTD before.  I don't wait to get reassigned I check the system multiple times a day and have always been able to switch.  I would think you will have similar luck.

[Organized Chaos]

It's only been a week since we booked, so I'm hoping that we'll get switched to YTD automatically in the coming weeks. I've been checking it every day hoping to see the change. If not, I'll email the Maitre' D and see what happens.

 

Our son is in his late teens, so we don't have to worry about kids falling asleep during late dinner. If it comes down to not being allowed to switch, we'll do Early dining because it's closer to our normal mealtime at home and I'd rather leave the rest of the evening open for whatever. It's just not what we prefer since we sometimes have a late lunch or aren't hungry because of afternoon snacking. I guess we'll just have to be more conscience of when we eat lunch if we do have to have Early dinner.

Edited August 6, 2019 by Organized Chaos

[djmckinn]

I'm sailing at the end of the week and have been wait-listed for YTD since we signed up. I emailed the Maitre'd as suggested but received and email today that says the request was not accepted and we are still assigned for Late Dining. Hopefully I can still get switched to YTD by talking to them when we get there. What are the chances we can get switched?

[DallasGuy75219]

1 hour ago, djmckinn said:

I'm sailing at the end of the week and have been wait-listed for YTD since we signed up. I emailed the Maitre'd as suggested but received and email today that says the request was not accepted and we are still assigned for Late Dining. Hopefully I can still get switched to YTD by talking to them when we get there. What are the chances we can get switched?

Probably not very good if you don't have any kind of priority status.

[RaiderDuck]

On our Splendor sailing a few years ago, we were waitlisted for YTD. Since that's what we really wanted, here's how we got it:

 

As soon as the ship sailed, we asked around and were told a maitre'd would have to approve the switch from assigned to YTD. Since it can be ANY maitre'd, we went to the maitre'd of the assigned restaurant, figuring we'd have better luck asking the person whose workload we were reducing, as opposed to the person whose workload we'd be increasing. The switch was approved. The first time we went to the YTD dining room, we told them that the maitre'd of the other dining room had approved the switch. They verified that on their computers, and we were never hassled about it again.

[jlabs03]

My last cruise was over spring break and I booked it three weeks before sailing.  Needless to say all dinging times were waitlisted by the time I purchased my cruise.  I chose YTD and lucked out and got FTTF.  I did get an email about a week before sailing that stated I would be assigned a dinning time once on board.  Once on board I was assigned YTD. FTTF gets priority after D & P, I did call and verify this, also since I booked so close to sailing and the cruise was almost sold out by this time (less than 10 rooms available) I was probably pretty far down the waitlist so without FTTF I do not think I would have gotten YTD.

[Organized Chaos]

I'm hoping we don't have to wait until embarkation day. I don't want to be wondering right up until check-in which one we'll get. FTTF is sold out, but I'm checking several times a day.

[hotsauce126]

I've been waitlisted for every cruise that I've selected YTD and every time have gotten off the waitlist well in advance

[ober134]

Keep watching your cruise manager. We were once waitlisted, but few weeks prior to sailing I saw YTD pop up as available...

[RandomUser123]

I did not realize that was even possible to be wait listed for YTD dining. I guess it makes sense since more convenient to eat when you want to and not have to settle for a specific time each night. 

[Organized Chaos]

5 hours ago, RandomUser123 said:

I did not realize that was even possible to be wait listed for YTD dining. I guess it makes sense since more convenient to eat when you want to and not have to settle for a specific time each night. 

 

I thought the same thing, but I still can't make much sense of it. There's so many tables/chair available and I can understand the Early or Late time filling up, but with YTD, there's a 4 hour window to dine. Some people will eat at the same time each night, but many won't. There's a lot of randomness to YTD. So with that 4 hour window, it's hard to believe it could fill up. But I guess it's becoming more popular.

[PhillyFan33579]

2 hours ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

I thought the same thing, but I still can't make much sense of it. There's so many tables/chair available and I can understand the Early or Late time filling up, but with YTD, there's a 4 hour window to dine. Some people will eat at the same time each night, but many won't. There's a lot of randomness to YTD. So with that 4 hour window, it's hard to believe it could fill up. But I guess it's becoming more popular.

 

I never thought much about this until reading this thread a few times now, but I assume Carnival has statistics they analyze on when people tend to eat using YTD.  Like you mentioned there is a 4 hour window, but what happens in the extremely unlikely situation that everyone with YTD shows up to eat within 15-30 minutes of each other. Pretty interesting topic the more I think about it.