TRADITIONAL DINING vs. ANYTIME DINING

[Cindy]

Late traditional dining has worked well for us on all our cruises. I enjoy the experience of eating with the same group each night and getting to know the waitstaff. I'm kind of a creature of habit -- I would think twice about booking a cruise if I couldn't get a reservation for traditional dining. Of course, I'd probably think twice and then go anyway!:D

[wrecks]

If you have late seating tradional and there is a show you want to see, just tell your waitstaff that you don't want to linger that particular night. As I said before, we do linger so usually do not see any shows. However, the casino is still open.:D

[TexasMom2]

I am really looking forward to my next Princess cruise (summer 2007) on the Tahitian, which has traditional only. That way I can find out if the service was poor because it was anytime dining, or if it's a Princess thing. Luckily I can sandwich in 2 more RCI cruises in between.

 

I wonder if they should only assign 1 dining room as anytime, since there seems to be a waiting list for traditional on most sailings. That probably wouldn't work either, since there was always a wait for 2 anytime dining rooms.

[Deb1113]

I travel alone and on my Golden Princess cruise the week of 1/21 I chose second seating traditional dining because I always enjoyed sitting with the same people each night, and I didn't understand what anytime dining was. I didn't realize you also could be seated at a large table with other passengers, but that each night it would be different people at your table. I thought I would be seated alone at a small table. Anyway, my second seating traditional table consisted of three British couples who were on the second week of a back to back. They were lovely people, and this is absolutely nothing against them, but they had formed a friendship the week before and very often I felt like a third wheel. The worst was the last night. None of them showed up for dinner. I assume they went to one of the speciality restaurants. So, here I was totally alone at a large table! I am able to handle those situations, but I would have liked some companionship. Now I know that if I had chosen anytime dining, that would not have happened.

[wrecks]

Deb, that can happen, unfortunately. I would suggest requesting a different table during the same time (which the staff is happy to do) or changing to anytime dining. Even as a couple, when we have sat with a group of 6 travelling together, we were alone.

TexasMom2, oh come on, you're just looking for a fight. You know by having been on these boards for so long, that the chance of bad service is not a 'Princess thing' and certainly not exclusive to any one line!

[sdlenter]

Poor Deb...

We always choose anytime dining!

on our last cruise we loved our waiters and servers and our table so much that we requested it for every night at 5:30pm. you could do that during Freestyle dinner.

[Deb1113]

Deb, that can happen, unfortunately. I would suggest requesting a different table during the same time (which the staff is happy to do) or changing to anytime dining. Even as a couple, when we have sat with a group of 6 travelling together, we were alone.

 

Wrecks - the ship was full so changing tables wasn't possible. Besides, as I said these were nice people, and I would have no way of knowing who I would be seated with. As far as changing to anytime dining, I didn't know until the end of the cruise, how that actually worked. It was only the last night when none of them came to dinner and I was alone that really bothered me.

[Deb1113]

Poor Deb...

We always choose anytime dining!

on our last cruise we loved our waiters and servers and our table so much that we requested it for every night at 5:30pm. you could do that during Freestyle dinner.

 

SD - live and learn!

[blackpool belle]

We always choose anytime dining. What could be better than eating at a time to suit yourself depending on your itinerary on any given day. Also you meet so many more people that way and if like us you hit it off with somebody on your table the first night you can always arrange between yourselves to dine together the rest of the cruise.

[Grumpy Old Fool]

We always choose traditional/first seating. The only reason is that we enjoy having dinner first, and then seeing the show.

[GORDONCHICK]

We are a little over a week away from our first sailing with Princess. We are traveling with our son who is almost 5. Late dinner isn't a realistic option for us, but we only booked a month ago. Early traditional was full, so our option was late traditional or anytime. We took anytime. And the more I think about it, I think we are really going to like it. We will eat early, take our son back to the kids program and have some time together to either enjoy a show or just each other. The only thing our son will miss is that on our last cruise (Celebrity), our assistant waiter came sprinting to the table every evening with a glass of chocolate milk for our son! The kicker is that we never once ordered it to begin with, and I was worried that our son would expect chocolate milk with dinner when we got home. Fortunately, he already understands that vacations are different from life at home!

[TNTLAMB]

We have always had traditional first seating because not only could we go to the first show but muts or alternate shows after The night life is one of our favorite parts of a cruise (we come from a town of 150) On our last cruise we were waitlisted for traditional and ended up making a standing reservation in anytime with the same team/table each night. We found after the second night as the team knew us that the service was as good or better than we ever had in traditional. One evening we delayedthe reservation as it was a later departure and still were able to walk right in as if we had traditional seating We also never once felt rushed to leave so the waiters could "set up" for the next sitting. It was very relaxing to say the least. On the down side despite claims the menu was the same we didn't get Bannanas Foster:( as friends did in traditional and missed the Baked Alaska Parade. Our wait team did get us both by the end of the cruise with only a slight pout from DW. Unless not having Bannanas Foster or the Baked Alaska would ruin our cruise we're anytime with a "traditional" flavor now. I don't think its anything to worry about you can have it your way. On negative tone you'll really regret traditional dining on a full ship where you can not change table mates if you get one of those constant petty complainers that frequent these boards.:D

[Golfette]

Anytime dining was a joke on Princess when we traveled in October. I would take Traditional any time. At least you won't be eating in the buffet every nite like we did.

[TexasMom2]

Deb, that can happen, unfortunately. I would suggest requesting a different table during the same time (which the staff is happy to do) or changing to anytime dining. Even as a couple, when we have sat with a group of 6 travelling together, we were alone.

TexasMom2, oh come on, you're just looking for a fight. You know by having been on these boards for so long, that the chance of bad service is not a 'Princess thing' and certainly not exclusive to any one line!

 

Go back and read the reviews of the Grand Dec 17-24 and not just mine, the others. I'm pretty sure you weren't on the ship with me, so I'll let you in on something. We couldn't get iced tea (not refills) to save our lives. Sometimes dinner would be over and we still would be drinking out of the same water glass without a refill. I've only sailed 3 times, but my other 2 cruises offered outstanding service, so I have a clue about what I was not receiving.

[JoniPoni]

I've done both traditional and Personal Choice. Liked them both -- each has its positives, as you can see by the various answers! :cool:

 

I was disappointed when I was first assigned Personal Choice, but it ended up working just fine. I (and my travel companion) both like to eat early, so we showed up anywhere between 5:30 and 6:30 depending on how our day went ... and were seated right away and enjoyed meeting lots of people. The flexibility was great (we certainly had the option to wait awhile if we were late getting back from shore, just not hungry yet, etc.) Service was good; maybe not as personal as traditional, but in a nice restaurant you don't have that either.

 

Traditional is nice for the closer friendships you make. Last cruise, we had early traditional, and had made out with each other ahead of time, that if we got a table full of CLUNKS, we would just switch to PC. Sometime during the week, the topic came up and everyone at the table admitted they had said the same thing!!! :D However, it was a WONDERFUL group of people, and they all truly made the cruise for us.

 

I have never eaten in the buffet at night, with either traditional or PC. Why on earth would you feel you'd have to do that???

[A&G]

Hang on, have I understood correctly. Is this thread telling me that Princess has only one entertainment show per night and the entire ships tries to crowd into that one...or have I read that wrong?

Alan

[TNTLAMB]

You read it wrong. Occasionaly a show will be early one night and late another. Some lounge shows are only once but are always later. With food planning and obsesiveness you may even get in three shows in a night. If you have a question about a show that is only once - ask most are repeated. There are unfortunatly a number of folks who think the ship schedule should revolve around their schedule and you may be picking up on that. Others have the impression they are mor important tahn anyone else on the ship and therefor should never have to wait for anything. Of course we would all like to be first for everything and always have the best seats.

[TexasMom2]

[quote name='TNTLAMB']There are unfortunatly a number of folks who think the ship schedule should revolve around their schedule and you may be picking up on that. Others have the impression they are mor important tahn anyone else on the ship and therefor should never have to wait for anything. Of course we would all like to be first for everything and always have the best seats.[/quote]

I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. These boards are for sharing information that will help other cruisers. Some people have perfect experiences, others have not so perfect ones. If I hadn't read on these boards about the tendering problems at GC, I would not have known to get in line extra early for tickets and would have been one of the poor souls waiting hours and possibly not getting off the ship. These folks were bashed for complaining, but the fact that they posted here sure helped me out. So it stands to reason, if anytime dining is different from ship to ship, and sailings are different even on the same ship, that all the information that someone can get about the subject can only be helpful with making plans. I wanted traditional but couldn't get it, even 11 months in advance. The only reservations available were 5:30 and 9:00. Our longest wait was one hour, the average was 15-20 minutes, on a sea day we walked right in at 6:00 pm. People are reporting on other ships that they never had a wait, no matter what time they went to dinner. This type of information will help people when they look at their patters to figure out what time they must get to dinner if they want to see a particular show or event that evening. It's OK if your experience isn't perfect, sometimes it helps others to know.

[Dolphins]

I really liked the variety of free-style dining on NCL with ten different restaurants and selecting your time and company. Personal choice on Princess is the closest thing any other cruise line offers.