Dine My Way & all new Dining questions since cruising restart!!

[seachelt]

3 hours ago, Astro Flyer said:

 

This was posted on a Princess board thread & more than one person reported receiving the same info from the Princess Twitter (X) account.

 

Okay thanks. So now we have another date. I'll try again July 1.

seachelt

[Lorenky]

I haven’t gotten any emails or notifications regarding this for my cruise booked in January. Are they only sending notifications to people whose dining reservations were canceled?

[canadarocks]

@PescadoAmarillo has just shared the email she and I just received in the Dining Reservations thread. I’m assuming everyone will be getting that same email very soon. 

[lstone19]

2 minutes ago, Lorenky said:

I haven’t gotten any emails or notifications regarding this for my cruise booked in January. Are they only sending notifications to people whose dining reservations were canceled?

 

I just received the email. We're booked B2B2B on Sun Princess next March. The booking number in the email is the first of the three booking numbers. Plus I thought Sun Princess wasn't caught up in this mess since it's supposedly already on the new system with them opening up reservations slowly.

[Astro Flyer]

Dear Valued Princess Guest:  We wanted to inform you of a change regarding our main dining reservations. Due to an unanticipated delay in finalizing our app update, the ability to book reservations has been delayed. The new date for reservations is now set for July 1. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding and patience.  As previously announced, starting with voyages departing September 14, 2024, Princess will designate separate dining rooms aboard every ship in the fleet to three table service options:  Traditional dining offering an early and a late seating every evening  Reservable dining times  Open seating to support walk-ins anytime  Once updates are complete, you will be able to use the app ahead of your voyage to opt for traditional seating in a dedicated dining room with the same waiter, same table and same time each night, or flexible dining, allowing you to enjoy dinner at any available time and table size of your choosing in either the Reservable or Open Seating dining rooms.  Thank you for your continued support.

[Sea Hag]

2 minutes ago, canadarocks said:

@PescadoAmarillo has just shared the email she and I just received in the Dining Reservations thread. I’m assuming everyone will be getting that same email very soon. 

I just got that email, and I'm standing by, eagerly anticipating the timely and well-working completion of this. I'm sure it's going to be perfect, whenever they get it launched. Hah! 🤣😂

[suzyed]

22 minutes ago, Astro Flyer said:

 

Dear Valued Princess Guest:  We wanted to inform you of a change regarding our main dining reservations. Due to an unanticipated delay in finalizing our app update, the ability to book reservations has been delayed. The new date for reservations is now set for July 1. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding and patience.  As previously announced, starting with voyages departing September 14, 2024, Princess will designate separate dining rooms aboard every ship in the fleet to three table service options:  Traditional dining offering an early and a late seating every evening  Reservable dining times  Open seating to support walk-ins anytime  Once updates are complete, you will be able to use the app ahead of your voyage to opt for traditional seating in a dedicated dining room with the same waiter, same table and same time each night, or flexible dining, allowing you to enjoy dinner at any available time and table size of your choosing in either the Reservable or Open Seating dining rooms.  Thank you for your continued support.

Just got this one too!
Funny enough, I had just been on X 15 minutes earlier and mentioned that they should be informing their customers of the change....and there it was!

Edited June 19 by suzyed

[Gunner 66]

Got the same email from Princess.....won't matter if you need to make full payment first.😒

[Kay S]

1 hour ago, seachelt said:

Okay thanks. So now we have another date. I'll try again July 1.

seachelt

Or July 2 or 3 or august 31. Good old Princess IT. 

[MsSoCalCruiser]

4 hours ago, Astro Flyer said:

 

This was posted on a Princess board thread & more than one person reported receiving the same info from the Princess Twitter (X) account.

 

I’m shocked 😂

[Lorenky]

Does anyone know when the theater productions generally are? We want to time our dining so that we make sure we can attend one of the theater times each night.

[canadarocks]

8 minutes ago, Lorenky said:

Does anyone know when the theater productions generally are? We want to time our dining so that we make sure we can attend one of the theater times each night.

They were at 7:30 & 9:30 this year on the Emerald

[arxcards]

21 hours ago, wintrev said:

We are sailing on September 15 on the Coral from Australia. We have paid in full and are both in a suite and Elite and we don’t have access to any dining times other than Speciality. I will not book our free embarkation dinner in a speciality restaurant as it is ridiculous that I have to pay and then go to guest services to get my money back as OBC. 
So it seems that qualifying for all the things Princess is telling people is incorrect!

You depart the day after the new system comes into effect. Good luck!

As with everyone else in your shoes, it looks like 1st July is now your date.

 

They keep a number of sittings aside for 1st night suite specialty dining. Also, if it is busy on night one, they will be flexible to switch to another night. There is not a heap of suites on Coral, so you should be looked after. For all your other nights, for reserve collection you just do walk-up and are comfortably accommodated.

[wintrev]

6 hours ago, arxcards said:

You depart the day after the new system comes into effect. Good luck!

As with everyone else in your shoes, it looks like 1st July is now your date.

 

They keep a number of sittings aside for 1st night suite specialty dining. Also, if it is busy on night one, they will be flexible to switch to another night. There is not a heap of suites on Coral, so you should be looked after. For all your other nights, for reserve collection you just do walk-up and are comfortably accommodated.

Thanks Geoff.

As this is a celebration cruise for us and our friends (we are celebrating all four of us being officially retired) thought it would be nice to start the cruise with a special dinner. Glad we have reserve dining as I am not going to spend my time hoping that Princess do launch the dining app on time. Reckon it will probably crash in the first hour!

 

Edited June 19 by wintrev

[amajaa]

Just docked this morning so have data and had an email saying booking dining is delayed until the 1st July. We will be home by then so will be easier than keep having to check onboard. 

[memoak]

12 hours ago, arxcards said:

You depart the day after the new system comes into effect. Good luck!

As with everyone else in your shoes, it looks like 1st July is now your date.

 

They keep a number of sittings aside for 1st night suite specialty dining. Also, if it is busy on night one, they will be flexible to switch to another night. There is not a heap of suites on Coral, so you should be looked after. For all your other nights, for reserve collection you just do walk-up and are comfortably accommodated.

We have never had an issue booking embarkation night dining while in suites. Just call the dine line when you board. Our tradition is Sabatini’s on that night   If they told me it was booked I would question the “guarantee” in suite benefits 

 

[robsaw]

On 6/17/2024 at 5:08 PM, robsaw said:

Until about 30 minutes ago (5PM PDT) both the Princess App and the webversion of the app were EXTREMELY slow. Prior to 1/2 hour ago tried to enter dining reservations and got error about "Fully paid or Platinum ..."  I AM fully paid and platinum.

 

Now it looks like it did a couple of days  ago, dining just greyed-out. Most likely such an IT disaster that Princess has had to back the new system out.

 

Poor form to quote oneself, but my prediction of the IT disaster appears to have been correct. Not exactly a disaster but certainly a failure.

[Lorenky]

Can anyone tell me what times are the early and late dining options? Is it better to just pick an actual time each day? Thanks. 

[Kay S]

3 hours ago, Lorenky said:

Can anyone tell me what times are the early and late dining options? Is it better to just pick an actual time each day? Thanks. 

No one knows yet what the set dining times will be.  The new system starts in September.  My guess would be early fixed seating a 5:30 and late  fixed seating at 7:15, but that's just a guess.  If you want to eat at a specific time each day (say, 6:30) then you could make reservations for that dining room every day, but you will not have an assigned table and waiters like you would for fixed seating.  Or you can just show up every day at the same time to the walk-up dining room. 

[memoak]

19 minutes ago, Kay S said:

No one knows yet what the set dining times will be.  The new system starts in September.  My guess would be early fixed seating a 5:30 and late  fixed seating at 7:15, but that's just a guess.  If you want to eat at a specific time each day (say, 6:30) then you could make reservations for that dining room every day, but you will not have an assigned table and waiters like you would for fixed seating.  Or you can just show up every day at the same time to the walk-up dining room. 

I would be a late ding time would be much later. Lots of those large tables will take at least 2 hours for dinner and maybe longer. I would say more like 7:45 at least 

[arxcards]

7 hours ago, memoak said:

We have never had an issue booking embarkation night dining while in suites. Just call the dine line when you board. Our tradition is Sabatini’s on that night   If they told me it was booked I would question the “guarantee” in suite benefits 

 

We have had issues, but only on shorter cruises. On Coral Princess in Australia, everything was cruisey until the premier packages came along. Just a perfect storm of short cruises with a bunch of passengers holding 2 x specialty vouchers and limited capacity of Bayou/Sabatini's. With advance booking via the app, the specialty restaurants were sold out prior to boarding on one of the short coastal relocations we did. Suites had allocated space and were indeed catered for.

[Astro Flyer]

4 hours ago, Lorenky said:

Can anyone tell me what times are the early and late dining options? Is it better to just pick an actual time each day? Thanks. 

Before eliminating TD, early was about 5:15 to 6:00 and late about 7:30 to 8:15 however there’s no way to predict the new times.

 

[Lorenky]

Thank you, one more question, if we choose a dining time like early or late, can we also make reservations for specific dining times on certain days? That would be ideal. But maybe we don’t know that yet?

[Kay S]

45 minutes ago, Lorenky said:

Thank you, one more question, if we choose a dining time like early or late, can we also make reservations for specific dining times on certain days? That would be ideal. But maybe we don’t know that yet?

If you do traditional fixed dining, you choose early or late and that's it for the cruise.  If you do reservations, you can't do traditional fixed dining.  Walk-up should be available any time, but you might have to wait for a table.  However, who knows what the rules will be when they get around to actually doing the switch.  I'm thinking you might be happier with the reservations plan rather than fixed dining.

[Expo67]

41 minutes ago, Lorenky said:

Thank you, one more question, if we choose a dining time like early or late, can we also make reservations for specific dining times on certain days? That would be ideal. But maybe we don’t know that yet?

Good question. My guess would be Princess would prefer anyone selecting traditional dining to have that dining option for the entire cruise. That being said under the new system you can perhaps make a separate reservation onboard on a few nights or in worst case go to the dining room with the walk up dining option. Personally over the decades of our cruising starting out with only traditional and progressing to where we are at now I am wondering when will the cruiselines realize that no matter how many options for dining are available there are always going to people that want something different. I am not sure how they can top traditional, anytime reservations, walk up with no reservations, specialty dining, buffet dining, room service dining, as well as the international cafe offerings, and other casual dining options like pizza and grill items. However I am sure they will come up with something like doubling the number of special dessert offerings or charging for items from the international cafe or including it free as part of the plus or premier packages. As my wife said many years ago … rest assured there will be a day when the only non charge dining will be the buffet and all other dining will come with a price attached.