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

[13cheermom]

34 minutes ago, memoak said:

When were you promised a “private” table ?

When I originally entered the dining reservation request n the app, it gives the option of private party of 2 or with others.  However in one of the dining rooms their private table for 2 was the banquet seating on one side with chairs opposite and tables were about 12" apart.  It made it difficult to even slide in to sit down on the bench seating (and I am a smaller build woman).  My 6' 4" husband would not have been able to do so.  This is the same layout of seating prior to Covid.

[cruisingram1]

31 minutes ago, memoak said:

When were you promised a “private” table ?

The DMW app gave me the option for a private table for 4. Before confirming it said “Note: this table will be exclusive to you and your party “. That’s private in my book It said every day. I have the screenshot.  Bottom of page said CONFIRM RESERVATION.  Which I did. Only one night was reserved as a private table. The rest split us up. If app doesn’t work like it says it does, what’s the point of the app. 

[minnesotasisu]

During our cruise on the Enchanted Princess about 3 weeks ago we discovered that my wife was not able to make or revise dinner reservations on her MedallionClass app because it did not have the Dine My Way option! We don't know if this was a glitch in the system or is only the primary traveler given this control?

 

So I look at the app now for our cruise a year from now and I have the DMW link on the app but my wife does not. Can anyone confirm whether only one person within the party has this option?

Edited March 27, 2022 by minnesotasisu

[memoak]

1 hour ago, 13cheermom said:

When I originally entered the dining reservation request n the app, it gives the option of private party of 2 or with others.  However in one of the dining rooms their private table for 2 was the banquet seating on one side with chairs opposite and tables were about 12" apart.  It made it difficult to even slide in to sit down on the bench seating (and I am a smaller build woman).  My 6' 4" husband would not have been able to do so.  This is the same layout of seating prior to Covid.

You seemed to think that private meant there would be no other tables near you.  What you got is exactly what tables look like in most restaurants today

[Steelers36]

7 hours ago, cruisingram1 said:

Tried this and now it’s worse. Hoping to sort out tomorrow with Princess CS. Weekend staff can’t fix per CS. I went into DMW and selected same time each day for our party of four. Voila! There it was!! Option for Dining for 4 at a private table at 5:40 each day. Read the details 5 times before hitting CONFIRM! (And screenshot the page before hitting confirm!). It moves to next page and shows our table for 4 on First night all together private table. Excellent! Click on second night expecting to see same. 😩😩Second night has us split at different tables. So does third night. Fourth night we have two reservations in same dining room. One private. One shared. Nights 5-7 are split also. So went from 7 nights scattered all over but in private table to this mess. I’m hopeful someone at Princess can make some sense of this. It’s the only way to get reservations and app is screwed up. 

I had intended to post this reply yesterday, but think it failed or got lost.

 

Basically, when you go to book dining for full voyage, the system is looking at the last individual day of the voyage you viewed, or the first night by default.  If that night has the time available you are after and has a Private table the size to fit your dining party, then it will appear as though this is what you are going to get.  However, there may not be a Private table at your time for all of the nights.  So, the system will assign you the time you selected, but will indicate SPLIT party on any night it cannot find an available table for your party.  This means it has placed each couple at their own table.  Obviously, this was a dumb thing for Princess to do.  I am sure most people who formed a party to dine TOGETHER would have wanted the system to place them at a Sharing table so they would still be together at least 

 

Similarly, if the first night being referenced for your full voyage reservation only has a Split table to offer, it will look like you are going to get that for the full voyage.  But, no.  Any night there is a Private table available, you will get that.

 

Now, this does seem a bit goofy, but when you consider that lots of folks will have booked individual nights that could be random and then the possibility of selected nights in a SD restaurant, anything is possible.

 

Also, the system cannot possibly optimize seating for those selecting Shared table space, so I expect there is some "waste" there.  (It's too much to get into here, but Shared tables should be put together just a few days before the cruise like it used to be).

 

Another huge contributing factor is that Princess has generally loaded only one DR into DMW for future voyages and as more and more people book, the demand is exceeding the supply.  I am not even sure the system is preventing non-Platinum and non-Elites from booking ahead of final payment date.  I have seen posts indicating additional DR space is opened up closer to sail date - perhaps after FP Date (just a SWAG there).  All this creates much frustration and angst.

 

 

In my own case, I had a mix of Private and Split for weeks/months, until one time I was able to get all Private at our desired time for all 25 nights of a B2B2B.  That lasted until I re-fared to save a bundle and some of it was a re-book, so I had to start dining all over again.  Now, I have about 50-50 as I expect more people have been in making reservations compared to 3-6 months ago. 

 

I think the only solution is going to be waiting for the other DR's to be added.  DMW just isn't delivering on the Princess promise.  Good luck with getting the Traditional Dining experience.

[cruisingram1]

1 hour ago, Steelers36 said:

I had intended to post this reply yesterday, but think it failed or got lost.

 

Basically, when you go to book dining for full voyage, the system is looking at the last individual day of the voyage you viewed, or the first night by default.  If that night has the time available you are after and has a Private table the size to fit your dining party, then it will appear as though this is what you are going to get.  However, there may not be a Private table at your time for all of the nights.  So, the system will assign you the time you selected, but will indicate SPLIT party on any night it cannot find an available table for your party.  This means it has placed each couple at their own table.  Obviously, this was a dumb thing for Princess to do.  I am sure most people who formed a party to dine TOGETHER would have wanted the system to place them at a Sharing table so they would still be together at least 

 

 

Steelers36.  Thank you so much for your very thoughtful explanation. All makes sense per my situation. But what irks me is that the page that asked me to confirm very clearly stated the private table was for the entire voyage. I read the damn page many times to verify what I was clicking when I accepted.  So even though the app knew what it would eventually do, my actions would have been different had I known. In fact it’s more annoying that this might be built into the system.  I gave up a smattering of private tables, albeit not at the same time same table, based on what the app said. We chose traditional dining when booking the cruise to avoid this mess. We were fine with a 5 pm dinner if that’s what it took. And somewhere on the Princess website it says they will honor early dining requests. Hmmm… we sail next week. You are probably correct that all dining rooms are not released because I only see two options. But not much time left for them to do so. I’m hoping a live person at CS can help. Surely there’s a way to make reservations on the phone - what if I didn’t have a smart phone. And finally. A split table is not acceptable. We are sailing with friends we rarely see. Dinner is the time we really value during the cruise. And honestly, I didn’t mess with the DMW portion of the app earlier since I knew we had opted for Early Dining. Princess never told me I had to make a reservation for dinner independent of our dining choice. I assumed it was a done deal. If there’s a table the first night it should be there for subsequent nights. 
Again, thanks for your very thorough post. I’m sure it explains a lot to many here. 

[Steelers36]

13 minutes ago, cruisingram1 said:

Steelers36.  Thank you so much for your very thoughtful explanation. All makes sense per my situation. But what irks me is that the page that asked me to confirm very clearly stated the private table was for the entire voyage. I read the damn page many times to verify what I was clicking when I accepted.  So even though the app knew what it would eventually do, my actions would have been different had I known. In fact it’s more annoying that this might be built into the system.  I gave up a smattering of private tables, albeit not at the same time same table, based on what the app said. We chose traditional dining when booking the cruise to avoid this mess. We were fine with a 5 pm dinner if that’s what it took. And somewhere on the Princess website it says they will honor early dining requests. Hmmm… we sail next week. You are probably correct that all dining rooms are not released because I only see two options. But not much time left for them to do so. I’m hoping a live person at CS can help. Surely there’s a way to make reservations on the phone - what if I didn’t have a smart phone. And finally. A split table is not acceptable. We are sailing with friends we rarely see. Dinner is the time we really value during the cruise. And honestly, I didn’t mess with the DMW portion of the app earlier since I knew we had opted for Early Dining. Princess never told me I had to make a reservation for dinner independent of our dining choice. I assumed it was a done deal. If there’s a table the first night it should be there for subsequent nights. 
Again, thanks for your very thorough post. I’m sure it explains a lot to many here. 

When did you book your voyage and elect Early Traditional?  If it was after circa June 1-6, 2021, that was a meaningless piece of information.  Most/all agencies have the dining selection field as part of their booking engine.  I am not sure if PCL's POLAR system has the field active anymore.  All Princess did was convert existing bookings in POLAR prior to MC App go live in June, 2021.  Basically, I believe they put everyone who elected Early at 5pm and Late at 7pm.  Table for cabinmates only.  It was up to the guest to clean that out and make their own choices if they didn't want what Princess setup. 

 

I cannot name dates, but after the original, changes were made to DMW and I think original reservations were also messed up.  Anyway, you are not getting a dining res by virtue of making a cruise booking.

[cruisingram1]

3 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

When did you book your voyage and elect Early Traditional?  If it was after circa June 1-6, 2021, that was a meaningless piece of information.  Most/all agencies have the dining selection field as part of their booking engine.  I am not sure if PCL's POLAR system has the field active anymore.  All Princess did was convert existing bookings in POLAR prior to MC App go live in June, 2021.  Basically, I believe they put everyone who elected Early at 5pm and Late at 7pm.  Table for cabinmates only.  It was up to the guest to clean that out and make their own choices if they didn't want what Princess setup. 

 

I cannot name dates, but after the original, changes were made to DMW and I think original reservations were also messed up.  Anyway, you are not getting a dining res by virtue of making a cruise booking.

Reservation made in February 2021. And paperwork says early dining linked with our friends.  Put the paperwork away until a month or two ago. No information from either TA or Princess indicating that I needed to address dinner reservations. Will know for next time. But not a happy camper. Hoping for some help from CS.  I’m 

[Steelers36]

3 minutes ago, cruisingram1 said:

Reservation made in February 2021. And paperwork says early dining linked with our friends.  Put the paperwork away until a month or two ago. No information from either TA or Princess indicating that I needed to address dinner reservations. Will know for next time. But not a happy camper. Hoping for some help from CS.  I’m 

We originally booked in JAN 2021.  We were also linked with friends on same voyages.  No linked dining information was converted.  That is one reason why I deleted out everything Princess OCEAN team had defaulted and started fresh.  Unfortunately, what they did at first was put each set of cabinmates at a 2-top and then when they were full, they moved on to 4-tops.  Only large tables were left at first.  Another aspect to DMW design was that they were in the middle of Covid and that seemed to influence decisions for the future as well - such as dining alone.

[cruisingram1]

There is definitely a learning curve here. CS talked me through a sort of fix. We are all over the place in terms of time and dining room, but at least we are at a private table again. Save the one night using our free specialty dining from TA which had populated in the app so I did not have to pay up front. I chuckle that the app asked if I wanted a table at the window or how long I want dining to take. Like anyone cares and will access this info prior to seating us. I guess it makes Princess feel better that they asked.

 

CS guy was nice and understanding, but basically I had needed to make my reservations for a private table months ago. (OR whenever it opened) Who knew???!! As far as I was concerned I had early traditional dining so that the DMW part of the app did not apply to me. An email from my TA or Princess (or both) to explain that traditional dining did not exist anymore other than in my head would have been nice. I'm tech friendly.. I could have figured out how to make the reservations IF I knew I had to. CS explained there were few private tables left so the app just split us up. Still did not explain why the app said it was a done deal when it was not. He did not have a magic trick for overriding what was there, but picked from the same measly pickings I had open to me in the app. An assortment of rooms and times.

 

In all the hours of tossing and turning and fretting about this, I realized one thing. The wait staff will be the losers in the end. We used to tip our waiters etc extra at the end of the cruise. I know many others who did the same. But I can't imagine anyone is going to track down 7 waiters to tip at the end. With traditional dining, one would get to know a bit about each of them, their home country, family etc. After 7 days - a certain affinity. That is now missing from the cruise experience. I think that is sad. Princess should keep one dining room open for real traditional dining for those who want it.

 

I will take the opportunity after the cruise to fill out feedback forms. I realize that not everyone wants traditional dining, but what they have now does not meet the needs of everyone.

[WAvoyager]

3 hours ago, cruisingram1 said:

realized one thing. The wait staff will be the losers in the end.

Yes, sadly this is almost certainly true.  Even if it’s not a matter of tracking down all your servers (you can tip as you go), if you’re not getting the same servers, you don’t build up as much of a rapport with anyone.  We’ve found that what seems like good service on day one with a specific team of servers, is usually great service by the end of the cruise.  You just don’t get a chance to realize greatness as easily in one service.

[13cheermom]

19 hours ago, memoak said:

You seemed to think that private meant there would be no other tables near you.  What you got is exactly what tables look like in most restaurants today

I am well aware of what tables look like on cruise ships, we have been cruising for over 20 years and have seen all kinds of table set ups, thank-you!  However after Covid I had read that tables were spaced apart a little more to give that spacing that should be considered versus a large table with 4 or more passengers.  My point was if you had read thoroughly, that while I requested the "private table 2" ( Princess wording, not mine), it didn't seem to make a difference as they still tried to encourage group seating over the table for 2 options.  My issues were with the app itself and how it didn't work correctly for us, which is what this whole thread is about.  Done!

[Thrak]

Okay, this is not a DMW question but...

 

I have always wondered about the Southern Fried Chicken on the MDR menu. Is it any good or is it another example of Princess not having a clue how to make something?  Also, in my world, fried chicken is eaten with the fingers. Do people actually eat it with their fingers in the dining room or are they constrained to the awkward "knife and fork" method of consumption?

 

Yes, these are seriously things I have wondered about. I've never been seated with someone who ordered the Southern Fried Chicken and don't recall ever seeing anybody eating it - although I don't spend my time looking around the dining room at other people eating.

[MustangGT]

48 minutes ago, Thrak said:

Okay, this is not a DMW question but...

 

I have always wondered about the Southern Fried Chicken on the MDR menu. Is it any good or is it another example of Princess not having a clue how to make something?  Also, in my world, fried chicken is eaten with the fingers. Do people actually eat it with their fingers in the dining room or are they constrained to the awkward "knife and fork" method of consumption?

 

Yes, these are seriously things I have wondered about. I've never been seated with someone who ordered the Southern Fried Chicken and don't recall ever seeing anybody eating it - although I don't spend my time looking around the dining room at other people eating.

Food is subjective but my experience with the Southern Fried Chicken was not good.

Greasy and soggy - not crispy at all.  I think many people eat it with knife and fork but where’s the fun in that?

[JF - retired RRT]

18 hours ago, Thrak said:

Okay, this is not a DMW question but...

 

I have always wondered about the Southern Fried Chicken on the MDR menu. Is it any good or is it another example of Princess not having a clue how to make something?  Also, in my world, fried chicken is eaten with the fingers. Do people actually eat it with their fingers in the dining room or are they constrained to the awkward "knife and fork" method of consumption?

 

Yes, these are seriously things I have wondered about. I've never been seated with someone who ordered the Southern Fried Chicken and don't recall ever seeing anybody eating it - although I don't spend my time looking around the dining room at other people eating.

People who eat fried chicken with knife/fork in a dining room are probably concerned with "what will THEY think?"...and eat it at home w/their fingers (pinkies out).

[Tedferg]

1 hour ago, JF - retired RRT said:

People who eat fried chicken with knife/fork in a dining room are probably concerned with "what will THEY think?"...and eat it at home w/their fingers (pinkies out).

Oh Gee! I did not know about the Pinkie out. I thought that was only for drinking tea  🙂

[cvpends]

I have been trying to make specialty dining reservations for a cruise in two weeks, and every time I try, I get the error:  "Failed to make reservation.  Please update your address in personal information & documents and try again."  I deleted and re-entered my address in the app, and deleted and re-entered my credit card in the app.  Same problem.  Anyone else encounter this problem?  Just so you know I'm not a newbie, I successfully made dining (including specialty dining) reservations for my other four Princess cruises in the last few months.  This problem is new for me.

[Steelers36]

48 minutes ago, cvpends said:

I have been trying to make specialty dining reservations for a cruise in two weeks, and every time I try, I get the error:  "Failed to make reservation.  Please update your address in personal information & documents and try again."  I deleted and re-entered my address in the app, and deleted and re-entered my credit card in the app.  Same problem.  Anyone else encounter this problem?  Just so you know I'm not a newbie, I successfully made dining (including specialty dining) reservations for my other four Princess cruises in the last few months.  This problem is new for me.

Not seen that error msg.  

[Thrak]

Be sure there are no trailing spaces in any of the fields. A blank space tends to kill things so your address or whatever has the space doesn't work.

[cvpends]

6 minutes ago, Thrak said:

Be sure there are no trailing spaces in any of the fields. A blank space tends to kill things so your address or whatever has the space doesn't work.

Forgot to mention, I did that too.  It is often the problem on the app, isn't it?

[JF - retired RRT]

9 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

Not seen that error msg.  

I had that message. Re-entered ALL info using the web version and it fixed it.

[memoak]

12 hours ago, Thrak said:

Be sure there are no trailing spaces in any of the fields. A blank space tends to kill things so your address or whatever has the space doesn't work.

In the terms of an ex programmer TRIM

[cvpends]

2 hours ago, memoak said:

In the terms of an ex programmer TRIM

I also was a software engineer, so I definitely always check for that when a field that looks correct isn't accepted.  The MedallionClass app adds plenty of trailing blanks when one enters data.  Although we are required to use it, it isn't actually ready for prime time, in my opinion.  It is full of odd bugs -- like it was never tested or something.

[Astro Flyer]

Currently on Discovery & when boarding had the same time each night in Skagway. After boarding checked DMW (only on TV because app not working) to learn that the time was the same but now in Ketchikan. Today it changed our time to 1820 for tonight & tomorrow then back to 1800. No notifications about any of these changes. Unable to get same table & server despite it not being used during our 1:20 dinner.
 

Certainly far from the promises made by Princess about DMW…it was much better before DMW! And is much worse than DMW last Fall on Majestic.

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Astro Flyer

[MustangGT]

1 hour ago, Astro Flyer said:

Currently on Discovery & when boarding had the same time each night in Skagway. After boarding checked DMW (only on TV because app not working) to learn that the time was the same but now in Ketchikan. Today it changed our time to 1820 for tonight & tomorrow then back to 1800. No notifications about any of these changes. Unable to get same table & server despite it not being used during our 1:20 dinner.
 

Certainly far from the promises made by Princess about DMW…it was much better before DMW! And is much worse than DMW last Fall on Majestic.

 

So disappointed for you!  And for the rest of us who thought we were going to be able to trust Princess’s promise that we could still have a Traditional dining experience.  Unfortunately, there is no consistency throughout the fleet but I guess we all know this is the standard operating procedure with Princess. 😩