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

[fatbird]

DR- dining room, TD- traditional dining, DMW- dine my way

[wowzz]

Just got off a P&O ship.

One MDR was given over to TD, with 18:30 and 20:30 dining times.   

The other MDR was solely for AT dining.  Worked easily - why did Princess feel the need to tinker ?

[Thrak]

2 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

One - as in a guest cannot do this.  All you can do is make the request to DR mgmt and remind them Princess is promising TD experience.  What I was saying - combined with prior post(s) - was that Princess has to setup TD manually from guest requests - just like they did prior to DMW.  Only way it can work.

 

 

2 hours ago, ImperialLady said:

Thanks for all the information you give out. I sincerely appreciate it. I have a request.

Would you please explain what all the abbreviations mean. I guess, but am never SURE. Thanks

 

 

DR mgmt:  Dining Room Management

 

TD:  Traditional Dining

 

DMW:  Dine My Way

[ImperialLady]

19 minutes ago, Thrak said:

 

 

 

DR mgmt:  Dining Room Management

 

TD:  Traditional Dining

 

DMW:  Dine My Way

thank you....so Dine My Way the same as Anytime Dining

[Thrak]

31 minutes ago, ImperialLady said:

thank you....so Dine My Way the same as Anytime Dining

 

Except that they allow you to make a reservation in advance for the same time, same dining room, etc. each night and then apparently ignore the details of the reservation and the whole thing turns into a giant mess.

 

I was able to reserve the same dining room and same time for each night of my upcoming cruise. In theory I should be able to have the same table each night. In practice it seems (according to others who are reporting here on CC) that nothing I have "reserved" is actually of any consequence to those who are running the dining rooms.

[that]

19 minutes ago, Thrak said:

 

Except that they allow you to make a reservation in advance for the same time, same dining room, etc. each night and then apparently ignore the details of the reservation and the whole thing turns into a giant mess.

 

I was able to reserve the same dining room and same time for each night of my upcoming cruise. In theory I should be able to have the same table each night. In practice it seems (according to others who are reporting here on CC) that nothing I have "reserved" is actually of any consequence to those who are running the dining rooms.

that has been my experience

[Tedferg]

1 hour ago, Thrak said:

I should be able to have the same table each night.

I am not sure same table is implied in DMW.

They did ask about reservations last week on Majestic. I think you are right that many people make reservations after seeing problems on first night and then forget what time / DR etc.

I think, as you said, DMW is AT with the facility to make a reservation. Maybe Princess thought a lot of AT would not make reservations and now most people are making reservations, making it hard to manage.

[Steelers36]

3 hours ago, ImperialLady said:

thank you....so Dine My Way the same as Anytime Dining

It most closely associates with AT dining when you book individual nights in advance or on board.  AT originally was walk-up when want to eat, although the Dine Line took same-day reservations I believe on a limited basis.

 

1 hour ago, Tedferg said:

I am not sure same table is implied in DMW.

They did ask about reservations last week on Majestic. I think you are right that many people make reservations after seeing problems on first night and then forget what time / DR etc.

I think, as you said, DMW is AT with the facility to make a reservation. Maybe Princess thought a lot of AT would not make reservations and now most people are making reservations, making it hard to manage.

Yes, Same Table is implied when making a full voyage booking option in DMW.

 

I am not so sure Princess expected few guests to use DMW to make a res.  I think it squarely lands on a complete miscommunication/misunderstanding between the business and IT team as to what the full requirements were to provide TD experience. 

 

It could also be that the wrong people were explaining TD requirements to IT. 

It could be the IT analysts had no concept of TD experience and were unable to question or probe the business as to what they were after. 

It could also be that it was well understood and a smart IT analyst told them no-can-do and Princess mgmt told them to do what they could. 

 

It's all pure speculation as Princess is 100% mum on what the actual functional delivery was to be from DMW in regards to TD experience, so we guests - the end user - don't know who to turn to for a solution. Is the root cause Princess business side who missed the mark completely?  Or is it less than competent IT resources who had an impossible task and didn't clearly communicate the limitations of a software solution?  All Princess has informed us is via their website marketing that promised to maintain TD bookings when DMW was implemented and to provide the TD experience going forward.  And all we know is there was a massive failure.

[Steelers36]

6 hours ago, ImperialLady said:

Thanks for all the information you give out. I sincerely appreciate it. I have a request.

Would you please explain what all the abbreviations mean. I guess, but am never SURE. Thanks

I am happy that other CC posters have responded to your inquiry before I saw this.

 

One more - AT = Anytime Dining (or ATD).

 

MC App = MedallionClass App.

Edited April 14, 2022 by Steelers36

[Astro Flyer]

6 hours ago, Thrak said:

In practice it seems (according to others who are reporting here on CC) that nothing I have "reserved" is actually of any consequence to those who are running the dining rooms.

That was my experience with reservations that were made last June as soon as DMW reservations were available…hopefully you’ll have a much better experience.

[worldtraveller]

On 3/29/2022 at 10:00 PM, 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.

I have been having the same issue.  I have reentered my address and still have the issue.  Some questions if anyone knows:

Does the state have to be written out or is the abbreviation OK?

Zip or zip + 4 or does it matter?

If there are multiple people who are on the reservation do they all have to be "correct"?

If it still doesn't work who do I call or email for help?

 

Thank you

[FlaMariner]

22 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

the main ones (CG & Sabi's) seem to be busy a lot anyway.

 

That's good to hear.....Whenever we would walk by them in the evenings, they seemed vacant and was thinking they had lots of unused capacity.....but we were on the TA and perhaps that's not a typical cruise. Or perhaps the time we were walking by in the evening.

 

 

[Roberto256]

16 hours ago, wowzz said:

Just got off a P&O ship.

One MDR was given over to TD, with 18:30 and 20:30 dining times.   

The other MDR was solely for AT dining.  Worked easily - why did Princess feel the need to tinker ?

That sounds SO complicated.   I wonder if Princess could ever implement something like that?!?

🙂

 

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, FlaMariner said:

 

That's good to hear.....Whenever we would walk by them in the evenings, they seemed vacant and was thinking they had lots of unused capacity.....but we were on the TA and perhaps that's not a typical cruise. Or perhaps the time we were walking by in the evening.

 

 

I was going by their popularity and more recent postings about it being difficult to book space.  It maybe that very early or late it isn't bad.  I hope we can decide on board as before and not have to book weeks ahead of time.  Never had a problem in the past.

[wowzz]

14 minutes ago, Roberto256 said:

That sounds SO complicated.   I wonder if Princess could ever implement something like that?!?

🙂

 

Not sure why it is complicated.  If you have TD, you go to the TD dining room at your appointed time.

If you have ATD, you go to the other dining room any time you choose. What could be simpler ?  

[Roberto256]

1 minute ago, wowzz said:

Not sure why it is complicated.  If you have TD, you go to the TD dining room at your appointed time.

If you have ATD, you go to the other dining room any time you choose. What could be simpler ?  

You seem to have missed the smiley face in my post.

 

To be clear, my comments were sarcastic.

 

[ImperialLady]

11 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

I am happy that other CC posters have responded to your inquiry before I saw this.

 

One more - AT = Anytime Dining (or ATD).

 

MC App = MedallionClass App.

Thank you. Everyone is being so helpful  and it sure relieves my anxiety.

[wowzz]

3 minutes ago, Roberto256 said:

You seem to have missed the smiley face in my post.

 

To be clear, my comments were sarcastic.

 

Whoops  - sorry !

Should have noticed your smiley !!,

[Astro Flyer]

2 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

I was going by their popularity and more recent postings about it being difficult to book space.  It maybe that very early or late it isn't bad.  I hope we can decide on board as before and not have to book weeks ahead of time.  Never had a problem in the past.

With so many recent promotions including a specialty dinner reservations have been more difficult to make. And with DMW not accepting the free dinner it’s more of a hassle.
 

At the beginning of our recent cruise we wanted to book Sabatini’s & could only get a 1730 reservation on the last night of the cruise & by 1800 it was full. We also wanted to book CG on the first night & reading about some who were unable to get a specialty dinner during their cruise pre-paid because DMW did not accept our free dinner. On the 1st day of our 2 weeks requested either OBC or c/c refund & they said a refund within 2 weeks. As 2 weeks approached with no c/c credit returned to GS & they begrudgingly gave me a refundable OBC. it was a big hassle to get it done & likely won’t do this again because they make it so difficult to correct.

[Turk1]

Just completed cruise on Enchanted Princess. We had "booked" the same dining room (Amalfi) at a Private table at the same time each night. The first night we were not happy with te Wait Staff so we went back the 2nd night and had a different table with different wait staff. We enjoyed the location and the staff. We noticed that there was a table in the same area by the window no one used the entire night. Made note of the table number and requested that on our way out for the entire cruise. We were able to get the same table, same staff and same time each night. Was just like having TD. We did have to stop on our way in so they could make sure the table was ready. Most of the comments we heard from the DR staff was that they also did not like the DMW. It did slow down the DR every night with people lining up to get a table. TD would have been much faster.

[memoak]

Does anyone know if club class lunch is open on embarkation day like it was in the past ?

[Steelers36]

17 minutes ago, memoak said:

Does anyone know if club class lunch is open on embarkation day like it was in the past ?

There is a MDR lunch on embarkation.  It is always been Deck 6 Mid-Ship in my experience and that is also where Club Class section is located.

[memoak]

1 hour ago, Steelers36 said:

There is a MDR lunch on embarkation.  It is always been Deck 6 Mid-Ship in my experience and that is also where Club Class section is located.

That has been my experience also but have read a few threads here where they say that CC was not open due to lack of staff

[Tedferg]

Regarding complimentary SD, we did not try to book pre-cruise because of the problems discussed here on CC. First day there was card in the cabin for Harmony a few days later. Went to Crown Grill and changed reservation there, not many options. The point that stood out was that the manager had to go through screen after screen before he could find a slot for us. Clearly DMW was not easy for him either.

[Astro Flyer]

1 hour ago, memoak said:

That has been my experience also but have read a few threads here where they say that CC was not open due to lack of staff

Checking Patters for Discovery’s first 2 cruises it shows Skagway (6-midship) open for Club Class on both embarkation days between noon & 1330.

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Astro Flyer