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

[JF - retired RRT]

5 hours ago, richstowe said:

I'm disappointed . Months ago I booked Reserve for the same time each day option using the Dine My Way . I looked at the first night and the second and assumed that picking this option meant what it said . Wrong! Today I looked up my reservations while booking the Crown Grill and only  the first night is reserved . Now all options are either way too early or too late . I called Princess up but nada . The agent wasn't rude but said it was on me for assuming anything .

I now realize that dine same time each day option isn't . Lesson learnt .

I noticed the same thing and went through each day...why can't they make it do what it says?

[doog442]

First time Princess and now I'm confused (not difficult). We cruise on Friday and I definitely booked Amalfi for the first night at 1900hrs. I decided to book the same time and dining room for 14 days. It was 'saved' but saved where ? Can anyone help as when I go back in I'm getting only 1820 or 2020hrs thrown at me.

 

Is it simply a case of turning up at whatever time and hoping for the best or will they have a record that I saved these dining times ? Are we all going to have a massive bun fight, do they send you to the bar with a bleeper (that always worked well)  

[JF - retired RRT]

1 hour ago, doog442 said:

First time Princess and now I'm confused (not difficult). We cruise on Friday and I definitely booked Amalfi for the first night at 1900hrs. I decided to book the same time and dining room for 14 days. It was 'saved' but saved where ? Can anyone help as when I go back in I'm getting only 1820 or 2020hrs thrown at me.

 

Is it simply a case of turning up at whatever time and hoping for the best or will they have a record that I saved these dining times ? Are we all going to have a massive bun fight, do they send you to the bar with a bleeper (that always worked well)  

I had to click on each individual day (15 day HI cruise). Pick DR, time, private table...15 times! What a PITA. Now, I'm hoping someone pays attention to it. 

If you didn't do that, you may have to have that bun fight.

[Thrak]

59 minutes ago, JF - retired RRT said:

I had to click on each individual day (15 day HI cruise). Pick DR, time, private table...15 times! What a PITA. Now, I'm hoping someone pays attention to it. 

If you didn't do that, you may have to have that bun fight.

 

I had to do that for our recent 12 day cruise. I didn't trust the app so I checked and discovered I had to do each day separately. I agree it's a total PITA. It's easy to promise something when you have nothing to do with the implementation. Princess Cruises is headed by someone for whom "promises" are easy.

[richstowe]

40 minutes ago, Thrak said:

I didn't trust the app so I checked and discovered I had to do each day separately. 

Wish I had. 

[wowzz]

On 6/18/2022 at 5:39 PM, Wichenford Wolf said:

My wife can only drink organic wine

Perhaps you can enlighten us as to what exactly is "organic" wine, and why your wife can not drink any other type  of wine?

[Steelers36]

4 hours ago, doog442 said:

First time Princess and now I'm confused (not difficult). We cruise on Friday and I definitely booked Amalfi for the first night at 1900hrs. I decided to book the same time and dining room for 14 days. It was 'saved' but saved where ? Can anyone help as when I go back in I'm getting only 1820 or 2020hrs thrown at me.

 

Is it simply a case of turning up at whatever time and hoping for the best or will they have a record that I saved these dining times ? Are we all going to have a massive bun fight, do they send you to the bar with a bleeper (that always worked well)  

After you booked same time/DR, for the full voyage, you can - and should - go back to that option page and tap on the View or Book individual evenings.  That is how you can review what got saved from your Full Voyage reservation attempt.  If some evening didn't work or you got a SPLIT table, then you could check that evening for other options.

 

2 hours ago, JF - retired RRT said:

I had to click on each individual day (15 day HI cruise). Pick DR, time, private table...15 times! What a PITA. Now, I'm hoping someone pays attention to it. 

If you didn't do that, you may have to have that bun fight.

 

1 hour ago, Thrak said:

 

I had to do that for our recent 12 day cruise. I didn't trust the app so I checked and discovered I had to do each day separately. I agree it's a total PITA. It's easy to promise something when you have nothing to do with the implementation. Princess Cruises is headed by someone for whom "promises" are easy.

It is unfortunate - and seems odd to me - that the Full Voyage booking doesn't work for some folks.  I am wondering if it is not a system fault, but rather a situation where not every night is available at the time and DR selected.  Such a night would end up with no reservation I am thinking (have not had this happen to me because the worst I have seen is SPLIT table instead of PRIVATE table). 

 

Otherwise, it is another darn bug and seems odd to pick on some guests and not others.

 

[doog442]

1 hour ago, Thrak said:

 

I had to do that for our recent 12 day cruise. I didn't trust the app so I checked and discovered I had to do each day separately. I agree it's a total PITA. It's easy to promise something when you have nothing to do with the implementation. Princess Cruises is headed by someone for whom "promises" are easy.

 

Thanks. None of my bookings were saved so I've had to follow your method. In our first seven days we now have a choice of 1820hrs or nothing until 2020 and later, absolutely brilliant and just the thing I didn't want on my first cruise back in five years. I'm now having to explain to the better half how my complete ineptitude in apparently booking something weeks back that hasn't materialised has left us with a headache before we even get on the ship next week. 🙄..

 

So it isn't "Dine my way " its "play with an app" ( that overheats and uses up the battery on my phone) and hope for the best.

 

Strangely there's plenty of availability in the speciality restaurants, well how convenient.  

[whataboutport]

Mine worked for DMW and reserved for the same time every night. I didn't have to do each night separately and got a private table at the time I wanted. I have an "older" phone (2+ years?), Samsung Galaxy A51.

 

After the last last update everything worked for me. However the port guides don't load. Strangely enough at first, it was the ONLY thing that worked, but now it's gone. Which is fine bc I'm not booking Princess excursions anyway.

 

Since they want us to prebook everything, I wish there was a way to see each night's menus on the app for each itinerary or ship, even before we step foot on the ship so we can decide if we want to book specialty or not. And then just put an *subject to change without notice if they want to cover their butts. But for the most part, like first night is usually the same, first formal night etc.

[WAvoyager]

8 hours ago, wowzz said:

Perhaps you can enlighten us as to what exactly is "organic" wine, and why your wife can not drink any other type  of wine?

Organic wines in the U.S. cannot contain sulfites.  My guess is that the poster’s wide had an allergy or other medical issue related to sulfite consumption.  
 

but European wine don’t have that same restriction. So either  they only drink US wine, or it’s not as big of an issue as is believed in.

 

 

[richstowe]

3 hours ago, WAvoyager said:

Organic wines in the U.S. cannot contain sulfites.  My guess is that the poster’s wide had an allergy or other medical issue related to sulfite consumption.  
 

but European wine don’t have that same restriction. So either  they only drink US wine, or it’s not as big of an issue as is believed in.

 

 

Plus, in theory, organic wines don't have tracible amounts of herbicides and pesticides . Not to say regular wines do but there's the possibility . 

 

 

 

[sidvan]

Had booked same time and place for a private table for four successfully. Based on reading this topic I went back and checked.  Most were days were ok but some days (4) had been changed to "parties on reservation moved to multiple tables".  Went back in and had to rebook those days at another time slot (20 minutes later) to get our private table on those days.

Edited June 26, 2022 by sidvan
typo

[Steelers36]

12 hours ago, doog442 said:

 

Thanks. None of my bookings were saved so I've had to follow your method. In our first seven days we now have a choice of 1820hrs or nothing until 2020 and later, absolutely brilliant and just the thing I didn't want on my first cruise back in five years. I'm now having to explain to the better half how my complete ineptitude in apparently booking something weeks back that hasn't materialised has left us with a headache before we even get on the ship next week. 🙄..

 

So it isn't "Dine my way " its "play with an app" ( that overheats and uses up the battery on my phone) and hope for the best.

 

Strangely there's plenty of availability in the speciality restaurants, well how convenient.  

Options for you:  (1) Be a "walk-up" at the time you prefer which might entail a wait because not all inventory is in DMW ahead of time;  (2) From what I have read and observed, Princess is only loading up to two of the three DR's into DMW ahead of the cruise.  As ships are filling, they are going to need to operate all three DR's as opposed to just two when ships have been much less than full.  With another DR opening up, that create flexibility in availability whether loaded to the App or not.

[Steelers36]

42 minutes ago, sidvan said:

Had booked same time and place for a private table for four successfully. Based on reading this topic I went back and checked.  Most were days were ok but some days (4) had been changed to "parties on reservation moved to multiple tables".  Went back in and had to rebook those days at another time slot (20 minutes later) to get our private table on those days.

Yes, this has been a feature from relatively early on with DMW.  It is hard for me to remember how DMW was behaving when it first came out, but I do recall seeing the actual table size and there was no such thing as a SPLIT. 

 

Perhaps wording has changed again on a confirmation review?  I see the language has not changed when viewing the options for the time selected.  If no Private table is available for size of Dining Party, it indicates party will be split across multiple tables (and who knows if that means a Private table for two, or sharing).  It's totally dumb to split a dining party. 

 

I can tell you that when booking for the full voyage (all nights same time, etc), if the default of first night, or the last night you looked at individually had Private space available at your selected time, it will LOOK like the full voyage reservation worked.  However, for any individual nights where it did not find Private space, it will reserve Split table space.  The only way you know the end result is to go through night-by-night to see what you ended up with.

 

If you get some Splits, you can do what you did - attempt to alter the time on those nights to secure Private space to fit the entire Dining Party, or you can keep checking DMW and see if Private space opens up at your preferred timeslot.  If you see that it has done so, you could then re-book for full voyage.  (I would always try and get a clean re-book for full voyage if possible as it is the best situation to be in in order to attempt to actually get what you are supposed to get:  same table and wait-staff each night.

[sidvan]

31 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

Yes, this has been a feature from relatively early on with DMW.  It is hard for me to remember how DMW was behaving when it first came out, but I do recall seeing the actual table size and there was no such thing as a SPLIT. 

 

Perhaps wording has changed again on a confirmation review?  I see the language has not changed when viewing the options for the time selected.  If no Private table is available for size of Dining Party, it indicates party will be split across multiple tables (and who knows if that means a Private table for two, or sharing).  It's totally dumb to split a dining party. 

 

I can tell you that when booking for the full voyage (all nights same time, etc), if the default of first night, or the last night you looked at individually had Private space available at your selected time, it will LOOK like the full voyage reservation worked.  However, for any individual nights where it did not find Private space, it will reserve Split table space.  The only way you know the end result is to go through night-by-night to see what you ended up with.

 

If you get some Splits, you can do what you did - attempt to alter the time on those nights to secure Private space to fit the entire Dining Party, or you can keep checking DMW and see if Private space opens up at your preferred timeslot.  If you see that it has done so, you could then re-book for full voyage.  (I would always try and get a clean re-book for full voyage if possible as it is the best situation to be in in order to attempt to actually get what you are supposed to get:  same table and wait-staff each night.

This is our first experience with DMW as we always had fixed dining onur previous cruises and had so many cancelled until now. Good info. Appreciated.

[JF - retired RRT]

15 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

It is unfortunate - and seems odd to me - that the Full Voyage booking doesn't work for some folks.  I am wondering if it is not a system fault, but rather a situation where not every night is available at the time and DR selected.  Such a night would end up with no reservation I am thinking (have not had this happen to me because the worst I have seen is SPLIT table instead of PRIVATE table). 

I don't think that's it. I picked the same time, same DR, private table for each individual day.

[Tedferg]

16 hours ago, wowzz said:

Perhaps you can enlighten us as to what exactly is "organic" wine, and why your wife can not drink any other type  of wine?

Hopefully OP will return with more information. Most wines include sulfites to improve shelf life. Some people have adverse response to sulfites.

[Sn0cruiser]

Today I noticed a box on Dine my Way which said I had a dining credit (which I did and had assumed I wouldn’t be able to use until on board) and that it would be applied automatically once I confirmed a reservation.

 

So I booked speciality dining with a slight hope that it would work as stated.  Not sure if I did something wrong but once confirmed my CC was charged and the nice box stating I had a dining credit was still there. 

Is there a trick I’m missing to actually apply the credit ?

[ImperialLady]

1 hour ago, Tedferg said:

Hopefully OP will return with more information. Most wines include sulfites to improve shelf life. Some people have adverse response to sulfites.

I looked it up when it was first posted as I had never heard of organic wine...

Organic wine

Organic wine is wine made from grapes grown in accordance with principles of organic farming, which typically excludes the use of artificial chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides and herbicides.

[JF - retired RRT]

13 minutes ago, Sn0cruiser said:

Today I noticed a box on Dine my Way which said I had a dining credit (which I did and had assumed I wouldn’t be able to use until on board) and that it would be applied automatically once I confirmed a reservation.

 

So I booked speciality dining with a slight hope that it would work as stated.  Not sure if I did something wrong but once confirmed my CC was charged and the nice box stating I had a dining credit was still there. 

Is there a trick I’m missing to actually apply the credit ?

The "trick" is on you.

[Userclown]

5 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

Yes, this has been a feature from relatively early on with DMW.  It is hard for me to remember how DMW was behaving when it first came out, but I do recall seeing the actual table size and there was no such thing as a SPLIT. 

 

Perhaps wording has changed again on a confirmation review?  I see the language has not changed when viewing the options for the time selected.  If no Private table is available for size of Dining Party, it indicates party will be split across multiple tables (and who knows if that means a Private table for two, or sharing).  It's totally dumb to split a dining party. 

 

I can tell you that when booking for the full voyage (all nights same time, etc), if the default of first night, or the last night you looked at individually had Private space available at your selected time, it will LOOK like the full voyage reservation worked.  However, for any individual nights where it did not find Private space, it will reserve Split table space.  The only way you know the end result is to go through night-by-night to see what you ended up with.

 

If you get some Splits, you can do what you did - attempt to alter the time on those nights to secure Private space to fit the entire Dining Party, or you can keep checking DMW and see if Private space opens up at your preferred timeslot.  If you see that it has done so, you could then re-book for full voyage.  (I would always try and get a clean re-book for full voyage if possible as it is the best situation to be in in order to attempt to actually get what you are supposed to get:  same table and wait-staff each night.

I want you to know how much I appreciate your positive, informative information. I have read many of your responses and they always seem to be “just the facts”. Not at all inflammatory and so far as I know always correct information. So keep it up. Folks need the real information ❤️

[MommyOTwins]

21 hours ago, Sn0cruiser said:

Today I noticed a box on Dine my Way which said I had a dining credit (which I did and had assumed I wouldn’t be able to use until on board) and that it would be applied automatically once I confirmed a reservation.

 

So I booked speciality dining with a slight hope that it would work as stated.  Not sure if I did something wrong but once confirmed my CC was charged and the nice box stating I had a dining credit was still there. 

Is there a trick I’m missing to actually apply the credit ?

Just a glitch I think.  I saw the same pop up and rebooked my specialty dining and it automatically said balance due was zero dollars. Was not charged.

[Sn0cruiser]

Thanks - I just tried cancelling and rebooking and I still got charged with the box still showing. So I’ll try again in a few days or just get guest services to refund me once I’m onboard.

[chamima]

2 hours ago, MommyOTwins said:

Just a glitch I think.  I saw the same pop up and rebooked my specialty dining and it automatically said balance due was zero dollars. Was not charged.

 

I got the same pop up but was NOT expecting it so haven't booked anything. I think I'll take my chances once on board when I can verify. (We're a vegan/vegetarian couple so the specialty restaurants don't offer much that's enticing. We're usually better off with a waiter/Head waiter who know our diets)

[suzyed]

4 hours ago, Sn0cruiser said:

Thanks - I just tried cancelling and rebooking and I still got charged with the box still showing. So I’ll try again in a few days or just get guest services to refund me once I’m onboard.

Try the Princess Chat....maybe they can help you.