Early and late seating?

[stephensfamily5]

My dh and I will be on the Rotterdam on Dec. 12-22, 2021.  We are confirmed for the early seating, but I thought I read somewhere that they are only doing "my time" dining now.  Is that correct?  We like having a predictable time and getting to know tablemates.  Thanks in advance!

[Storylady]

Americans generally eat early.   The dining room is most crowded from 5:30 to 8 PM. Three-quarters of the ship will eat early if Americans are the majority onboard..After 8 PM, it is less crowded. It depends on how early you go to bed and your plans for the evening. Depending how full the ship is, you might get faster services dining late. Also, you have time to participate in sailaway; the Golden hour for photography. 
 

We always eat early as I like to have several hours to digest our meal before sleeping. Also, it depends on how early you want to go to bed. We have to get up in the morning for shore excursions so we go to bed early,. If you can go to bed shortly after eating a large meal or don’t need much sleep. I would recommmend late dining as the service is as leisurely as you like it and very excellent. Waiters have time to chat.

[FlaMariner]

1 hour ago, stephensfamily5 said:

I thought I read somewhere that they are only doing "my time" dining now.  Is that correct?

 

Not correct.  There are three dinner times:  early, late and anytime....We were on the Rotterdam a month ago and had early.....We arrived on time and had great waiters!

[KAKcruiser]

I have not heard anything to suggest that fixed dining has been eliminated.  

[KAKcruiser]

Do you remember the time of late dining?

[FlaMariner]

1 minute ago, KAKcruiser said:

Do you remember the time of late dining?

 

I don't know....it's too late for us....On our travel agent site, it says 8pm but somehow I think it is earlier...

[idiebabe]

48 minutes ago, KAKcruiser said:

Do you remember the time of late dining?

It was 8 pm on Rotterdam for Fixed Late Seating.  

[stephensfamily5]

Thanks for the answers!

 

[atexsix]

Go for fixed late if you can handle dining at that time, the MDR is never crowded, even BC when ships were full. 

[cate54]

3 hours ago, FlaMariner said:

 

Not correct.  There are three dinner times:  early, late and anytime....We were on the Rotterdam a month ago and had early.....We arrived on time and had great waiters!

Can you tell us what time  the early seating starts?

[SusieKIslandGirl]

On the Eurodam a couple of weeks ago it was 5:30 although it seemed like when we'd arrive at 5:30 there was a couple seated near us that had menus or sometimes even had their salad.

[kazu]

7 hours ago, cate54 said:

Can you tell us what time  the early seating starts?

 

Early dining varies on ships and itinerary.  It is usually between 5:15 & 5:45 with 5:30 being the most common time IME.

[WisRiver]

We were on the Rotterdam transatlantic in October, 2021.  Our experience may be unique since the ship was about ⅓ of capacity.  We like to start dining at about 7 PM so we had anytime dining.  We would show up at 7 PM and ask for a table for two.  The first night we enjoyed the wait staff for the table, and we were able to get the same table for the remainder of the trip.  You cannot reserve the table like you can for fixed dining, and we do not like sharing a table with strangers.  We were a group of four and had the same experience on the 2019 Voyage of the Vikings.  

[kangforpres]

I've experienced too many problems trying to use "Anytime" dinning to get a table for 2 at around 5:45 or 6:00. So we've just switched back to "early" fixed which is always at 5:30 I think, sometimes the doors open a few minutes before.

 

-Paul

[KroozNut]

17 hours ago, FlaMariner said:

 

We were on the Rotterdam a month ago and had early.....We arrived on time and had great waiters!

 

Were you able to enjoy sailaway out on deck prior to dinner?

[FlaMariner]

Sail away was not until late night due to the weather......

 

When sail away is at dinnertime (5pm), we see it from the dining room!

 

If we can't make our assigned time in the MDR, we head to lido that evening....but that is rare.

[KroozNut]

4 hours ago, FlaMariner said:

When sail away is at dinnertime (5pm), we see it from the dining room!

 

 

 

Ooooh, we would hate to miss sail away out on deck. That is one of the highlights of our cruise, and is sort of the symbolic beginning of our cruise adventure! We would not want to miss it, and 'seeing it from the dining room' would not be the same for us.

Hmmmm, we may want to reconsider our early fixed seating on our Zuiderdam sailing next April. 🤔

[canadarocks]

Crew News has reported that at least on the Nieuw Statendam, early dining is at 5:00pm.

[KroozNut]

15 minutes ago, canadarocks said:

Crew News has reported that at least on the Nieuw Statendam, early dining is at 5:00pm.

 

So with a 4:00pm sail away on our next cruise, we would have maybe 45-50 mins to enjoy the sail away experience before we would need to head down to early dinner, which is not that much time. And that leaves no time to change clothes after sail away before dinner, or we would need to wear our dinner attire to the sail away event.

Not an ideal scenario in our view..

[canadarocks]

Agree. We were waitlisted for early dining and I've told my TA to take us off. The nice thing now is that you can reserve the MDR ahead of time, so that's what we're doing. 

[iancal]

We do not like early or late dining times.  Our strong preference, in genera, is sitting down between 7 and 7:30.

 

Which is why the reason why we first started opting for anytime dining.

Edited December 2, 2021 by iancal

[Quartzsite Cruiser]

We are on thee Koningsdam for 4 weeks.  The previous two weeks, there was early fixed (5:30), late fixed (7:45 or 8:00) and anytime dining.  This week with about 900 passengers, it is only open seating, and the upper level is closed.  We checked last night, and next week, it will be back to fixed and anytime dining.

 

My guess is the dining times and arrangements depend on how full the ship is.

Edited December 2, 2021 by Quartzsite Cruiser

[irishjim]

On 11/28/2021 at 6:52 PM, FlaMariner said:

 

I don't know....it's too late for us....On our travel agent site, it says 8pm but somehow I think it is earlier...

It   has been 8pm on my  last 36 cruises they  may  have  changed.

I hope  not.     Jim.

 

[OlsSalt]

We always pick "late" (actually regular) seating and more often than not it is 8pm - very rarely it has been 7:45,  but don't think we ever had 7:30pm.

 

This makes for a very small crowd at the second seating entertainment - since dinner will take  1 -1.5 hours and it always feels too late for us to stay up much longer (yes, we are old). Finish off with a cup of chamomile tea and off to bed for us after a few walks around the ship and/or deck.

 

We love the quiet pace of the late seating - and the feel of the upper dining room, when that is where late seating is typically served on the older ships.