Early traditional dining slot on late port days - Symphony

[masteradept]

On Symphony now and we had a port stop in St. Thomas from 1-8pm. Since most excursions got back to the ship around 6 we missed our 5:30pm dining slot and were sent to my time dining. I can understand the reasoning but it seems like on this cruise almost the entire 5:30pm seating missed it and a huge line ballooned for MTD. As far as I could see some of the waiting guests were pretty cheesed off too. Is this usual for late port stops on Royal? Seems like they should be adjusting the early seating timing for days like this at the very least. 

[Biker19]

2 minutes ago, masteradept said:

Is this usual for late port stops on Royal?

They don't adjust traditional to accommodate late arriving guests - it is up to the guests to show up at the scheduled time. You are probably lucky you were allowed to go to MTD.

[Tee & Chilli]

The WJ and room service are a few options. Many people skip the dining room after long excursions.

[Ozark_Kid]

23 minutes ago, masteradept said:

Seems like they should be adjusting the early seating timing for days like this at the very least. 

I am assuming you mean to push back their time.   Then how do you adjust everyone else's time.  Do you make the ones that booked late dining not be able to show up until 10:00 pm?  The ones mad were probably the ones that choose My time.  They had to wait longer.  They post port times way before the cruise which should help someone choose a good dining time.  Unless the port times are changed last minute, early diners shouldn't be allowed to come in late.  They made their choice before the cruise. WJ our a late Specialty were options. 

[masteradept]

Actually it seemed like most of the mad ones were those with assigned timings at 5:30, rather than those with MTD. Overheard someone saying “you expect us to come on board just for dinner and then get off again?”, so it seems like it was a common issue for lots of people here. Specialty is all full up too, doesn’t look like they can accommodate any more people, so it’s probably also a capacity issue, trying to squeeze everyone assigned to 5:30 in as well with the late excursion timings. 

[Bound4Bermuda]

For my upcoming cruise we also have early seating and two late afternoon stops with excursions that won’t get us back until after dinner time. I’m planning on us just eating in the Windjammer those two nights. I get it’s disappointing. But they can’t possibly adjust the times to account for it—or the late seating wouldn’t eat until like 10:00. It’s not fair to them to expect others to get “first dibs” on their time slot. I’m actually surprised to hear MTD is an option! I wouldn’t have thought that would be possible to elbow into their seatings, either, because they would also have a specific number of people they have to sit nightly and now the Early crowd is throwing off their seatings as well.

[masteradept]

I think they don’t have much choice but to accommodate those with early seatings during MTD on this one, if it was only a few people I could see that happening but on this occasion it seems to be about the entire 5:30 seating having these issues. Doesn’t look like the Windjammer has any capacity left for more people at this point either, so I suppose the only thing they can do is expedite the MTD service as much as possible. 

[smplybcause]

I'd be mad if I was MTD and I had to wait a long time because people choose early dining knowing the itinerary and then decided they weren't ok with their choice.