Do I have to make dinner reservations?

[Ramblin Wreck Cruiser]

My husband and I, along with our daughter and son-in-law, are sailing on the Grand Princess to Alaska in August. I keep seeing posts regarding getting dinner reservations ahead of time. We usually sail with Celebrity and do the Anytime Dining. We never really know when we will feel like having dinner and like having flexibility. I thought that Princess has the same system, but I am starting to question that after seeing multiple posts about reservation problems. 
 

So, my question is can we just show up when we want to have dinner? We don’t mind a little wait, but waiting 30 to 40 minutes, might be a little frustrating. Any advice would be much appreciated!

[JF - retired RRT]

1 hour ago, Ramblin Wreck Cruiser said:

My husband and I, along with our daughter and son-in-law, are sailing on the Grand Princess to Alaska in August. I keep seeing posts regarding getting dinner reservations ahead of time. We usually sail with Celebrity and do the Anytime Dining. We never really know when we will feel like having dinner and like having flexibility. I thought that Princess has the same system, but I am starting to question that after seeing multiple posts about reservation problems. 
 

So, my question is can we just show up when we want to have dinner? We don’t mind a little wait, but waiting 30 to 40 minutes, might be a little frustrating. Any advice would be much appreciated!

Yes. No telling how long the wait would be in advance. If it's too long, there's always the buffet or you coule try a "walk-in" at a specialty restaurant.

[mandyq1030]

We had a few nights with reservations since we wanted to be sure to be able to get to the show on time.  We also tried walk in with no reservations.  The wait wasn't long without reservations.  It may be different for a larger party.  It was easier to get reservations for our party of 5.  There were a few times where our kids just wanted the buffet and we went as a couple without them without reservations.  When we had reservations for our 5, we were seated at a table alone.  When we went as a couple, we were seated at a table with 10.  

[Ramblin Wreck Cruiser]

42 minutes ago, JF - retired RRT said:

Yes. No telling how long the wait would be in advance. If it's too long, there's always the buffet or you coule try a "walk-in" at a specialty restaurant.

Thank you for your reply. So, how do you know when the optimal time for dinner would be? Are the show times published in advance?  Also, is the app even working for reservations? I’ve heard conflicting stories. It just seems like a lot of unneeded stress for what is supposed to be a vacation.

[Ramblin Wreck Cruiser]

32 minutes ago, mandyq1030 said:

We had a few nights with reservations since we wanted to be sure to be able to get to the show on time.  We also tried walk in with no reservations.  The wait wasn't long without reservations.  It may be different for a larger party.  It was easier to get reservations for our party of 5.  There were a few times where our kids just wanted the buffet and we went as a couple without them without reservations.  When we had reservations for our 5, we were seated at a table alone.  When we went as a couple, we were seated at a table with 10.  

I appreciate you sharing your experience. Do you think it would be difficult for the 4 of us to walk in and get a table for just us 4?

[wowzz]

7 minutes ago, Ramblin Wreck Cruiser said:

I appreciate you sharing your experience. Do you think it would be difficult for the 4 of us to walk in and get a table for just us 4?

No problem at all, although on a cruise with many Americans, eating early might be difficult.  We normally eat about 20:00 and never have a wait.

[arizonaperson]

3 hours ago, Ramblin Wreck Cruiser said:

My husband and I, along with our daughter and son-in-law, are sailing on the Grand Princess to Alaska in August. I keep seeing posts regarding getting dinner reservations ahead of time. We usually sail with Celebrity and do the Anytime Dining. We never really know when we will feel like having dinner and like having flexibility. I thought that Princess has the same system, but I am starting to question that after seeing multiple posts about reservation problems. 
 

So, my question is can we just show up when we want to have dinner? We don’t mind a little wait, but waiting 30 to 40 minutes, might be a little frustrating. Any advice would be much appreciated!

No, you do not need to make reservations ahead of time. Go to any open dining room- operating hours  listed in the Patter( the newsletter or app).

You will see multiple posts, because previously  Princess cruisers were use to set dining times of early or late traditional,which is no longer offered. A lot of cruisers prefer the set traditional ( not in existence)to coordinate with Princess theater shows so they now make reservations to coordinate with that. If the theater is not in your itinerary then you probably have more flexibility.

If you want to go to a specialty dining room,probably need reservations- fee.

Show schedule for the theater give ot Take is start time 7:30pm and second show 9:30 pm. Can look for a Live from thread on cruise critic for your ship a month to a few weeks out.

Edited June 19, 2022 by arizonaperson

[tetleytea]

Boats might vary, but on Caribbean Princess this month the wait was actually far shorter if you had no reservations.  We just had to be willing to share a table. 

[Ramblin Wreck Cruiser]

Thank you all for your responses. I am relieved that we can just play it by ear. 

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, arizonaperson said:

No, you do not need to make reservations ahead of time. Go to any open dining room- operating hours  listed in the Patter( the newsletter or app).

You will see multiple posts, because previously  Princess cruisers were use to set dining times of early or late traditional, which is no longer offered. A lot of cruisers prefer the set traditional ( not in existence) to coordinate with Princess theater shows so they now make reservations to coordinate with that. If the theater is not in your itinerary then you probably have more flexibility.

If you want to go to a specialty dining room, probably need reservations- fee.

Show schedule for the theater give ot Take is start time 7:30pm and second show 9:30 pm. Can look for a Live from thread on cruise critic for your ship a month to a few weeks out.

 

I wouldn't want to go so far as to say TD is no longer offered or not in existence.  Princess still advertises it on their website and is quite clear about it in their FAQ's.  Now, am not totally blind and I realize that DMW doesn't meet what they put in writing for TD - not at all.  But, those of us that want the same table and waiters each night need to hold their feet to the fire to resolve the issues and deliver on the promise.  You have probably read live reports of folks who have tried and been successful setting up a TD experience.  And also true that others have struggled on certain ships and failed.  I am trying to be optimistic and that things will improve as the months go along.  And that I will be able to firm up what we want on board.

 

(As I have posted multiple times, they cannot totally fix the TD experience until they take it back outside of DMW and do it manually as before with a dedicated DR space for it.  Any excess not needed can be given back to the DMW "pool".)

 

Now, I am also aware that Princess is promising a wonderful voyage on the Crown and then doing a Lucy and pulling the football away from their Charlie Brown guests.  I am also aware they keep telling us they have the fastest internet at sea when clearly something has happened to make that now a false claim.  And higher gas prices are Putin's fault.  The list goes on of BS explanations for bad situations. 

 

But that doesn't mean we have to just roll over and take it without (nicely and firmly) reminding Princess what is important to many guests and that they need to figure out how to deliver on promises.  Either that or throw in the towel and come clean with it.

 

[JimmyVWine]

There are actually two questions that you are presenting:

—Are reservations necessary, and

—Can we just show up and get seated with little to no wait?

 

The answer to the first question is “No”. Reservations are not required. But that does not mean that the answer to the second question is “Yes”. There is a certain cadence to Anytime Dining, or, now, Dine My Way and there are variables that you just won’t know until you get on board and see how things go. For example, if your cruise is jam packed with early dining Americans who line up at 5:00 every night, it is possible that there will be an early wave of diners who fill every seat in the dining room between 5:00 and 5:20. Those people are going to occupy their tables for an hour to an hour and a half and there will be little table turnover during that time. So if you arrive at 5:30, you could have a significant wait. But if you show up at 6:15, you might waltz right in as many tables will be turning over at that time.
 

Which means that the answer to your second question is: “It depends” and you have to read the room. You could be on a cruise where the crowd naturally staggers their dining time and you will never have a problem. Or you could be on a cruise where half the ship swamps the dining rooms at 5:00 at which point dining becomes much more like set seatings, 5:00, 6:30 and 8:00 because that is when tables turn over. When such a cruise is over, someone who showed up to dine every night at 6:45 will say that they never had to wait while someone on the same cruise who showed up every night at 5:45 will complain that they always had to wait. 

[Ombud]

I don't make reservations because I eat anytime between 7-8pm. Getting my 2 top is never an issue

[Torfamm]

7 hours ago, Ramblin Wreck Cruiser said:

My husband and I, along with our daughter and son-in-law, are sailing on the Grand Princess to Alaska in August. I keep seeing posts regarding getting dinner reservations ahead of time. We usually sail with Celebrity and do the Anytime Dining. We never really know when we will feel like having dinner and like having flexibility. I thought that Princess has the same system, but I am starting to question that after seeing multiple posts about reservation problems. 
 

So, my question is can we just show up when we want to have dinner? We don’t mind a little wait, but waiting 30 to 40 minutes, might be a little frustrating. Any advice would be much appreciated!

Reservations are available but not required. No one can predict how long waits might be but in my experience, it’s not usually too long

[Torfamm]

6 hours ago, Ramblin Wreck Cruiser said:

Thank you for your reply. So, how do you know when the optimal time for dinner would be? Are the show times published in advance?  Also, is the app even working for reservations? I’ve heard conflicting stories. It just seems like a lot of unneeded stress for what is supposed to be a vacation.

You can see showtimes in the JourneyView Activity Timeline in the app. It can populate up to a couple of months before a cruise. I’ve had no difficulty in making reservations in the app. My preference is to make them ahead of time knowing that they can be cancelled or changed, since we usually eat around the same time each night

[Nebr.cruiser]

We didn't make any reservations at all on our March Discovery cruise.  We usually went to the first show, then directly to dinner, so around 8.  Maybe a 5-7 minute wait the first night, then 2 or 3 minutes the other nights--we were a party of three. 

 

We also didn't make a specialty dining reservation; just showed up and asked.  They told us maybe a 20 minute wait.  It was probably 25 minutes, but we were fine with that.

[rbtan]

On 6/19/2022 at 4:36 PM, Ramblin Wreck Cruiser said:

My husband and I, along with our daughter and son-in-law, are sailing on the Grand Princess to Alaska in August. I keep seeing posts regarding getting dinner reservations ahead of time. We usually sail with Celebrity and do the Anytime Dining. We never really know when we will feel like having dinner and like having flexibility. I thought that Princess has the same system, but I am starting to question that after seeing multiple posts about reservation problems. 
 

So, my question is can we just show up when we want to have dinner? We don’t mind a little wait, but waiting 30 to 40 minutes, might be a little frustrating. Any advice would be much appreciated!

We never had too much waiting. We now book Club Class for virtually no waiting.

[sloopsailor]

A related question: If we have reservations but need to go at a different time, do they hold a table empty waiting for us to arrive at the reservation time, or do they fill tables on a first come basis based on reservation time? I wouldn't want to have a table held empty for us if we couldn't arrive at that time for some reason. 

Edited June 23, 2022 by sloopsailor

[sloopsailor]

On 6/19/2022 at 3:23 PM, Ramblin Wreck Cruiser said:

Thank you for your reply. So, how do you know when the optimal time for dinner would be? Are the show times published in advance?  Also, is the app even working for reservations? I’ve heard conflicting stories. It just seems like a lot of unneeded stress for what is supposed to be a vacation.

 

Reading a couple of recent Royal Princess Alaska cruise logs, it appears that the shows on that ship are typically at 7:30 and 9:30 on those cruises. The authors have posted images of the Princess Patter for each day which include the show times. I would expect the times to be similar on Grand Princess.

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2849510-live-from-royal-princess-sailing-may-2-2022-for-12-nights-rountrip-from-vancouver-to-alaska/#comment-63135483

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2855743-royal-princess-may-28-2022-alaska-northbound-live-report/?source=122648

 

 

[geoherb]

2 hours ago, sloopsailor said:

A related question: If we have reservations but need to go at a different time, do they hold a table empty waiting for us to arrive at the reservation time, or do they fill tables on a first come basis based on reservation time? I wouldn't want to have a table held empty for us if we couldn't arrive at that time for some reason. 

 

 

They should be holding a table for you. But it's easy to change reservations in the app. I made reservations for a set time and would change it depending on what was scheduled each evening.