Fixed Dining Times

[Loracpin2]

First, I apologize in advance if this has previously been asked and answered. We're tryin to decide between Fixed or MyTime Dining for a Family celebration . What are RCI's Fixed Dinig times? 

Thanks in advance for responses!!  

[broadwaybaby123]

For the early fixed dining time it's around 5:30.  That's usually the seating I get.

[poocher]

Late is 8ish

[cruiseguy1016]

The early time is 5:30, the late time is 8:00.

[Nilbog]

If you choose to go with My Time Dining, make sure you make reservations for each night prior to the cruise.  If you decide not to go to the MDR one night, you can always cancel the reservation in the app.  For My Time Dining they will have two lines: one with reservations, and one without.  The "without" line is almost always long, while the reservation line usually moves pretty quickly.

[Ned11]

My early time was 6pm so it might depend on the ship

[crazyank]

8 hours ago, cruiseguy1016 said:

The early time is 5:30, the late time is 8:00.

this varies depending on the ship. during our last cruise on Vision early seating was 6:30pm, late was 8:30pm

[RogueMonk]

On the Anthem right now — early opens at 5:15. We are out of the dining room by 6pm.

[toad455]

7 minutes ago, RogueMonk said:

On the Anthem right now — early opens at 5:15. We are out of the dining room by 6pm.

 

How are the crowds on the Anthem currently? Long lines waiting to enter the dining room?

[RogueMonk]

1 hour ago, toad455 said:

 

How are the crowds on the Anthem currently? Long lines waiting to enter the dining room?

No lines! We walk right in. Waited 3 min on the first night.

[taglovestocruise]

5 hours ago, RogueMonk said:

On the Anthem right now — early opens at 5:15. We are out of the dining room by 6pm.

We always get late dinning and usually ask for a large table.  Dinner, desert and coffee after dinner makes for a great 90 minute meal.  

[BirdTravels]

My observation is that family groups should eat together once or twice during a cruise. Especially if there are kids involved. Today,,, most groups want to eat when they want and where they want. The concept of the Blue Bloods or Waltons family dinner every night doesn’t sell any more. In fact people will resent the organizer who tries to force it on them.

[jbrinkm]

Last year on Allure, our early dining was 5:15pm. On our upcoming cruise, it is at 5:30pm. I like the early dining because I don't like to eat a big meal close to bedtime. And if I'm still hungry an hour or so after dinner, I can go get a small snack somewhere else. The early dining opens up most of the evening entertainment options. AND, it is usually closer to 5:45-6pm by the time you are really eating your main course in the MDR with early dining, which feels like a pretty normal time to eat an evening meal.

 

The only issue we ran into was getting back to the ship in time for our dining slot when we were in port until later than our dining time. We were rushing once (not for the ship, just for dinner) and we stopped by to see if it would throw things off if we still came to the MDR. We were totally fine with eating in WJ if it would cause a problem. But they assured us that it wouldn't be a problem and told us to still come and eat. We were about 30 minutes late and just rushed ourselves through ordering and dinner a bit so we wouldn't back up the MTD crowd. The dining room was still pretty empty - people may have stayed later on the island and/or eaten enough with their AI packages during the day - but towards the end of our meal, they did try to come seat another family at our table. It was around 6:30pm, before MTD even started, and we were getting close to finishing, but the staff member brought them to our table, looked really confused, double checked his paper, asked the family to wait a minute (that was AWKWARD, them just standing there staring at us) and then came back and seated them at a table a few spaces over. I don't know if the wires were crossed, or he wrote the table down wrong, but I felt bad and decided that we wouldn't even bother trying to go late again, even if they did say it was ok and there were many, many open tables still. Luckily on our next cruise, all-aboard is at 5pm every day so no chance of being late for our 5:30 reservation (DH would freak out if we weren't on board by 4pm). 

 

That long story to also say that you might want to look at your all aboard times and figure out if you want to leave ports early enough to make an early dining time, if you are considering it. Or just be willing to do a different dining spot that/those nights.