Will MDR wait times now be even longer?

[LadySpoilt]

On our recent Apex cruise we noticed how long the lines to get into MDR were and all the pagers being given out.  With the recent change to the buffet I suspect the lines to become even longer.  My question is how this will be handled?  We eat early so we were able to almost be seated immediately but by 6:15 or so the lines to get in were very long. Yes, while I know you can make reservations I wonder just how long you would have to wait.  Example....you have 6:30 reservations, you arrive at dining room however the lines just to sign in were sometimes all the way down the hall. Just to get to the desk you were going to be waiting in a long line so just how good is making a reservation going to be?  Granted I suppose you could "dig" your way though the crowds to get to the desk but at times even that was difficult as there we so many in line and only a single person at the sign in desk.  So your 6:30 reservation to get in and then be seated was already closer to probably 7 or later.

[jwlane]

22 minutes ago, LadySpoilt said:

 but by 6:15 or so the lines to get in were very long.

But do you actually have any idea how long it took them to be seated?

[hrhdhd]

On our recent Apex cruise (12/22), we ate later (7:30-8) and had to wait only one evening for about 7 minutes.

 

If you want to eat when a lot of people want to eat, you may have to wait.

[evandbob]

If I have a reservation time, I will just bypass those who don't that are waiting in line.  I do this for the MDR, theater, etc.  No biggie, excuse me please.

[LMaxwell]

Yes, MDR wait times will be even longer now.

[jelayne]

I don’t think we know yet.  
Our most recent cruises the ships have been understaffed.  The Beyond TA was understaffed and wait time for the MDRs for some were about +/- 60 minutes.  After that they eliminated traditional dining and it was all Anytime dining, which allows more turns of a table each evening.  Reports after the change were of short to no wait times.

 

The changes to the buffet will increase the number going to the MDR but it will also move wait staff from the Oceanview to the MDR.  

[gordylad]

what changes to buffet?

[prmssk]

Part of the longer waits is lack of staff so moving staff from the OV to the MDR will help that.  It's also an issue when everyone wants to eat at the same time.  Remember, not that many years ago, anytime dining didn't exist and every passenger was assigned a table at one of two fixed seatings.  The M and S class ship are old enough to have experienced this.  Anytime dining allows for more than two seatings at tables.  So there physically is space for every guest to eat in the MDR.

 

On any cruise, we pay attention to the flow of the ship that first day or two to find the times to go left when everyone is going right (we like to find the quieter areas and times) and the same is true when it comes to anytime dining.  If the passengers on that cruise tend to eat late, we eat early or vice versa.  You can avoid the long lines if you want to and are willing to be flexible.

[jelayne]

2 minutes ago, gordylad said:

what changes to buffet?

Long thread currently on this.  Much of the evening OV offerings are being eliminated.

[dlh015]

5 minutes ago, gordylad said:

what changes to buffet?

Here's the aforementioned thread...

 

[LadySpoilt]

It would be helpful IF they indeed did move buffet wait staff to the MDR, but with all the recent service and cost cutting measures I would not count to heavily on that.  I am more inclined to think they will simply be cutting staff and not simply be moving all them to the MDR.

Regarding how long people were waiting.  I can't give you a definite amount of time but as we were seated near the entrance and could see what was happening some of the people were waiting a considerable amount of time.  Almost makes me wish for the old traditional seating times where you just walked in and sat at your assigned table at a certain time.  Before I am called out on this I am aware that the Apex and Edge have 4 distinct MDRs and this would be difficult to impossible to accomplish.  I am merely saying that prior to the buffets everyone had an assigned time and MDR. With the advent of the buffets and their success this changed (less MDR customers).  Now with the very downgraded options and service in buffet chances are more people will be again going to MDR

[NMTraveller]

If you ask me,  the MDRs will likely be slower than normal.  Buffets are efficient in that people serve themselves and there is very little labor involved to man the stations.  Now when you go to a sit down venue you will require many more servers to fill waters and wait on the people.  Where does X get all of these new servers from?  The buffet does not have many.

[LMaxwell]

The same people that claim the buffet was dead for dinner (it wasn't) now seem to think there was an overabundance of staff at the dead buffet and that will compensate for moving more people to MDR? Interesting thought, could be possible, but doesn't pass my sniff test.  

 

Not only will wait times be longer because More people will want the "popular" times and just walk up and wait, but this will cause issues with entertainment onboard. 

 

Entertainment is generally scheduled to fit the traditional early/late dining system.  If Celebrity can not manage the anytime demand on 2 classes of their ships, that will end up being hard to justify 2 sets of entertainment.  Just have a single 9:30PM show in that case. 

[jelayne]

To some degree the shows help spread the dinner flow.  Some dine early so they can make the early show, others dine later after the 1st show.  
Then there are those of us who rarely go to the shows unless they are 10 or 10:30.  

[the penguins]

4 hours ago, LadySpoilt said:

On our recent Apex cruise we noticed how long the lines to get into MDR were and all the pagers being given out.  With the recent change to the buffet I suspect the lines to become even longer.  My question is how this will be handled?  We eat early so we were able to almost be seated immediately but by 6:15 or so the lines to get in were very long. Yes, while I know you can make reservations I wonder just how long you would have to wait.  Example....you have 6:30 reservations, you arrive at dining room however the lines just to sign in were sometimes all the way down the hall. Just to get to the desk you were going to be waiting in a long line so just how good is making a reservation going to be?  Granted I suppose you could "dig" your way though the crowds to get to the desk but at times even that was difficult as there we so many in line and only a single person at the sign in desk.  So your 6:30 reservation to get in and then be seated was already closer to probably 7 or later.

Never cruised on E class but on S and M class in our experience the passengers waiting are those who didn't prebook. As with any restaurant on land or sea if lots of people turn up at the sametime there will be queues (lines). We always prebook, arrive a few minutes before our time and have never queued for more than about 3 minutes. If large numbers arrive together the Host splits the line into booked and not booked. If you are put in the "not booked" best advice is to make it clear you are willing to share a table.

[miched]

I think it will be shorter as the turn around on the empty tables will be available as soon as they are cleared.  
 

With fixed time dining when people leave their table it  remains  empty until the next dining time.  It gives more flexibility or everyone.   They will not longer have to wait until their designated time. 
 

I also think that the food will be more on the level of a restaurant instead of a banquet hall.  The turn over will be constant instead of sitting there.  
 

Happy cruising 🌊🚢🇺🇸🌅

[BermudaBound2014]

10 minutes ago, miched said:

I think it will be shorter as the turn around on the empty tables will be available as soon as they are cleared.  
 

With fixed time dining when people leave their table it  remains  empty until the next dining time.  It gives more flexibility or everyone.   They will not longer have to wait until their designated time. 
 

I also think that the food will be more on the level of a restaurant instead of a banquet hall.  The turn over will be constant instead of sitting there.  
 

Happy cruising 🌊🚢🇺🇸🌅

 

At the risk of sounding rude, are you serious?

 

The restaurant only holds X amount of people. Of course the wait times will be longer. 

[Lena11033]

26 minutes ago, the penguins said:

Never cruised on E class but on S and M class in our experience the passengers waiting are those who didn't prebook. As with any restaurant on land or sea if lots of people turn up at the sametime there will be queues (lines). We always prebook, arrive a few minutes before our time and have never queued for more than about 3 minutes. If large numbers arrive together the Host splits the line into booked and not booked. If you are put in the "not booked" best advice is to make it clear you are willing to share a table.

That was my experience on Beyond. It may have changed but I went early on anytime dining and had a reservation, I waited maybe 5 minutes and that was because 2 parties were in front of me. There were two lines, those that prebooked and those that didn't, the one with no reservations was the one with the longer line waiting.

[bluwes]

14 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

 

At the risk of sounding rude, are you serious?

 

The restaurant only holds X amount of people. Of course the wait times will be longer. 

Sorry you have lost me there. On anytime dining, as soon as a table becomes clear it gets relaid and is available again. On fixed dining as the previous poster said, it  sits there unused until the next sitting. 

[BermudaBound2014]

7 minutes ago, bluwes said:

Sorry you have lost me there. On anytime dining, as soon as a table becomes clear it gets relaid and is available again. On fixed dining as the previous poster said, it  sits there unused until the next sitting. 

 

Can you point to any literature which suggests that fixed dining is being eliminated across the fleet? 

 

 

[kathynorth]

We've been on 3 Mclass cruises since reopening and pre-booked select dining for all cruises. On each cruise there were 2 lines, one for reservations and one for walk up. We never waited more that a couple of minutes on the reservation line. We even changed our reservation on several nights and still had no wait. Our table changed several times, but we mostly had the same waiter throughout our cruise. I think this is because reservations get the next available open table within a zone when they check in, jumping in front of the walk-up group. I agree with what miched said in post #16. I worked as a waitress in my early days and the sooner a table was cleared, the sooner a new group could sit. Select dining has improved table turn over rate.  

[bluwes]

1 hour ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

 

Can you point to any literature which suggests that fixed dining is being eliminated across the fleet? 

 

 

I wasn’t answering that, I was responding to your post

[LMaxwell]

There's more to waiting than just a line to get in.  Constantly full MDR with tables not all timed to a degree is going to be a huge, huge mountain to climb for staff just to maintain current service levels. So far each plan I have seen is something that erodes the experience, not adds service or value. Reduced choice and diminished service isn't good for anyone on this forum. If you love the MDR, be prepared to wait. If you liked entertainment before or after dinner without a rush, now you must try to book all your reservations to suit and no guarantee that way gets you same spot/servers each night. Is that a path to better service experience? Not usually. Perfunctory at best if you are always changing staff. 

 

Companies don't just take things that work and break them for fun. 

[BermudaBound2014]

32 minutes ago, bluwes said:

I wasn’t answering that, I was responding to your post

 

I'll answer for you. Celebrity hasn't eliminated fixed dining times on all ships (yet) as was suggested in post #16 (which I was responding to). 

 

The bottom line is that there will be more people forced into the Main Dining room due to lack of choice at the buffet. I can't see how this will lead to shorter lines.

 

 

 

 

 

[LXA350]

Ships that are sailing again at full capacity will experience the issues with wait times for MDR dinner. Depending on demographics on board often earlier times are the most popular hence, when going at around 8pm things tend to get better again.