Assigned Early Seating - Running Late??

[waverlyonthewaves]

11 minutes ago, doone said:

I would also worry about the folks who have your table for the 8 pm dining time.  If your late, you may cause their table not to be ready for them.  I would also suggest you eat at the Lido for any evenings your running late.

Yes that is my exact fear! I didn’t want to impose on the second seating.

[PaperSniper4]

1 hour ago, CruiserBruce said:

The Open seating probably will start as early as 5pm, but more likely 5:15. Traditional will be 5:15 or 5:30. 

 

Not sure where you got 6:45 for open seating. No way that is correct.

Thanks for the reply and correction.

 

Heck, I can't remember where I got that incorrect info now🤔. I think that might have been for RCI. Re-checking for HAL now I find 545PM for traditional, fixed early. Which is fine with us. That's on two internet sites, so it must be correct.....everything on the 'net is gospel, right?😉

 

I confirmed using HAL's chat and she confirmed 1745 for early dining. She also informed me we are wait listed which was news to me. I thought we were already confirmed. She said it's normal that confirmations are not done until "later". I don't recall that happening on our previous 6-7 HAL ships.

 

 Doug

 

 

[SuzWillCruise]

Ask the Maitres D (sp??).  On our last cruise (Carnival, not HAL), we had a few specialty dinings and a later shore excursion.  On 1st day we found out our table number before dinner, then went to dinner to meet our table mates, and let our servers know we wouldn’t be there past the appetizers. (We tried to let them know in advance when we would be gone so they wouldn’t wait for us, or have my MIL tell them.)

 

One day’s excursion was going to have us out late but we wanted MDR instead of Lido, so we asked at the Maitres D podium the evening before if we should go to the anytime dining on the floor above.  We were told “no, come here”. So the next night we went to podium and they sat us at a large table that had some others.  I think we had our fastest service that night!

[3rdGenCunarder]

On 5/1/2023 at 3:34 PM, Hlitner said:

On the Westy now and “exclusive” is not reality.  We are Anytime diners, simply walk in and ask to share, and are sometimes seated on Deck 3 along with the fixed diners.  Sat one evening with a fixed dining couple who were lonely.  They had a fixed dining table for 6 and the other 4 seldom came to the MDR.  We have seen a lot of large fixed dining tables with only one lonely couple.  Apparently folks book fixed and than eat most meals in the Lido.

 

Hank

 

I wish people wouldn't do that. Early fixed is the most popular (Hal demographic and all that), so to take that option and not use it is rude.

[NavyCruiser]

You have a 5:15pm international flight to get to your cruise & a 8pm flight back home after your cruise.

Would you even consider showing up even a few minutes late, at 5:30pm & 8:30pm respectively, for your flights...?

[iceman93]

23 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

We always try to inform our waiters if we are missing a MDR meal for a specialty restaurant. 

Us too, although I think this is one of those little things that used to make HAL a "premium" rather than a mainstream line.  Every time we would let our dining room stewards we had a specialty dinner reserved for the next night they would tell us they already knew and hoped we had a wonderful meal.  That level of back-of-the-house communication didn't seem to happen on our two most recent sailings.