MDR v MTD

[jobrien]

Have done standard Main Dining Room of prior cruises but elected My Time Dining on upcoming Mariner Bermuda 8 day cruise just to try something different. 

 

We have generally enjoyed the interaction with the same servers and presume that experience will not occur with MTD.  That said, we will likely be specialty/chef's table dining for 4 of the nights.

 

 Opinions and thoughts welcome as to the advantages, disadvantages, likes, dislikes and any other input.

 

 Thanks in advance. 

[klfrodo]

The only thing I've missed out on is, like you say, the familiarization and interaction with the same staff every night. Otherwise, the meals and service go very well.

[smokeybandit]

I don't see any real advantage to MTD.  But that's me. Others love it.

[Ourusualbeach]

We had the same servers for all but one of the nights we had MTD on our recent 9 night sailing

[Mum2Mercury]

First, let's talk terminology ... you've been using Traditional Dining in the Main Dining Room.  Now you're going to use My Time Dining, still in the Main Dining Room.  

 

Having said that, My Time is the way to go: 

- We think early is too early /late is too late.

- We don't necessarily want to eat at the same time every evening ... for example, we might want to eat earlier on an At-Sea Day /later on a day when we've been off the ship most of the day.  My Time gives you that freedom.  

- You should go ahead and make all your My Time reservations as soon as possible ... you can probably do this as soon as you have your reservations.  

- The dining staff keep My Time Dining people in two lines ... the line for people who have reservations and the line for people who just show up.  They don't really care that much whether you're right on time for your reservations; that is, they'll let you in 15 minutes early or late (which doesn't happen with Traditional Dining).  

- We have usually been seated within five minutes of presenting ourselves at the dining room podium.  The most we've waited was maybe ten minutes.  

- I personally don't care whether we have the same wait staff and table every night, but that has happened for us with My Time Dining.  On the first evening, our My Time Dining staff have seemed anxious to "reserve us" for the rest of the week ... I didn't ask, but I thought it had to do with how tips are awarded at the end of the week.  

[BirdTravels]

36 minutes ago, jobrien said:

Have done standard Main Dining Room of prior cruises but elected My Time Dining on upcoming Mariner Bermuda 8 day cruise just to try something different. 

 

We have generally enjoyed the interaction with the same servers and presume that experience will not occur with MTD.  That said, we will likely be specialty/chef's table dining for 4 of the nights.

 

 Opinions and thoughts welcome as to the advantages, disadvantages, likes, dislikes and any other input.

 

 Thanks in advance. 

We always do My Time Dining. Now,,, we normally eat around the same time, even with MTD, and we ensure that the hostess puts us with the same waiters, so we get the same interaction with our servers without the constraints of traditional dining. By night 2, our waiters have our drink and dining references down, and on the last night, our waiters get a nice tip.

 

Royal is still stuck in the ancient times with traditional dining. That is not what the contemporary cruiser wants. 

[orville99]

Since the restart, the my time model has changed significantly. Pre shutdown it was a separate section in the dining room that you could book any time between ~5:45 and 8:00. Now it is the same seating area as the early traditional seating and doesn’t open for reservations until ~6:30-6:45. Essentially you are backfilling early seating tables as they empty and are turned. Our observation is that the closer you book to 6:30-6:45 mtd  opening time, the more likely you are to get meals that were prepped for the first seating but weren’t served. Every time we have done mtd that early, the meals were overcooked, dried out, or cold. 
 

If you want to do mtd, I’d book for later in the evening when you are more likely to get fresh meals that are being prepared for the late traditional seating.

Edited July 21, 2023 by orville99

[The Fun Researcher]

In my opinion the only drawback to My Time Dining is waiting for a table.  The past two cruises we've had early traditional seating (which I'll discuss in a bit) and walked right to our table with no wait.  If we left dinner to use the restroom, or after we were finished eating, many times there were literally hundreds of MTD passengers jamming the entrance to the dining room waiting for a table.  I'm not sure if making MTD reservations ahead of time helps with that wait or not.

 

However, I'm not sure we'll be doing traditional dining anymore.  They've made changes to how they handle MTD and traditional seating.  Early seating is FAR, FAR too early.  It's the only thing I complained about on the survey from Royal after our cruise last week.

 

It was crazy, all lunch venues did not open until 12pm, and early seating was 5:00 pm!!!  By the time you were done with lunch it was around 1pm.  We were NOT hungry only 4 hours later for dinner.  It also really cramped opportunities for afternoon activities.  How does Royal think this is an o.k. solution?  We will be going back to MTD unless Royal changes how they are handling the MDR.

 

The way they are doing it now, they seat all the early traditional dining folks first, then fill in with MTD folks as the early seating people leave.  That's why they've moved early seating SOOO early, it's to allow the MTD folks to find tables not too late in the evening.  It used to be that MTD folks could be seated at the same time as early traditional seating, so there was no need to push early traditional dining so early.  Often times MTD folks would have their own floor or section of the MDR.  This seemed to work well, and we did MTD many times that way.  Not sure why they made this change, but it drove early seating to be super early, and increased the lines to get into the MDR for those MTD folks.

 

In the past with MTD, if we found servers we liked we would always request the same table for the rest of the cruise and were always accommodated and it felt like traditional dining but at a better time that we preferred.

[yogimax]

Want the same servers each night for MTD?  Simply ask at the check in desk and they will try to accommodate you.  This works if you come at the same time each day.

[The Fun Researcher]

7 minutes ago, orville99 said:

Since the restart, the my time model has changed significantly. Pre shutdown it was a separate section in the dining room that you could book any time between ~5:45 and 8:00. Now it is the same seating area as the early traditional seating and doesn’t open for reservations until ~6:30-6:45. Essentially you are backfilling early seating tables as they empty and are turned. Our observation is that the closer you book to 6:30-6:45 mtd  opening time, the more likely you are to get meals that were prepped for the first seating but weren’t served. Every time we have done mtd that early, the meals were overcooked, dried out, or cold. 
 

If you want to do mtd, I’d book for later in the evening when you are more likely to get fresh meals that are being prepared for the late traditional seating.

That's a very astute and interesting observation!  How late would you suggest to get a better chance of getting freshly prepped meals?

 

I also wonder, if pre cruise, you reserved MTD for something like 6pm if the meals would still be fresh.  Not sure I want to wait until 7pm or later to eat.

[orville99]

32 minutes ago, The Fun Researcher said:

That's a very astute and interesting observation!  How late would you suggest to get a better chance of getting freshly prepped meals?

 

I also wonder, if pre cruise, you reserved MTD for something like 6pm if the meals would still be fresh.  Not sure I want to wait until 7pm or later to eat.

We have cruised 22 times (All B2B cruises) since the restart on a variety of RCL ships (Allure, Harmony, Mariner, Jewel, Serenade, and Wonder) and would suggest that the closer you reserve relative to whatever the published second seating time, the better the quality of the meal. At least that has been our experience. If we book at 6:45 one night on the first leg and at 7:45 for the same night on the second leg, the meal quality for the same menu items is completely different.

 

Have not seen any MTD availability for booking before 6:30 since the restart.

[The Fun Researcher]

8 minutes ago, orville99 said:

We have cruised 22 times (All B2B cruises) since the restart on a variety of RCL ships (Allure, Harmony, Mariner, Jewel, Serenade, and Wonder) and would suggest that the closer you reserve relative to whatever the published second seating time, the better the quality of the meal. At least that has been our experience. If we book at 6:45 one night on the first leg and at 7:45 for the same night on the second leg, the meal quality for the same menu items is completely different.

 

Have not seen any MTD availability for booking before 6:30 since the restart.

So major tradeoffs either way for us.  Either eat super early and get well prepped meals with early seating, or suffer food quality.  6-6:30pm would typically be about optimal for us, but sounds like we'd be gambling with our meal quality.

 

You bring up a good point.  Maybe it's because we've done early traditional seating these past two cruises, but our food quality and temperature have been excellent.  We have no big complaints with the new menus despite all the ruckus about them lately.

[MCC retired]

We chose MTD on our Brilliance cruise.

Since we generly show up when we are hungry appox the same time every night, 

they directed us to the same table each night.

This has happened before on other RCI cruises as well as on Princess who invented  Anytime Dining.

 

Edited July 21, 2023 by MCC retired

[Donsyb]

3 hours ago, The Fun Researcher said:

 

I also wonder, if pre cruise, you reserved MTD for something like 6pm if the meals would still be fresh.  Not sure I want to wait until 7pm or later to eat.

On most ships, MTD doesn’t start until 6.45 I believe, certainly on the oasis class ships I’ve been on.

[The Fun Researcher]

20 minutes ago, Donsyb said:

On most ships, MTD doesn’t start until 6.45 I believe, certainly on the oasis class ships I’ve been on.

Thank you.  Yeah, I really don't like how they've changed the implementation of MTD.  I'm used to prebooking something like 5:45pm or 6pm in the past.  😞

[reallyitsmema]

8 minutes ago, The Fun Researcher said:

Thank you.  Yeah, I really don't like how they've changed the implementation of MTD.  I'm used to prebooking something like 5:45pm or 6pm in the past.  😞

 

They have totaled messed up MTD with the later start time.  They need to go back to how it was in the past.

[HappyTexan44]

One thing I don't understand.  For early dining, there is a limited window in which you can show up and claim your table.  Say the early dining is at 5:30pm, then any empty seats at 6pm could be used for MTD.   Is the problem that people would be bothered by tablemates being out of sync?   Even if they only used empty tables for MTD seems like some people could be seated at 6pm.   I can even understand saying the MTD reservations can't start until when the early diners start to clear out.  

[reallyitsmema]

5 minutes ago, HappyTexan44 said:

One thing I don't understand.  For early dining, there is a limited window in which you can show up and claim your table.  Say the early dining is at 5:30pm, then any empty seats at 6pm could be used for MTD.   Is the problem that people would be bothered by tablemates being out of sync?   Even if they only used empty tables for MTD seems like some people could be seated at 6pm.   I can even understand saying the MTD reservations can't start until when the early diners start to clear out.  

 

That would be difficult for the waiters because of how they go get food in the galley.  The waiters try to take orders for their tables all at once so they stand in line in the galley once for each course.  Going back and forth for just one tables food slows down service for the other tables that waiter is taking care of, just as one table arriving late throws off the flow for the other tables in the waiter's section.

[HappyTexan44]

Are there special MDR waiters?   How does that work for MDR now.  

[reallyitsmema]

9 minutes ago, HappyTexan44 said:

Are there special MDR waiters?   How does that work for MDR now.  

 

I don't understand what you are asking.  The waiters work in the MDR and at times in the WJ.  Is that what you are asking?

[HappyTexan44]

7 minutes ago, reallyitsmema said:

 

I don't understand what you are asking.  The waiters work in the MDR and at times in the WJ.  Is that what you are asking?

 

I confused things by writing MDR, when I was thinking MTD.  This should make more sense. 

Are there special MTD waiters?   How does that work for MTD now.  

 

[reallyitsmema]

1 minute ago, HappyTexan44 said:

 

I confused things by writing MDR, when I was thinking MTD.  This should make more sense. 

Are there special MTD waiters?   How does that work for MTD now.  

 

 

Now I understand. 🙂 I am not sure if the waiters are doing both traditional dining and MTD tables in their section as we have only sailed in suites since the change and have eaten in Coastal Kitchen.  When MTD was on a separate deck or separate section of the dining room, those waiters only dealt with MTD.  With the later start time of MTD, those waiters could be doing side work, like filling roll baskets, butter dishes, sugar bowls etc.

[taglovestocruise]

2 hours ago, HappyTexan44 said:

One thing I don't understand.  For early dining, there is a limited window in which you can show up and claim your table.  Say the early dining is at 5:30pm, then any empty seats at 6pm could be used for MTD.   Is the problem that people would be bothered by tablemates being out of sync?   Even if they only used empty tables for MTD seems like some people could be seated at 6pm.   I can even understand saying the MTD reservations can't start until when the early diners start to clear out.  

All MDR waiters are the same. Now that ships are sailing in the 110+ capacity there are very few if any empty tables in early seating. On oasis class and others there are three levels to the MDR.  All three levels are used for early dining, two levels are used for late traditional. One level is used for MTD 6:45 until 9pm.  There are still many who want set  traditional but are forced into MTD.  MTD and Rotational dining that was tried on Quantum class has been a huge failure. Early dining seats about 2500, late dining seats around 2000, that leaves 2000 or so for MTD.

[taglovestocruise]

3 minutes ago, reallyitsmema said:

 

Now I understand. 🙂 I am not sure if the waiters are doing both traditional dining and MTD tables in their section as we have only sailed in suites since the change and have eaten in Coastal Kitchen.  When MTD was on a separate deck or separate section of the dining room, those waiters only dealt with MTD.  With the later start time of MTD, those waiters could be doing side work, like filling roll baskets, butter dishes, sugar bowls etc.

All the waiters who work MTD are all also doing MDR early traditional in what will become the MTD room.. 

[2wheelin]

OK. Too many misassumptions here to quote. Just returned from the Freedom and had MTD. Early dining started at 5:45. We would usually go to the MTD desk about 6:00 and have a table within 5 minutes. After the first night, no waiting. Had the same table every night even going at 6:30. It was an unused table in the early dining area. There were several empty tables so all were available for anyone with MTD. Food was served at the same time as early set dining, by the same waiters and was the same quality. Waiters actually had more time for us as their other diners were eating.