First time in 20 sailings doing anytime Dinning

[phoneman69]

This will be our first anytime dinning experience. We always do early dinning but was not available at booking. We always tip our waiters and assistant waiters extra on the last night. If we do anytime dinning do you give a tip that night if they deserve it?  

[Butterbean1000]

You can always tip extra.  If we have a very good Waite staff, we will ask for them throughout our cruise. We will give extra gratuity at the end of the cruise.

[mz-s]

Asking for the same team every night is a good way to do ATD. I find that generally they try their best to do that anyways.

[ninjacat123]

I have never done ATD (in 25 sailings) and I always tip additional at the end of our cruise.  Good advice here!👍

[firefly333]

Carnival does anytime dining very well. Just press a button and table assigned. I liked how they do it.

[thesmiths]

10 minutes ago, firefly333 said:

Carnival does anytime dining very well. Just press a button and table assigned. I liked how they do it.

It is that easy!

 

We always ask for the same servers and the last cruise they gave us the same table each night!

We eat when they open at 5:30 ish.

[phoneman69]

2 hours ago, thesmiths said:

It is that easy!

 

We always ask for the same servers and the last cruise they gave us the same table each night!

We eat when they open at 5:30 ish.

We are hoping to go at 5:30ish. Yes would be nice to get same waiter almost like where back in the MDR. Will be interesting to see how it goes

[Joebucks]

I don't want to contribute to another tip thread. However, there is no difference in tipping the staff between fixed, YTD, or eating in the buffet. All of the food staff is included in the gratuity. If you think someone went above and beyond, by all means, give them more. 

[DukeASUGirl]

We generally make a standing dining reservation during Anytime Dining, which then works out to the same table and waitstaff each night.

[alias47]

Sidebar: I usually tip the waiter the first night. I may be stuck in my ways, but I do like set dining, for set tablemates in addition to the waitstaff.  I've done YTD too, and the flexibility is a pro, that is something to be said for.

[phoneman69]

8 hours ago, DukeASUGirl said:

We generally make a standing dining reservation during Anytime Dining, which then works out to the same table and waitstaff each night.

Did not know this was an option. Thank you

[staceyglow]

1 hour ago, phoneman69 said:

Did not know this was an option. Thank you

It's not. Unless this person found some sort of exception that I haven't heard about in 20+ YTD cruises, you have to check in every night. 

 

Now once you check in and told your table is ready, you can go to the hostess stand and request the same service team. But you can't just walk to "your" table and sit down every night like you do with set time dining. 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 13 by staceyglow

[DukeASUGirl]

10 minutes ago, staceyglow said:

It's not. Unless this person found some sort of exception that I haven't heard about in 20+ YTD cruises, you have to check in every night. 

 

Now once you check in and told your table is ready, you can go to the hostess stand and request the same service team. But you can't just walk to "your" table and sit down every night like you do with set time dining. 

 

 

 

 

 

Except that's exactly how it worked for us. Maitre d' allowed us to make a standing reservation for the same team every night. We did in fact check-in at hostess stand, and they would tell us to go to "our" table.

 

That being said, it could in fact have been because of our long list of food allergies, so we place an order for my and my daughter's meals the night before. (Everyone else in the party orders like normal.) Our order tickets are with the server who took it the night before, and the kitchen needs to know where/when the special order will be going. 

 

But I didn't ask to make a standing reservation - it was offered to me by the maitre d'. And we did it because it was great for us to know ahead of time. So we essentially had a set seating during the Anytime Dining schedule.

[RoperDK]

10 hours ago, DukeASUGirl said:

We generally make a standing dining reservation during Anytime Dining, which then works out to the same table and waitstaff each night.

I could be wrong, but I don't think Carnival does that.  You can reserve dining times on Royal in advance.  We do this and get the same waitstaff every night.  We don't eat in the dining room each night on Carnival and don't try and get the same waitstaff.  If we had great service on the nights we go, we usually leave some cash on the table and don't tip at the end.  

[DukeASUGirl]

Just now, RoperDK said:

I could be wrong, but I don't think Carnival does that.  You can reserve dining times on Royal in advance.  We do this and get the same waitstaff every night.  We don't eat in the dining room each night on Carnival and don't try and get the same waitstaff.  If we had great service on the nights we go, we usually leave some cash on the table and don't tip at the end.  

I acknowledged in a later post that it may have been a special situation for us because of food allergies, although I didn't realize at the time (actually until now) that they were making accommodations that Carnival doesn't normally offer.

[staceyglow]

1 hour ago, DukeASUGirl said:

I acknowledged in a later post that it may have been a special situation for us because of food allergies, although I didn't realize at the time (actually until now) that they were making accommodations that Carnival doesn't normally offer.

It makes sense that the Maitre'D allowed you to have a set table and time if you needed to pre-order your food for medical reasons.  But to let everyone have a standing time and table for YTD would be defeat its entire purpose. 

[DukeASUGirl]

4 minutes ago, staceyglow said:

It makes sense that the Maitre'D allowed you to have a set table and time if you needed to pre-order your food for medical reasons.  But to let everyone have a standing time and table for YTD would be defeat its entire purpose. 

Right, and once I realized that they were likely were making an accommodation based on medical reasons, I acknowledged that it may not have been a standard procedure.

[Bollycats]

I LOVE the way Carnival does Anytime Dining. When we're 5 minutes from walking out of our cabin door I put in our request. It's always been a 10-20 minute wait (except for one formal night that was 20-30) and by the time we get to the dining room our table is ready. I really wish Princess would do it that way. (we alternate between Princess and Carnival) It's a nightmare on them having to wait in line or hope you can get a reservation earlier in the day.

[kdr69]

ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY uhh whatever you want to do 🙂 

[Pellaz]

22 hours ago, thesmiths said:

It is that easy!

 

We always ask for the same servers and the last cruise they gave us the same table each night!

We eat when they open at 5:30 ish.

 

Our group of 6-9 people always gets YTD on Carnival and it's worked great...and it's a no-brainer on the Excel-class ships.  

If we get a really good serving crew, we ask for them on future visits.  This can sometimes be a challenge for the staff, but they have gone above and beyond trying to accommodate us...even, in one case, sitting our group in a different section, but served by the same crew.  We tip cash rather handsomely on the last night, too.  

[Vylettes]

we just did anytime dining on our cruise last month and my husband really enjoyed the waiter we had on the first night (he loves indian food and the waiter was indian and could explain all the food to him and what was in it etc... the guy was super friendly and my husband even got up early in the mornings to say hi to him when he was on breakfast lido duty). So everynite we went to the hostess and asked if she could check us into his section and she did! So I guess it was more like anytime dining with a set section so we got that waiter every nite.