First evening meal

[No Sea Legs!]

Not knowing our embarkation time (yet) I am seeking suggestions/recommendations for first evening dining for Princess Plus Package. 

Assuming it will be quite busy, what will be on offer, is it best to go to the Fresh Market Place, or to book a speciality restaurant? 

Thanks in advance

[chrysalis]

You don't want to go to a main dining room?

[Lady Arwen]

We always eat at the Crown Grill on embarkation evening.  It’s become our tradition to avoid the first night MDR chaos.  We just like to start our vacation off on the right foot with no hassles or stress.  Honestly, we rarely eat in the MDR for dinner.  It’s lovely for breakfast or lunch.

[memoak]

Anything but the buffet. If you are like us and don’t eat dinner until after 7:30 it is not all that busy. The biggest issue is right at 5:00 with people who want to eat as soon as possible. I have seen lines stretching across the piazza by 4:45

 

 

[lahlah57]

Our tradition is Alfredos or Gigi's.

[Auntiejo]

We always do specialty dining the first night. Catch by Rudy preferably, but if not available on the ship we are sailing, we go to Crown Grill. This tradition starts the cruise off with a bang and we love the quiet dignity of a specialty venue. The MDR on the first night is often chaotic and disorganized and we’ve had to wait in line for a table for up to 30 minutes even with a reservation (this isn’t always the case, but has been sometimes). 

[memoak]

34 minutes ago, lahlah57 said:

Our tradition is Alfredos or Gigi's.

Most ships I sail do not have those venues 

[No Sea Legs!]

Thank you all everyone for your very swift replies and suggestions.

[HotRoot]

We always eat in the MDR the first night.  It is one of our favorite menus.  We always have a reservation in advance and we have never had to wait for our table.  We actually had that menu last night.  If you look on the Live Majestic Princess thread, the menu is posted.  Unless you are om a 21+ day cruise, the menu will not be repeated.  We have never felt the MDR was chaotic.

[Lady Arwen]

2 hours ago, Auntiejo said:

We always do specialty dining the first night. Catch by Rudy preferably, but if not available on the ship we are sailing, we go to Crown Grill. This tradition starts the cruise off with a bang and we love the quiet dignity of a specialty venue. The MDR on the first night is often chaotic and disorganized and we’ve had to wait in line for a table for up to 30 minutes even with a reservation (this isn’t always the case, but has been sometimes). 

Totally agree!  It just makes your first night seem so special.  We like to dine around 7:30 or so and the MDR seems so noisy at that time every night.  The specialty restaurants feel more upscale and relaxing and with more attentive service.  Is it five star quality food?  Of course not, but the ambiance and a few glasses of wine makes us forget about that.

[memoak]

21 minutes ago, Lady Arwen said:

Totally agree!  It just makes your first night seem so special.  We like to dine around 7:30 or so and the MDR seems so noisy at that time every night.  The specialty restaurants feel more upscale and relaxing and with more attentive service.  Is it five star quality food?  Of course not, but the ambiance and a few glasses of wine makes us forget about that.

But remember that tables are set aside on embarkation night for full suites since they are guaranteed a free specialty dinner and do not have to reserve in advance 

[Lady Arwen]

1 minute ago, memoak said:

But remember that tables are set aside on embarkation night for full suites since they are guaranteed a free specialty dinner and do not have to reserve in advance 

Yes, you are right.  We always book our specialty restaurants prior to our cruise to ensure a reservation.  With Premier we get two included and the rest we pay for when we make the reservations.  For our upcoming on Enchanted we have Crown Grill first night, three at the Catch, two at Sabatini’s and back to Crown Grill.  All reserved and paid for.  Works well for us.

[cruisinsince75]

3 hours ago, Lady Arwen said:

Yes, you are right.  We always book our specialty restaurants prior to our cruise to ensure a reservation.  With Premier we get two included and the rest we pay for when we make the reservations.  For our upcoming on Enchanted we have Crown Grill first night, three at the Catch, two at Sabatini’s and back to Crown Grill.  All reserved and paid for.  Works well for us.

Same here!

[TxChick51]

We had no issues with MDR Discovery to Alaska last year on embarkation. Walked up at our reservation time & were immediately seated. Great service!

[Itchy&Scratchy]

We always eat dinners at MDR, even on the first night. Never had to wait in line and always made MDR reservations in advance on the app for 6-6:20 pm.

 

And what does it have to do with knowing your embarkation time? Is your cruise leaving later in the evening? Ours are usually leaving between 3 and 6 pm, and we usually embark around 11:30, and it doesn't effect our dinner times or locations.

Edited May 6 by Itchy&Scratchy

[MacMadame]

How do people think the addition of Traditional Dining will impact the MDR on embarkation day?

[arizonaperson]

@No Sea Legs! will you be on The Sky Princess ? 2024 or 2025? From Southampton?

Most of those itineraries embark at 4 pm.

So many choices of where to dine on the first evening, up to you.

So you’re looking to use your casual dining promotion on the first night with your Princess plus, am I getting that correct? I believe the choices would be Alfredos, & Ocean Terrace..Vines is on deck 5.

Edited May 6 by arizonaperson

[MsSoCalCruiser]

On 5/5/2024 at 10:49 AM, Lady Arwen said:

We always eat at the Crown Grill on embarkation evening.  It’s become our tradition to avoid the first night MDR chaos.  We just like to start our vacation off on the right foot with no hassles or stress.  Honestly, we rarely eat in the MDR for dinner.  It’s lovely for breakfast or lunch.

I always go to the Crown Grill on embarkation evening too. The reason I go then is because after a few days on a cruise I start to get full and I want to go hungry. 😂

[No Sea Legs!]

Thank you all very much. 

I have cruised before, so I know that the first evening in the buffet and MDR can be a little over whelming. At the time of writing, I do not know what time we embark, we may not have the luxury of having masses of time to 'physically' explore all of the options and then picking the right time before they are snapped up by others who are more organised than us.

 

Using one of the causal dining options is an excellent idea - thank you! 

 

I also aware that others may read this post for information, so I hope they find your advice useful. 

[arizonaperson]

12 hours ago, No Sea Legs! said:

Thank you all very much. 

I have cruised before, so I know that the first evening in the buffet and MDR can be a little over whelming. At the time of writing, I do not know what time we embark, we may not have the luxury of having masses of time to 'physically' explore all of the options and then picking the right time before they are snapped up by others who are more organised than us.

 

Using one of the causal dining options is an excellent idea - thank you! 

 

I also aware that others may read this post for information, so I hope they find your advice useful. 

I see that you posted that you don’t know what time you are going to embark -that’s why I was asking in an earlier post what month,what year ,what ship, what port are you leaving out of? Probably will not involve your dining time, but others may be able to help you on the embarkation time ,if you let us know and if you prefer not to, that’s fine too. I’m guessing it is 4 pm. So if you get onboard anytime between 11 and 1 PM, you would watch the safety video ,check in with your medallion and go explore the ship or vice versa and then you could see where you might want to dine for dinner?
As far as physically exploring all your options for 1st night dinner,probably not necessary to do that??
Just keep in mind that the casual restaurants that are on your plus package -you cannot currently make reservations you just show up.
Now for specialty ( Crown Grill, Catch, Sabatini’s) you can make a reservation and you can usually just do that once you get onboard or through the app  prior to your cruise. You can also use the app when the time is right to make dining reservations in one of the main dining rooms or just show up at the time that you want to dine -yes you may have to wait a little bit. You may have to wait a little bit even if you have a reservation just part of the cruise waiting game ,but if I’m understanding correctly, you don’t want to do the buffet or the main dining room because it’s too crowded .I’m sure you could explore online the deck plans now if you have not already and see what your other choices are that would fit your culinary taste.

Happy cruising.

Edited May 7 by arizonaperson

[memoak]

Anyplace but the buffet 

[No Sea Legs!]

58 minutes ago, arizonaperson said:

I see that you posted that you don’t know what time you are going to embark -that’s why I was asking in an earlier post what month,what year ,what ship, what port are you leaving out of? Probably will not involve your dining time, but others may be able to help you on the embarkation time ,if you let us know and if you prefer not to, that’s fine too. I’m guessing it is 4 pm. So if you get onboard anytime between 11 and 1 PM, you would watch the safety video ,check in with your medallion and go explore the ship or vice versa and then you could see where you might want to dine for dinner?
As far as physically exploring all your options for 1st night dinner,probably not necessary to do that??
Just keep in mind that the casual restaurants that are on your plus package -you cannot currently make reservations you just show up.
Now for specialty ( Crown Grill, Catch, Sabatini’s) you can make a reservation and you can usually just do that once you get onboard or through the app  prior to your cruise. You can also use the app when the time is right to make dining reservations in one of the main dining rooms or just show up at the time that you want to dine -yes you may have to wait a little bit. You may have to wait a little bit even if you have a reservation just part of the cruise waiting game ,but if I’m understanding correctly, you don’t want to do the buffet or the main dining room because it’s too crowded .I’m sure you could explore online the deck plans now if you have not already and see what your other choices are that would fit your culinary taste.

Happy cruising.

Thank you for all of your help. Really useful. We just need to decide if we want to queue with everyone else or book a speciality restaurant!

 

[sherryf]

22 hours ago, No Sea Legs! said:

be a little over whelming. At the time of writing, I do not know what time we embark, we may not have the luxury of having masses of time to 'physically' explore all of the options and then picking the right time before they are snapped up by others who are more organised than us.

I've never found the MDR to be overwhelming on embarkation day.  We never reserve anything, just walk into a dining room when we want to eat and get seated relatively quickly.  I few times we've been handed a pager, but even so I don't think we ever waited more than 15-20 minutes.

[AllHandsAstern]

We do MDR the first night if only so we don't have to think very hard about dinner.

My wife and I book a fixed dining time in MDR for the whole cruise and then adjust as needed. if we're not going to make the reservation we'll let the host know ahead of time.

I think the MDR gets a bad rap, but a lot of people forget it's just a restaurant. If you show up as the same time as 1000 other people you're gonna have a bad time.

 

We try to avoid the buffet until day 2 or 3, once the novelty has started to wear off for some people

[Scottdalfonso]

2 hours ago, AllHandsAstern said:

We do MDR the first night if only so we don't have to think very hard about dinner.

My wife and I book a fixed dining time in MDR for the whole cruise and then adjust as needed. if we're not going to make the reservation we'll let the host know ahead of time.

I think the MDR gets a bad rap, but a lot of people forget it's just a restaurant. If you show up as the same time as 1000 other people you're gonna have a bad time.

 

We try to avoid the buffet until day 2 or 3, once the novelty has started to wear off for some people

I'm cruising Princess for the first time and all these "MDR is a madhouse on night one" posts are confusing me- on RC with a set dining time, we show up and get seated on night one, no problems, not hectic.... we already reserved our times for MDR on Enchanted for every night (6pm..every night) so you're saying it shouldn't be that hectic since we set a time in advance, correct? I assumed the lines and craziness are people who just show up and wait for tables?