Dining reservations

[Retired-N-Happy]

3 hours ago, SmooshSmash said:

Could someone please explain what "Traditional Dining" means in a couple of sentences?  🙂

It's how things were back in the day.  Different lines had different time parameters. 600-815 was about average.  The 600 slots were usually families and grandparents that preferred eating early.  The 815 slot were those that liked to go to happy hour and have a few drinks before dinner.  Then catch the 10:00 show afterwards.

[Retired-N-Happy]

17 minutes ago, voljeep said:

so, in this 'new traditional' I can wear shorts - maybe even on the 'formal' night ... neat

Why would things change now?  I wore shorts for 14 nights on the Discovery in 2022 doing Mexican Riviera and California Coastal.  Wore shorts again for 14 nights on the Majestic in May/June 2023 in Alaska.

Always with a collared golf shirt and sketchers.

[Kay S]

I imagine "formal night" or whatever they call it now will apply to all three of the dining rooms.

[arizonaperson]

@Kay S on most of the first day Patters I have seen formal & smart casual mentioned. Sometimes dress to impress instead of formal.

So not getting into a how to dress thread.

I am assuming all of the dining rooms will be the same as they normally are ,but honestly it never mentions what dining room or dining venue that you’re supposed to wear formal or smart casual at. It just says tonights dress is…..
I’ve never seen it spelled out per se.

so…….

Edited July 11 by arizonaperson

[Muffinz]

Ok I've talked to my wife about this and she asked this:

If we booked a table at Michelangelos for 7:20pm and turned up at 7pm would we have to wait for 20 minutes, or would they just take us to the table if it was available?

 

she's not keen on queueing up with everyone else at 7pm for the Da Vinci dining room and neither of us are keen on a 5pm dining time.

[Retired-N-Happy]

6 hours ago, Kay S said:

I imagine "formal night" or whatever they call it now will apply to all three of the dining rooms.

Not on the Sphere Class ships.  Deck 8 dining is Americana Diner and there is no dress code.

[Kay S]

1 hour ago, Muffinz said:

Ok I've talked to my wife about this and she asked this:

If we booked a table at Michelangelos for 7:20pm and turned up at 7pm would we have to wait for 20 minutes, or would they just take us to the table if it was available?

 

 

I have seen that done in the past, but that was in the historical days of TD before DMW.  I really don't know if they will be that flexible with this new scheme.  

[555]

5 hours ago, arizonaperson said:

@Kay S on most of the first day Patters I have seen formal & smart casual mentioned. Sometimes dress to impress instead of formal.

So not getting into a how to dress thread.

I am assuming all of the dining rooms will be the same as they normally are ,but honestly it never mentions what dining room or dining venue that you’re supposed to wear formal or smart casual at. It just says tonights dress is…..
I’ve never seen it spelled out per se.

so…….

I really believe that "traditional dining" brings with it some desire to return to the dress codes of years past.

Lets hope that is not the case.

[Cruisemeister2002]

15 hours ago, SmooshSmash said:

Could someone please explain what "Traditional Dining" means in a couple of sentences? I'm curious about how the 5 pm and 7:30 pm time slots work in practice. I understand it as regular dining where I sit down at either 5 pm or 7:30 pm, but the 2.5-hour window seems too long. This would reduce table turnover and limit the number of people served dramatically, compared to lets say, 4:45 pm & 6:30 pm & 8:15 pm slots, or some variations of it. Besides, from experience, time slots around 6-6:30 pm are much more popular than 5 or 7:30. I see that while I am waiting in line outside the restaurants all the time. Anyway, again, my question is what "Traditional Dining" means in a couple of sentences 🙂

Have been on many cruises and a majority have been taken as Traditional or fixed dining. We always do the late fix. On P&O their set times are 6.30 and 8.30 a 2 hour window. The second showing in the theatre is 10.30 and I would say 99 times out of 100 we have finished our meal around 10-10.15, so around 1 hr 30 to 1 hr 45 minutes. If you think about what you said about the window being 2 hrs 30 minutes and many passengers taking 1 hr 45 minutes that leaves a 45 minute window for staff to change tablecloths if necessary, lay cutlery and glassware, get their service stations ready and prepare themselves for the next sitting. I have known on many occasions where we have had a 10-15 minute wait before they open the dining room for the second sitting.

[Cruisemeister2002]

12 minutes ago, 555 said:

I really believe that "traditional dining" brings with it some desire to return to the dress codes of years past.

Lets hope that is not the case.

I think it all depends on what time you eat at home and has little to do with formal dress. It is obvious that although over the last ten years cruise lines have been pushing for anytime dining that a lot of people still like set times. We always go for the late fixed dining the reasons being after a days activity (If that's what you call it) whether ashore or sail days it gives us time for a little rest late afternoon, to have a shower and a drink in our cabin, get dressed and make our way to a bar for a pre-dinner drink. I don't mind formal as I have a tux as long as there's not too many during a cruise. One we take later in the year is 31 nights and 5 formals. I'd say that's as near perfect as possible..

[Kay S]

12 hours ago, 555 said:

I really believe that "traditional dining" brings with it some desire to return to the dress codes of years past.

Lets hope that is not the case.

I don't know where you get that idea.  The word "traditional" refers to fixed seating times.  Princess has not indicated that dress code is in any way affected by this new scheme.  Must we turn this into a dress code thread?  

[SCX22]

TLDR:

 

Has Princess announced how they will handle Traditional Dining once onboard?  They used to imprint your dining time and table number on your cruise card, so you'd just walking into the MDR and find your table the first night.  Will they imprint this information on the Medallion?  Will a paper with this information be left in your cabin on embarkation day?  Will this info populate on the Princess App?  Or will those with Traditional Dining still have to queue up and wait for a host to usher them to the table?  The latter seems really inefficient.

[Kay S]

2 minutes ago, SCX22 said:

 

 

Has Princess announced how they will handle Traditional Dining once onboard?  

I don't know if they have thought that far ahead. 😐 Whatever the process will be, there will doubtless be all kinds of confusion in all three dining rooms on the first night (at least until everything settles down.)  Princess has not been forthcoming with details about this new dining scheme.

[arizonaperson]

@SCX22 I have not seen anything in print from Princess on how they’re going to do it, but I seriously doubt that it’s going to be printed up on a card & left in your cabin for every person -especially the people that have reservable dining a.k.a. flexible ( every day they potentially have a different time and they may have specialty dining thrown in there or they excluded one of their evenings and they’re planning on going to the buffet, or they’re planning on going to a casual venue, etc. too many variables ) and there are definitely (some )very few that I’ve heard on any of the cruise critic threads that are going to wing it and have no dining reservations at all. There’s too many variables.

 

I think everyone’s going to have to just know what dining reservations they’ve booked and whether once onboard Princess staff/ crew enforces it or not when you show up at the dining venue when you’ve made a bunch of reservations, it’s anybody’s guest at this point. I can definitely see people showing up at the wrong dining room, meaning they booked in the Michelangelo dining room, but they really should be in the Botticelli and arguing with the staff that they’re in the proper dining room. And I can see it the other way as well. So that’s what I mean. Is it going to be enforced at that point? the staff might just try to accommodate them in the wrong dining room as opposed to telling them what dining room they really need to be at. 

 

 Should be in the medallion or app (I might not have the terminology, correct) for the passenger to see what reservations they have and it should also be able to be viewed by the dining room staff, but I think until all this is implemented and people report back what’s actually happening, we won’t really know. And I’m sure each ship is going to do it slightly different than another. 
I think for both seatings of traditional dining -yes the first night you will have to be escorted to your table, depending on if you want a private table or a shared table -so potentially the first night possibly even the second you’ll have to line up.

but time will tell on all of this.

[Muffinz]

I don't really understand why Princess fixed dining times are at 5pm and 7:30pm

 

on our only cruise to date on Celebrity the dining times were 6pm and 8:30pm and the shows in the theatre were 7pm and 9pm. We would go to a bar about 6-6:30pm for a drink, then go to the 7pm show then head to the dining room just after 8pm and we never had a problem getting our table.

 

I've read plenty of comments on CC about allowing 2 hours for dinner in the MDR's on Princess, so having dinner at 7:30pm is not going to work if we want to see the 9:30pm theatre show....

[bandp407]

5 minutes ago, Muffinz said:

I don't really understand why Princess fixed dining times are at 5pm and 7:30pm

 

on our only cruise to date on Celebrity the dining times were 6pm and 8:30pm and the shows in the theatre were 7pm and 9pm. We would go to a bar about 6-6:30pm for a drink, then go to the 7pm show then head to the dining room just after 8pm and we never had a problem getting our table.

 

I've read plenty of comments on CC about allowing 2 hours for dinner in the MDR's on Princess, so having dinner at 7:30pm is not going to work if we want to see the 9:30pm theatre show....

Agreed about the 7 and 9pm shows with a 6 and 830 MDR. We always did the same on Celebrity- cocktails, the show and dinner. Never an issue. 
 

Princess did not give this the attention to detail a change of this sort entailed AND advise all passengers of the procedures. I feel sorry for the dining room staff once this goes into affect. 

[Muffinz]

4 minutes ago, bandp407 said:

Agreed about the 7 and 9pm shows with a 6 and 830 MDR. We always did the same on Celebrity- cocktails, the show and dinner. Never an issue. 
 

Princess did not give this the attention to detail a change of this sort entailed AND advise all passengers of the procedures. I feel sorry for the dining room staff once this goes into affect. 

well it could all change again before our cruise in December on Crown.... 😄

 

I also find it odd that on the App I can't book dining times for the MDR's because our cruise hasn't been paid in full and we're not 'elite' but on the web version through our booking number we can book dining times.....

 

anyway I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.... and as someone said earlier we won't be going hungry on the cruise!

[phabric]

Every time you enter the any of dining rooms, you swipe your medallion and the maitre would look at his tablet.

[arizonaperson]

For those of you that are mentioning you don’t know why the traditional dining times are 5 PM and 730pm. Princess did think about it.

It’s because it does work out ,potentially. Quite a few passengers like to dine at 5 PM and the 7:30 PM time (7:50 pm on some ships ),it allows the first wave of diners to finish dinner, change Table set up, etc.

As far as  the show in the Princess theater  ,they usually time pretty well to that ,but not always. 
Not everyone that dines in the traditional dining room is interested in what’s going on in the theater. Some people love the marriage game, music in one of the other venues, etc. ,some like to go to wheelhouse, some like to go to crooners listen to music have some drinks, some people like to see movies under the stars, some are not interested in any of this because they’ve had a long port day or they need to get up early the next morning because they have tours booked etc. .There’s actually sometimes quite a conundrum of what to do before or after dinner sometime,so many choices.

I guess if the theater is a priority for you ,then do the walk-in restaurants, or do the reservable aka flexible dining option, go to casual dining,go to specialty dining, or go to buffet.
Of course, all this “ new dining “ does not start until September 14, 2024 and after cruises. I honestly think there’s so many choices for passengers to have and not everybody likes to do the same activities and not everybody likes to dine at the same time, thank goodness .

For those of you interested in your particular ship try to see if somebody posts a patter a.k.a. newsletter. Right now I just casually looked at one patter and shows in the theater are 730pm and 930pm. All ships have different times, but they’re right around these times. Sometimes the first night & the last night of the cruise are different timing, etc. So if you booked/reserved traditional dining in the dining room at 5 PM, you should be able to make a 7:30 PM princess theater show

Edited July 11 by arizonaperson
Oops as always

[Kay S]

8 minutes ago, arizonaperson said:

 

I guess if the theater is a priority for you ,then do the walk-in restaurants, or do the reservable aka flexible dining option, go to casual dining,go to specialty dining, or go to buffet.
 

I have known multiple people who think this way.  If the show is important, they do the buffet and get to the theater early to find a seat.  You are right in that not everyone wants to go the show.  Which is a good thing since the theater gets packed as it is.

[Cruise till you drop]

2 hours ago, arizonaperson said:

For those of you that are mentioning you don’t know why the traditional dining times are 5 PM and 730pm. Princess did think about it.

 

I knew you were a Princess employee

[Cruisemeister2002]

11 hours ago, Muffinz said:

I don't really understand why Princess fixed dining times are at 5pm and 7:30pm

 

on our only cruise to date on Celebrity the dining times were 6pm and 8:30pm and the shows in the theatre were 7pm and 9pm. We would go to a bar about 6-6:30pm for a drink, then go to the 7pm show then head to the dining room just after 8pm and we never had a problem getting our table.

 

I've read plenty of comments on CC about allowing 2 hours for dinner in the MDR's on Princess, so having dinner at 7:30pm is not going to work if we want to see the 9:30pm theatre show....

As we are on second sitting at 7.30 P.m. I am hoping as some have indicated that the second theatre show is at 10 -10.15 p.m. On P&O ships the dining times for fixed are 6.30 and 8.30 with the second theatre show at 10.30 which can be a bit tight as quite often don't get out of the MDR until 10.15 on some nights.

[Muffinz]

24 minutes ago, Cruisemeister2002 said:

As we are on second sitting at 7.30 P.m. I am hoping as some have indicated that the second theatre show is at 10 -10.15 p.m. On P&O ships the dining times for fixed are 6.30 and 8.30 with the second theatre show at 10.30 which can be a bit tight as quite often don't get out of the MDR until 10.15 on some nights.

I’ve been told the shows on princess are 7:30 and 9:30 pm or sometimes 7 and 9pm. No one has mentioned anything about 10pm shows from memory 

[SCX22]

29 minutes ago, Muffinz said:

I’ve been told the shows on princess are 7:30 and 9:30 pm or sometimes 7 and 9pm. No one has mentioned anything about 10pm shows from memory 

On Med cruises shows are at 8:00 and 10:00 pm.  The reason given is so that people can make it to the show because of late port departures and excursions that arrive back to the ship late.

[lstone19]

1 hour ago, Muffinz said:

I’ve been told the shows on princess are 7:30 and 9:30 pm or sometimes 7 and 9pm. No one has mentioned anything about 10pm shows from memory 

 

Despite what some people think, the ship's DRO (Maitre D') and Entertainment Director do not schedule meal and show times independently. They are supposed to be co-ordinated. Both are under the Hotel GM and are part of the ship's executive committee which (as was explained to me by an Entertainment Director) meets daily to, among other things, make sure scheduled major activities don't conflict. Back in the prior days of traditional dining, traditional dining and show times always fit so you could make it from one to the other.