Anytime Dining: are reservations really required?

[craig01020]

Just booked a cruise with Anytime Dining. The website tells me: "Guests with Anytime Dining must reserve their dining time in the pre-cruise planner after completing their reservation."

 

I've only cruised on Celebrity once and that was pre-covid.  We are a party of two.  Do I really need to make reservations or can I just walk up like I did in 2020?

 

Thanks.

[curlerguy]

2 minutes ago, craig01020 said:

Just booked a cruise with Anytime Dining. The website tells me: "Guests with Anytime Dining must reserve their dining time in the pre-cruise planner after completing their reservation."

 

I've only cruised on Celebrity once and that was pre-covid.  We are a party of two.  Do I really need to make reservations or can I just walk up like I did in 2020?

 

Thanks.

We have never made reservations for anytime dining. To me that defeats the purpose. You go when you feel like going. You may have to wait a little bit but that’s what wine is for.

[RTShaker]

Just walk up at your desired time, as always.

[WisconsinFan]

We decided we wanted to do reservations, just because we knew what general time we wanted to eat. The first night we really clicked with our servers (and I really like having the same staff each evening) and so we kept our reservations but would ask to be seated in their area. They would give us a pager and we usually didn't have to wait very long. If you don't mind getting a pager like a land based restaurant I doubt you will have many issues. We did see some longer lines at the more popular times for anytime, but liked the idea of the pager. We would do anytime again.

 

[Travel-and-See]

Last summer I had anytime and just went anytime I felt like dining. I was always seated in the same section - which was great. Only once was I given a pager, and the wait was like 5-10 minutes. 

 

On the Edge Class Ships how does it work with the different dining rooms? Is it still easy to get anytime dining without reservations? 

[keesar]

3 hours ago, Travel-and-See said:

Last summer I had anytime and just went anytime I felt like dining. I was always seated in the same section - which was great. Only once was I given a pager, and the wait was like 5-10 minutes. 

 

On the Edge Class Ships how does it work with the different dining rooms? Is it still easy to get anytime dining without reservations? 

Yes, easy to get seated in any of the dining areas.  I had gone through the bother of making reservations in various MDRs.  Was repeatedly told that it was Anytime Dining.  

[BytownMatt]

I have always done anytime dining usually between 6:30pm and 7:30pm. On recent cruises, there were typically one or two nights per cruise where there was a delay in getting a table and I was given a pager and waited 20 min or so (one of those nights was consistently the first chic night). If that delay would bother you, then you could reserve times to avoid or minimize the wait time. Otherwise I think that the anytime/walk up approach works well.

[mysticbluebmw]

Just got off the Ascent, and it really depends on when you want to eat, if there will be a wait. We at early so we could hit the early show, and while we had reservations, they weren’t needed. None of the MDRs filled up until well after 7pm. That, said if you’re trying to arrange your evening to make a particular show, I would just make the reservations.

[Cruisin Kay D]

We are a group of 5 are going on Reflection in October and I have made a dining reservation time for each night.  And hopefully our times work out.   

 

(On most of our many  past cruises, we have found that the 1st night can be chaotic in the dining room.  Also many ships have a "formal" night often the 2nd night and that too can be chaotic.)