Anytime Dining Question

[evert9]

How hard is it to be seated when you don't have reservations for anytime dining? I'd rather not limit ourselves to a specific time but if we have to, I guess we will. We'll probably use the Palm Dining room mostly.

[ppeckham]

We never had trouble getting seated without a reservation. On this trip only my son was with me. We told the waiter we'd be happy to be seated at a larger table. It was nice getting to know other passengers. We never had to wait on a table.

 

However we met a family of 7 on board. They had to wait 45 minutes for a table on the first formal night. If you have a larger group, you may have to wait for a period of time.

[gatour]

We have never had problems without reservations but then again we have a tendency to eat around 6:30. We almost always ask for a two top, because we found that if we sat at larger table, we have the same conversation with different groups of people over and over again.

[cynbar]

We have done anytime dining on our last 5 Princess cruises, and never had a problem just arriving at the DR when we were ready to eat --- a couple of times we had a wait of 5-10 minutes, but never more than that, and they gave us a beeper so we could roam around. We were looking for a table for 2 on some of those trips, and a table for 4 on others when we traveled with friends. I'm hoping this works as well on our upcoming Crown cruise, because we really like the flexibility of dining when we're ready -- for us, this is more important than getting to know our waitstaff. However, on our last Grand cruise, we found a wait staff we were very happy with and we requested them each time we arrived at the DR -- I think we only found 1 time when they were unavailable. I should add that we usually like to eat between 7:30 and 8:00 pm.

[MercedMike]

As others have said, we rarely had trouble walking up and getting a table. It partly depends on how particular you are. If you want a two top in a particular section at a special time, better make a reservation. If you say, "any table is fine with us," you will usually get seated right away.

 

Have a GREAT cruise!

[RetireeWannabee]

We're going to do the "any table is fine with us" and expect to meet our fellow passengers, which I think is half the fun. I've never had the same conversations over and over and don't expect to this time, either.

 

I thought there were 4 "anytime" dining rooms so can choose to wait a few minutes or go see what the line is like at the next one!

 

No way am I making a reservation, but, there are only 2 of us. If we show up at a popular time, oh well.

[Overworked]

We had anytime on the Crown 7/29

 

Absolutely loved it. We staggered our dinners to what was convenient for us ( whole Idea). Never once did we wait at all whether 6:00, 6:30, 7:00 it didn`t matter. We never requested particular waiters because we always had great service. I would recommend anytime to anyone. You can still make reservations or eat at the specialtiy restaraunts.

[Shelly97060]

We had anytime dining on our last trip and will never go back to traditional. We never had to wait and sometimes we would eat with others, sometimes just the four of us depending on our mood. We also never made reservations, we just headed down whenever the mood hit us.

 

:)

[Alaska05]

Was on the Sun last month and had Anytime Dining.

 

First 2 days we called to make reservations for 2 people -- were told only 5:30, 5:45 or 8:00 were available. Took the 5:45. The other nights we just showed up around 7:00 and asked for a table for 2. We were seated immediately. Matter of fact the one night they took us up to the Traditional Dining Room which had an empty table.

 

I think it varies from ship to ship and class of ship. Also depends on how many people in your group.

 

For us it works.

[envy4u]

We usually go to dinner around 630-7 and never have waited more than 5-10 minutes to be seated . We love Anytime Dining .Tip.... If we wanted a table for two we would always be told they had none so we asked for a table for 4 instead and we never had another couple join us so we ended getting what we wanted .

[spocruiser]

I think it varies from ship to ship and class of ship. Also depends on how many people in your group.

 

I certainly agree. For my family of four on the Sapphire last April, Anytime was not a great experience. We made reservations for the first 2-3 nights and had planned on doing true Anytime, i.e. just showing up, for the remainder of the cruise. But after witnessessing people (including groups of two) being turned away and told of long wait times during our first 2-3 nights, we ended up making reservations for the rest of our cruise.

 

I would note that when we made reservations immediately upon boarding, we got the times we wanted, but having waited a day into the second tier of reservation availability (on our cruise, we could only make reservations for the first part of the cruise and then on day 3, I beleive, you could make them for the remainder), our choices of times were very limited and typically much later than we would have wanted.

 

Glad to hear it works very well for some people and we may try it again some time, but having to make reservations to ensure available tables, during a limited window, for "Anytime" seemed very contrary to the basic concept. For our next cruise, it is back to traditional for us.

[swom]

Doesn't making a reservation for anytime dining defeat the purpose of "anytime dining"? I guess we will just take our chances that we won't have to wait.

[DeepWaterMariner]

Never had a problem. We were 2 who desired to join large tables and we never had a wait, not once in 15 days. We usually ate around 7:00 and we didn't keep having the same conversation over again. A few other couples also seemed to eat around 7:00 and we met them time after time. By the last night it was almost a party atmosphere with our several sets of dinning companions getting together for a farewell dinner.

[skarletohara]

I certainly agree. For my family of four on the Sapphire last April, Anytime was not a great experience. We made reservations for the first 2-3 nights and had planned on doing true Anytime, i.e. just showing up, for the remainder of the cruise. But after witnessessing people (including groups of two) being turned away and told of long wait times during our first 2-3 nights, we ended up making reservations for the rest of our cruise.

 

I would note that when we made reservations immediately upon boarding, we got the times we wanted, but having waited a day into the second tier of reservation availability (on our cruise, we could only make reservations for the first part of the cruise and then on day 3, I beleive, you could make them for the remainder), our choices of times were very limited and typically much later than we would have wanted.

 

Glad to hear it works very well for some people and we may try it again some time, but having to make reservations to ensure available tables, during a limited window, for "Anytime" seemed very contrary to the basic concept. For our next cruise, it is back to traditional for us.

 

THE ANYTIME DINING ON SAPPHIRE AND DIAMOND PRINCESS IS ABYSMAL.

ON THE STAR AND GOLDEN IT WORKED BEAUTIFULLY.

THEY STILL CAN'T GET THE ANTYIME THING RIGHT ON THE SAPPHIRE.

IT WAS WORSE IN JUNE '06 TRYING TO DINE THERE THAN IT WAS IN

MARCH '06!!!

AND WE HAD RESERVATIONS, TOO. SO WE DECIDED TO START

WALKING UP WITHOUT RESERVATIONS AROUND 7:55, AND THEN THEY TOOK

US RIGHT IN. GO FIGURE.

[bh2359]

Would someone kindly explain (convince) me why you should have a reservation for anytime dining? As another poster stated, doesn't this simply defeat the purpose.

 

I do prefer traditional because we like to interact with the wait staff and get to know my tablemates, BUT, if it was truly anytime dining, why do you need reservations?

 

Thanks for your replies.

[friend of Eeyore]

Would someone kindly explain (convince) me why you should have a reservation for anytime dining? As another poster stated, doesn't this simply defeat the purpose.

 

I do prefer traditional because we like to interact with the wait staff and get to know my tablemates, BUT, if it was truly anytime dining, why do you need reservations?

 

Thanks for your replies.

 

With traditional, you are seated at a large table of 8 or 10. This is fine if you like to interact with tablemates. I do like this at breakfast or lunch. But, at dinner, I feel like a dinner for 2, not 10.

 

We didn't go with a reservation the first 2 nights, and ended up in the same section at a table for 2. We liked the servers, and decided to stay in that section. We also liked eating early, so then made a standing reservation for 2, in that section, at 5:30. If we could make the same reservation for 2 with traditional, we'd probably do it. However, if we were on a cruise that had late ports, we'd probably not make a standing reservation like that.

 

Others on our same cruise had a lot of trouble getting seated early-ish during the first formal night, and then made reservations so as not to wait a while.

[spocruiser]

Would someone kindly explain (convince) me why you should have a reservation for anytime dining? As another poster stated, doesn't this simply defeat the purpose.

 

I do prefer traditional because we like to interact with the wait staff and get to know my tablemates, BUT, if it was truly anytime dining, why do you need reservations?

 

Thanks for your replies.

 

I am no expert having done Anytime just once, but pre-cruise I had read a lot about very long waits without reservations (again, please note my limited experience was on the Sapphire) and once onboard, I saw two instances early on where very upset passengers (in each case a group of only two) walked off muttering about "Anytime" not really being anytime when they were told the earliest they could get in was after 8:00 (they had arrived just after 6:00).

 

My original plan was to make reservations for the first three nights at three different restaurants (all you can do initially on day one), get a feel for how it was working and just show up when we wished for the remainder of the nights. But after having very uninspiring service, seeing the two couples mentioned above and on day three, getting a very good wait staff, we locked in to them for the rest of our trip.

 

So to answer your question, we made reservations because:

 

1) So many people make reservations, it is hard to just show up and get seated after a reasonable wait (again, our limited experience on one ship - it apparently works well elsewhere). In fact, I made my reservations immedaitely upon getting on ship for the first three days and had my pick of what I wanted. I waited less than a day into the time when you could make reservations for the remainder of the cruise and my options when I finally decided to call and make reservations were very limited;

 

2) We wanted to ensure the kind of personal and attentive service we had experienced in traditional (maybe we just had bad luck the first two nights).

 

I really liked the idea of just showing up per our own timetable, but I was concerned that ultimately we would spend a lot of time waiting and/or having to eat much later than we wished.