Empress of the Seas: What time is early dining?

[cutekatcar]

I have booked the early dinner. A friend says I should have taken the later seating because we'll be rushing back from Bermuda. I can't find in any of my notes what time early dining is. If it's 5:00, we're doomed, but if it's 6:00 we'll be ok. Anyone know?

I do have kids, 8 and 11, and I'm always watching my weight (won't be then), but I certainly don't want a big meal at 8:30 at night!

Any help appreciated.

Cutekatcar

[thefunkman]

I believe it is 6pm. We are going on the Empress on the 24th of July and also booked the early dinner because of the kids and that is around the normal time we eat. Unfortunately we will have to cut excursions short due to having to get back and get ready for dinner. If you know you will be late for dinner and decide to make other plans or you want to have dinner on shore, let your wait staff and tablemates know the night before (if possible) so no one is waiting for you. I asked about being 10-15 minutes late (not on purpose, just in case something happened) and it opened up a whole flaming war over bad manners and all. What we planned on doing was the tourist things in the morning and then hit the beach for the afternoon and get back to the ship for dinner.

Hope this helps

[RichNY]

Funkman
I saw your post about being late for dinner and I cant beleive I didn't chime in.Some of those people have serious dining issues. We (a group of 4)were on the Empress in May and booked an excursion that would cause us to be late for dinner. The night before we told our waiter. We had the late seating and arrived 45mins late (OMG). Our wait staff could have not been nicer but we could see that they were rushing an little. Our waiter just kept bringing us food, one thing after another. He was too funny, all he kept saying was try this, you will like it. The meal went off without a hitch and WW3 did not break out. As for our tablemates some nights they were there and some night they were not. It didn't matter to us or the wait staff. The waitstaff is in the service business and know how to cope with any situtation.
I guess you can say we were bad too because we didn't stand on line waiting for the doors to open for our seating. We just spent out time waiting in the bar.LOL

Cutekatcar and Funkman have a great trip .

[cutekatcar]

Hey, I read that thread too and thought "duh, it's not like he's planning on being late", but sometimes these things happen.

6:00 is actually pretty good for us. I don't plan on doing too many things in Bermuda that would make us late anyway. And if we are, we'll try room service!!

Thanks for your responses.

Cutekatcar