Personal Choice vs. Traditional Dining

[1cruiselvr]

Would the experienced Princess cruisers please help me settle a dispute with my DH? We are currently booked as traditional dining for our Diamond Princess cruise. DH says you can still eat in the PC dining rooms even though you are assigned Traditional. I say no, if you are assigned traditional then you must dine in the traditional DR only, no switching back and forth is allowed. DH disagrees. Who is correct? Thanks.

[TWA4Ever]

We were able to switch back and forth on the Golden. Having traditional dining assigned makes sure you have a spot for dinner; but, if for some reason you might not like that night's menu (or get tired of your dining companions!), you can dine anywhere you wish.

[Flacrusrs]

I don't think you are encouraged to switch between traditional and PC dining but that is the beauty of PC dining, if you can't make your scheduled seating you have an option of the PC diningroom. Certainly no one is going to turn you away at the door. If you do have traditional dining however, be sure to let your tablemates and your servers know when you won't be coming to dinner.

 

Enjoy!

[Coolcruise02]

We switched a couple nights and they acted like it was not a problem!

[tom-n-jules]

If you have Fixed Traditional seating in your booking, you CAN go to the Anytime dining rooms. However, if you have Anytime dining in your booking, you CANNOT go to the Traditional dining room because all tables are pre-assigned.

 

If you want the freedom of Anytime, you should officially change your booking to Anytime pre-cruise because there is typically a waiting list of people trying to get Traditional, and you'd be doing them a big favor! :D

[HollyK]

Hey there 1Cruiselvr !

 

Doncha jus HATE IT when the DH is right?? :D :D :D

[bidro]

My husband wanted to get the traditional dinning for our upcoming cruise and just use the PC when we felt like changing our dinning time. I must say that I felt that was not the right thing to do. I learned from these boards that there is a waitlist for traditional normally. Also, I think that too many people switching from traditional to PC when they felt like it would make PC even busier than it already is.

 

I'm sure Princess is fine with it...but it just didn't seem right to me. Instead, we are going to do PC and make a standing reservation after the first night. If we don't show, then they can give the table to someone else.

[1cruiselvr]

Yes. Thank goodness it doesn't happen often. :-)

[spongerob]

There is really no problem with going to an alternate dining location when you've booked traditional. It is considered good manners to let your tablemates and waitstaff know that you won't be there ahead of time. Otherwise, they will wait for you to show up. There is no difference in the menus in any of the main dining rooms whether it is an Anytime room or Traditional.

 

My personal opinion is that if you plan to dine elsewhere on 3 or more nights, cancel the traditional reservation and go with Anytime. One of the big reasons we like traditional is meeting up with our tablemates every night. It detracts from the experience when one of the couples shows up only intermittently or not at all.

[1cruiselvr]

We are very experienced cruisers, but not with PC dining. We always let our tablemates and wait staff know that we aren't coming should that be the case as we have been on the receiving end of tablemates that didn't show up or changed tables and never told us. Thanks to everyone for their opinions, knowledge and advice.

Happy Sailing!

[srphnx]

Sorry, don't mean to start a problem, but the people telling you it can be done are not speaking of the Diamond but other Star class ships. On the Diamond/Sapphire you CAN NOT go "back and forth" a quick look at my signature will tell you I am speaking first hand.

 

Husband is NOT correct in this, you can go to alternative i.e. Sabatinis or Horizon but the 4 PC rooms are there to deal with the 2/3rds of the pax that selected PC. You can't have your traditional cake and eat it too. IF you go from Tradtional to PC you don't go back. I am sure there is some exception to the rule because of big-shot status or lack of enforcement on some individuals part the but RULE is not to go back and forth.

 

How fair would that be anyway?.. One way access?

[BJS]

As Srphnx points out things are different on the Diamond and Sapphire.

 

We have found on the other ships things are not constant from ship to ship or with the various Maitre'd. Some allow you to make standing reservations from the first night in PC and others don't, the same with reservations days in advance where one allows this and another makes you call daily, and one allows reservations between 6 pm and 8 pm and another doesn't. Also on some cruises you can request a table for two when reserving and on other cruises you can only make the reservation and then tell them when you arrive you want a table for two.

 

Would be nice if all these cruises were the same so we'd all know just exactly what the "rules" are for PC dining. :D