As You Wish Dining - Opinions, Comments and Discussions

[Thedabraddock]

also, are there any room service options?

[RuthC]

Sorry not sure if I understood. I signed up with my fiance for 8 seating but I don't know if it was 'fixed' or 'open'. Does fixed mean you have to be there exactly at 8 or do you have leeway time to say 9, or so? Do they give your table away? I don't mind being there at 8 but probably better to know before so we don't miss dinner!

If you have an 8:00 dining time, then you must have fixed seating. Your time is 8:00, and there is at best a 15-minute leeway. And the closer to the 8:00 time you arrive, the better. The better for your tablemates (if any), and certainly the better for your stewards.

If you want more flexibility in arrival time, then you should seriously consider open seating.

also, are there any room service options?

There is a 24-hour Room Service menu, and a more extensive menu during more limited hours. Beyond that, however, you can also order from the full dining room menu, for delivery to your cabin at any time. The only condition is you order within the first half-hour the dining room is open.

[Hal&Rob]

Just returned home from a fabulous transatlantic 18 day cruise (plus 2 wks Paris) on the Zuiderdam.

 

We thoroughly enjoyed AYWD and had no problems obtaining a table for 2, 4, 6, 8, or 12 persons when we approached the dining room any time between 6:30 and 7:30. Our group of diners varied from night to night depending on how many friends wanted to join us.

 

This was the first cruise for AYWD on the Zuiderdam. The staff was wonderful and seemed to flow with the new arrangement and always remembered us when we entered the dining room and treated us royally, maybe because we were all men. ;)

[Suico]

We are booked on the Ryndam for an Alaskan cruise the first part of May and we will have the option of fixed time or the "Anytime" dinners. You make the choice when you board and once made, that is your option for the entire cruise.

[pms4104]

We are booked on the Ryndam for an Alaskan cruise the first part of May and we will have the option of fixed time or the "Anytime" dinners. You make the choice when you board and once made, that is your option for the entire cruise.

Sorry, but you do not make the choice when you board. Your preferance should have been requested at time of booking, and your documents will indicate whether you've been assigned open (make a reservation daily) or fixed, either early or main. If you do not like what you've been assigned, you may request a change from the maitre 'd (spelling?) on embarkation day. Indeed, you may not flip-flop on a daily basis ... you will be either fixed or open for the entire sailing.

[Sundagger]

Sorry, but you do not make the choice when you board. Your preferance should have been requested at time of booking, and your documents will indicate whether you've been assigned open (make a reservation daily) or fixed, either early or main. If you do not like what you've been assigned, you may request a change from the maitre 'd (spelling?) on embarkation day. Indeed, you may not flip-flop on a daily basis ... you will be either fixed or open for the entire sailing.

 

You don't have to make a reservation with open seating. You have the option of just showing up and being seated, possibly with a wait.

[pms4104]

You don't have to make a reservation with open seating. You have the option of just showing up and being seated, possibly with a wait.

Thank you for clarifying ... I know that but neglected to mention it. My main point, tho, was that while dining changes may be requested once on board, that is not how the initial arrangement/assignment is handled.

[westville]

Hi

We are on the Zuiderdam 7/7/08. We have chosen early dining but now I have doubts about this choice. I seem to prefer the flexibility of AYWD. I have some questions that hope you can answer:

i If you book traditional can you do AYWD on some days. If yes- how many days can you do

ii. With AYWD is there a long wait for a table for 4 esp bet 630-7.30

iii. Is the service less rushed at AYWD

iv. How early is early dining for a europe cruise

v. BTW how many formal nights for a 12 day cruise.

Please advise:o

[westville]

Hi

We are on the Zuiderdam 7/7/08. We have chosen early dining but now I have doubts about this choice. I seem to prefer the flexibility of AYWD. I have some questions that hope you can answer:

i If you book traditional can you do AYWD on some days. If yes- how many days can you do

ii. With AYWD is there a long wait for a table for 4 esp bet 630-7.30

iii. Is the service less rushed at AYWD

iv. How early is early dining for a europe cruise

v. BTW how many formal nights for a 12 day cruise.

Please advise:o

[puli]

Having always had fixed dining, my DH and I are considering AYWD on our next HAL cruise and are a little confused about the process. I could not get through all the pages of this thread so please excuse me if this is a duplicate ?. Can a couple request a fixed time for AYWD and also ask to be seated with others? Or, do we have to just show up and hope for the best.

 

Our first preference is to dine at @ 6:30 and with others (either a table for 6 or for 8). I realize this is probably the preference of many and the request may not even be allowed.

[RuthC]

Can a couple request a fixed time for AYWD and also ask to be seated with others? Or, do we have to just show up and hope for the best.

I think you're trying to ask about the open seating aspect of the AYW system, as opposed to the fixed seating aspect of AYW?

And then you are interested in a standing reservation at 6:30 every night? Is that correct?

You can make a reservation each morning; calls are accepted starting at 8:00 AM. There is a lengthy period each night, however, for which reservations aren't taken; I believe 6:30 is one of those times. The times available are very early, and quite late. When you make a reservation you can request a particular table size.

Or, you can just walk in at your convenience and request to be seated. When you walk in you may specify a table size.

I hope this answers your questions.

[puli]

Thanks! Yes, I was referring to open seating. For our next cruise we have confirmed early fixed seating but are thinking about trying the AYWD. On our last HAL cruise (4/08) the staff was so rushed we did not really get to know them and in fact hardly saw the ass't waiter. Our table mates were great. In the past however, we have also encountered "not so great" table mates so this should not be the deciding factor.

 

It seems to me that if you can sit with other passengers (at a convenient time) AYWD might work out. This would be especially true if 5:45 is really too early and 8:15 way too late.

 

Am I to understand that a 6:30 reservation is not allowed but you can go to the dining room at that time and request to be seated at a table for 6 or 8? Do you know if this can usually be accomplished without being given a "beeper"? My DH would not be happy about either the wait or the beeper!

[RuthC]

Am I to understand that a 6:30 reservation is not allowed but you can go to the dining room at that time and request to be seated at a table for 6 or 8? Do you know if this can usually be accomplished without being given a "beeper"? My DH would not be happy about either the wait or the beeper!

My understanding is that open seating is from 5:15 to 9:00 PM, and you can walk in anytime between those hours and be seated. I don't remember if the 6:30 time you want is available for reservations or not; it's either the last reservation time, or the first time frame it's not allowed.

Anyway, if you walk in without a reservation you may or may not be able to be seated without a wait. The reports are short waits, at worst. But if the immediate world wants to go to dinner the same time you do, someone's going to get a beeper and wait.

[mbiggers]

Nor do I want to see HAL do away with traditional seating, to have true “as you wish dining” traditional seating has to be considered as part of the as you wish availability. I have to commend HAL for taking the bold step in implementing AYWD, it makes it a more enjoyable cruise experience for me. However, I would not let the lack of any form of dining either open or traditional keep me from taking any cruise of my choice. My wife and I, my parents and my cousin and his wife are booked on the Celebrity Century for a Western Mediterranean cruise this September. Celebrity has only the 2 traditional dining times of 6:15 and 8:30. My parents wanted the early seating which I hate, but I have to agree with them 8:30 is just to darn late to eat. This is a 10 night 8 port cruise and we sail most of the ports at 7pm which means we miss the sail aways and we are taking 4 8-9 hour shore excursions that will get us back to the ship most times less than an hour before dinner. Fortunately we have a Sky Suite so we will be dinning on our terrace 3 to 4 of those nights watching the Italian and French coast. At least on this cruise having a table for 6 and all being family, I do not have to suffer through the possibility of insufferable tablemates :eek: for the other nights. We chose this cruise not because of the type of dining but the itinerary that we most wanted and the departure port of Barcelona instead of Rome which is what HAL offered.

 

Terry, We have sailed on Century a few times. They have an area inside the buffet area called Casual Dining where reservations are taken for a sit-down dinner (ordering food off a menu). It is never really crowded and gives you the flexibility of dining a little later than the assigned time for early dinner. You can switch between your assigned seating and Casual Dining from one night to the next, so it's completely flexible.

Michele

[pms4104]

Hi

i If you book traditional can you do AYWD on some days. If yes- how many days can you do

No. You will be either fixed or open seating for the entire cruise. If, before sailing, you are not pleased with your assigned dining, you may attempt to change it with the maitre 'd the day of embarkation. But, HAL does not permit flip-flopping between the fixed and open options.

 

AYWD, by the way, refers to the entire dining experience on HAL: fixed and open in the main dining venue, Lido, Pinnacle, room service.

[PS23435]

Just returned from a 12 day eastern Mediterranean cruise on the Zuiderdam. I understand this was the ship's first time with the AYW dining option. While overall, we were very pleased with the flexibility the "as you wish" option offers, there appeared to be a "cost" in service. With the AYWD option you likely will have a different server team every evening (unless you make a reservation for the same table each night). With this option, the servers never really get to know you as they did on previous cruises we had taken with the experience being much more like a regular restaurant. Of the 12 evenings, only 3 provided the exceptional service we had come to expect on cruises. The other evenings ranged from "OK" to unacceptable with sloppy, uneven serving and service as the serving team tried to manage tables in different states of the meal. When all was said and done, I would choose AYWD again to get the great flexibility in seating times. I hope HAL continues to refine the service.

[gentlemancruiser]

My understanding is that open seating is from 5:15 to 9:00 PM, and you can walk in anytime between those hours and be seated. I don't remember if the 6:30 time you want is available for reservations or not; it's either the last reservation time, or the first time frame it's not allowed.

Anyway, if you walk in without a reservation you may or may not be able to be seated without a wait. The reports are short waits, at worst. But if the immediate world wants to go to dinner the same time you do, someone's going to get a beeper and wait.

 

I remember being told on the Oosterdam, that reservations were not available from 6:30pm to 7:45pm. During those time you could show up and would be seated at the next available table. This is how it was explained to me.

[PS23435]

We never made a reservation in the Zuiderdam (12 April - 8 May) and really had no wait time for a table. The longest we waited was maybe 10 minutes and that was because they were having computer problems and had to manually assign people to tables. We had longer waits for service once seated.

[sppunk]

Our take - from the review of our 5/18/08 Westerdam sailing review (http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=781689).

 

One of the primary reasons we had neglected to book a HAL cruise was the dining situation - we simply hate being told exactly when to dine in the main dining room and don't feel the lido buffet can ever fully replace dinner. So, with this, we happily signed up for As You Wish dining when we booked our cruise in January. On the cruise documents received, they said AS YOU WISH dining. However, when we received our cruise cards we were giving a specific table for the 8 p.m. dining time. *****?

 

We immediately sought the maître d to have it changed. He informed us that 1,400 of the 2,098 individuals on board had requested As You Wish dining and HAL decided to randomly place people in traditional dining slots. We were scratching our heads, and asked to be placed back to our preference. He tried to talk us out of it - saying lines would be long, we would likely have rushed meals, etc. - but we knew the pros/cons and insisted to be placed back to As You Wish, which we were.

 

Not one time did we have to wait for a table (and only one time out of three when requesting a table for 2 were we told it'd be a 10 minute wait) and only saw large groups having to wait. We ate at all times - from 5 p.m. to 8:15 p.m.

 

The meals - which we were warned would be rushed - were the opposite. I'm sorry, but 2 and 1/2 hours for a meal is too long and we experienced this three times, one when we were at a table for 2! I believe the issue lies within the sheer number of waitstaff not being able to handle the amount of workloads they are now given. The kitchen could get backed up, but this is something we obviously can't see so I won't speculate.

[hammybee]

This is the third time in the past year that I have read of Open Seating being sold out and those requesting Open Seating learning after boarding, that they were being forced ( ;) ) into Fixed Seating. All three were Alaskan sails. I wonder if there was a large group onboard or perhaps the dynamics were such, that the majority simply preferred Open Seating.

[sppunk]

For this cruise, pure majority as there was no large group.

[terrydtx]

This is the third time in the past year that I have read of Open Seating being sold out and those requesting Open Seating learning after boarding, that they were being forced ( ;) ) into Fixed Seating. All three were Alaskan sails. I wonder if there was a large group onboard or perhaps the dynamics were such, that the majority simply preferred Open Seating.

 

I think that this shows the ever growing acceptance of the AYWD option by HAL passengers and that in spite of the many CC’s objections posted on this board the majority of HAL cruisers may just prefer open dining options. For those who demand to have traditional seating (which they have a right to) this should be good news, as there will be more traditional seating available for them.

[JerseyJaguar]

I was in fixed late seating for my recent Oosterdam cruise and the room always seemed full, even on Master Chef's night.

 

I don't know what open seating was like since I didn't pay much attention to it at dinner time. I didn't hear anyone complaining about their dining arrangements though, no matter what they had.

[tutak]

I think that this shows the ever growing acceptance of the AYWD option by HAL passengers and that in spite of the many CC’s objections posted on this board the majority of HAL cruisers may just prefer open dining options. ...

 

If this is true, why isn't open seating closed or wailisted when you book with the only choice left being fixed seating?

[mancunian]

They don't seem to be bothered the other way round. On our cruise many open sitting passengers were placed upstairs as all the tables were not occupied.

 

I suppose the trouble is they cannot necessarily let traditional into the lower tier unless they had equal numbers of traditionals for both sittings. If it was say only early sitting that was oversubscribed it might block tables for opens. Of course with open they don't know what time you will turn up.