dining experience

[medcoder]

Hi, All, I have only sailed on Princess one time before the upcoming cruise on the Coral leaving on the 26th of March. We have cruised on a number of other lines a number of times. My question is this, on our first and only previous cruise on Princess we found the dining experience less than what we hoped for. We are generally pretty easy folks to get along with but we prefer the traditional dining rm experience. I know I told my travel agent that is what we wanted and well, we are wait listed for that. So, we w/fend for ourselves again. We don't have issues with freestyle/anytime dining etc, it is just we never could get seated in any of the dining rms the last time we went on PCC and ended up spending all our meals at the buffet. That just isn't what we like to do for all meals. Yup, we tried for reservation for the specialty restaurants, you name it. Nada, zip, zilch So, I guess my question is what suggestions do others who have cruised Princess before have for us? Again, we aren't very hard to please just don't want to be the wanderers looking for a decent place to dine with nicer service rather than self service.

[dennbr9]

I believe you can arrange a standing reservation before 6:30 or after 8:00 in the PC dining rooms. I too am a traditional dining fan but have always been able to secure it before leaving. Good luck!

[caribill]

The afternoon you board, the Matre'd will be set up somewhere to assist you with requests. At that time, see if he can get you the assignment in the traditional fixed dining that you want.

[Vanilla]

We are traditional diners also... don't want it any other way. Last cruise we were waitlisted... way down the list but can't remember the number now. Anyway about 2 weeks before the cruise we were all of a sudden placed in the traditional dining room (whew!). Don't give up hope yet.

[Mbouck1]

I too am a traditional dining fan. We are currently waitlisted for our May 11th cruise to Alaska and hoping that we get the confirmation to traditional dining. I was thinking of calling Princess to see if they would be able to tell me what number we are on the list. The only personal choice ding we did was on our Norwegian sailings and we weren't thrilled with it. It's just not the same where you become good friends with your dinnermates and really get to know your waiters. As a matter of fact, next week we are metting up with a couple from London for a weekend in NYC that we met 5 years ago and have sailed twice with. You can only get these kind of friends from traditional dining.

[DundasONT]

Hi, All, I have only sailed on Princess one time before the upcoming cruise on the Coral leaving on the 26th of March. We have cruised on a number of other lines a number of times. My question is this, on our first and only previous cruise on Princess we found the dining experience less than what we hoped for. We are generally pretty easy folks to get along with but we prefer the traditional dining rm experience. I know I told my travel agent that is what we wanted and well, we are wait listed for that. So, we w/fend for ourselves again. We don't have issues with freestyle/anytime dining etc, it is just we never could get seated in any of the dining rms the last time we went on PCC and ended up spending all our meals at the buffet. That just isn't what we like to do for all meals. Yup, we tried for reservation for the specialty restaurants, you name it. Nada, zip, zilch So, I guess my question is what suggestions do others who have cruised Princess before have for us? Again, we aren't very hard to please just don't want to be the wanderers looking for a decent place to dine with nicer service rather than self service.

 

We were on the Coral 2/25 sailing. With "Anytime", never waited more than a few minutes for a table in the 5:45 - 6:30 time range. You can also reserve a set time.

[BJS]

We don't have issues with freestyle/anytime dining etc, it is just we never could get seated in any of the dining rms the last time we went on PCC and ended up spending all our meals at the buffet. That just isn't what we like to do for all meals. Yup, we tried for reservation for the specialty restaurants, you name it. Nada, zip, zilch self service.

 

Sorry but I'm not familiar with the initals PCC - is this a Princess ship?

 

Our experience with Princess - many cruises -has never been similiar. We have never ever not been able to be seated in any Anytime dining room. Most of the time we walk right up and are seated - the longest wait we ever had was 15 minutes at 7:15. If we had not wanted a table for 2 we would have been seated immediately.

 

You can call during the day and make a reservation, get a standing reservation or just walk up.

 

Princess anytime dining is not similar to freestyle dining from what others have told me that have sailed with NCL.

 

.

[jean s]

I'm a bit confused with the original question. We just cruised on Grand Princess in February and had no problem dining in the personal choice dining room. In fact the longest we waited for a table for 2 was 5 minutes. We ate at a different time every evening and were given our request (large table or table for 2) each night. I don't understand why anyone on a Princess ship would feel they had to eat at the buffet every night. We have sailed numerous times on different Princess ships and never experienced this problem. In fact we love personal choice dining on Princess.

[cheflauraleh]

I know it may vary on some ships, but on Emerald last year we were sometimes given a 30-45 minute wait for a table for two. Then we got in good with the maitre d' and he started seating us as soon as we walked up. I personally love the anytime dining option, and I will definitely wait to be seated because I am not a fan of buffets. But I know that sometimes the wait will be more than 5 minutes like the OP suggested theirs was.

[Colo Cruiser]

Hi, All, I have only sailed on Princess one time before the upcoming cruise on the Coral leaving on the 26th of March. We have cruised on a number of other lines a number of times. My question is this, on our first and only previous cruise on Princess we found the dining experience less than what we hoped for. We are generally pretty easy folks to get along with but we prefer the traditional dining rm experience. I know I told my travel agent that is what we wanted and well, we are wait listed for that. So, we w/fend for ourselves again. We don't have issues with freestyle/anytime dining etc, it is just we never could get seated in any of the dining rms the last time we went on PCC and ended up spending all our meals at the buffet. That just isn't what we like to do for all meals. Yup, we tried for reservation for the specialty restaurants, you name it. Nada, zip, zilch So, I guess my question is what suggestions do others who have cruised Princess before have for us? Again, we aren't very hard to please just don't want to be the wanderers looking for a decent place to dine with nicer service rather than self service.

 

 

Just talk with the MD as soon as you can after boarding. :)

[Jill SC]

We have used personal choice dining on the Grand Princess 3 times in the last five years. The only times we have ever had to wait for a table for two is when we have requested a specific table to get a specific waiter. And if it wasn't available the Maitre' D would tell us and seat us at another table for two.

[mycruz]

We have sailed the Coral twice and always choose Personal Choice Dining and our experience on the Coral has been very good. We never had to wait more than 15 minutes for a table for two. We also never had a problem booking specialty restaurants on the Coral even same day.

 

Love the Coral, it's my favorite Princess ship so far.

[dplusd]

I didn't understand the original question either. We have only sailed on Princess once but loved Anytime dining and we're returning to Princess this December. We would usually decide what time we wanted to eat in the morning and make a reservation over the phone for that night. Never had a problem getting a reservation for 2, and that was at different times each night, but usually between 6 and 7 p.m.

 

On a couple of nights we did notice a lot of people outside the restaurant waiting to be seated, but our reservation was always there and we were promptly seated.

 

With just a little advance planning and phoning in a reservation, you shouldn't have to eat in the buffet any night...unless you want to!

[Cruzman]

"ya know, if I wanna make reservations, or wait for a table to open up, I can do that at Red Lobster, or Olive Garden, etc. A cruise ship dining experience is supposed to be different, isn't it?

[Suede]

Will someone tell me the difference between Personal Choice Dining" and Anytime Dining", and is this still in a regular dining room?

[Colo Cruiser]

Will someone tell me the difference between Personal Choice Dining" and Anytime Dining", and is this still in a regular dining room?

 

 

It is the same thing and it is in the same type of dining room :)