Royal Caribbeans flexible dining?

[MJN]

we heard some buzz about the new flexible dining option and just wondered how it works? We are long time loyalists on RCCL but it's been a while since we have cruised and have not been on a cruise with this type of dining program. We have just booked Freedom for an August sailing............thanks all, MJN

[NorbertsNiece]

Hi,

It's called My Time Dining.

You prepay your tips and request this dining option through your TA or whoever you book through. When you board you can visit the Main Dining Room and check out what options you have. You can pre selcet a dining time (between 6pm and 930 pm) where you will be given the same table each night or you may prefer to arrive whenever, in which case you may not get the same waiting staff. You can choose whether or not to share your table.

This is wonderful option in my opinion. If sailaway is during meal times you can still catch it. Similarly you don't have to miss a sunset because you've got a Main Dining Room sitting at that time. You are seated in a section of the main dining room so you don't miss any of the atmosphere. Of course the menu is identical.

[negc]

The system is called My Time Dining and is being rolled out slowly to all of the ships in the fleet. Initially, at least, participation in the program is limited (perhaps to insure that they can work out any bugs in the operation) and only a small section of one of the main dining rooms is set aside for My Time Diners. I expect that it will be expanded to a larger section of the room as they become more used to it and demand dictates. We tried it on our Navigator cruise last month and were very pleasantly surprised at how well it worked for us, since we are "traditional dining" fans and had less than satisfactory experiences with Princess' Anytime Dining. You need to sign up for My Time Dining in advance or as soon as you board, and pre-pay your tips. You cannot move back and forth from MTD to traditional, but you can, if you wish make a standing reservation for a particular time for the entire cruise, make separate reservations for each evening, or just show up between, I believe: 5:30 pm and 9:30 pm and ask for a table. We dined at different times but had the same excellent wait staff every evening. Service was attentive and while we never felt rushed, we did find that our time in the dining room was shorter than has been our usual experience with traditional dining. I have read very few negative comments from those who have tried My Time Dining, which is one reason we decided to try it. If it continues to be as successful when they expand the program, we will probably give it serious consideration on future cruises. If you have any specific questions, let me know and I, or someone on here will do our best to answer them.:)

[Gracie115]

I concur with everything negc said. It was a great experience and enhanced our last cruise. RCL is doing this right ... so far anyway. I wonder if it will be the same when a larger section of the dining room is used as it becomes more popular....

 

At any rate we will definitely do it again on our next cruise.

[rummenroman]

I agree with all the postives already said.

 

I will voice my only concern with the program...

 

We choose to eat during the "switch over" period for traditional diners. We felt like we were watching a herd of people (we were really) leaving the MDR. Then we got to see the postivie. All the servers "let their guard down" sorta speak. We were given the oppturnity to see the servers without running around. Kinda neat to see them, and how much they enjoyed what they did. Then the negative came again....another herd of people coming in for second seating.

 

We put a comment on our comment card at the end of the cruise to have a seperate dining area for MTD. This may take a while for this to happen, but i would love to see this in the future!

 

We did love the option to eat when we wanted, and not be "stuck" with a time.

[Gracie115]

rummenroman-

 

We were on Jewel when we had MTD and the section in the DR that was set aside for it was 2nd floor, back of the room so we didn't experience the "herding" effect you mention as we were in the dining room most nights during the change over from early to late...not to say we didn't see people leaving and arriving, we did, but at enough distance that it didn't disturb us at all....but I think Jewel had been doing MTD for several months at that point...so maybe that's the difference....