It's Official... Celebrity is rolling out Open Seating on all ships

[richsea]

After reading this thread, Celebrity will probably say this:

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3FnpaWQJO0[/url]

[JR_Janet]

[quote name='keiki40']I can only agree to what FinelyCruising stated: Last month we sailed on Freedom of the Seas and we chose MTD for the first time even though we like the traditional dining very much. Why? Always the same problem: 6:00 is too early and 8:30 p.m. is much too late. When we are at home we try not to have dinner later that 6:00/6:30 p.m. That's too early when staying on a cruise ship, because quite often you haven't even left the port of call at that time and on the opposite side having a meal at 8:30 p.m. is supposed to be not that healthy. That's why we chose the MTD. We had the same dining time (7:00 p.m.) each day, the same friendly waiters each day who cared for us the same way we were treated during the traditional dining, the same table each day and of course we dressed properly as we really love the formal nights.

When watching other people who had MTD on that cruise there was one thing that caught our eyes: most of these guests were more properly dressed and behaved better than some of the guests who were on the traditional dining.

So please stop complaining about things you never experiened before.

RCCL did a great job during our cruise and I cannot believe that there were any guests from the traditional dining who felt disturbed by the MTD-guests.

We love to cruise X and we are looking forward to the Select dining. X will be able to perform it as perfect as RCCL can.

Enjoy your coming cruises!!![/quote]

I have a question about the shows. When you chose 7 pm dining, did you miss the shows in the theatre? I agree with the 6 too early and 8:45 too late and am willing to try the Select Dining. I prefer the traditional atmosphere on a cruise but I do believe I will still get that with Select Dining. I like the same waiters, I love to dress up for dinner, I like the atmosphere, but we have 8:45 dining for our Equinox TA in November. That is awfully late. If I do choose Select Dining, will this mean I will miss the shows? Thanks

[Bruin Steve]

Here's my last boot to the carcass of that deceased equine:

I love all the "6 pm is too early for us and 8:30 is too late" comments...
Truth be told, that is correct for most of us...
Problem is this: EVERYONE on the ship cannot have dinner at 7:30...
Not until they build ships with incredible amounts of space dedicated to dining room facilities...

Let's look at the history of cruising and how we got to this point...
Okay, we look at MODERN cruise history...We can throw out the Titanic days--when only the first class got the fine dining and they had one seating all night long...and Steerage got to eat whatever they scrounged up in their rooms...

The typical modern cruise ship, prior to the last 10 or 15 years, had only one dining room...which could accommodate approximately half of the number of passengers onboard...
Say you had a 2,000 passenger total cocupancy, then your dining room would only hold 1,000. You only wanted to be open for dinner (labor issues) from 6:00 to 10:30...and you wanted to provide an elegant, leisurely 2 hour dinner service...You had to assign dinner in shifts with two shifts...You just could not have passengers showing up whenever they wanted...It had to be organized in order to move everyone through in the allotted time.

Therefore, ALL passengers had to volunteer or be assigned to one of the two dining slots. Like to eat at 7:30? Sorry...pick either 6 or 8:30 instead...

NECESSITY...

Okay, over recent years, most cruise lines have added "Specialty Restaurants" and "Alternative Dining"...but space in these is somewhat limited...Let's say you have room for 100 people at any one time in specialty restaurants...Since you still have to have 1,000 spaces in the MDR, you actually now have room for at least 2,100 diners--an excess of 100 spaces...If you can get enough people to dine in the specialty restaurant either early or late so that you can squeeze two seatings in, you may be able to have in excess of 100 extra dinner places...

Problem is, you cannot just allow 100 passengers to now show up whenever they want just because you now have 100 empty seats in the MDR each night...You don't know how many are coming from early seating, how many from late...or where they are coming from...And you cannot seat people at 7:30 at a table with other diners who started at 6:00...And you still have the problem that EVERYBODY might want to start at 7:30...

Now, flash forward to today...There are some cruise lines that have gone to all open seating, others (like Princess), a hybrid...

All open seating is currently done on NCL, Oceania, Azamara...
These cruise lines would still have a problem if everyone decided they wanted to eat at 7:30...Just count up the dining room seats and you'll find they simply cannot accommodate everyone...What to do? Well, first, you have to HOPE that enough people want to come early and enough want to come late. Figure the laws of probability help you out a bit...BUT, what happens when your ship is docked in an interesting port until 8:00 pm? Laws of probability are out the window...Everyone gets back to the ship at 7:30 and wants to eat at 8 or 8:30...

The only way to deal with this is to PUSH people through dinner faster while making some people wait to get seated...You cannot seat everyone at 8:00 and allow them to have a leisurely 2 hour multi-course dinner...

I do think it works better on some ships, typically smaller ones...Oceania makes sure its specilty restaurants are filled by having zero extra charge and having an in-demand reservation system for those...and, the dining room is actully slightly oversized for the number of passengers...

Princess attempts to be all things to all people by attempting a hybrid system:
Half the ship is assigned traditional dining assignments and half is assigned to "Anytime"...Then they have two sets of dining rooms--one for traditional, the other for "Anytime" diners...The expectation is that the traditional diners get their standard two hour window and sevice while the Anytime diners are willing to have it work like a restaurant--show up, maybe wait for a table, be moved along to make room for the next diners...

However, from our experience, it doesn't work well...Exactly half the ship doesn't want one system...or the other...So, you start with waiting list issues...and people getting assigned to what they don't want...Then, it's all poorly enforced...People with traditional assignments show up to Anytime rooms and get seated, people with Anytime, don't really get to eat when they want--they get a buzzer and wait for up to an hour for a table...

So why are RCI/Celebrity willing to join this experiment?

To keep up with the competition...
Some cruise lines make it a point of their advertizing...and the rhetoric sounds good to a lot of customers: "Nobody tells you when and where to eat"...Yeah, freedom! And a lot of people buy into the concept...So, by not also offering some version of this, RCI/Celebrity runs the risk of alienating a portion of the customer base--whether it all makes sense or not...Hey, these guys want to wait for tables or be rushed through dinner in shorter time or have their service suffer? You certainly can't tell them that, but...it's easier to just join the party...Give the people what they want...or what they have been talked into wanting...

Of course, the ONLY way to let people show upo for dinner when they want is to either:
1) Devote twice as much of your ship space to dining rooms; or
2) To rush people through dinner and have people prepared to wait if dining at popular times--just like restaurants back home...

Which brings us to the next step in the evolution--Well, you CAN eat whenever you want, but you have to make a reservation...unless you want to wait and wait for a table...Okay? "Well, we have reservations available at 5:30 or at 10:00, which would you like?"

[Ma Bell]

[quote name='Ma Bell'][B]It may be a bit easier now, but in most really nice restaurants, unless you make plans ahead, the restaurant will tell you what time you'll be dining and it's usually very early or very late. If Select Dining becomes very popular, those "desired" dining times will book up quickly as well. It will still be a case of having to serve everyone during a certain period of time, in a finite number of seats. There's no heading down the street to the next best place.[/B]

[B]I hope it works well and I'm certainly willing to give it a try, but there is also the possibility that it will cause some problems. I wonder if Celebrity might have to solve the problem by offering all their "loyal" cruisers first choice of times.[/B][/quote]

Hi Steve,

This is what I said quite a few pages ago.;)

[Gracie115]

good lord...this thread has spent more time on anytime dining then X probably has...

the horse has been killed, murdered, quartered and buried at least 10 times here...

everyone just give it a try, or stay with traditional and then come back next year and tell us what was so godawful horrible about it.....

[FinelyCruising]

[quote name='Bruin Steve']

I love all the "6 pm is too early for us and 8:30 is too late" comments...
Truth be told, that is correct for most of us...
Problem is this: EVERYONE on the ship cannot have dinner at 7:30...
Not until they build ships with incredible amounts of space dedicated to dining room facilities...
[/QUOTE]

That will not happen at any time. Even restuarants don't build enough seats so that everyone in town has one if they were to be all there at the same time.

If everyone considered this to be another specialty venue (and at no additional cost:)) it might help with the concept.

Depending on the itinerary, the two distinct dining times can be limiting for some and this is an option for those who know what works best for them to enjoy their cruise.

[keiki40]

JR_Janet,
we didn't miss any of the shows we wanted to see, but sometimes we were in a hurry to move in time from the dining room to the theatre, but hurrying up was much better than missing time in the ports.

I wouldn't hesitate any second to do it again.

In the meantime we booked a B2B on Century for February/March 2010 and we hope to be able to enjoy Select Dining.

[hcat]

[quote name='lifevicarious']No "heat" intended but if you were at a table for 8, and 6 of those 8 decide to eat at a specialty restaurant, you would want to sit at an 8top with simply you and your spouse? To me, and it's only my opinion, but I certainly would not want that. Not only would it feel odd, it would be a colossal waste.[/QUOTE]

Yes, it was great when this happened & I don't want new people each night like at a food court or cafeteria...!

We will sign up for what we want & hope for the best--as long as it does not impact us negativey the others can dine whenever they want--but I do not want a transient table for dinner..

[BrendaJ]

[quote name='Bruin Steve']
The only way to deal with this is to PUSH people through dinner faster while making some people wait to get seated...You cannot seat everyone at 8:00 and allow them to have a leisurely 2 hour multi-course dinner...
[/quote]

[FONT=Arial]Bingo! And that is why My Time Dining [I]can[/I] work well - because you won't necessarily have to have a 2 hour dinner. With traditional dining, there is often a real lag between courses. Some people, like my husband and I and most of our friends and family, eat fairly quickly (okay, some call Dudley "The Hoover" :o). With traditional dining, we often find ourselves waiting quite a time between courses. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]On Azamara, at our tables for six, we were often done dinner in much less than two hours. We were never rushed, but the courses moved through much more efficiently than with traditional dining, in my opinion. We don't always order every course, but traditionally, must wait for those in our section who do. On Azamara, usually none of us ordered soup [I]and[/I] salad [I]and[/I] an appetizer, and our waiters were able to serve one person's soup at the same time they served another person's salad. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Although I always enjoy chatting with whichever tablemates we get with traditional dining (we always request a large table), I must admit it does seem to be a long time to be sitting at dinner. We can just as easily have a conversation in the martini bar, or spend time enjoying the rest of the ship, rather than feeling trapped into hanging out in the dining room for two hours just so we can get a coffee when everyone else does. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The Solstice-class ships have so many terrific places to hang out, I want to make the most of my evenings by experiencing as many of them as possible. Our one-week cruise on the Solstice in March just seemed like a teaser - I certainly didn't have the spare time to see it all. We'll be on the Equinox for two weeks in November, and I am very tempted to try My Time Dining if it is in fact offered. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The one big plus I can see with having a flexible dining option is when you are travelling with many people you know, like we will be in November. It would be terrific to have a chance to dine with different groups of friends on different evenings. We will know at least 20 people on our Equinox cruise, and if My Time Dining is offered, we might actually have a chance to have a dinner with each of them, which would be terrific.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Now we just have to wait for the official word . . .[/FONT]

[npsh]

[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Well........ since this thread has gone on to 10+ pages, just as well for me to step in with a comment. We are looking forward to having the ability to dine at “leisure” rather the usual arranged sittings on the port intensive Eastern Mediterranean Equinox cruise we are scheduled for fall 2010. This particular cruise (for us) is about visiting the many beautiful cities/ports, the ship itself is considered our hotel room and the dining room isn’t foremost in our minds. Ditto for dressing up.[/FONT][/COLOR]
[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3] [/SIZE][/FONT]
;)

[lifevicarious]

[quote name='hcat']
--as long as it does not impact us negativey the others can dine whenever they want--[/QUOTE]

How gracious of you to let others dine when they want only if it doesn't impact you. We all thank you.:eek:

[hcat]

[quote name='lifevicarious']How gracious of you to let others dine when they want only if it doesn't impact you. We all thank you.:eek:[/QUOTE]

traditional dinner seating has been the status quo since I started cruising in the 1960's

anything new should not upset the applecart for those who wish to continue with it.. I am sure Celebrity will take their tradiitonal seating guests into careful consideration while offering something new....so I am not overly worried

[A Sixth?]

This debate is going on over on the princess board (it's a regular topic) and here's a (tongue in cheek?) idea: (copied from the princess board)

Quote:
Originally Posted by [B]m steve[/B] [URL="http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=21012651#post21012651"][IMG]http://boards12.cruisecritic.com/images/buttons/viewpost.gif[/IMG][/URL]
[I]since some airlines are charging extra for window or aisle seats, they could put a surcharge for dining between 6:30-7:03 reservations and how about pieces of luggage? I know they price basedoin location but what else will they think of. Early boarding or depature fees? Towel animals?[/I]

Great idea! To guarantee a TD spot charge an extra $10.00 pp a night. :p It's a supply and demand thing right? pay for it just like the spa, or bar service. ;)

An lets move traditional seating to the buffet! :o After all, the buffet is where some Traditional diners suggest is a completely acceptable place where anytime diners can go if they don't like a set seating time, so it must be good enough for them.

[Ma Bell]

Since there haven't been any diners except traditional diners on Celebrity yet it's an interesting comment.:rolleyes:

[The Big Booper]

[quote name='wg6530']
>>SNIP<<......
I think Royal has done a better job on MTD than Princess has with anytime dining. Princess uses separate dining rooms, capping the number of traditional slots. Furthermore, Princess did not necessarily verify enrollment in anytime dining at the dining room door, so some on traditional dining plan gamed the system, lined up th anytime diners if they wanted an earlier or later dinner one evening, and created longer lines. While I felt Princess' anytime dining was a bomb, MTD by Royal worked. The size of the MTD section of the MDR is flexible cruise to cruise, and they verified cabin numbers/MTD assignment at the door. I never saw a line or very short lines on IOS, a big ship. I think Celebrity will handle it well. I hope they are not planning to infill slots at established tables when one couple is at a specialty dining venue. But I can imagine them utilizing an empty table. I plan to stick with traditional dining for now, but let's give give Celebrity the benefit of the doubt for now.[/quote]

You are 100% correct. We had TD on the IOS TA last November, with close to 4,000 adults on this big long ship, and were seated on the same deck as the MTD section. The MTD folks had half of this level, the TD contingent had the other, and there were NO problems and no lineups. We did note a couple of empty 4 tops that were not used for the first few days, then for a few days a different couple each night showed up with the head waiter escorting them, so it became apparent that this table was for MTD overflow. It never caused any problems for us TDers.

RCCL after only a few months has figured out how to properly run a mixed dining environment, unlike Princess where a full ship causes total dining chaos. And they have been playing with it for 8 years. Which is why we don't go near Princess any more.

[KT4209]

[quote name='BrendaJ'][FONT=Arial]Bingo! And that is why My Time Dining [I]can[/I] work well - because you won't necessarily have to have a 2 hour dinner. With traditional dining, there is often a real lag between courses... With traditional dining, we often find ourselves waiting quite a time between courses. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] ...We can just as easily have a conversation in the martini bar, or spend time enjoying the rest of the ship, rather than feeling trapped into hanging out in the dining room for two hours just so we can get a coffee when everyone else does. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The Solstice-class ships have so many terrific places to hang out, I want to make the most of my evenings by experiencing as many of them as possible. Our one-week cruise on the Solstice in March just seemed like a teaser - I certainly didn't have the spare time to see it all. We'll be on the Equinox for two weeks in November, and I am very tempted to try My Time Dining if it is in fact offered. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][/FONT]


Well put. My husband and I are veteran cruisers... Royal, Holland America, Princess and NCL among others, but Celebrity is our favorite. We have always wanted an opportunity to dine at a more convenient time than far too early or way too late. We follow the dress code and enjoy meeting new tablemates (have been invited to the Captain's table on each of our Celebrity cruises), but have missed many dinners in the MDR because of port schedules or lingering over a pre-dinner cocktail with friends. Fortunately for us, additional dining options have become available within the last few years.

We cruise for the shipboard experience and want to enjoy the ship in the evening, not necessarily spend 2 hours sitting at a dinner table each evening. On a ship offering an alternate dining experience (whatever its name may be), we have never had to wait more than 10 minutes for a table and have been able to enjoy dinner in a reasonable amount of time as opposed to waiting between courses. We then proceed to enjoy the various venues the ship has to offer.

The fact is that change is difficult for most people; we feel most comfortable when we know exactly what is going to happen. I have full confidence that Celebrity will exceed expectations in this area as they do in all other areas of the cruise experience. I would think that those who favor Celebrity would have the same confidence.

We can't wait for our Equinox cruise in November!!!!!

[lauralou2]

We will be " first time on Celebrity" cruisers next year , on Equinox , we have been on IDS and Princess and we like the anytime or my time dining , in our experience anytime on Princess works really well we are prepared for a buzzer if necessary but can honestly say this was rarely needed , on IDS it worked well also , we have never been pushed to vacate our table . We enjoy the formal nights choosing when we dine makes no difference to overall dining experience. If its arranged well then everyone can choose the formula that suits them :)

[warmwinds]

I'm curious - is Celebrity's capacity so far below the other cruise lines that it feels the need to become another sheep? Or are their numbers down because of the economy, as are ALL the cruise lines?

[TMaine]

[quote name='Bruin Steve']Here's my last boot to the carcass of that deceased equine:

I love all the "6 pm is too early for us and 8:30 is too late" comments...
Truth be told, that is correct for most of us...
Problem is this: EVERYONE on the ship cannot have dinner at 7:30...
Not until they build ships with incredible amounts of space dedicated to dining room facilities...

Let's look at the history of cruising and how we got to this point...
Okay, we look at MODERN cruise history...We can throw out the Titanic days--when only the first class got the fine dining and they had one seating all night long...and Steerage got to eat whatever they scrounged up in their rooms...

The typical modern cruise ship, prior to the last 10 or 15 years, had only one dining room...which could accommodate approximately half of the number of passengers onboard...
Say you had a 2,000 passenger total cocupancy, then your dining room would only hold 1,000. You only wanted to be open for dinner (labor issues) from 6:00 to 10:30...and you wanted to provide an elegant, leisurely 2 hour dinner service...You had to assign dinner in shifts with two shifts...You just could not have passengers showing up whenever they wanted...It had to be organized in order to move everyone through in the allotted time.

Therefore, ALL passengers had to volunteer or be assigned to one of the two dining slots. Like to eat at 7:30? Sorry...pick either 6 or 8:30 instead...

NECESSITY...

Okay, over recent years, most cruise lines have added "Specialty Restaurants" and "Alternative Dining"...but space in these is somewhat limited...Let's say you have room for 100 people at any one time in specialty restaurants...Since you still have to have 1,000 spaces in the MDR, you actually now have room for at least 2,100 diners--an excess of 100 spaces...If you can get enough people to dine in the specialty restaurant either early or late so that you can squeeze two seatings in, you may be able to have in excess of 100 extra dinner places...

Problem is, you cannot just allow 100 passengers to now show up whenever they want just because you now have 100 empty seats in the MDR each night...You don't know how many are coming from early seating, how many from late...or where they are coming from...And you cannot seat people at 7:30 at a table with other diners who started at 6:00...And you still have the problem that EVERYBODY might want to start at 7:30...

Now, flash forward to today...There are some cruise lines that have gone to all open seating, others (like Princess), a hybrid...

All open seating is currently done on NCL, Oceania, Azamara...
These cruise lines would still have a problem if everyone decided they wanted to eat at 7:30...Just count up the dining room seats and you'll find they simply cannot accommodate everyone...What to do? Well, first, you have to HOPE that enough people want to come early and enough want to come late. Figure the laws of probability help you out a bit...BUT, what happens when your ship is docked in an interesting port until 8:00 pm? Laws of probability are out the window...Everyone gets back to the ship at 7:30 and wants to eat at 8 or 8:30...

The only way to deal with this is to PUSH people through dinner faster while making some people wait to get seated...You cannot seat everyone at 8:00 and allow them to have a leisurely 2 hour multi-course dinner...

I do think it works better on some ships, typically smaller ones...Oceania makes sure its specilty restaurants are filled by having zero extra charge and having an in-demand reservation system for those...and, the dining room is actully slightly oversized for the number of passengers...

Princess attempts to be all things to all people by attempting a hybrid system:
Half the ship is assigned traditional dining assignments and half is assigned to "Anytime"...Then they have two sets of dining rooms--one for traditional, the other for "Anytime" diners...The expectation is that the traditional diners get their standard two hour window and sevice while the Anytime diners are willing to have it work like a restaurant--show up, maybe wait for a table, be moved along to make room for the next diners...

However, from our experience, it doesn't work well...Exactly half the ship doesn't want one system...or the other...So, you start with waiting list issues...and people getting assigned to what they don't want...Then, it's all poorly enforced...People with traditional assignments show up to Anytime rooms and get seated, people with Anytime, don't really get to eat when they want--they get a buzzer and wait for up to an hour for a table...

So why are RCI/Celebrity willing to join this experiment?

To keep up with the competition...
Some cruise lines make it a point of their advertizing...and the rhetoric sounds good to a lot of customers: "Nobody tells you when and where to eat"...Yeah, freedom! And a lot of people buy into the concept...So, by not also offering some version of this, RCI/Celebrity runs the risk of alienating a portion of the customer base--whether it all makes sense or not...Hey, these guys want to wait for tables or be rushed through dinner in shorter time or have their service suffer? You certainly can't tell them that, but...it's easier to just join the party...Give the people what they want...or what they have been talked into wanting...

Of course, the ONLY way to let people show upo for dinner when they want is to either:
1) Devote twice as much of your ship space to dining rooms; or
2) To rush people through dinner and have people prepared to wait if dining at popular times--just like restaurants back home...

Which brings us to the next step in the evolution--Well, you CAN eat whenever you want, but you have to make a reservation...unless you want to wait and wait for a table...Okay? "Well, we have reservations available at 5:30 or at 10:00, which would you like?"[/quote]


Well put!

[GeriatricNurse]

[quote name='CLEMM'][B]Which would mean that select diners would be intermingled with traditional diners, which in my opinion would detract from the traditional experience. That is my concern[/B].[/quote]



[B][I][FONT=Arial][SIZE=5]With HAL, the upper level of their dining rooms are "traditional" dining with two sittings, early & late. The lower level of their dining rooms are "As You Wish" dining, (or as some state, As HAL Wishes), with the dining room open at 5:30 p.m. With "As You Wish" dining, you may either just present yourself at the entrance to the dining room, without a reservation, and request to be seated at a table size of your choice. From my experience, tables for two are hard to come by, unless you arrive before 6:30 at the door. The Dining Room Manager (as is the new name for the Maitre 'd, on HAL), will attempt to "fill up" larger tables first! If you would rather make a reservation, then one has to 'phone at 8:00 a.m. each and every morning in order to make a reservation! This process interferes with both breakfast and assembling for morning shore excursions! No, it is not a perfect system![/SIZE][/FONT][/I][/B]

[GeriatricNurse]

[quote name='Hflors']I wasn't going to post any comments, but after reading over some of the other comments I thought "what the heck". Dh and I are traditionalist. We did one cruise of "flex dining" I can tell you how we felt about it in one word. "DISASTER!" On the last evening the server and assistant didn't show up again after serving the entre! That was interesting. They got their tips and could have cared less about service.

For the past cruise dh and I have cruised on celebrity we dine at 6pm. (dh has stomach problems so he has to be up several hours after he eats before he can go to bed) Anyway we will continue to have our 6pm dining.[B][SIZE=4] [U]I am hoping that Celebrity will use one level for traditional and one for Flex dining.[/U][/SIZE][/B]

Anyway the point of my post is that dh and I are going on a HAL cruise. When I found out my sister has signed us up for their flex dining it was just about a deal breaker for me. Thanks but no thanks. My sister asked my why I was not happy and I told her about the one and only experience and she said to me. "Don't worry, no matter what time we want to eat believe me we will not wait!" I asked her how she could be so sure. And she said. "We are in the penthouse suite we don't wait for anything, and some nights if we don't feel like eating at the dining room we will have the butler serve dinner in our suite!" You know what I said? "I think I could like this." So we decided to go.[/quote]


[B][I][FONT=Arial][SIZE=5]That is exactly how HAL does it and, I suspect, that will be the same way that X implements it![/SIZE][/FONT][/I][/B]

[GeriatricNurse]

[quote name='terrierjohn'][B][SIZE=4][U]I am expecting that it will operate in a similar way to the RCCL version with a discrete area of the MDR seperated from the TD diners.[/U][/SIZE][/B]
This would probably mean that approximately one half of the upper deck MDR would be available for Celebrity select , probably with the divider at the opposite end to the entrance, and adjusted to account for passenger dining choice numbers.
Just a guess but this would seem to be the least intrusive, and less likely to inconvenience TD diners.
Unless of course they want to bring opera glasses to check on the eating habits of the "lower" class anytime diners, which is where I will be.:rolleyes:[/quote]


[B][I][FONT=Arial][SIZE=5]I would bet that X will establish one level of the MDR as "Select Dining" and the other level will be "Traditional Dining". Like HAL did.[/SIZE][/FONT][/I][/B]

[brighton seagulls]

This is a really interesting thread. We have just returned from a fabulous cruise on the Summit from Barca to Venice and to be honest, the set dining options was actually a great sucess and meeting our two fellow dining couples, one American and one canadian went a large way for making this trip as good as it was.

OK, we missed out on "sail aways", however in our case, we had done all the ports before, BUT our dining colleagues were not overly fussed about missing this.

We would be sad to see the set timings go as we found we could fit everything in on an evening with the early sitting at 6:30 ( we rarely came out of the main dining room before 8:30) We also really enjoyed getting "dressed up" for dinner on the Formal Nights.

Our two previous cruises were Ocean Village and OV2 which operated freetime dining unless you booked the La Luna and Bistro which were by reservation and we felt that the canteen style dining in the other restaurants was OK at the time, however cannot compare in the slightest to the Summit dining experience ( The Normandie Restaurant was something else again)

Dave and Karen

[SHCMD]

I realize the answer may be buried somewhere in this post, but does anyone know if open seating applies to Blu on the Solstice and Equinox? Thanks.

[jagoffee]

[quote name='lifevicarious']How gracious of you to let others dine when they want only if it doesn't impact you. We all thank you.:eek:[/QUOTE]

It would appear that you have never experienced Princess's Anytime dining when you actually wanted traditional dining, but could not get it (due to the long waitlist) and been forced to wait for a table using anytime dining. In part because some of the traditional dining people decided to use anytime dining thus basically taking two tables for the night.