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New to Royal Caribbean - My Time Dining vs. Traditional Dining?


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Hi,

 

We are getting ready to book our first cruise on RC - we have cruised twice before on Disney. I was wondering if anyone could tell me what the pros/cons are to MTD vs. traditional dining. I'm sorry if this has been asked a thousand times before, but this is my first post! It will be my husband and I cruising for my 40th birthday and we are leaving the kids at home :D We are going on the Freedom of the Seas in September.

 

Thanks!!

 

Stacey

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Hi,

 

We are getting ready to book our first cruise on RC - we have cruised twice before on Disney. I was wondering if anyone could tell me what the pros/cons are to MTD vs. traditional dining. I'm sorry if this has been asked a thousand times before, but this is my first post! It will be my husband and I cruising for my 40th birthday and we are leaving the kids at home :D We are going on the Freedom of the Seas in September.

 

Thanks!!

 

Stacey

Traditional dining offers two seatings each evening (early and late). If you choose it and enjoy the opportunity to meet and dine with others, you will be assigned to a specific table with the same tablemates every evening. Your wait staff will be the same and will come to know any special dining requirements or preferences you have (for example, tea vs. coffee, decaf vs regular coffee; more than one appetizer, entree or dessert:))

If you choose My Time Dining you will be able to choose the same or a different dining time every evening. You can request, and they will try to accommodate you if possible, to have the same servers each evening or you can choose to be served by different waiters and assistant waiters each evening. You can make reservations in advance or just show up when you want to eat and most times you will have little or no wait to be seated, and you can request a table for two or to be seated with others. You don't have to miss any shows if you take the time to check out the show schedules and arrange your dining time to fit those times. If you choose MTD, you will have to prepay your gratuities for your dining room staff and your room steward. If you choose traditional dining you can prepay your gratuities, fill out a form to have them automatically added to your onboard account, or simply wait until you get your envelopes and put the appropriate tip amounts in them to be distributed on the last night of your cruise.

It is pretty much your choice, but sometimes there are wait lists for early or late and sometimes for MTD, so make your decision as early in the booking process as possible. Then sit back and enjoy your cruise.:)

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Pros: You can eat at anytime you want. Basically you can prebook some reservation time online prior to cruising and if you want to change you can do it at the dining room checkin area (would recommend changing night before or at least give them a few hours). I would recommend reserving some times ahead.

 

The mytime section is usually the top floor of the dining room. Everything else is the same as seating times. If they sit you at a table you like (or you see one you like) don't be afraid to ask for it everynight, they are very accomodating. Just return on the Navigator and we asked to sit in a particular waiters section every night (this waiter and assistant were fantastic.) - even got the same table 4 nights. The mytime section is deck 5 - same as promenade. You can sit by the windows (even saw dolphins one night). Mytime has tables for 2 people.

 

Cons: ??

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Well with MTD you choose when you want to eat (within) reason) we did on our last cruise which was on the Freedom as well. We found that we had a lot more flexability. With only two of us dining we never had any problems getting in.:)

 

The difference between MTD and traditional is you are not seated with the same people for seven days,you you are meeting new people every night.Depending on how you look at that can be a good thing or a bad thing. For us MTD is the way we are going to go from now on:)

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I always recommend traditional assigned dining. You never have to wait for a table and you get the same team of servers for the entire cruise, which usually results in better and friendlier service. We always get a table for just our family and choose the late seating (8:30 when we were on the Freedom last summer) so it gives us more time to explore each port without rushing back to the ship to get ready for an earlier dinner. The late seating is very relaxing and still enables us to see all the shows. My kids are in their teens and they prefer this too but I can understand why families with younger children would prefer earlier dining times and flexibility.

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If it is just the 2 of you, MTD should be fine. With a group, I find traditional works better since you all know when and where you have to be for dinner.

I always do traditional because I don't want to wait for a table.

I do know on the Voyager of the Seas there can be line for MTD. I'm not sure how fast the line moves.

Yeah, I have to wait until my assigned time, but at least then I have options of where to wait (like a bar) instead of waiting in line.

Edited by Jimnbigd
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  • 5 months later...

We're going on our first cruise on Radiance of the Seas in Sept. They urged us to set up reservations online for the MTD which we did. So from what I've been reading, we are not locked into those dining times? We really didn't want to be on an "eating schedule". Especially since we don't know what time the shows and other activities are.

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We always choose MTD, even though we prefer WJ. For us the reason is simple. If we decide that we like the MDR menu, we go there. If we decide we don't, we go to WJ. If we don't like either, we'll do a specialty. Either way, no one else is inconvenienced by our decision. Wait staff won't wait for us to show up to serve the rest of a table, if we want to do a show, we can work our dining time around it, and we eat at our leisure.

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We have switched to MTD no matter which line we sail. Mainly because of the dining times. 6PM is too early and 8:30 too late.

 

We like to arrive about 6:45 and MTD has worked out great for us. Plus if we happen to be onshore late we have the flexibility to go to the dining room later to avoid rushing to get changed for dinner.

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The shows are scheduled around the 2 traditional dining times, so there's no reason to miss a show...ever! With Mtd, YOU'LL be responsible for deciding which show to see and eating in a timeframe that will allow you to make the show of your choice. Traditional takes all the guesswork out of it!

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We had always done traditional dining because I enjoy having the same servers thru my entire cruise. Now we do MTD and still have the same servers as long as our dining times stay somewhat around the same time each night. We always like to eat around 7pm so it works.

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  • 4 years later...

We will be a party of 14 with 6 children ages 4 - 15. Can MyTime dining room accommodate us? How do we make reservations prior to cruising? MyTime was all that was available when we booked our cruise 5 months ahead.

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We will be a party of 14 with 6 children ages 4 - 15. Can MyTime dining room accommodate us? How do we make reservations prior to cruising? MyTime was all that was available when we booked our cruise 5 months ahead.

You will most likely have to use two tables near each other, suhc as a table for 8 and a table for 6. I don't know of any tables for 14.

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  • 9 months later...
Traditional dining offers two seatings each evening (early and late). If you choose it and enjoy the opportunity to meet and dine with others, you will be assigned to a specific table with the same tablemates every evening. Your wait staff will be the same and will come to know any special dining requirements or preferences you have (for example, tea vs. coffee, decaf vs regular coffee; more than one appetizer, entree or dessert:))

If you choose My Time Dining you will be able to choose the same or a different dining time every evening. You can request, and they will try to accommodate you if possible, to have the same servers each evening or you can choose to be served by different waiters and assistant waiters each evening. You can make reservations in advance or just show up when you want to eat and most times you will have little or no wait to be seated, and you can request a table for two or to be seated with others. You don't have to miss any shows if you take the time to check out the show schedules and arrange your dining time to fit those times. If you choose MTD, you will have to prepay your gratuities for your dining room staff and your room steward. If you choose traditional dining you can prepay your gratuities, fill out a form to have them automatically added to your onboard account, or simply wait until you get your envelopes and put the appropriate tip amounts in them to be distributed on the last night of your cruise.

It is pretty much your choice, but sometimes there are wait lists for early or late and sometimes for MTD, so make your decision as early in the booking process as possible. Then sit back and enjoy your cruise.:)

 

Some of this information is incorrect.

 

You can do traditional dining - early or late seating - and request a table for two. The size of your table is your choice. However, once you decide then that is your table for entire week. If you request a large table and for some reason don't like your table mates you can request to change, but you normally don't change daily.

 

You do not have to prepay gratuities with either MTD or traditional dining. You can if you prefer, but it is not required. RC bills your daily gratuities to your Seapass account. This can be helpful if you have onboard credit to use. No envelopes on the last night for many years. You may find envelopes in your stateroom, but these are for any additional tips you might want to give; not required, but accepted if you would like to give extra.q

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  • 2 weeks later...

I know a lot of people get annoyed by resurrecting old threads, but here's the thing... I just searched on Google for "royal caribbean my time dining" and this was one of the top search results. I would much rather see an old thread updated with current information than just left to die with inaccurate information. You never know where people are going to end up from their searches.

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If you prefer to have a set time and have the same wait staff and people then I would go with traditional dining, if you prefer to be more flexible then MTD. If in traditional dining you find your not getting along well with your table mates or other issues, you can ask to be seated at a different table.

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