My Time Dining on Grandeur - what to expect?

We are not frequent cruisers - have cruised on Celebrity, Princess, and Royal Caribbean. Will be on our second RCI cruise in Jan. out of Baltimore on Grandeur. We have signed up for MTD, and expect to not make reservations - show up when we want to have dinner and hope that we can be seated in a reasonable amount of time (say 20 min or so). Are we foolish not to make reservations? It seems contrary to MTD to make reservations to me....

We are not frequent cruisers - have cruised on Celebrity, Princess, and Royal Caribbean. Will be on our second RCI cruise in Jan. out of Baltimore on Grandeur. We have signed up for MTD, and expect to not make reservations - show up when we want to have dinner and hope that we can be seated in a reasonable amount of time (say 20 min or so). Are we foolish not to make reservations? It seems contrary to MTD to make reservations to me....

That is certainly one of your options. It can be hard to predict, but I'll give it a shot. I don't think that you will wait very long, if at all. Do you have a general time that you like to eat? Some times are easier than others.

Also if you are just a couple the wait time usually is less if you don't mind sharing a table with others. We typically are with others but have not experienced long wait times for MTD without reservations. But as Merion_Mom indicated there are times where the wait may be longer, such as around 7:00ish.

Depends when you "show up"...if it's at 7:15, you will probably have a wait. If it's 6pm, no wait....9 pm, no wait....the popular times will be packed.

Most folks in MTD do NOT want to share....they are very shy with "strangers" apparently!

Thanks all - we don't mind sharing, and are happy to wait a bit... just want to have the freedom to show up when it's convenient and enjoy dinner. Thanks for the reassurance!

We are not frequent cruisers - have cruised on Celebrity, Princess, and Royal Caribbean. Will be on our second RCI cruise in Jan. out of Baltimore on Grandeur. We have signed up for MTD, and expect to not make reservations - show up when we want to have dinner and hope that we can be seated in a reasonable amount of time (say 20 min or so). Are we foolish not to make reservations? It seems contrary to MTD to make reservations to me....

We always make reservations for MTD ,however ,even though we had a specific time we we able to come as much as 30 minutes earlier or later without a problem .

Grandeur is a small ship. I have sailed on her twice, and have two more booked.

My experience has been with MTD, walk up, be seated within 5 minutes. They do suggest a reservation for lobster night. But we made that reservation the night before.

As said, if you show up at prime time, you may have more of a wait, but it will still not be long.

Grandeur is a more laid back cruise than the mega ships. To me, I want a vacation, not a scheduled run from one thing to another.

We love her.

Thanks all - we don't mind sharing, and are happy to wait a bit... just want to have the freedom to show up when it's convenient and enjoy dinner. Thanks for the reassurance!

If you are not cruising during school breaks, the demographic on the Grandeur is, ahem, older. They tend to eat earlier, and actually they tend to prefer first seating, traditional, fixed seating.

Thus you would have an easier time with MTD.

:D

We fall into that older demographic (63 & 71 though young at heart) and will be sailing her in January. Since it is just the 2 of us, and we don't mind waiting for a bit or being seated with others sounds like we will be just fine going with the flow. And if there's a backlog that looks to be a long wait we'll hit the windjammer! Thanks again for the info.

Depends when you "show up"...if it's at 7:15, you will probably have a wait. If it's 6pm, no wait....9 pm, no wait....the popular times will be packed.

Most folks in MTD do NOT want to share....they are very shy with "strangers" apparently!

How do you come up with this stuff???? We are over-the-top social people and have made life long friends on cruises...BUT...when it comes to dinner, we want to be alone and enjoy each others company. Well, at least you didn't say "go to the library" or "the Bahamas and Bermuda are NOT in the Caribbean". :confused:

The "big" lines are always first night when people aren't sure about the process, lobster night; and after the early production show. Even then, I don't believe you would ever have a 20 minute wait, unless you wanted a very specific table.

Depends when you "show up"...if it's at 7:15, you will probably have a wait. If it's 6pm, no wait....9 pm, no wait....the popular times will be packed.

Most folks in MTD do NOT want to share....they are very shy with "strangers" apparently!

Another assumption!:rolleyes:

Some do, some don't

We were not asked, and shown to a two top. Which was fine with us. But if they had put us at a table to share, that would have been fine also.

If YOU have a preference, just tell them.