Traditional open seating?

A friend of mine just returned from her Alaska -Glacier Bay cruise on the Crown. She loved the cruise but said the one disappointment was that traditional dining for at least three nights was open seating. Apparently this started after the first formal night and was without warning or explanation.

Is this typical? On all my Princess cruises this has happened maybe one night in total, and certainly not three nights in a row on the same cruise. I feel like traditional dining is slowly being dismantled and I don't like it! If I wanted open seating I would use anytime dining, which I do NOT. :-(

A friend of mine just returned from her Alaska -Glacier Bay cruise on the Crown. She loved the cruise but said the one disappointment was that traditional dining for at least three nights was open seating. Apparently this started after the first formal night and was without warning or explanation.

 

Is this typical? On all my Princess cruises this has happened maybe one night in total, and certainly not three nights in a row on the same cruise. I feel like traditional dining is slowly being dismantled and I don't like it! If I wanted open seating I would use anytime dining, which I do NOT. :-(

Could the reason be the late departure times from Juneau, Skagway and Victoria, and not a change to traditional dining?

Could the reason be the late departure times from Juneau, Skagway and Victoria, and not a change to traditional dining?

When we did the Crown repo (LA-Van), every night that we had a late port departure (or overnight stay) it was open seating in all dining rooms.

It was kind of nice, since that meant we could go to the "other" MDRs on those nights.

I'm sure the late departures from ports were the reason, but from a passenger standpoint I would still want my reserved table with my waiters regardless. If the itinerary has that many late port departures then the dining schedule should be adjusted accordingly. Just my two cents. :-)

I'm sure the late departures from ports were the reason, but from a passenger standpoint I would still want my reserved table with my waiters regardless. If the itinerary has that many late port departures then the dining schedule should be adjusted accordingly. Just my two cents. :-)

I would think they don't need all the waiters and servers on these Late port days so some of them get the evening off they deserve a day off every now and then

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I would think they don't need all the waiters and servers on these Late port days so some of them get the evening off they deserve a day off every now and then

On Ruby, no one got a 'day off'; but in victoria, they only did one

'seating' in one of the anytime dining rooms, so those folks got

some time off -- depending on how long passengers stayed at

their station.

Ship was in Victoria 7:00PM to midnight, so there were a lot of

people off the ship, after a huge rush at 5:30.

This worries me a little. My wife has a severe food allergy and one thing we love about cruising is getting the same table and wait staff for the main meal. I am sure it will be fine, but it is just not as good of an experience to have her have to call the maitre de and explain to the new waiter that she is deathly allergic to tree nuts before every meal. Wit a normal traditional dining experience on a week cruise, we have that conversation the first night and do not have to worry about it again. We have never eaten a dinner on a cruise that was not in the traditional dining room at our set time with set staff. I am sure it will be fine.

This worries me a little. My wife has a severe food allergy and one thing we love about cruising is getting the same table and wait staff for the main meal. I am sure it will be fine, but it is just not as good of an experience to have her have to call the maitre de and explain to the new waiter that she is deathly allergic to tree nuts before every meal. Wit a normal traditional dining experience on a week cruise, we have that conversation the first night and do not have to worry about it again. We have never eaten a dinner on a cruise that was not in the traditional dining room at our set time with set staff. I am sure it will be fine.

If you explain the situation to your headwaiter the evening before one of the "open seating" nights and let him know what time you will be dining, he can arrange for you to sit with your regular waitstaff.

On cruises that start near Anchorage, the first evening is open seating and it may be more difficult to arrange this for that night.

We have always just shown up at our regular time and headed for our regular table and found our regular staff waiting. (DH is totally a creature of habit in this regard.) Maybe we have just been lucky.

I have never experienced “open seating” as described here. In 2012 I was on the Crown Princess and we had a stop in Curacao. The sailing time was 10:00pm and it was the parade night for Carnival. We still had our regular traditional seating times even though the parade was taking place. I will note here that the parade, at dinner time, was still a good distance from the ship, but was heading toward us with the finish nearby.:(

Lots of Princess cruises and it has never happened to us ....

LuLu

It has happened to us on a few cruises over the years. We just go to the dining room as usual. Only one instance that I remember where someone was at our table. No problem we just got another table. Not an issue with us.

I have never in 25 cruises had this happen. Guess I've been lucky.

This worries me a little. My wife has a severe food allergy and one thing we love about cruising is getting the same table and wait staff for the main meal. I am sure it will be fine, but it is just not as good of an experience to have her have to call the maitre de and explain to the new waiter that she is deathly allergic to tree nuts before every meal. Wit a normal traditional dining experience on a week cruise, we have that conversation the first night and do not have to worry about it again. We have never eaten a dinner on a cruise that was not in the traditional dining room at our set time with set staff. I am sure it will be fine.

I have severe food allergies as well and pre-order my meals the day before. We've always just let the wait staff and head waiter know that we'd still like to sit with them. One cruise, the day we were stopping in Victoria, there was an early seating but not a late seating. The head waiter arranged for us to have a table at the early seating so my meal could still be pre-ordered.

I have severe food allergies as well and pre-order my meals the day before. We've always just let the wait staff and head waiter know that we'd still like to sit with them. One cruise, the day we were stopping in Victoria, there was an early seating but not a late seating. The head waiter arranged for us to have a table at the early seating so my meal could still be pre-ordered.

My wife pre orders her meals as well and that is why I was worried that maybe it wouldn't work well if it was open seating at a different table.

I am just off the Crown on the same itinerary as your friend. Yes, the open seating was on nights with late port departures, when many were off the ship during regular dinner seatings. My dd has very specific dietary but always preorders the night before so no problem. This has happened to me on another trip with late port departure. Not a big deal at all.

It comes down to something simple: read the Patter. Someone recently posted the Patters from the Ruby (on 7-day Alaska roundtrips from Seattle), and it CLEARLY says which dining rooms are on traditional vs. open seating at what times each night.

Princess probably has (or had) plenty of data that suggests that open seatings would be a ghost town if they tried to stick to that schedule. They can probably pull a report that shows >60% vacancy for early TD just based on ship-organized excursion tickets/times.

It comes down to something simple: read the Patter. Someone recently posted the Patters from the Ruby (on 7-day Alaska roundtrips from Seattle), and it CLEARLY says which dining rooms are on traditional vs. open seating at what times each night.

 

Princess probably has (or had) plenty of data that suggests that open seatings would be a ghost town if they tried to stick to that schedule. They can probably pull a report that shows >60% vacancy for early TD just based on ship-organized excursion tickets/times.

Yes, you are probably right. Reading the Patter tells you exactly what's happening with daily dining times. If you wish to stay with your traditional seating time, just show up as usual and dinner will be served!

A friend of mine just returned from her Alaska -Glacier Bay cruise on the Crown. She loved the cruise but said the one disappointment was that traditional dining for at least three nights was open seating. Apparently this started after the first formal night and was without warning or explanation.

 

Is this typical? On all my Princess cruises this has happened maybe one night in total, and certainly not three nights in a row on the same cruise. I feel like traditional dining is slowly being dismantled and I don't like it! If I wanted open seating I would use anytime dining, which I do NOT. :-(

It has happened to us on a few cruises with late departures such as Rome, Florence, Honolulu and some Alaskan ports. Luckily in each case when we told our waiter that we'd be coming to dinner he assured us that "our" table would be ready and waiting for us.

Actually my friends tried to get the same table at the same time and wasn't able to do so. This was their first-ever cruise so they didn't think to talk to the maitre d about it. Apparently he wasn't a friendly sort anyway! And to be clear I am referring to traditional dining with open seating, not anytime dining.

My suggestion was to discuss this on their comment cards and the post-cruise survey if they get one. they still had a great cruise, but with dining being such an important aspect of cruising it was a bit of a let down. And they didn't seem to think this was communicated well through patters or what not. I think some communication the night before would have helped tremendously.

We are going on the Ruby in August so now I know when to plan specialty dining. :). Thanks to everyone for the discussion!

My wife pre orders her meals as well and that is why I was worried that maybe it wouldn't work well if it was open seating at a different table.

There is no problem with pre-ordered meals in Anytime Dining, so it shouldn't matter. In Anytime Dining, you pre-order with the headwaiter for the next day. When you arrive to be seated, tell the waiter it is pre-ordered if they don't recognize you. You can even go to the other Anytime Dining restaurant - just tell them that you pre-ordered in the other restaurant.

You also pre-order the meals for lunch in the MDR, and lunch is always open seating.

We have always just shown up at our regular time and headed for our regular table and found our regular staff waiting. (DH is totally a creature of habit in this regard.) Maybe we have just been lucky.

We would do the same thing, if not, skip the MDR. Open seating is not something we have ever done breakfast - lunch or dinner.

And they didn't seem to think this was communicated well through patters or what not. I think some communication the night before would have helped tremendously.

 

Every time we have been on a cruise when this happens we were told the evening before by our waitstaff.

My wife pre orders her meals as well and that is why I was worried that maybe it wouldn't work well if it was open seating at a different table.

No need to worry.

You pre-order is filed away by name and cabin number so no matter where you sit it can be retrieved.