Do you feel you get the same quality of service when doing anytime dining?

[STARFISH*4]

having cruised NCL the last 4 times i really dont feel the service was any different than when i was on CC or RCI the only one that stood out for OUTSTANDING SERVICE...never been so catered to in my life was on CELEBRITY...my very first cruise....i feel i started with one of the BEST

but we ENJOY the FREESTYLE more than set times, so probably as long as NCL has the deals and the places we want to go we with stick with them

but to answer the question i feel other than CELEBRITY i am getting the same QUALITY OF SERVICE:)

[janetz]

I can understand the PROS of Anytime Dining in terms of flexibility, but do you get the same feeling of service when you have potentially have different people waiting on you everynight ?

 

The only cruise we've been on was a 3 night cruise on RCI. Even in that short time, we felt we had a connection to our wait staff as they seemed to have with us.

 

Our next cruise will be a 7 night on the Carnival Legend. Anytime Dining is an option for us, but I'm not sure I would like it.

 

So, what can you tell me about your experiences and how do the options compare.

 

 

We have done it on Princess and love it. Never had a problem and had great service. ;)

[Harry and Lucille]

We prefer open dining for several reasons, not the least as being the unscheduled flexability. Last year, our first night, we were seated at a table for eight. I would prefer to think of our table guests as first time cruisers. A very uncomfortable atmosphere. They were all cold, unemotional and disconnected. Attempts at conversation were met with a shy smile or a blank stare. May be my lack of couth? Never know when nobody talks. Next six nights we chose table for two. Upon seating, we would look right, look left, give a simile and a greeting. You can tell immediately the frame of mind that they are in. You can tell if they want the conversation to continue. If so fine. If not ok. Watched an old rerun of "Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure" last night. Our life style as it was explained in the movie. 'Be excellent to everybody and party on". We may chat with you. We may not, but, we will all definitely party on. Harry :cool:

[CarnivalGirl3]

that's how NCL was, we HATED it. I do not want to have to wait. lol. maybe carnival atd is different. we booked a time.

[uppitycats]

I don't know about hflors but we always asked for first available be it for 2 or 10. Most of the time we would get four or six and we had to wait for the other seats to fill before we got any attention. Once after 1/2 hour of waiting at a four top for another couple to come, we practically tripped a waiter and told them we wanted to eat NOW. He said we would have to wait for the table to fill. Husband asked to be pointed towards the maitre 'd. All of the sudden, he could take our order.

 

We were on the Dream in the spring of 2007. We are booked on the POA in Hawaii (only game in town and husband's family wants to go) and I have hopes that things will go better but not holding my breath. Recent reviews have been encouraging. However, I don't expect anything more out of it than a roof over my head and transportation from island to island so anything more will be a bonus. I will, also, be contributing to the local economy by eating off the ship if we experience the same thing we did on the Dream

 

Tucker in Texas

 

Yes, if you ask for the "first available table" for more than in your party, they will indeed make you wait for the table to fill! That's the point of the large table - -to seat a large number of people, and they're generally not going to serve just 2 at a large table! That would turn the experience into "cafeteria dining", not the personalized service you get at a table for 2 (or however many are in your immediate and present party!).

 

You should always ask for a table for however many folks you have with you right then and there (in your case, 2), to be seated. We never waited more than 10 minutes, and that happened only once.

[uppitycats]

Somebody asked why some of us avoid traditional dining. Here are my reasons: I don't want to have to make small-talk each night with folks I don't know, and who might not have anything in common with me. I am uncomfortable in crowds and don't feel I need to subject myself to that on vacation. I've done TD on several early cruises (before flexible dining was available), and found it extremely difficult to have a pleasant dinner most nights. I don't want to have to eat at the same time every night, or stress out that we'll not make it to the dining room "in time", or something has come up that we'll miss that we'd rather do than rush off to dinner "right then".

 

I really don't understand RCI telling their passengers that it's best to make reservations for their flexible dining!?! To me, that negates the whole purpose of the flexible dining. I want to just show up, be seated (sometimes waiting a bit..on my last cruise, no more than 10 minutes, just one night of the 10 night cruise), and be served.

 

In addition, I don't need to have my servers "remember" what I might want each night for dinner, be it a particular beverage, or extra butter, or something. I am an individual with individual tastes and preferences which may -- and often do -- change each night. I don't need to pretend that they are my "friends", or that I'm obligated to get to "know them and their families". I'm cordial, polite, respectful; they're efficient, polite, respectful, we get seated and they do what they're being paid to do, and then we're done. If I DO want to eat with someone, it's usually someone (or a group of folks) we've met on the cruise, and want to continue spending time with them through dinner -- something else not possible with TD.

[TnMDougherty]

I just came back from my first cruise (Carnival) to offer any time dining after doing several with traditional dining. I will choose this option anytime it is offered. We never had to wait in line, dined alone sometimes and shared a table sometimes. Carnival did not make you wait for the table to fill up to order. Only one night did we have less than pleasant dining companions, but we were grateful that we were not stuck with those people all week! We also had the chance to have dinner with friends we made on board; something you could not do with traditional dining. The any time dining was set up in one portion of the restaurant, so we did have the same wait staff a few times. We found no drop in service. The wine stewards and bar service were always readily available.

 

Two big advantages we found were that we could plan dinner around the other things we wanted to do, and not vice-versa. Also, on the few nights we ended up going to dinner at roughly 8:15 we were able to by-pass the line and go straight in and sit down!

[RetireeWannabee]

Love dining when I'm hungry, have always had great service.

 

Don't care about establishing relationship with wait staff. It's no hardship to tell them what I want to drink eat night. a lot of people want wait staff to know their preferences, but I really don't care about that and would far prefer to eat when I want to and have different servers and tablemates every night.

[lady_cruiser]

We did My Time Dining on RCL's Voyager of the Seas and having sailed with time twice before I saw no decline in service. In fact we had the same table with the same two waiters every night of the week.

[cruzenagain]

Our next cruise will be a 7 night on the Carnival Legend. Anytime Dining is an option for us, but I'm not sure I would like it.

 

We were on the Legend twice this past year and had anytime dining both times and once on another ship. We like it because we get have the flexibility of time PLUS if you find a wait staff that you really like you can request them every night. If there is a wait staff that you don't really click with you can try another one. We only had to wait one night and that was for about 5-10 minutes just to get the wait staff we wanted (they give you a pager if you choose to wait).

 

I have never felt rushed and bar service has never been an issue. They are just as quick there as they were in TD. We even had more than one check on us just to be sure we were taken care of.

 

This past time on the Legend we had the same head waiter that we had on 2 previous cruises on different ships and he remembered us! Told us what ships we were on :D. It was like meeting up with an old friend. He has given us wonderful service all 3 times!!

[CC Help Michell]

I can understand the PROS of Anytime Dining in terms of flexibility, but do you get the same feeling of service when you have potentially have different people waiting on you everynight ?

 

The only cruise we've been on was a 3 night cruise on RCI. Even in that short time, we felt we had a connection to our wait staff as they seemed to have with us.

 

Our next cruise will be a 7 night on the Carnival Legend. Anytime Dining is an option for us, but I'm not sure I would like it.

 

So, what can you tell me about your experiences and how do the options compare.

 

I prefer anytime dining. I don't want to eat at a fixed time every night, and I despise having to rush around after a shore day in order to make a certain time in the dining room. I don't cruise to form a connection with wait staff, so that's not an issue for me.

[crazy4midwest]

On Carnival the waiters normally have song and dance numbers for scheduled dining times. I don't remember this fun little extra entertainment when we had anytime dining on NCL. Do any of the cruise lines offer this entertainment with anytime dining?

[hubofhockey]

On Carnival the waiters normally have song and dance numbers for scheduled dining times. I don't remember this fun little extra entertainment when we had anytime dining on NCL. Do any of the cruise lines offer this entertainment with anytime dining?

 

Did you just open a ?

 

Some consider that "entertainment" to be annoying. RCI does it one of two times. With Carnival, it's every night and gets old very fast. With anytime, you would also not have to deal with Carnival's Red, White, and Blue color war announcements.

 

Best thing for us with anytime is that sometimes our kids wanted to do kids activities in the kids camps. Other nights they wanted to eat with us. So anytime made it easy to change between table for 2 and table for 4.

[Ninjachyck]

We have done both, and still prefer the anytime dining. We don't like to be rushed to "have" to be at dinner at a specific time, and we like that if we meet people on the cruise, we can have dinner with them, not just our regular table.

 

The service has always been excellent, and we too aren't that concerned about getting to know our servers (although one of them was also a blackjack dealer, which is where we knew him better!:D).

 

It's really a personal preference!

[RoofingPrincess]

Did what I would call "Modified Anytime" on Princess.

We were a group of about 40, and our handful of late-bookers did not clear the waitlist for Traditional Dining, so the travel agent switched us all to Anytime Dining and made a standing reservation for us all at the same time each night.

So we had the same tables (although not all together) every night; we switched off a bit between the tables.

I felt that service did not flow as smoothly as it has in the TD I've had on every other cruise I've been on. There were often longer-than-usual waits between courses. To me, this kind of makes sense since the waitstaff is dealing with more trips back and forth to the kitchen to put in orders as the different tables fill up, and the kitchen is not dealing with only one course at a time, they have to be ready to make any course at any time.

[printingchick]

We were hesitant to try MyTime Dining. We'd had GREAT dinner-mates on our previous cruise and hated to give up that opportunity. However, thinking back over my previous cruises, my tablemates have tended to be hit and miss. Some have been great and we made lasting friendships. Others rarely even showed up, choosing to frequent either the buffet or specialty restaurants or to switch to the alternate dining time. We opted to give MTD a try, trading the 50/50 chance we'd be giving up great dinner companions for the flexibility to eat on our own scheduled. We loved it!!

 

PROS:

• As you mentioned, FLEXIBILITY. Each night, we'd review the next day's activities in the ship newsletter and plan our day, squeezing in dinner where it fit - not the other way around.
  
• We never felt stressed if we were "running late". No one was waiting for us.
  
• Dinner goes faster in MTD. They are not trying to keep an entire table or section on the same schedule for ease of service. It works like a restaurant. When you finish one course, they bring the next.
  
• For us, eating at 6:00 was often too early and eating at 8:00 or 8:30 left us ready for sleep before we'd enjoyed the nightlife. In-between was just great!
  
• Contrary to some posts here, we were seated in the same section six out of seven nights. We DID get to know our servers and they got to know us. We never made reservations and we didn't show up at the exact same time each night. I've read that those who DO set reservations can have the exact same table each night.
  

CONS:

• You don't have the chance to meet people you really like and will dine with for the entire cruise.
  
• If you like the waitstaff's shows, you probably won't see them. Some folks on our recent Freedom of the Seas cruise stood up so they could see the waitstaff dancing in the section below (traditional dining), but your own waiter cannot participate because he/she does not have the luxury to stop and perform at a specific time. They might be delaying someone's meal.
  
• If you don't make reservations, you may not get the same waiter every night. As I mentioned, we were in the same section 6 out of 7 nights, without reservartions. I've also heard some people say they had to wait 5-10 minutes to be seated...just like in a restaurant.
  

I've read some people have asked to be seated with others, so you can still meet new people if you choose to. Otherwise, you're seated with the party you arrive with. Most tables in MTD appear to be 2 or 4 top tables.

 

On Freedom of the Seas, we were seated at the window, or one table away from the window, every night but one.

 

We LOVE MTD and have requested it for our next cruise.

[tip]

We have been on 17 cruises, the first 16 being traditional dining. We always have left the suggested amount for a tip--nothing more--nothing less. Last winter we tried "Anytime Dining" for the first time on RCCL's Independence of the Seas. The service was terrific! So much so, that we left additonal dollars for our wait staff on the last night. Contrary to what others have written...

 

...we could and did request the same wait staff each night.

 

...they did know our preferences (wife's choice of wine, no bread or potatoes, extra steamed veggies) and took care of us royally each night.

 

...in all honesty the service rivaled or exceeded what we have had on previous cruises with traditional dining.

 

...they did "get to know us" , but were not overly chummy. I do not cruise to become best friends forever with the staff.

 

 

If you have never tried "Anytime Dining", give it a chance. You may be pleasantly surprised!